#working for nonprofits is hell

[mortalkombat4]

gee golly whiz my organization gave me a whole 0.98% raise for my one year anniversary with them! this’ll be great since inflation was like 9% this last year ha ha

[ckerouac]

Here’s your seasonal reminder that if you get a text from a charity/politician and you want to be taken off the list, just reply Stop. No need to be mean or ugly or cruel because I KNOW you think you’re talking to a robot and it’s automated and you’re sticking it to the man but because of certain US telecom laws it’s not automated, and texts are sent out and replied to by real live human beings (aka me).

This brought to you by a guy replying to an innocuous Giving Tuesday text of mine with ‘fuck off you dumb cunt’ and I’m like SIR YOU CAN FUCK OFF.

[poppinelle]

One of my favorite things about corporate America is that a CEO can schedule a company dinner meeting with less than 24 hours notice and assume that the employees have childcare lined up and aren’t fucking over the person’s spouse.

[dancingplague]

Is "gender ideology" actually something that people who don't like feminism/homosexuality say, or is my brother just on weird parts of YouTube

[theliterarywolf]

Man i really hope that nothing bad happens to AO3.

I know that it is silly to be attached to a fucking fanfiction website, but seeing all the bullshit happening to other places this year (twitter being twitter, Threads and instagram being a mess, Tumblr threatening to become worse just to appease people that don't even use it) it makes me worry for a nonprofit place with a actually good tagging system.

Also, the only other fanfic site i really go to besides it and reaallyy old sites for older fandoms i'm into is Fanfiction.net, and it is annoying as fuck to use it nowdays, especially on mobile (you have to do captcha sooo many times, and you can't really download a fic nor read it all in one page...)

That's what a lot of people either don't understand or refuse to acknowledge when it comes to AO3.

From its ground up, its core purpose is an Archive for transformative works. It's not some Hypnosis Engine to convince people that preying on children is okay; it's not some sort of propaganda machine. It's an Archive for fanfic (and, to an extension, fanart).

But also in its core purpose is the element of self-agency. 'Our Own'. AO3 has one of the best, most comprehensive filtering systems on the internet. That is a fact that can't be denied. And the reason for this filtering system is, of course, for people to be able to see what they want and avoid what they don't.

So, yes, it is just a silly fanfiction site at the end of the day, but the fact that it's one of the few sites on the internet that has stuck to its initial mission statement come hell or high water is why it's so important in the current internet scape. It's also why, whenever the donation drive rolls around, it's so fucking exhausting to see Jimmy and Sally Don'tknowshit making posts about 'oh, why don't people donate to real causes' or 'AO3 really makes a living scamming people'.

[anarchopuppy]

The Van Fund, or "Help Pops become homeless so they can finally stop begging for rent money every goddamn month"

Hey y'all! I'm Pops (they/them), a broke-as-hell nonbinary autistic anarchist. People who follow me will know that earlier this year I got a full-time nonprofit job, which I truly believed in and did my best at while I was there. Unfortunately, my best wasn't good enough, and by the end of my term there I was getting lectures from my boss daily (same as all my previous jobs - being autistic enough to suck at work but not autistic enough to get any sympathy or accommodations is hell). Eventually I was so ground down and burnt out that I quit, and I've spent the several months since paralyzed with depression. On top of that, while working there the partner I was living with dumped me forcing me to move into a shitty one-bedroom apartment, and shortly after moving there my motorcycle (my only vehicle) was stolen. Needless to say, being trapped in this tiny space alone with no transportation has not been good for my already historically bad mental health

At this point, the thought of ever working a capitalist job again genuinely makes me suicidal, so I've been looking into other ways of living. After talking to some very helpful folks and looking through various resources online, I've decided to get a used contractor van and live in it for the time being. I intend to dedicate the extra time, energy, money, and freedom that'll give me (plus the van itself, when it can be useful) to mutual aid and the broader anarchist struggle as much as possible

To summarize: capitalism sucks, I'm gonna live in a van and do anarchy instead

Like I mentioned before, I'm completely broke. I know how I'm gonna make money once I have the van, but without transportation I don't have a lot of options. That's why I'm asking you guys for help

After looking around online, I settled on a goal of $3000 to buy a van outright and have it delivered here. If you're in a comfortable enough financial position to help me out, you can contribute to the goal on my ko-fi. I also have a patreon, and you can DM me for my venmo, paypal, or cashapp. Hopefully, unless something unexpected happens down the road, this should be the last big begpost I'll ever have to make

Thank you for reading, and thank you all for your help all these years. Reblogs are appreciated

[tourettesdog]

DP x DC prompt where Danny is a young adult living in Gotham.

He's 24 and has been Ghost King since turning 18. Danny has been estranged from his parents ever since he destroyed their portal. It was his first act as king.

Danny shares an apartment with Sam and Tucker. Sam works with nonprofits in the city, while Tucker gets involved in WE with his genius programming skills.

Danny makes ice sculptures and sells them around Gotham for fun. He sometimes helps out with crime when he thinks he can do it quietly, but otherwise Danny lets Batman and the police handle it. He has enough work to do in the Ghost Zone as it is.

In his free time Danny likes to explore the Ghost Zone. He’s long-since given up dreams of exploring space. Danny can always fly to space if he wants to, but being able to rip open a portal to the Infinite Realms offers even more exploration opportunities than his child self could have dreamed of.

It’s during one of these explorations into the Ghost Zone that Danny finds a teenager sitting on a floating island. Danny rushes over to investigate, noticing that the kid looks very much alive, but as he draws near the kid’s arm turns invisible and he begins to panic.

Danny quickly realizes he’s faced with another halfa. The kid is a wreck. He looks barely older than Danny was when he died-- hell, he even looks like him with his black hair (with a shock of white) and blue eyes. It’s like looking into a mirror for Danny, and he immediately decides to take the kid under his wing.

It’s slow going at first. The kid, Jason, doesn’t remember much of his life, let alone his death. He’s scared and confused, with far too many questions. It takes Danny showing him his human form for Jason to trust Danny enough to go with him.

Danny takes Jason back to the apartment and introduces him to Sam and Tucker. They don’t pester him for answers, and instead jump at the chance to answer any questions Jason has. They help him understand his situation and learn about his new powers.

Over the next year, Jason becomes their kid. The trio homeschool him, with some help from several of the ghosts in in the GZ. They offer to help Jason figure out who he was, but he asks them not to. All Jason can remember of his death is that it was very violent and he’s hesitant to fill those memories in.

If Jason ever remembers more than that, he doesn’t tell them.

Jason’s a handful, but he’s their handful. He spends a lot of his time in the Ghost Zone (annoying Danny’s ghost friends, his adopted aunts and uncles) while they’re at work. Whenever Dani’s in town, the two are a force to be reckoned with.

Danny spends a lot of time visiting WE to annoy Tucker. He also becomes somewhat well known around town for his little ice sculptures. More than once, Danny finds himself in the accidental company of Bruce Wayne.

Bruce is curious about the strange young man. He has a lot of scars, and Bruce can’t make heads or tails of the strange ice he sells. He starts talking to him-- Danny-- to try and figure out if he’s a meta and/or potentially dangerous.

What Bruce figures out instead is that the kid is surprisingly quick-witted and funny. He’s also apparently a dad, raising a kid with his partners. Bruce still suspects that Danny might secretly be a meta, but he develops a pleasant rapport with him. They commiserate together about raising kids over coffee. Two unlikely friends.

Danny never mention’s Jason’s name. He has about a hundred nicknames for the kid and often calls him Magpie (partly due to his black and white hair, and partly due to his habit of bringing home random shit from the Ghost Zone). He’s very wary of using the kid’s real name around Gotham, in any case. They try to keep a low profile where Jason is concerned.

Bruce also never mentions Jason. His loss is still too much of a gaping wound and he doesn’t want to unload that on his young friend, let alone wallow in those memories.

One day Danny is wandering Gotham with Jason in tow, running some errands. They stop by WE to drop something off for Tucker and he spots Bruce. Danny decides it’s about time he introduced his kid to the man.  

Time seems to stop when Jason and Bruce lock eyes.

[copperbadge]

OoooOOOOOHHH one of my colleagues just got an email that looks sketchy as hell. It was awkwardly worded, vague on detail, and wanted our wire transfer information and tax ID so that he could make a donation in honor of a deceased family member. Colleague passed it on to one of my gift officers who passed it on to me like “Can you confirm this improbably named dead person existed?” and I could not confirm the existence of either the deceased or the supposed family member who contacted us. 

You can’t actually do much scamming with a wire transfer number and tax ID (the latter is publicly posted on our website) so I sent him my research with a note that I thought this was a “refund scam”: the scammer acts as a legit donor but immediately after making a wire transfer, he contacts the nonprofit to say he entered the wrong amount and asks to be refunded the overage -- crucially, to a different bank account. After sending the refund, the nonprofit discovers that the wire transfer was drawn on an empty bank account -- basically a bounced check -- but by then the scammer has also cleaned out the “refund” and bailed. (This is also pulled on individuals; never send the refund until the check has cleared, kids.) 

I suggested we ignore him, but if we want to test him we could ask for something a scammer couldn’t or wouldn’t want to provide, like a legit working phone number. My gift officer replied, “Sounds good. Do you want to take point?”

I messaged back, “By take point do you mean talk to this guy as a fundraiser?”

"You could be his gift officer!” he responded, and it’s at this point that I need you guys to understand I really like my gift officer but he is also the driest human I’ve ever met and it’s hard to tell when he’s joking. He knows that I have good customer service chops but I’m also quite shy and nervous about dealing with donors directly, so I thought he might be messing with me a little. 

But no! He continued, “If he’s a fraud you’ll catch it. If he’s legit, you know enough not to ruin a new donor relationship.”

I said, “Well, your faith in me is admirable,” and he’s not entirely wrong, so I accepted the challenge.  

And now I get to write the potential scammer an email about how we’re thrilled with the offer of a donation, we just need a few small pieces of information first, like a phone number and if possible a link to the obituary. If he plays along the next step is to inform him that we place a two-week hold on wire transfer donations and see if he still bites.

[seeingivy]

tending to injuries 

eren jaeger x f!reader 

in which you help your roommate with an injury and find yourself in an uncompromising situation.

**roommate eren fic masterlist here 

previous part linked here

- 

Eren is a way better roommate than Nifa. Granted, the bar was in hell with that one but the two of you shockingly work very well together. You don’t talk to him very often and he doesn’t talk to you. He makes dinner but you do the dishes. He vacuums the floors but you do the laundry. Eren keeps you at arm's length, so you keep him there as well. 

You learn that Eren is a soccer player, first string for the upcoming season in the fall. He’s currently a Computer Science major, hoping to develop technology for nonprofits to use. Because of this, he’s barely home - when he’s not at practice, he’s at his internship, coding away. When he’s home, you make sure you’re out, working, running errands, doing anything. 

Eren makes you nervous. After the first night staying with him, you realized you have no idea who the guy even is and clearly doubt his line of thought when he made a decision to let you cohabitate with him based on seven questions, one of which was what your favorite color was. The thought of him scares you, his presence intimidating and domineering. He somehow sucks up all of the air when the two of you are in a room, leaving you feeling breathless. He’s also hot. 

While you’re not one for physical conventions, you have to admit he isn’t bad to look at. His brown hair, green eyes, toned arms. After you and Eren fall into a normal routine, you decide Saturday mornings are the best part of the week. Having designated Saturday’s as your off day from working, you sleep in, make breakfast slowly, and take a bath - all before Eren comes home from soccer practice. 

However, your current plans - listening to evermore and sitting in the bath for a few hours - were squandered when you heard a crash in your kitchen. You grab the closest clothes on the counter, rushing out to check what the sound was. 

You turn into the kitchen to find Eren, with a purple eye, and one of the drawers of your fridge on the floor. 

“Hey. My bad. Pulled it too hard.” he says, pulling out an ice pack before returning the drawer to its usual spot. You go to his side, reaching to touch the bruise over his eye. 

“Hold on, Eren. Do you mind if I do an eye exam?” you ask, rummaging in the drawers for your flashlight pen. 

He nods, as you pace around, gathering the items you need. He leans against the counter, watching you move around him. You start by placing your fingers on the side of his eyes, making sure there was no breakage near the side of his bone. 

“What happened?” you ask, moving on to shine the light of the pen along his path of vision. 

“Ball to the face. Ow.” he responds, wincing at your fingers brushing across the side of his eye.

“Sorry. Okay, can you look up for me? Then down? Right? Left?” you ask, holding the side of his face between your hands as you watch his pupils move back and forth. 

You sigh, removing your hands and putting space between the two of you. 

“You’re going to be okay. Ice it every hour, give it a break so your skin doesn’t get irritated. Advil for the pain. Tell me if it gets worse.” 

“How do you know how to do that?” 

“Doctor dad.” 

“Me too.” 

You start to pace around the kitchen, grabbing him a fresh ice pack, Advil, and a glass of water. As you move to grab your pen to do another exam, his fingers curl around the length of your wrist, stopping you in your stead. 

“Hey, silly girl. I’ve got a question for you” he says, his breath tickling the back of your neck. 

You turn to face him, your heart pounding at the sight of him staring down at you. What’s he doing? Why does he keep calling you that? You can feel him jeering at you, his eyes glinting at you. 

“Why are you wearing my hoodie?” he asks, holding the fabric between his fingertips. 

You feel your cheeks turn red, looking down to see you weren’t wearing your Spiderman crewneck but instead Eren’s soccer hoodie, which had Jaeger embroidered in big letters onto the back. 

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry, Eren. The noise scared me - you’re usually not home at this time so I was coming to check what happened. I just grabbed what was closest when getting out of the bath.” 

He smiles, pulling the hood over the top of your damp hair. 

“Keep it. You look cute, silly girl.” he responds, sliding the ice pack off the counter and retreating to his room.

- 

next part linked here

pls let me know if you want to be added to the tag list!!! just reply to this post or leave ur @ in my asks box :D 

[fuck-customers]

I had a guy from a nonprofit accuse me of getting enjoyment out of making things difficult for him because I couldn’t just remove taxes from his order. One of the sales tax regulations in his state specifically says he needs to pay for the order with nonprofit funds directly, but he wanted to pay with his own personal card. I explained to him that this information is on his tax exempt form and that by signing it and submitting it, he’s agreeing to those terms so if he does something differently, we’re required to charge sales tax. When I asked him if he had the tax exempt form on him, he said yes, but when I asked him to pull it up so I could show him where the information is, he claimed he couldn’t do this on his phone because he was driving 🙄 I gave him multiple other solutions, but he didn’t like any of them because they would take longer and he needed to place his order asap. He started talking about other companies would just do it for him when he tells them he’s tax exempt, and I hate when people do that because what am I suppose to do? I don’t work for them. I can’t make accusations about other companies. This is the biggest issue we have with nonprofits and it’s frustrating as hell when they start insulting you just because you say no. He told me that I’m deliberately making things harder than it needs to be and that I must enjoy doing this.

Posted by admin Rodney.

[dragonomatopoeia]

Air's End-of-Year Youtube Video Rec-List Round-Up

In light of recent events and also because I wanted to, I have put together a rec list of various (mostly longform) videos that I've enjoyed this year. Not all of these videos were released this year, however-- I just happened to see them for the first time in 2023. For readability and quality of life purposes, I have put this list under a readmore and divided the videos up by category, then creator, which means that some youtube channels might appear in multiple categories

I reserve the right to edit this later as I remember more videos, but I feel comfortable publishing it as is, considering it has almost 100 videos on it at this point

Cooking

Get Curried Chili Garlic Rosemary Chicken Recipe | How to Make Chili Garlic Rosemary Chicken at Home | Prateek Anardana Chicken Recipe | Delicious Himachal Style Anardana Chicken Recipe at Home | Chef Prateek Old Delhi Style Tangdi Kebab | How to Make Indian Starter Tangdi Kebab Recipe | Chef Prateek Dhawan

How to Cook That The $10 Million dollar lie (Betty Crocker) Debunking the Pink Sauce Controversy | How To Cook That Ann Reardon Top 7 Best Easy Lemon Recipes 🍋 | How To Cook That Ann Reardon Toxic Foods promoted on TikTok! | How To Cook That Ann Reardon Why is Pyrex exploding? | How To Cook That Ann Reardon

Library of Congress' Youtube Channel El Camino del Mole a New Orleans El Camino del Pan a Baltimore

Immaculate Bites LEMON BUNDT CAKE FIRECRACKER SHRIMP

Simply Mamá Cooks 3 EASY Beef Pot Roast Recipes perfect for the cold weather EASY Chicken Tamales Recipe | How To Make Tamales Easy NO-KNEAD Soft Dinner Rolls + FLUFFY From Scratch Milk Rolls Recipe Zuppa Toscana Recipe EASY | Olive Garden Potato Sausage Soup Recipe

Fraud, Grifts, and Scams

FoldingIdeas Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse In Search Of A Flat Earth This is Financial Advice

Maggie Mae Fish Is the "Off-Grid" Lifestyle a Lie??

Münecat I Debunked Every "Body Language Expert" on Youtube The Problem with Tony Robbins (Deep-Dive - Pt.1) The Problem with Tony Robbins (Deep-Dive - Pt. 2)

Super Eyepatch Wolf The Bizarre World of Fake Martial Arts The Bizarre World of Fake Psychics, Faith Healers, and Mediums Influencer Courses are Garbage: The Dark Side of Content Creation Tom Nicholas Griftonomics: Why Scams are Everywhere Now

We're In Hell A History of Spam on the Internet Hustling America: I Can't Believe This Show Is Real The Problem with Voluntourism WE Charity & the Nonprofit Industrial Complex

Gaming

Hbomberguy Halcyon Dreams: The Legacy of Dragon's Lair

Jacob Geller Games that Aren't Games How Can We Bear to Throw Anything Away?

Li Speaks An Exploration of the Avata Star Sue-niverse It's Time For You To Play Flash Games Again The Strange Case of Kissing and Flirting Games Untangling the Lore of Devilish Hairdresser

Mandaloregaming The Mystery of the Druids: A Bizarre Adventure Game

People Make Games The Games Industry Must Not Stay Silent on Palestine Investigation: Who’s Telling the Truth about Disco Elysium? Working at Valve: 'A Fearless Adventure' or 'Lord of the Flies'?

PowerPak Dead Space 3 Is Worse Than I Thought King's Quest - The First Adventure Game King's Quest 2 - A Bridge Too Far... MyHouse.WAD - Inside Doom's Most Terrifying Mod Squirrel Stapler is Absolutely Nuts Tunic is Deceptively Brilliant

Super Bunnyhop Perusing Pentiment's Boisterous Bibliography

History

BobbyBroccoli The image you can't submit to journals anymore

Cambrian Chronicles Wikipedia's King who Doesn't Exist

Defunctland Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History

Elliot Sang How Tea Became European McMindfulness: When Capitalism Goes Buddhist

Intelexual Media Creating The Conservative New Right In The 1970s A Buffet of Black Food History

Kaz Rowe A Deep Dive into the Deadly World of Victorian Patent Medicine Why Have So Many People Seen Ghost Ships? Why the Myth of the Library of Alexandria Is Wrong

Kendra Gaylord 500 years of dollhouses and what it meant to teach girls Alice Austen, the 1880s photographer: her house, her photos, her love life What happened to cheap food? Diners, Automats, and affordable eating

Nerdsync Bonkers origins of superhero memes The Scandalous REAL Origin of Superman's Lois Lane Superman's Uncomfortable History with Nuclear Weapons

Premodernist Advice for time traveling to medieval Europe

Stepback History How The Vietnam War Birthed a Generation of White Terrorists OK Fine I’ll Talk About Ancient Apocalypse

Tantacrul Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read Music

Film and Television

Be Kind Rewind How Breakfast at Tiffany's Turned into a Totally Different Movie | Adapting a Classic Casting the Women of Valley of the Dolls | PT 1 The Making of Valley of the Dolls | PT 2 How the "Old Ladies N' Hijinks" Subgenre Became a Thing How a "Sacrilegious" Film Changed Hollywood Forever... So I watched BLONDE... Why Tallulah Bankhead Never Became a Movie Star

Big Joel The Song That Broke West Side Story

Cherrybepsi Can We Kill the Final Girl Trope Already?

Hazel weird & kinda scary tokusatsu girls

Jane Mulcahy The Lunacy of Teen Wolf (Part 1) What is the 'psycho biddy' genre?

Maggie Mae Fish BLACK CHRISTMAS Before & After "Me Too" The War on "Woke" Hollywood: A History of Blacklists and Strikes Why is Clint Eastwood

Princess Weekes Black Trauma vs. Black Horror Why Are There So Many Confederate Vampires? Why Don't Worry Darling Doesn't Work ...

Shanspeare EUPHORIA: Sam Levinson’s Unfulfilled Fantasy The Girlboss-ification of the Horror Genre TikTok Femininity Coaching and Aestheticizing Racism

Science and Technology

BobbyBroccoli The $21,000,000,000 hole in Texas The man who faked human cloning How to catch a criminal cloner

Eastman Museum's Youtube Channel Photographic Processes Series

Technology Connections What's the deal with the popcorn button?

Practical Engineering How Flood Tunnels Work What's the Difference Between Paint and Coatings? Why Is Desalination So Difficult? Why Railroads Don't Need Expansion Joints

[whatbigotspost]

Guys. If you follow me you well know 1) I can be petty as hell and 2) I am always happy to write extremely long and thorough take downs when needed and 3) I love sourcing things and know no limits to spending my time on BEING RIGHT 😂

Well today I brought all of this at work, cranked to an 11. Some technology service we pay for tried to claim they’re taking us to collections for lack of payment when both myself and one of my fave coworkers has spent the past year trying over and over to get them to correctly link the payment we 100% did pay (and we have provided ample evidence of doing so) to our account. We have asked their customer service to help us a dozen times and when prodded, their staff has admitted more than once that we did pay and the outstanding balance is wrong. But they just. don’t. CLEAR THE GODDAMN BALANCE ON OUR ACCOUNT ONCE AND FOR ALL.

And like…WE are the customers here! And nonprofit customers at that! It’s so unhinged for a megacorp to treat us this way when our resources are so limited. Like you’re really threatening a charity with collections?? for?? something?? we?? did?? pay??

When said beloved coworker first saw the collections threat email earlier today, I think a little piece of her soul died, as did mine…and when she asked me what we do now that I was like friend leave it to me, this is where I shine!!!

And I went full on me. Professional me but like me writing as many words as I wanted to. Pulling historical proof, asking why we’re being treated like this when we’re a small nonprofit who they could be donating this stuff to anyway, instead of taking up our time to waste because they don’t know how to run their business or comport themselves professionally. I had proof of payment in not one but 2 forms, email threads with 6 people in company who had contacted me and I attempted to get help me but who ultimately did not.

Like I’ll be the first to admit it was overkill in the most deliciously “how fucking dare you” way BUT ultra restrained and like appropriate corporate speak style where it’s a “your company is a pack of assholes” but more like…

(Ugh ignore typos!)

Like I’m not kidding when I acknowledge my own ridiculousness here but you can only be treated terribly by someone YOU HAVE PAID before you snap, ya know? 😂 and I snapped.

Well after I hit send, I was like “oh god will beloved coworker think I am fully off my rocker…”

BUTTTTTT I got this lil gem on slack

[afniel]

Today (on three hours of sleep which is my own fault) my partner and I got up early and got breakfast and then went to a community education seminar at a local university's educational garden about native bees, and made a wooden bee house. Our landscape designer team (two women who I'm pretty sure are queer) was there attending and it was run by a really cool woman who runs another landscaping co-op (with a nonprofit educational side) who is also working with them to teach them all the ins and outs of permaculture, and they kinda group-projected our yard, so I got to know all three of them over the course of the contract, which was cool.

It was great, you guys. We talked about the importance of supporting native pollinators, because honeybees are fine and all but outcompete native bees, some of whom are so specialized that their exact wing frequency is what it takes to pollinate a single, specific species. The world's smallest bee is 2mm at the largest and lives right here. We've got sweat bees that look like tiny flying gems. We've got bumblebees that are so docile you can gently pet them while they're gathering pollen. We have huge, harmless carpenter bees with metallic black shiny females and golden fuzzy males and they'll bonk into you just to see what you're doing.

I got to get excited about iNaturalist to a bunch of people who haven't heard about it before! I got to see thousands of honey bees just doing their business and I realized I wasn't having my usual phobic reaction anymore! I got to use a power drill! I got on the mailing list and I'm gonna see if I can't get even more involved in this kind of shit over time, because it's honestly great.

You're only one person but even little things can have an outsized impact, and it's not in turning off the water when you brush your teeth, it's in things like planting native keystone species so that the other living things that rely on it can move back in. Even in a tiny area. Animals and plants spread and have ripple effects. The same way removing a species causes a spreading collapse, bringing back a species, even just one, causes a spreading regrowth of diversity. Literally a handful of plants can support countless insects that support countless animals and this changes the environment just a little bit at a time back to a better state. It does make a difference and it doesn't have to be hard or expensive.

I get really excited about native species because as I see it, getting educated about them and making decisions to support them is what's going to locally make the biggest impact for the least money. The success stories can be literally microscopic, when it comes to things like soil microbes, but they really, really matter. One person can't fix the whole climate but one person can fix a one-person-sized patch of ground, and that's enormous when you remember that thousands of important little things spend their entire lives within even the smallest yard.

Anyway I'm tired to hell now but hey maybe next spring we'll have a bunch of big goofy carpenter bees living in the yard! Or even other native bees. I'm hype as heck to find out.

Also, and I forgot to say this so ETA, I guarantee THIS IS HAPPENING wherever you are. Look up your closest university and find out what kind of research/community gardens they have and what kind of seminars they offer. Look into your state and county conservation programs. There's outreach education all over, and a whole lot of it is donate-as-you-can, because they just want to get knowledge into the community. If you want to hear it, they want to teach it to you, and they're almost universally some of the kindest folks you're going to meet. If this sounds even a tiny bit interesting, do some searching and I would bet you anything there's opportunities right there waiting.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 1/23/2024

listen i got my last job through one of youse on here so weirder things have happened: i got fired bc the nonprofit wasn’t doing so hot. let me know if you have a weird data/database or market/tech research job. i promise my worksona is so so so nice and pleasant to work with. remote only, looking more in the $75k range but can be a bit flexible if it’s a cool enough job, i am in the central time zone of the USA and will not need sponsorship anywhere but DO need the cadillac of healthcare and dental plans. portfolio, publication list, and linkedin with my government name available on request!

listening

both of these are from my sister! this is another FULL ALBUM rec (good lord). The Offline’s album La couleur de la mer is a soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist, inspired by his long walks in the fog on the French Atlantic coast. a little spacey, a little soul, very sixties/seventies neonoir. i am quite fond of the very first track, Thème de la couleur de la mer.

she’s also sent me a bunch of tiktoks with Perfect (Exceeder) by Mason and Princess Superstar. hell of a goddamn music video for this thing. mid-aughts clubbing music at its finest. stopped me from dissolving into a puddle of emotions on the way to and from the vet today bc it’s too goddamn bouncy to be sad around

reading

im reading a trilogy i want to discuss as a whole whenever the third one comes through as a library hold, and a book by a friend. i do not typically talk about books or fics by friends here bc none of them have ever asked for critique, and i dont want to play favorites or inadvertently miss someone’s work. so here’s a story about porn on Wikimedia, which is the kind of database drama and technical arguments that fascinate me.

given the number of articles from 404 Media i shout about here and elsewhere i really should sign up for their $5/mo subscription tier when i have a steady income again

watching

somehow missed Star Wars Visions 2, their second anthology of weird little shorts. i was not super impressed by the overall storytelling this time around, but it was fun to see them reach out to more global studios and see a wider range of styles. there’s some goddamn incredible stop motion in here.

i particularly enjoyed Journey to the Dark Head, which not only has some interesting fringe Force believers and beliefs but has one of the sickest anime bullshit lightsaber fights in this season. this one is by Studio Mir, most known for the Legend of Korra.

also really liked The Spy Dancer by Studio La Cachette, partly bc it’s incredibly beautiful and i like when Star Wars leans into art nouveau, and partly bc it felt the most like a complete short story. emotional arc and everything! strong beginning middle and end! this IS a really low bar, but a lot of the shorts this season did not have a coherent little story to tell or a strong emotional arc, or fumbled their arc partway through, and were just kind of vibes and animation showcases? nothing necessarily wrong with that, also how i felt about most of the last collection. my expectations are underground for any Star Wars media.

playing

as is tradition i dithered about this section the most. this is more of a What’s Next? planning ramble.

the laptop gets shipped back to my old job today so i will no longer have a working modern computer. i have to dig the switch out and see what’s up. maybe start a whole new run in breath of the wild or whatever the last pokemon game was. i think i also have the sword boyfriend game everyone was up in arms about two years ago? and i think i am somehow part of a switch family plan that lets me have some older games?

this section may look very different in the next ??? amount of time until i get a company laptop again. or finally replace the motherboard on my personal desktop but that sat in my car for several weeks during the heat wave this summer while i did not have an apartment and i am really REALLY afraid to open that box.

oh the free epic game this week is a platformer, a genre i have historically not cared about. godspeed to those of you who do

making

soup bc aldi had alphabet pasta and that jolted me out of myself for long enough i was briefly convinced making alphabet pasta soup would fix me. so i found this recipe while in aldi. despite this not being a very good soup or a very good recipe, i feel a little triumphant bc i now know enough to brown the tomato paste before putting it in the soup. unfortunately i overcooked the pasta. there’s kind of a lot of texture happening here, and i wish i had chopped things finer, but i will probably steal my best friend’s blender tomorrow and blitz some of it down.

it’s edible. im going to eat it all. it will not be going in the rotation

[sketchy-rosewitch]

Hello there!

I’m feeling chaotic neutral rn bc I just watched a lame gory movie, so could I possibly get some gory slut w Vincent Sinclair?

feel free to ignore this and/or just delete this if ya don’t feel like it, I’m just wondering what kind of messed up things u can think of based off of my messed up ideas.

oh, and w a Fem or GN reader too please!

Don’t feel rushed bc trust me I take a long time to do requests too, so take your time and don’t feel pressured!

have a good day!

Red is the color of Love (and Blood): Vincent x gn!afab!reader

A/N: you have a great night too, thanks for requesting! I loved writing this, I’m not used to writing blood and gore so this was new for me! Hope you like it!

Warnings: Blood, Dead Body, reader also kills, PinV, fingering, sex in blood, knives, screwdrivers, heavy descriptions of killing people, blood being used in a sexual way.

Vincent told you you weren’t allowed to help. But you wanted to. You told him you’d be okay, you even tried to get Bo and Lester to back you up on it. Bo stayed out of it which meant that Lester did too. Which meant you couldn’t help.

Except, who the hell were you to listen?

You sit on the ticket counter in the House of Wax waiting patiently for one or more people from the small group Lester spotted to come in. Vincent would be up not long after which is why you don’t mind there being a few people in the group.

Chatter is heard outside about 20 minutes into you just sitting in the A/C filled museum. Three girls and a man come in all talking loudly.

“They’re so gross. I mean seriously you can’t spend one minute without each other?” One of the women huffs. She has short blonde hair and brown eyes.

“Oh you’re just jealous Jake won’t look at you.”

She gasps and hits the man. “I’m not, I just know I could treat him better than that stupid whore Jess ever could!”

The room goes quiet as the second woman jabs both of them and points at you. You smile.

“Sorry, we didn’t think anyone worked here. How much to look around?” She asks, moving her black hair behind her ear.

“Oh the museum is a nonprofit. You can go ahead and look around. I’m just here to volunteer, ya know make sure no one touches anything they aren’t supposed to.” You explain, she nods and the trio start to look around. The blonde continues to bitch and moan about Jake and Jess. You hop off the counter and go behind it looking for the screw driver you stuck back there, humming to ‘Dancing Queen’ softly.

Vincent’s foot steps are heard coming from the basement stairs. You smirk and pocket the screw driver, watching from behind the counter as he heads towards the group of friends.

Shockingly your boyfriend didn’t see you, you shrug and lean against the wall waiting.

There’s talking. Then silence. Then multiple screams.

The bitchy blonde woman runs out of the kitchen and comes up to you scared. “Please, help! Help me. Fuck they just stabbed my friend. This man he just- fuck you have to help come on!” Tears spill from her eyes. Your adrenaline hikes up, pretending to care you nod your head quickly and she takes your hand.

You pull the screw driver out and yank her back causing her to fall to the floor. Standing over top of her you stomp into her skull causing blood to flow from her face. Some of it splashed onto your boot. You kick her nose up causing the bridge to go into her skull.

You smirk and notice the other girl in your peripheral trying to sneak away from you. Stepping over the other girl’s now dead body you run up to the black haired girl and grab the collar of her shirt. You take your screwdriver and stab it into her throat, wiggling it around. She gurgles and spits out blood onto your face. You wipe it away, causing it to smear.

You take the screw driver out and she attempts to push you off of her. You manage to push her fully into the waxy floor and stab her over and over again with the screwdriver.

You stop when she stops gurgling. Her body fully going limp. You pull the tool from her neck and get up.

Vincent watches you from the kitchen archway. You smile proudly. “I told you I could do it!”

Your adrenaline runs high and Vincent makes his way over to you. You realize how scary he looks in his mask when he’s coming towards you like that. You flinch as he grabs your face looking at it for any scratches.

“Baby I’m fine. Please.” You laugh, he glares and you quiet down frowning slightly. Vincent takes one hand and pulls his mask off. You look at his face and he leans in kissing you aggressively, his lips slowly starting to taste like iron because of the blood on your face. You groan into the kiss as he feels down your body. His lips kiss down your jaw and to your neck biting and sucking on it.

“Fuck baby. You like it huh? You like that I wanna kill people too?” You moan, he nods and starts to push you two towards the now blood covered floor.

Vincent pulls up your tank top and grabs your chest. He sucks on one of your nipples and smears the other in blood.

You roll your hips into him and pant. Taking some blood, you smear it on his face then pull him up from your breast to kiss him.

Vincent’s hands grab your pants and underwear. Yanking them down, the material stretches and makes tearing noises. Neither of you care.

You grab his bulge making his breath hitch, he almost loses stability and falls on top of you. A small grunt leaves your boyfriends lips and you unzip his jeans, pulling his cock out.

Vincent’s bloody hand jerks himself a few times and you watch as blood starts to cover his length. “Fuck.. please fuck me with all the blood on it. Shit baby, just- Ah!”

Your eyes roll to the back of your head as he thrusts into you without warning. His dick stretches your hole out so much it hurts. Something about you really likes it though.

He grabs your hips and starts to rut into you, letting out small puffs of air every time his cock stretches you out.

You let out loud squeals enjoying being covered in blood and the feeling of Vincent holding onto you so tightly. The two of you kiss, opening your mouths and your tongues intertwining. Your hair begins to soak in blood and your fingers run it through Vincent. His pace now slowing down for even a second. You feel as the knot in your stomach tightens, it keeps tightening and doesn’t stop.

One of his hands comes down and starts to circle your clit, making even more lewd wet noises. You roll your hips into him desperate for more. He gives it to you.

“Fuck Vince. Please oh I love you. I love you baby. Please.” You whine, your kiss causing drool to come from both your mouth and his. His hips slap into you making your back arch. “I’m gonna cum. Oh god. Fuck.”

His hips move faster and your hangs open unable to form words. Your eyes roll back and your orgasm ripples through your body. Your vision goes blurry as your legs shake you let out squeals, Vincent doesn’t let up. He fucks you through your orgasm, he finishes not long after you, bucking his hips over and over again. He falls onto you and a small ‘oof’ escapes your lips.

He takes a non bloody part of his sleeve and wipes your face before kissing you gently. You hum and play with his sticky hair.

“Can we go shower?” Your voice is hoarse, he looks up at you nodding quickly. His strong arms pick you up and carry you back to the house.

The bodies can wait until later.

[moregraceful]

There were so many hot guys at adult public skate tonight I was like what the hell...usually it's like 60 year old beer leaguers and sjsu students and adult figure skaters? Where did u all come from. Go away. Either pull the fuck up or stop smiling at me. Anyway, three thoughts:

4th set of ice skating lessons started two weeks ago, and halfway through class today I went, you know what? I'm not actually that bad. I mean I'm not good! I can't do very much! But I'm not afraid anymore either, and that goes really really far in how much more willing I am to try new things and have fun with it. I still have some kind of insane mental block against doing a crossover but I also tried doing a C turn (against a wall to be clear lmao) today and fucked it all the way up into a S turn. And I had fun!!

I started doing strength training twice a week in the beginning of January, which is likely a huge reason for why ice skating is getting easier lol, but which I started because I saw a physical therapist for chronic back pain and she went bro this is so fixable you're not injured you just have no core strength. I was wandering around last weekend minding my own business and realized I hadn't had a really really bad pain day in a while. Which is insane!! I was regularly an 8 on the pain scale for years!! And now it's not something I have to think too hard about. So that feels good too!

Today my coworker said, "I know you are new to the non-profit world, so I want you to know that I have never in 20 years in the nonprofit field seen the way [situation at work] has spiraled out of control. Like [rapidly spiraling situation] is the worst I've ever seen." And I went, okay, well, idk what to do about THAT but I need health insurance so I'm staying. And she was like, no, I didn't mean you should leave, I just meant we don't have a direct manager and the person overseeing us doesn't have the capacity to care, so if you want to take half a day off for the AHL All-Star Game, just put that you're out of the office on the schedule and don't worry about formally requesting it. And that felt GREAT!!

Good day!! Good week I hope 😤