[ID: A Fundraiser Titled, "Help Muhammad And His Family Get Out Of Gaza!" Organized By Mohammed Mazen

Hey, I know it's fun to make fun of Henry Kissinger. But you know what's even more fun? Donating to organizations that help undo some of the damage that Kissinger inflicted on various countries. Here's a couple of links!

Cambodian Children's Fund (I donated $50 to this one- that's enough feed 26 families by providing 5 kilograms of rice each month!)

FAFG (This is a charity that helps Guatemalans find loved ones who disappeared during the Guatemalan Civil War.)

The Halo Trust (This charity is dedicated to removing landmines in Angola. Since 1994, they've destroyed nearly 100,000 landmines!)

Children of Vietnam (This charity helps impoverished Vietnamese families.)

TECHO-Chile (A really great charity that focuses on housing and community-based projects in the slums of Chile)

today on "how can I combine my interests": variations of volcarona based on stellar classification!

actual stars are classified based on their spectral characteristics and temperature/color from hottest (bluest) to coldest (reddest) with a strangely ordered letter system: O, B, A, F, G, K, M... why not do the same for this stellar moth?

some other info:

o-type volcarona are incredibly rare and are considered "shiny" pokemon

m-type volcarona can come in the largest variety of sizes from large enough to easily carry a person to about the size of a cat

k-type volcarona are the most common, with the higher temperature ones becoming increasingly more rare (and m is about as rare as g)

while there could be b- and a-type volcarona between o and f, the latter two are so rare that there's no reason to split the categories up further

alder's volcarona is the g-type one shown here, and the m-type one belongs to cyrus in my au

the pupa/cocoon stage is too short relative to the other two stanges to be considered its own separate evolutionary stage like other similar bug type pokemon

Caterpillar float in the Thanksgiving Day parade in Detroit, 1925.

(Detroit Public Library)

never forgive trigger for what they cut

any perfumes that smell like damp earth? big Damp Earth fan. Worm Behaviour of me tbh

during the rain solstice - dirt and rain and concrete

soaked earth cb i hate perfume - just straight up dirt, no filler

riverside hayride solstice scents - everyone is complaining that this one smells like dirt and mildew. they don't know that this is for you, not them

fanghorn pineward perfumes - dirt but from a forest specifically

Rage. In my heart. All-consuming. FUCK AI.

@ anon

I think it might be actually dangerous to publish your ask, but I'm sure from my response people will be able to tell what it's about anyway.

You're full of actual, absolute shit if you're pretending not to know by now that verification processes to ensure the legitimacy of Ghazzawin's fundraisers have been undertaken, and that details about what these processes entail have been shared by several people. Several people, some of them currently in Gaza, put themselves through countless hours of work video-calling people, judging their knowledge of dialectical Arabic, seeing their faces and their children's faces and their living conditions, seeing IDs and bank information, asking invasive, personal questions that they didn't want to be asking & that the people responding probably didn't want to be answering, and physically visiting people in Gaza and video-recording their interactions, just so that people like you could be sure that these fundraisers were legitimate. If you're ignoring all of the blood & tears that went into that process just so you can hand-wring about scams, no one needs to be concerned with convincing you of the legitimacy of anything, because you were never going to donate to these people anyway. You are just looking for any plausible-sounding excuse not to do what you already didn't want to do.

If, by some miracle, you actually didn't know about the verified fundraiser spreadsheet (which is frankly still blameable bc, where on earth have you been?), then there it is. The post of mine that you're referring to never even mentioned responding to asks; using this spreadsheet is an absolutely valid, reasonable way of donating directly to families.

Now let me treat some of your statements as though they were questions (which, they were not).

How do people in Gaza have internet access?

Internet infrastructure in Gaza is very robust (e.g. in what cables are made of, how deep they're buried, amounts of redundancy in the system, &c.) because they have been getting bombed by Israel all the fucking time for decades, so they expect this infrastructure to be put through a lot. There have still--if you've been following the situation at all--been several outages caused by damage that Ghazzawin have needed to repair. Though I do have to say that I find it odd that you doubt Ghazzawin have internet access, but also say that you buy eSims...?

A lot of people right now are indeed connected via eSim, which to my understanding only need to connect to wifi once, right when they're activated. People put themselves at risk to connect to eSims because they need to get a good wifi signal, which usually means walking for several miles trying to find high ground. One of my contacts once urgently called me (this is the only time he hadn't just texted) because he had been told his friend had found a signal and so they needed an eSim right then, before they went back to their tent.

I've been trying for some time to connect another of my contacts in Gaza to an eSim, but we're not having success. At Crips for eSims for Gaza they / we (I'm on the server getting advice and helping out but I'm not using their funding; I'm using what people on tumblr have given me to purchase eSims with) keep a constantly updated sheet of which eSim providers use which networks and which networks work in which areas--because the situation is constantly changing. Because my contact doesn't have an eSim on a personal phone, she has to go to a central location to be allotted three hours of internet access from someone who has managed to get connected. Lots of people, on their fundraising posts and pages, specify exactly how they've gotten internet access, how difficult it's been for them to get it, and how stressful it is to be relying on this tenuous connection, spending hours away from their families (at high risk of being shot at by IOF soldiers the whole time), just to message people for hours straight and then go home again.

2. How do people in Gaza have tumblr accounts?

This is a stupid question. Anyone with an email address who is capable of picking a username and password can make a tumblr account. I have personally helped several of my contacts in Gaza with the process.

3. How do people in Gaza know to come into people's tumblr accounts?

This is also a stupid question. I don't really see how you could ask this question if you saw Palestinians as, like, real humans beings. You understand that people talk to each other, yes? Like with words? As soon as a few people had success fundraising to evacuate Gaza on tumblr (nearly a year ago... this news has had a lot of time to spread), obviously they told other people about it.

One of the ways that Israel conducts its genocidal war is through the destructiveness of frustration and boredom. It's a strange situation because everything is extremely dire, urgent, terrifying, and dirty, but there's also seldom anything to do. People are singing, telling stories, going to the beach, inventing games and contests, to entertain children, but also to entertain themselves. And this is the situation--with a bunch of desperate, bored people packed into a tiny piece of land--this is the situation that you think it's impossible for people to talk to each other in? Come on.

If you want to donate to Anera and World Food Kitchen and buy eSims, that's fantastic. Please do that. But if you are as ignorant of the particulars of what this situation is like as your ask makes you appear, then I hope you refrain from speaking on what the situation is like.

I've been nattering on for a long time so here's my call to action:

Decide what you're capable of giving right now, or the next time you get paid

Scroll down on the vetted fundraiser spreadsheet and find someone very low on funds, or with injured children who urgently need treatment or evacuation, and give that money.

AND / OR give it to the PCRF or the IRW

I'm sorry for being so sappy, but I wanted to show you guys something.

When I first donated to PCRF in December 2023, it was barely 10% close to its goal. Now in March 2024, they're also 100%. Everyone of you has helped support a better future for Gaza.

They're so close to their goal. Please donate or share this post so that they can get to their goal🇵🇸

[ID: A nine-page digital comic featuring Jimmy and Curly from Mouthwashing. They're out of uniform, wearing casual clothes. The comic is done in sepia tones, with the only colors being the blue of Curly's eyes and the green of Jimmy's speech bubbles. There are also four featureless people representing their other friends.

The group of friends are gathered while Jimmy sits away from them.

Friend 1: He doesn't like sweets.... Friend 2: So what should we do for a cake then? Jimmy, attempting to light a cigarette: Why don't we just make it out of his fuckin' whey protein powder? You know Curly just LOVES that chalky crap. Friends pause, staring at him, before getting excited: (all caps) That's a great idea, Jimmy!

Jimmy then chokes on his cigarette and looks around at them all, momentarily shocked.

Friends: That's so smart! It'll be SO funny! He'll LOVE that! Jimmy, holding his limp cigarette and smiling smugly: heheh. guess I am pretty clever.

There is then a montage of him baking the cake with the whey powder, including him absently dropping cigarette ash into the batter with an "oops". Then they all wait in the dark, party decorations up with a shadow cast under the room's door.

Friends: Shh!! He's coming! Jimmy: (all caps) Shut the fuck up!! Curly, opening the door: Hullo? Friends: SURPRISE!

Curly flinches and yelps before he takes in the scene and smiles. Jimmy is holding the warped cake and smiling and everyone is wearing party hats and laughing.

Friends: Happy birthday Curly!

Two of them go up to Curly, putting a hat on him and patting his back.

Friend: Hope you like the cake!

Curly goes to cut the cake with everyone watching. He is smiling, while Jimmy stands next to him, staring blankly. As soon as the knife hits, the cake collapses in a poof of powder with a long fart noise. Curly's eyes bulge and Jimmy's eyes widen before they both burst out laughing, Curly pushing the cake away as he leans over the table, wheezing, while Jimmy throws his head back to cackle.

Curly, looking up at him: (all caps) What kind of cake is this?! Jimmy, holding up an "ok" hand: Choco-caramel whey, budd-o.

Curly wheezes, tears in his eyes. He then passes out cake and speaks indistinctly before sitting down.

Curly, smiling at Jimmy: -- sounds pretty brilliant, yeah?

Jimmy looks at him sideways, anticipating, as Curly raises his fork to his mouth. He keeps leaning closer as a shadow forms over his face. Curly takes a bite, smiling. Pauses for a moment. And then releases a huge cloud of whey powder, at which Jimmy starts cackling again.

end ID]

~~~~

every time i think about that cursed whey powder cake from curly's fondest memories, i just imagine a re-enactment of the cinnamon challenge but with whey protein powder.

so here's a NINE PAGE COMIC leading up to that <3

I'm tired of saying "Sneasels of both forms and Weaviles and also Sneaslers" all the time, there should be an umbrella term.