"Nice Characters Are Boring" To YOU. I Love Characters Who No Matter What, Will Always Have Genuine Love

If You’re Gonna Make Something Wheelchair Accessible, Don’t Make it a Thing

Here’s some examples awkward accessibility being a thing:

Your at a hotel that has a lift to get you from one sub-floor to another, but the lift can only be unlocked and operated by one specific person that the hotel now has to go find. Sure, they’ve made the entrance to the sub-floor is accessible, but now it’s a thing.

The buses are wheelchair accessible but the driver has to stop the bus, take 30 seconds to lower the goddamn ramp, move passengers out of their seats, hook up the straps and then secure you in the bus. Sure, they’ve made the busses accessible but now it’s a thing.

The restaurant has an accessible entrance, but it’s past the trash room and through the kitchen. Sure, the restaurant is accessible, but now it’s an insulting thing.

Here’s some great examples of accessibility not being a thing:

The train to the airport pulls up flush with the platform. I board with everyone else and sit wherever the fuck I want. Riding the train is accessible and not a thing.

In Portland, I press a button the side of the streetcar and a ramp automatically extends at the same time the door opens. I board in the same amount of time as everyone else. This is not a thing.

I get that it is difficult to design for wheelchair accessibility, but folks need to start considering the overall quality of the experience versus just thinking about meeting the minimum requirements.

How to spot a (heart wrenching sad cat) Charity Scam

So I've been get a lot of requests for money in my askbox lately, from users I have never seen before! Usually sad cats, sometimes gender affirming medical bills, a queer person being made homeless etc etc... and guess what? None of them are real! It's scammers who have learned how to work tumblr's userbase and prey on our general sense of community and charity.

Here it is, so sad! So tragic! But let's note a few things:

It's generic. They don't know me, I don't know them. it's addressed to 'friend', no use of nicknames or usernames.

Even the cat and the problem are generic 'little kitty' who has 'urgent needs'. This is not how real people talk, this is because this scam is being used over and over with different accounts a different 'cats'.

Praying (uh huh.)

Asking you to reply privately- This is so people don't spot the scam and point it out the mark and because if too many people posted replies to the same message it would beome really obvious that this is a scam. If they're looking for 'boosts' so badly, then why do they need you to reply privately?

Now that I'm suspicious, let's investigate.

Sent me an ask and then followed me! Sounds like they're just hitting up anyone and everyone, but even more likely they have a list they're working from.

(I get so many, I'm probably on a mail-out list a mile long, just being hit up for cash. Likely I fell for one of these once and got my name added to every scam list for miles, but oh well.)

So let's see if they're a bot or a real person!

The blog looks genuine enough, they've got a bio, a fandom etc. And it says they're an artist!

And of course there's that sad cat post, pinned right to the top, so I don't have to look any further through the blog for verification... Looks super legit, pics of the cat, pics of the bill... of course anyone can print out a bill and take a picture of it...

As I do scroll futher, it's full of reblogs making this look like an active user. So how can I tell it's not genuine?

Well, if they're an artist they probably post right? Doodles? Pictures? Let's have a look at their origional posts.

The fastest way to do this is by using an outside tool like Original Post Finder.

just type in the suspicious username and go...

Voila! As suspected, the only post this bot account has ever made is Sad Cat Post.

Confirmed: Scam. Do not give your money to these guys, it looks so real but they're just here to make you feel like a bad person for not handing over everything you can. Charity is wonderful, supporting friends is wonderful, but tbh save it for people you actually know irl/ mutuals you have an actual relationship with. Don't believe any rando who comes knocking!

Love and kisses, stay safe out there.

“some people don’t deserve redemption” redemption isn’t something that’s deserved, it’s something someone does. it’s making the choice to change the way you live your life, to be better, to do good things instead of bad things and try to make up for the bad things. and everyone can and should do that, at any time, no matter what they’ve done. we can’t change the past, but we can choose what kind of person to be now and in the future. we have the responsibility to do so. it is so completely not about “deserving.”

All the edgy grim dark stuff to “both sides” the autobots and decepticons in works bothers me because there is a perfect established moral failing across media for them: their ableism towards those in out-groups. Repeatedly the autobots are awful and contemptful to the “empties”, neutral noncombatants unwilling to join or unable to be accepted by either faction and who aren’t doing well. 

I want to see for once a human companion join them on a trip to cybertron and be horrified.

🚫Beware of PayPal links🚫 Scammers steal all the information and images and create a PayPal link.

I only have the campaign link on the Chuffed website.

Chuffed

Help Mahmoud's Family Evacuate Gaza

My name is Mahmoud, and I live in the Shujaiya neighborhood in northern Gaza. I am 21 years old and the oldest of my siblings. We used to li

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #381 )✅️

‼️ its time to help ‼️

🍉 The ceasefire was stopped 🍉

⚠️ don’t ignore my text ⚠️

I am Mahmoud from North Gaza, studying computer engineering. I was working in a programming company during my studies. I got married a day before the war started and I was living in my house with my wife, but because of the war, things changed and I lost my house, my job and my father. 💔

It is very unfortunate and now my family has no breadwinner, so I desperately need your help. My wife is pregnant and we are suffering from famine. My child is my only hope in this world. I am asking you for a small donation so that I can provide food for my pregnant wife, please

✅️UPDATE 17/01/2025✅️

After the ceasefire in Gaza, hope has returned to us once again, giving us the strength to rebuild our lives.

now my wife is five months pregnant. She requires full care, including medications, vitamins, and medical attention.🤰👼

I beg you to help me and save my first child.🫀

My hope is for my child to come into better circumstances than these.

It is incredibly difficult for a child to be born in a tent, in the worst conditions, surrounded by insects and germs.

Please, help me build a new hope for this small family 👨‍👩‍👦

Chuffed

Help Mahmoud's Family Evacuate Gaza

My name is Mahmoud, and I live in the Shujaiya neighborhood in northern Gaza. I am 21 years old and the oldest of my siblings. We used to li

please make a donation 🙏

any amount will make difference to us

$0 Raised Of $30,000

Distant Utopia - from ひきだしにテラリウム (Terrarium in a Drawer) by Ryoko Kui

now that Dungeon Meshi has an official English translation, i hope someday Kui’s other work will get translated too. this anthology was really good, and this story was one of my favorites

Greetings bugs and worms!

This comic is a little different than what I usually do but I worked real hard on it—Maybe I'll make more infographic stuff in the future this ended up being fun. Hope you learned something new :)

If you are still curious and want to learn more about OCD, you can visit the International OCD Foundation's website. I also recommend this amazing TED ED video "Starving The Monster", which was my first introduction to the disorder and this video by John Green about his own experience with OCD.

The IOCDF's website can also help you find support groups, therapy, and has lots of online guides and resources as well if you or a loved one is struggling with the disorder. It is very comprehensive!

Reblog to teach your followers about OCD

(But also not reblogging doesn't make you evil, silly goose)

Someone on Reddit made the mistake of saying, "Teach me how this conflict came about" where I could see it.

Let me teach you too.

The common perception is that Jews came out of nowhere, stole Palestinian homes and kicked Palestinians out of them, and then bombed them for 75 years, until they finally rebelled in the form of Hamas invading Israel and massacring 22 towns in one day.

The historical reality is that Jews have lived there continuously for at least 3500 years.

There are areas, like Meggido iirc, with archeological evidence of continuous habitation for 7,000 years, but Jewish culture as we recognize it today didn't develop until probably halfway through that.

Ethnic Jews are the indigenous people of this area.

Indigeneity means a group was originally there, before any colonization happened, and that it has retained a cultural connection to the land. History plus culture.

That's what Jews have: even when the diaspora became larger than the number of Jews in Israel, the yearning to return to that homeland was a daily part of Jewish prayer and ritual.

The Jewish community in Israel was crushed pretty violently by the Roman Empire in 135 CE, but it was still substantial, sometimes even the majority population there, for almost a thousand years.

The 600s CE brought the advent of Islam and the Arab Empire, expanding out from Saudi Arabia into Israel and beyond. It was largely a region where Jews were second-class citizens. But it was still WAY better than the way Christian Europe treated Jews.

From the 700s-900s, the area saw repeated civil wars, plagues, and earthquakes.

Then the Crusades came, with waves of Christians making "pilgrimages to the Holy Land" and trying to conquer it from Muslims and Jews, who they slaughtered and enslaved.

Israel became pretty well depopulated after all that. It was a very rough time to live there. (And for the curious, I'm calling it Israel because that's what it had been for centuries, until the Romans erased the name and the country.)

By the 1800s, the TOTAL population of what's now Israel and Palestine had varied from 150,000 - 275,000 for centuries. It was very rural, very sparsely populated, on top of being mostly desert.

In the 1880s, Jews started buying land and moving back to their indigenous homeland. As tends to happen, immigration brought new projects and opportunities, which led to more immigration - not only from Jews, but from the Arab world as well.

Unfortunately, there was an antisemitic minority spearheaded by Amin al-Husseini. Who was very well-connected, rich, and from a politically powerful family.

Al-Husseini had enthusiastically participated in the Armenian Genocide under the Ottoman Empire. Then the Empire fell in World War One, and the League of Nations had to figure out what to do with its land.

Mostly, if an area was essentially operating as a country (e.g. Turkey), the League of Nations let it be one. In areas that weren't ready for self-rule, it appointed France or Britain to help them get there.

In recognition of the increased Jewish population in their traditional, indigenous homeland, it declared that that homeland would again become Israel.

As in, the region was casually called Palestine because that was the lay term for "the Holy Land." It had not been a country since Israel was stamped out; only a region of a series of different empires. And the Mandate For Palestine said it was establishing "a national home of the Jewish people" there, in recognition of "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."

Britain was appointed to help the Arab and Jewish communities there develop systems of self-government, and then to work together to govern the region overall.

At least, that was the plan.

Al-Husseini, who was deeply antisemitic, did not like this plan.

And, extra-unfortunately, the British response to al-Husseini inciting violent anti-Jewish riots was to put him in a leadership role over Arab Palestine.

They thought it would calm him down and perhaps satisfy him.

They were very wrong.

The Washington Institute

From Torch to Tunis to El Alamein: Events 80 Years Ago Made the Modern Middle East

The second week of November 1942 has much to tell us about the region’s geopolitical centrality, its enduring political currents, and its ro

He went on to become a huge Hitler fanboy, and then a Nazi war criminal. He co-created the Muslim Brotherhood - which Hamas is part of - with fellow fascist fanboy Hassan al-Banna.

Al Arabiya English

ANALYSIS: The Nazi roots of Muslim Brotherhood

After years of causing disruption on the streets of Egypt, on 30 June 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader Mohammed Morsi was sworn i

He got Nazi Party funding for armed Muslim Brotherhood militias to attack Jews and the Brits in the late 30s, convincing Britain to agree to limit Jewish immigration at the time when it was most desperately needed.

He started using the militias again in 1947, when the United Nations voted to divide the mandated land into a Jewish homeland and a Palestinian one.

Al-Husseini wouldn't stand for a two-state solution. He was determined to tolerate no more than the subdued, small Jewish minority of second-class citizens that he remembered from his childhood.

As armed militias increasingly ran riot, the Arab middle and upper classes increasingly left. About 100,000 left the country before May 1948, when Britain was to pull out, leaving Israel and Palestine to declare their independence.

The surrounding nations didn't want war. They largely accepted the two-state solution.

But al-Husseini lobbied HARD. And by mobilizing the Muslim Brotherhood to provide "destabilizing mass demonstrations and a murderous campaign of intimidation," he got the Arab League nations to agree to invade, en masse, as soon as Britain left.

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

The Aftershock of the Nazi War against the Jews, 1947–48: Could War in the Middle East Have Been Prevented?

This article deals with the after-effects of Nazi anti-Zionist propaganda in the Arab world and the antisemitic campaign of the Mufti of Jer

Question of Palestine

UN Palestine Commission - Acts of aggression by Arab States - Memorandum from the Jewish Agency - Question of Palestine

ACTS OF AGGRESSION PROVOKED, COMMITTED AND PREPARED BY ARAB STATES  IN CONCERT WITH THE PALESTINE ARAB HIGHER COMMITTEE AGAINST T

About 600,000 Arabs fled to those countries during the ensuing war.

Jews couldn't seek refuge there; in fact, most of those countries either exiled their Jews directly, confiscating their property first, or else made Jewish life unlivable and exploited them for underpaid or slave labor for years first.

The Tower

There Was a Jewish Nakba, and It Was Even Bigger than the Palestinian One

The expulsion of Jews from Arab countries, one of the biggest humanitarian crises of the 20th century, is all the more tragic for how little

By the time the smoke cleared and a peace treaty was signed, most of the Arab Palestinian community had fled; there was no Arab Palestinian leadership; many of the refugees' homes and businesses had left had been destroyed in the war; and Israel had been flooded with nearly a million refugees from the Arab League countries and the Holocaust - even more people than had fled the war.

That was the Nakba. The one that gets portrayed as "750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled!" in the hope that you'll assume they were expelled en masse, their beautiful intact homes all stolen.

Egypt had taken what's now the Gaza Strip in that war, and Jordan took what's now the West Bank - expelling or killing all the Jews in it first.

(Ironically, Jordan was originally supposed to be part of Israel. Britain, inexplicably, cut off what would have been 75% of its land to create Jordan.

Even more inexplicably, nobody ever talks about it. I've never seen anyone complain that Jordan was stolen from Palestinians. Possibly because Jordan is also the only country that gave Palestinian refugees full citizenship, and it's about half Palestinian now.

Israel is nearly 25% Arab Palestinians with full citizenship and equal rights, so it's not all that different -- but the fundamental difference of living in a country where the majority is Jewish, not Muslim, probably runs pretty deep.)

Anyway: that's why Palestine is Gaza and the West Bank, rather than being some contiguous chunk of land. Or being the land set aside by the U.N. in 1947.

Because Arab countries took that land in 1948, and treated them as essentially separate for 20 years.

Israel got them back, along with the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, in the next war: 1967, when Egypt committed an act of war by taking control of the waterways and barring Israel from them. It gave the Sinai back to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace accords between Egypt and Israel.

Israel tried to give back the Gaza Strip at the same time. Egypt refused.

Palestine finally declared independence in 1988.

But Hamas formed at about the same time. Probably in response, in fact. Hamas is fundamentally opposed to peace negotiations with Israel.

Again: Hamas is part of a group founded by Nazis.

Hamas has its own charter. It explains that Jews are "the enemy," because they control the drug trade, have been behind every major war, control the media, control the United Nations, etc. Basic Nazi rhetoric.

It has gotten adept at masking that rhetoric for the West. But to friendlier audiences, its leaders have consistently said things like, "People of Jerusalem, we want you to cut off the heads of the Jews with knives. With your hand, cut their artery from here. A knife costs five shekels.  Buy a knife, sharpen it, put it there, and just cut off [their heads]. It costs just five shekels."

MEMRI

Senior Hamas Official Fathi Hammad To Palestinians In Jerusalem: Buy 5-Shekel Knives And Cut Off The Heads Of The Jews

Hamas Political Bureau Member and former Minister of the Interior Fathi Hammad urged the people of Jerusalem to "cut off...

(Palestinians were outraged by this speech. Palestinians, by and large, absolutely loathe Hamas.

Newsweek

Hamas Tortured Me for Dissent. Here's What They Truly Think of Palestinians

I thought I'd left Gaza behind, yet all this time, Hamas was planning to expand its extremism and intimidation.

It's just that it's not the same to say that to locals, as it is to say it where major global powers who oppose this crap can hear you.)

Hamas has stated from the beginning that its mission is to violently destroy Israel and take over the land.

It has received $100M in military funding annually, from Iran, for several years. Because Iran has been building a network of fascist, antisemitic groups across the Middle East, in a blatant attempt to control more and more of it: Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Houthis in Yemen.

Iran has been run by a very far-right, deeply antisemitic dictatorship for decades now, which pretty openly wants to take down both Israel and the U.S.

Last year, Iran increased Hamas's funding to $350M.

The "proof of concept" invasion of Israel that Hamas pulled off on October 7th more than justifies a much bigger investment.

Hamas has publicly stated its intention to attack "again and again and again," until Israel has been violently destroyed.

That is how this conflict came about.

A Nazi group seized power in Gaza in 2007 by violently kicking the Palestinian government out, and began running it as a dictatorship, using it to build money and power in preparations for exactly this.

And people find it shockingly easy to believe its own hype about being "the Palestinian resistance."

As well as its propaganda that Israel is not actually targeting Hamas: it's just using a literal Nazi invasion and massacre as an excuse to randomly commit genocide of the fraction of Palestine it physically left 20 years ago.

Despite the fact that Palestinians in Gaza have been protesting HAMAS throughout the war.

No offense to Beast Wars Uprising...

But its “autobots are evil” dystopia take is far less interesting to me than the implied dystopia of Beast Wars.

The next generation being programmed with political beliefs already ingrained…

Dinobot revealing in the Starscream ghost episode that the Predacons have an oral history to get around Maximal censorship

How do civilian predacons handle coming into being in a warrior culture that’s not allowed an army ;  how do civilian predacons incorporate their prime directive of “conquer and rule!” into their lifestyle?

How many predacons and maximals just get disillusioned like Rattrap, with what little patriotism they have remaining being “at least we are’t the other side!”?

Are the Maximals programmed to be saviors and heroes like the Predacons are conquerors? How many feel inadequate like Cheetor?

Over-idealization of the past towards Autobots and Decepticons could be a huge issue…