‼️🚨Urgent Appeal, Very IMPORTANT 🚨‼️

I can't lie, I find it very odd that posts cautioning people against donating to individual* campaigns and promoting the idea of supporting mutual aid efforts and community kitchens in Gaza can rack up 10k+ notes--while a post promoting a community kitchen (that I can personally vouch for) struggles to get 1k notes, and has barely pulled in a couple hundred dollars over the past week.

I actively try to avoid using guilting tactics in fundraising, but this is weird to me. It's like people are using these posts as an excuse not to do things they already didn't want to do anyway, rather than actually taking their recommendations on board...

*In my experience, these campaigns often support large extended families + their neighbours

Chuffed

Mawasi Al-Qarara Mutual Aid Project

This campaign is a mutual aid initiative involving myself, my friends Mohammad Abu-Alwan and his two brothers in Palestine, and Shakhya Scri

MAQMAP is a community kitchen aiming to support families in the Mawasi Al-Qarara area.

Any thoughts on the Russian-Ukraine stuff or would you like to keep your opinions to yourself?

There is literally nothing I need to say in this situation.

I am watching and listening, and helping where I can. My opinion is irrelevant in the face of much more difficult things real people are facing.

I've seen many Russians make statements online apologizing on behalf of the country - cursing it, cursing Putin, cursing the government, and tearfully explaining how disgusted they are by it all, and how ashamed they are of being Russian.

I understand the urge, I really do, but the problem is that it ultimately does nothing. No matter how hard you punch yourself, your friend's wounds will not heal. That's not how it works.

At the moment, all anyone can do is:

Listen and read instead of posting - and think critically about which sources you get your news from (US media tends to be sensationalist, and Russia media is largely propaganda). There's also tons of misinformation online, and I've been trying to avoid posting/reblogging anything that I cannot 100% confirm as true.

Help out those directly affected by events - but be mindful of scams! Paypal and venmo is not available in the Ukraine, this is true. BUT - many Ukranians, especially those who have lived or live abroad are able to use it through connecting overseas banks or cards, and they CAN channel that money to family. It's ultimately YOUR responsibility to fact-check this before you reblog anything asking for donations. Be mindful of what you spread.

Keep informed and don't just spread fearmongering images/fatalist threads. Ukranians are currently trying to stay safe. Poland has opened borders to everyone with a Ukranian passport and suspended VISAs, and there is talk of other neighboring countries doing the same. They don't need more tweets about bombings. They don't need your jokes about WWIII and being drafted.

Ultimately I'm taking a seat and doing as much as I can, but the last thing you all need to hear is my casually uninformed opinion - or ANYONE'S uninformed opinion. Tweeting about current events does not make anyone an expert in foreign policy. If you're wondering what you should do - sometimes, the answer is 'nothing'.

Sometimes, not causing any extra damage through misinformation is the best thing you can do.

it's interesting to me that torture just works to us, as a literary device. It's everywhere in movies and stories and whatnot, from big-budget dramas to little grindhouse short stories. It fits neatly into the requirements of plot: character doesn't want to offer information, Gets Tortured, has to offer information.

the issue with this is that it isn't how it works.

torture is a display of power. It fouls interrogation, this is known; a person being tortured will tell you whatever you want to hear to make it stop, which is more often than not a lie, made up on the spot, or if the truth an incomplete and useless version of it. It isn't generally done for information's sake anyway, but as a form of what the ancient Greeks called hybris, the violent exhibition of your power over another person.

This is, every once in a great while, done right in fiction, but it's a challenge to write vs. the idea that it's a shortcut to one character revealing plot-critical information to another. Pretty much every form of torture works this way, even the ones that are legally permissible. Psychological torment or physical discomfort also produce an animalistic desire to escape harm and foul interrogation. The forms of torture the cops can do? The cops do it not to gain information (or if they think it will, they're lying to themselves) but because it makes them feel powerful.

There's probably a master's thesis in it for somebody studying the rise of torture as a plot device since the beginning of the war on terror and the contemporaneous development of the Broken Windows theory of policing. I'm not really aware of any similar level of disconnect between what Works in fiction and what happens in real life!

"11,078 and counting have died in Palestine. Never stop talking.

Also this is just the surface, do further research to fully understand the situation.

Also this is just the surface, do further research to fully understand the situation."

Art credit: @flyingkikii

Reposted from @frxchix

Hey Y’all,

PLEASE SUPPORT AND SHARE

I am a Disabled Trans adult In need of a new wheelchair, my current one is not meant for long term use and is extremely uncomfortable, I have a cat bed on the seat to attempt to make it more comfortable but it’s not comfortable still, and the legs that the wheelchair came with are to big and I cannot get around in my house so I changed them for foot slings but the ones I got are either extremely painful for my feet and ankles (I’m a ambulatory wheelchair user so I can still feel my legs but I need a wheelchair most of the time especially when leaving the house,) and the other foot sling broke, I was able to find a wheelchair that fits the needs I have, it’s $952.00 but that would be my whole ssi check which I only get once a month and I’d still need more money to pay for it, my father has agreed to pay for half as long as I pay him back but I still would have to not buy necessities for a month and I would have no money left over,

If you can and want to please donate so I can get the wheelchair without using all my ssi,

My goal is $476.00 but any amount I end up with will be helpful still

SUPPORT HERE

this has been said before but I also think that part of the problem is that we need to stop seeing “misogynist” and “transphobe” and “ableist” etc as IDENTITIES and start seeing them as ACTIONS and WORLDVIEWS that cause a specific type of harm

a redemption arc is not a sacrifice.

a redemption arc is not some grand act of selflessness.

a redemption arc is not meaningless pain and suffering.

a redemption arc is simply facing the consequences of your actions, fixing your mistakes and doing better, regardless of whether you will be forgiven or accepted. that's it.

I think there needs to be a balance between making Autobots not perfect and making Optimus’s inner circle so awful it makes no sense he trusts them or consider some of them friends.

Fascism sells a synthetic nostalgia.

So the Jews went from being victims of genocide to commiters of it? Weird how the circle of power goes.

okay no, this is not the way it is. jewish people =/= israel. not all jewish people condone israel’s actions, and a significant number actively oppose it.

and jewish people continue to face antisemitism today, so saying something like “Jewish people went from victims to committers” as a general statement is really gross.

(also a lot of jewish people have expressed discomfort with the word “Jews” and prefer “Jewish” btw)