terfs and exclusionists dni | correct me on my image descriptions | bi | 20s | Chinese-American | they/them/their/theirs // ao3: niuniujiaojiao // [background ID: a text message sent to me reading, "I feel like every year you tell me 'x song by hozier is peak love' and then i go [question mark] and listen to it and its boring'" /end ID] | [icon ID: a photo of two snails sitting next to each other under a dewy plant /end ID]
answering a couple questions i got on this post since i realized ppl genuinely wanna know:
tl;dr:
israel lets very, very little aid get into gaza. even the UN can't get in as much as they want to. funding individual families, gazan led initiatives, and mutual aid collectives operating out of gaza ensures gazans can provide for themselves and pay for the extremely expensive aid that is available.
with all the civil infrastructure destroyed by israel, the situation on the ground has devolved into unrestricted capitalism, driving up the price of aid (that should be free!). this makes it more urgent for people to have funding for daily survival.
the post linked above has examples of how donating to individual families can help a lot. if you want to help more than one family at a time, there are many gazan-led initiatives focusing on rebuilding their infrastructure and distributing aid fairly that are worth donating to instead of large charities that already get the majority of donations.
as i mentioned in the last post: @/careforgaza on twitter is a nonprofit started by gazans, it's been endorsed by multiple palestinian journalists.
the sameer project is a collective organized by diaspora palestinians offering emergency shelter to gazans.
ele elna elak is a project aiming to bring water, food, shelter, etc. to gazans and has been promoted by bisan owda.
and the municipality of gaza itself is fundraising to rebuild water infrastructure.
all of these organizations are active inside gaza right now and are being run by gazans. if anyone knows of other gazan-led mutual aid projects, nonprofits or charities feel free to link them in the notes! hope this helped!
long answers under the cut!
if you wanna donate to a charity that's absolutely fine, but the thing is most charities (and even the UN!) are unable to make it into gaza in the first place, leaving aid rotting at the egyptian side of the border or subject to israeli settler attacks
not to mention, charities and nonprofits also maintain a paternalistic colonial relationship with the indigenous people they are trying to help, determining what aid they need for them instead of returning power to them and letting them make their own choices
i'm not here to say that one option is better than the other, just that they achieve different things and are equally legitimate. there's an attitude among people who question the legitimacy of these gofundme campaigns that somehow the people promoting them are telling them not to donate to charities. nobody is stopping you from donating to charities. we are just asking that you do not dehumanize the very real gazans in your inbox just because their method of asking for aid is more direct and risky.
unfortunately that's exactly what has happened. because israel destroyed all of gaza's more formalized infrastructure, it seems that organized crime and rampant inflation has taken its place. aid is supposed to be free, but in order to save for evacuation or the cost of living, people have started selling them at an inflated price. and aid that is truly free attracts intense, large crowds that are dangerous to navigate.
this was posted on abc a few days ago
it's pure, unrestrained capitalism. i've had multiple palestinians describe this situation to me confidence. that's why everything's so expensive now. why people have to rent out tiny plots of land for their tents to sit on, why my friend @siraj2024 still has to buy tarps to cover the broken windows of the overpriced bombed out apartment he rented, and why a bag of flour can cost a thousand bucks in the north.
even before israel closed and then bombed the rafah crossing, the egyptian hala travel agency was only allowing people to cross the border if they paid a hefty $5000 USD per adult / $2500 USD per child bribe. it denies doing this, but the hundreds of stories from palestinians say otherwise.
with regard to the economy, here in america we saw something similar happen in the wake of hurricane helene and milton. the podcaster margaret killjoy describes how she saw dual economies rise after asheville was fully cut off from the rest of the country - some people offered each other supplies for free in a sort of mutual aid honor system, and some people required payment when they lent supplies because they themselves needed to buy stuff for their families. these dual economies exist in gaza too. and this means they all still need money to survive.
plugging gaza soup kitchen for those with the means to donate! it's another gazan-led initiative currently providing food, water, classes for children, and medical care across the north and south. you can donate through their website or their gofundme, or follow them on instagram for news about their projects
Not even at stoplights!!! I know it’s so so tempting to just glance at your phone when you’re stopped, but there’s actually something called “distraction hangover” where even once you put your phone down, your brain is still processing the interaction and isn’t fully paying attention to the road for up to 30 seconds afterwards. So it’s still really dangerous even if you’re stopped when you look at your phone. If you need to check something on your phone, pull over.
this especially applies to people with adhd. you know that symptom you may have heard of called “difficulty transitioning between tasks”? you don’t want piloting a ton or two of potential death to be the task you can’t mentally switch back to.
“I felt very sad so I sat down. I felt so sad that I rested my head on my own knees and smoothed my own head. I felt so sad I couldn’t imagine feeling any other way again. I said, I don’t like this. I don’t want to do this anymore. And I went back to lying in bed, just before the doorbell rang.”
— Jamaica Kincaid, from “What Have I Been Doing Lately,” At the Bottom of the River
(via lifeinpoetry)
Now that everyone is discussing Nolan's Odyssey movie, I feel like it's a good time to let non-Italians know that the production dumped plastic props into the Italian sea. Weirdly enough I could not find any article in English about it but it's a fucking problem nonetheless.
I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.
Non è la prima volta che la produzione solleva un vespaio in Sicilia. A Lipari una squadra di sub sarebbe però già impegnata a bonificare i
They dumped plastic skeletons in environmentally protected areas, against the literal contracts they had to sign to get the permits to film in environmentally protected areas. Like they not only did a bad ecological thing that freaked out some divers, they literally broke environmental protection laws and their contract with the Italian government
"Ruby needed to sound desperate, but I also wanted to imbue her with dignity that would contrast sharply with the demeanor of everyone who'd betrayed her—and Harry himself. When you, as Harry, present all your painstakingly collected evidence, and Ruby casually shoots it down, she's acting as a foil for a lot of what's wrong with the world. She's compassionate and honest. You don't get a lot of that in Revachol, not because there's anything fundamentally wrong with the people, but because the political and economic circumstances don't predispose anyone to trust and decency."
- Olga Moskvina, Interview with Digimancy Senior Writer Olga Moskvina
0/10 - 2/10 overrated and overused.
1/10 - 7/10 strong indication of contempt, decisive.
2/10 - 6/10 slightly weaker statement than the above. less communicatively efficacious.
3/10 - 9/10 requires thought to interpret, negative but measured.
4/10 - 5/10 hard to distinguish from 5 or 6 but the commitment to negative affect is at least clarifying.
5/10 -5/10 its fine.
6/10 - 3/10 as above but like weakly positive, also beginning to veer into,
7/10 - 0/10 total significatory black hole. completely useless as an indication of any opinion whatsoever.
8/10 - 4/10 we are still emerging from the hole 7 blasted in discursivity.
9/10 - 9/10 great!
10/10 - 8/10 bit overused but nice to know a straightforward recommendation when you see one.
may i ask about if/how rose and/or svetlana appear in janeworld?
They’re both still women in JaneWorld first of all let’s settle that right now. Second Svetlana and Lilya are forcing men to make out in front of them in bars and clubs for their amusement.okay but no like quintessentially in JaneWorld they were Girls Together. Very anthems for a 17 year old girl. Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that—now you’re all gone got your makeup on and you’re not coming back (can’t you come back?)
And in JaneWorld rose is Jane’s straight girl best friend (Hayden a man still in JaneWorld CRUCIAL to know) who she does Feminine Girly Things tm with that has to sit her down and say “babe….” When they try to have a threesome with some guy but it’s very clear that Jane is not into this man and very into rose.
Important to note in this world that rose is not actually straight and figured things out for herself in the same threesome just with a much more delayed realization. Jane is gay cuz she was so into rose but rose was only so into Jane because she’s literally Jane Hollander that means nothing. It Means Nothing.
Other important note is that later when they are married and Lilya finds out Jane had a (failed) threesome with rose and some cuck Jane thinks she’s going to be teased and instead Lilya reacts like ilana in broad city when she finds out Abby kissed a girl who wasn’t her and she just starts screaming
skip divorce where for various reasons scott hunter ends up crashing on shane and ilya’s couch after the public intoxication charges… on the couch because ilya won’t let him sleep in the guest room (he wants to turn him out of the house) and this was their compromise. he and shane keep having whispered fights about it in the kitchen while scott is morosely watching tv in the living room with the volume on full blast while secretly nipping whiskey out of a flask he’s been cunningly concealing between the couch cushions. shane is like he’s a fucking mess ilya, it’s actually embarrassing and pretty bad PR like he’s kind of making all gay hockey players look bad, isn’t it better to let him stay for a few days out of the public eye, and ilya is like that prehistoric barely alive intoxicated dinosaur is going to try to FUCK my beautiful HUSBAND I’ve already SEEN him making sad wet eyes at you hoping you’ll find him pathetic enough to hook up with, and shane is like oh my god ilya don’t be ridiculous he just got divorced he doesn’t want to have sex with me!!!!, and scott hunter who just lurched into the kitchen unheard behind them and is a flask and a half deep at this point is like soooo [hiccup] what’s up with you guys anyway. like is your marriage basically open or— and then ilya tries to kill him.
in which murderbot is a very normal terracotta soldier and ART the dragon spirit of a chinese junk who dwells in the ship's keel. they meet in the ming dynasty perhaps, when ppl are sailing places extra willy-nilly.
*Nüwa is the mother goddess in chinese mythology, known for creating humanity from yellow clay and repairing the sky.
thank you @mutualrapport for hosting the event! original prompt below.
[drawn for the prompt: an AU of ART and MB's first meeting and conversation - e.g. another look at their first meeting from a fantasy, historical, or (non-canon) sci-fi lens! Any perspective is fine. The only constraint is that it cannot be set in the canon universe. Any visibly non-canon AU- fantasy, human, historical, etc. - anything goes!]
an ink and watercolor comic strip of murderbot as a battered terracotta soldier boarding a docked junk ship with blue sails. the first panel sets the scene of a long wooden dock lined with smaller fisher boats and a backdrop of grey-green mountains. on the plank, a small dark figure moves towards the great zong ship. on the ship, it enters a dark hall that leads to the crew's quarters. it finds the captain's desk, pulls out the chair, sits down, and retreives an old bamboo strip of tales and begins reading.
page 2. panal 1: murderbot hunching down, startled. the overarching text against the oppresive dark background reads "YOU WERE LUCKY" in both chinese and english. panal 2 and 3: murderbot standing up from the desk in alarm. speech text: "Why am I lucky?" response of unknown origin: "That no one realized what you were." "What do you think I am?" panal 4: a close-up of murderbot's side profile, its cracked face a baked clay in yellow and ochre, cracking further from its eye, wide in terror or panic. the crack line looks at home as its pupil. speech text of unknown origin proclaims: "You're a rogue terracotta soldier from the emperor's tomb." panal 5: a scene depicting the half-snake chinese goddess Nuwa holding up the sky with both arms, an entire army of terracotta warriors spread out around her like a rice field, all facing her, stoic, silent, not-yet given life. text: "You're Earthenware, a construct of clay, and, they say, a borrowed breath from Nuwa. I had thought it a myth."
page 3. panal 1: a gigantic blue scaled limb with curled, taloned digits, one extended to poke murderbot right in the chest. murderbot holds the bamboo strip of tales close, a thin layer of protection held up between the two. last panal: a zoom-out of the scene, the scaled limb is revealed to belong to a great blue chinese dragon, presumed as ART, its long body twisted and curled, a finger still pointed at murderbot. Its antlers are long, its barbels flowing, its eyes many, all staring down at the small figure with its back facing us, face upturned to the dragon. speech text, from the dragon: "Do not attempt to breach my hull." End ID]
Plain text: drawn for the prompt: an AU of ART and MB's first meeting and conversation - e.g. another look at their first meeting from a fantasy, historical, or (non-canon) sci-fi lens! Any perspective is fine. The only constraint is that it cannot be set in the canon universe. Any visibly non-canon AU- fantasy, human, historical, etc. - anything goes!]
[Image ID: Tweet from verified user jaboukie (@/ jaboukie) reading: "i moved out of the city and im so much happier" love that for you but i need to see a 1970s arthouse film at 2:30pm on a wednesday in theater with 15 unemployed strangers or i will die /End ID]
Hey all, if anyone has seen my brother recently, please reach out. I hadn't heard from him in about a month and I just found out he's been reported missing.
He was last seen in Weed, CA about a week ago (June 30th). He had been talking about hitchhiking to Las Vegas or Ohio. Friends say he was in poor mental health and possibly experiencing psychosis. He was also recently hospitalized for a heart condition, and it is unknown if he has his medications.
Please don't hesitate to reach out to the number below or just shoot me a Facebook message if you have any possible leads. And please, be kind, as this is a difficult time for John and for his family. We recently lost our mom last summer and it has hit him really hard.
[ID. a blue toned digital comic featuring carl from project hail mary. he looks down at a photo of grace and says, "i miss my dead wife" with tears in his eyes. a hand then appears on his shoulder and stratt says, "our dead wife", a tear in her eye as carl solemnly nods. end ID.]
