This comic isn't perfect. I started it back in October 2023, and every time I picked up my pen, I wept.
I bring this to you today, on 9/11, in hopes that you reflect on this day a little differently than how most Americans would. Let it move you to continue to boycott, protest and challenge your family, friends and colleagues. You have a bigger impact than you would believe.
Thank you for reading this with an open heart.
From the river to the sea...
I'd like to bring to attention the fact that the figures depicted above are a gross undercount of the actual number of deaths. I scoured the internet high and low to source my findings and not a single one could break down the devastation that befell an individual ethnicity. Instead, they lumped a bunch of ethnicities together, provided a general timeline, and called it a day, reinforcing the sheer scale of dehumanization propagated in the west. The only consistency between all the articles I looked up was the 4.5 to 4.7 million figure I've included above, and even then, they were all published by western media news outlets... the very same that have been so unreliable and complicit in the genocide of Palestinians today. So I have to take everything they say with a grain of salt.
We are not just numbers.
All of us have ambitions and desires and lives worth living.
With that said, this is your friendly reminder to:
Donate an e-sim
Donate to PCRF to provide Palestinian children aid
Donate to Pious Projects to provide woman with feminine hygiene kits
Donate to CareForGaza to provide food to displaced families in Gaza either through their Gofundme or their paypal
Donate to any of the vetted gofundme campaigns on GazaFunds to help Palestinians trying to flee Gaza.
And if you or someone you know sees or experiences a hate crime and can afford it, SUE. This is a more effective use of your money than most realise. The reason zionists act with impunity is because of the normalization of white supremacy and oppression of ethnic minorities. Challenging that in any capacity tells them that there are consequences to their actions and makes them think twice before engaging in hate crimes and helps raise all of us up against the systems currently in place that let them get away with it.
If you can't donate or spend any money, you can:
Do your daily clicks.
Boycott targeted companies on the BDS list (if you're like me and you don't want a single dollar to go towards anything supporting Israel right now, you can use Bdnaash to double check what products are okay to buy, but the BDS list is sufficient as it is a strategic attack and proven very effective thus far)
Flood your representatives emails and voicemails with how you won't be voting for them unless their politics align with an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Attend a protest, be LOUD.
Challenge your circle of friends, family and colleagues with conversations about Palestine. (THIS IS THE MOST UNDERRATED AND MOST EFFECTIVE THING YOU CAN DO)
and if you're really up to, be disruptive in any capacity that you can think of towards major corporations benefiting from this onslaught. (i.e. halting military manufacturers from production + shipments, sticking boycott stickers on products at your market etc)
And finally, if your country wasn't mentioned in the above excerpt, it was no deliberate omission on my part and I encourage you to come forward and tell your story about the suffering of your people so that this may be a learning opportunity for everyone.
hey, how are you doing? hows life? what have you been up too?
hinestly not well. I work all the time and still have no money. I don't have the time or energy to draw anything any more. I'm leaving tumblr because I won't be a part of a platform that is so openly hostile to trans women. I'll leave my queues to run out, but I won't be here any more.
wishing you well. thank you for being so nice to me online.
hey, how are you doing? hows life? what have you been up too?
hinestly not well. I work all the time and still have no money. I don't have the time or energy to draw anything any more. I'm leaving tumblr because I won't be a part of a platform that is so openly hostile to trans women. I'll leave my queues to run out, but I won't be here any more.
wishing you well. thank you for being so nice to me online.
A summary of the new test (it's so new I haven't yet found good summary news articles)
1. Do you have control over how much money you make, not including taking more jobs/hours? (Ex: being able to charge a higher rate for your work) If not, you're an employee!
2. Can you make investments to grow your business, not merely maintain it? (Ex: a photographer buying a new camera) If not, you're an employee!
3. Is the work indefinite or continuous, i.e. not a specific time based engagement? You're an employee!
4. If someone else has control over your work - sets your schedule, dictates your prices, supervises your work (including through electronic tracking), is able to discipline you - you're an employee!
5. Is the work you do an integral part of your employer's business? You're an employee!
.....UH. This is going.... to be interesting as a postdoc--I'm currently classified as a federal contractor, which means a whole lot of really stupid fucking things like "I can't get my taxes withdrawn from my paycheck like a normal person". I... under the text of this law, are postdoctoral fellows considered employees now?
This would make things so much simpler if I could apply it to my work, not gonna lie...
so i was fully prepared to rip into Tumblr for trying to pull its "queerest place on the internet" rainbow capitalism bullshit again this year... but it's actually feeling kind of disconcerting that it doesn't seem like they've actually done anything for Pride, as far as i can tell...
like, to be clear, this isn't me being like ";-; why Tumblr no Pride?"
it's more that Simpsons meme of "(chuckles) i'm in danger"
rainbow capitalism is a cheap and hollow marketing ploy, but companies suddenly not doing it this year - especially ones like Tumblr who have at least tried to make it a part of their brand - isn't a great sign, either.
it's like when there's no bugs in an area of nature. Sure, some of em can be annoying or even dangerous when present, but the lack of them is a much worse sign.
i feel that rainbow capitalism should mostly just be seen as the canary in the coal mine for lgbt safety, and currently that canary has stopped singing
Happy Pride Month everyone! Remember 4 months ago when the CEO of this platform harassed and chased a trans woman off this website just for posting her transition timeline, then chased her to other social media platforms to continue harassing her, and threatened to call the FBI if she continued disputing the multiple dubious terminations of her blogs that did not violate tumblr's terms of service in any way? And despite tumblr staff insisting that the CEO was acting against their interests, the broad transmisogyny evident in the site's culture and moderation policy has still not been adequately addressed?
I thinks folks expressing incredulity at the quality of the writing and composition in Calvin and Hobbes are often missing the context that Bill Watterson is arguably the most influential sequential artist of his generation. Like, this is a guy who once told the editors of nationally syndicated newspapers to go fuck themselves when they wanted to mess with his panel layouts, and not only did he keep his job, he got his way. He could have had literally any gig he wanted, and he chose to be the Sunday funnies guy because that's what made him happy. He's basically the Weird Al of sequential art.
The official home on the web for award-winning speculative fiction author Natalie H. Ironside, queen of queer pulps
(icon by @neladoesart)
Hi! I'm Natalie. I'm trans of gender and ace of sexual and I write dark fantasy and dark sci-fi adventure stories full of boners and thud-and-blunder action violence wherein no swash remains unbuckled, nor pot unboiled. I also blog about books and history and languages and I write essays and poetry sometimes, and don't forget about the many exciting Age of Empires 2 scenarios available at Natalie's Cool Website.
You might have heard my short story The Wishing Tree on the Tales to Terrify podcast! (now available as a zine from Grinning Kitten Press). Other stuff I’ve published to date includes:
THE LAST GIRL SCOUT: A post-apocalyptic wasteland adventure story and transbian romance about two women who fall in lesbians together and fight Nazis and draculas in the bombed-out ruins of Old America
LEAD AND ROSES: LOVE SONGS AT THE END OF THE WORLD: A collection of short fiction set within 23rd-century post-nuclear wasteland we’ve all come to know and love
IN THE COURT OF THE NAMELESS QUEEN: A collection of dark fantasy f/f erotica about sexy swashbuckling swordswomen (both cis and normal) and a giant scary monster lady in a far-off realm of adventure and dark magic.
If you're curious I'd really like it if you'd check out my Patreon because there's even more fantabulous treasures on there and you can subscribe for the low, low price of just one American dollar. Your one American dollar will go toward the ever topical "Natalie can make rent and doesn't starve" philanthropy fund.
I'm gonna stay here on Tumblr until they forcibly remove me from the premises, but I'm also on Pillowfort, Bluesky, and Cohost
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