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Ways to support Ukraine 🇺🇦

More than 500,000 people have already left Ukraine due to the invasion by the Russian Federation. The European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management estimates that roughly 18 million Ukrainians will be affected by the conflict in humanitarian terms, with 7 million internally displaced and 4 million seeking refuge elsewhere. To help those still in Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian refugees, we’ve compiled this list of resources.

HelpUkraineWin.org has a collection of vetted and trusted resources, charities, and organizations to help Ukraine.

Some additional ways to donate:

Vostok SOS provides immediate evacuation support.

Malteser International provides essentials for Ukrainian refugees.

Ukraine Crisis Media Center provides fundraising links and a list of tips for sharing information.

Misinformation spreads fast on social media. It is more important than ever to share accurate, verifiable news and information. Here are some resources to learn how to identify misinformation:

This link from the nonprofit WITNESS shares tips for identifying authentic video sources (available in English, Spanish, Ukranian, Russian, and Arabic).

These visual verification tips, also from WITNESS, provide information on verifying images and videos (available in English and Spanish).

This interview with NPR contains tips for identifying fake TikToks.

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NANCY DREW PARALLELS

the echo of lost tears (2x18) ⇾ the ransom of the foresaken soul (3x13)

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sir these are my emotional support fictional scenarios that make living bearable

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i cannot even begin to describe how worried i am about the massive, massive fall in the uk's standard of living this year. a whole load of people are going to starve, freeze, lose their homes, their jobs, and their entire way of life in ways that haven't been seen since comparable records began. and the government could not care less!

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"you can't ship that, it'll never be canon!"

look, when I was your age, we shipped characters who never even met in canon. uphill. both ways. in the snow.

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Nancy & Ace || The Morning After 

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Might fuck around and create a fantasy world in my mind to distract myself from the pressures of reality.

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When you're writing character's memories and associations, very specific can be at least as realistic as very general.

I grew up in a family that ate a lot of rice, but the thing I think about most when dealing with rice is the episode of Horatio Hornblower where the ship explodes because it has a ton of raw rice on it and that rice gets wet. I'm super paranoid about putting raw rice down the drain because of a 23-year-old episode of a show I probably saw when I was no older than 10.

Your character can associate eating the soup they're eating with dinners with their grandmother, or they can associate it with that one time when they were twelve and they almost choked on a chicken bone in the soup their sister helped their grandmother make, but they didn't tell anyone because they didn't want to make their sister feel bad.

Your character can remember learning to wear makeup as a teenager, or they can remember that one time when they were getting ready to go on a date with their first boyfriend and they wanted to look kissable so they wore their mother's very red lipstick, and then when they and their boyfriend kissed for the first time he got lipstick all over his face and they couldn't stop laughing.

Not every memory or association needs to be that specific or detailed, nor should they all be. But specificity gives life and dimension to a character. Lean into it, when it feels right.

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Best of Platanchors

Love is painful and messy and stupid, but it’s also beautiful and perfect and worth it. Nancy Drew 3.11

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Why have we allowed and contributed to the framing of vaccines as an individual choice instead of collective action, interdependence and solidarity with disabled people (especially those who are high risk), elders, children who cannot get vaccinated, the global south, essential workers and those who do not have the option to work from home? For those who are able to be vaccinated, getting vaccinated is not about personal choice. It is not like deciding to get an abortion; stop saying this. Not getting vaccinated is not “my body, my choice,” it is more like drunk driving or exposing someone to secondhand smoke.

We should be talking about getting vaccinated and making it part of our political left culture. Not only posting about it on social media, though that is important, but more importantly, engaging in direct conversations with those in our lives. Not in an attempt to shame, because we know from transformative justice that shaming people is not useful, but in a way that invites conversation and sets clear consequences, not punishment.

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you being in love with her is not gonna make her hear you.

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Was greeted by the pretty midnight moon last weekend, somewhere in Eastern Finland

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pine mountain

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The Confession of the Long Night, Nancy Drew 3.10

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Angst fics can help people come to terms with their own grief, begin healing, or give people that good cry that they need.

Smut fics can help people affirm and accept their sexuality. It can help them explore their sexuality in a safe way. They can also just be fun, and having fun is a drastically undervalued way to improve your mental health.

Dark fics can help people face their fears or process their trauma. It can make them feel safer and more secure. It can help them find their courage.

Fluff fics can give people rest and respite and comfort. It can give them hope that soft places exist and that maybe there is one out there for them. It can bring up their mood, which, if they have depression, can be a life saver.

And every fic people write makes someone feel less alone.

Point being, just because a particular thing doesn’t serve you, doesn’t mean it lacks value.

This is not to say that we have to consume all fic uncritically. Of course not. It is just to say that entire “genres” aren’t trash or lacking value just because they don’t serve you.