#and ended up volunteering to work there

[zoof-katt]

Haven't watched Last Life in a long time so I decided to draw them from memory

[bee623]

I genuinely cannot describe how deeply DEVASTATED I am about riz being the only one who can take stress tokens for the others. Yes fig is a protector and will fight endlessly for her friends and I love that about her but there is something about the way riz loves his friends. It’s a more subtle kind of love, but just as relentless and passionate and he will take any burden for the people he cares about and bear the weight of it on his shoulders so they don’t have to deal with it without any hesitation. I am ILL.

[fiercynn]

otw july 2 board meeting: what the hell was that

so the otw (@transformativeworks) board had their Q2 meeting yesterday, which was highly anticipated given everything that's gone down in the past months:

the @end-otw-racism campaign demanding action from otw on their own commitments made three years ago to better address racist harassment in otw and on ao3 (btw, support end otw racism's current campaign #Vote To End OTW Racism!)

recent revelations about how otw has mistreated its volunteers, regarding azarias and how the org reacted after the CSEM attacks on volunteers last year, as well as how the policy & abuse committee (PAC) is overworked and treated by the legal commitee overall (documented here)...

...and ongoing mistreatment of chinese, chinese diaspora, and chinese-speaking volunteers, particularly regarding an incident last year that put volunteers in mainland china at risk, and the board's recent unilateral decision to close the otw weibo account without input from the weibo account leads or any chinese-speaking volunteers

the AI shit

and probably more that i've missed, honestly. so! this is my summary of the meeting, focusing mostly on the issues related to racism; i have screenshots of the whole meeting but will at this point only share those i find most relevant/interesting! alt text will be included for every screenshot in the image, not below it.

and hold on, because this is going to be LONG!

pre-meeting ableism in #help channel so shit actually started going down the previous day in the otw board discord's help channel where there was a pretty ableist resposne to a person who asked if the board could consider adding the pluralkit bot to the server. i wasn't there, but hojarasca on dreamwidth posted about it, and i believe some other folks who were there will post screenshots soon too.

all of that conversation was deleted from the help channel by today, which is not unusual but did mean that a majority of people at today's meeting might not know what went down.

board meeting starts; immediate chaos the board meeting started at 8pm UTC, and it was clear almost immediately that the board was unprepared. what you have to understand about otw board meetings is that they are not really meetings where the board members discuss anything with each other. basically otw board members show up, share an agenda , give written updates on the items on the agenda, take votes on board decisions (but without any discussion publicly), and take questions. none of the materials like the agenda or relevant documents were shared ahead of time, and the board did not offer a way to submit questions ahead of time specific to the board meeting. (otw does have a contact us form to email their board or committee chairs, but i've never gotten a response lol.)

another weird thing that happened before the meeting started was that board member alex tischer was active answering questions in the help channel up to five minutes before the meeting, but didn't stay for the meeting. i don't think a reason was shared for this. this is relevant because alex has been criticized for racist responses to chinese volunteers, particularly those that ran & interacted with otw's weibo account, both in the past & last month when they closed their weibo account without any notice to the volunteers. this will also come up again later in the q&a section...

anyway. the meeting starts. all of the discussion directly about the meeting is supposed to happen in one discord channel called #public-board-meetings; the #help channel is supposed to be for tech issues etc. there is no separate channel for asking questions to the board - those are supposed to be posted in the main board meeting channel. and as far as we can tell, there are no mods of either of these channels apart from board members.

at the start of the meeting there are at least 209 attendees. for context, the last board meeting in march had 31. i've heard from people who have attended board meetings for the past couple years that there are usually 10-40 attendees per meeting. but again, given what's been going down, it's not surprising that so many people showed up!

and because there are a lot of people who haven't attended these meetings before, attendees immediately start asking questions, both process questions about the meeting and actual questions they want to ask the board. which again is understandable because there haven't been many answers given in the #help channel, and the board immediately muddies things further by giving confusing instructions about when to ask questions. they first say this - that they are going to proceed through their agenda, so people should hold questions that are NOT about any agenda items until the end. they imply that questions that are about agenda items are okay as they go through the agenda, but there will be conflicting instructions about this later...

agenda is posted & actual meeting content begins...kind of here's the meeting agenda that was shared. not...terribly descriptive lol

- Decisions taken since the previous meeting - Strategic Plan vote - Update on OTW's Diversity Work - AOB (Any Other Business) - Time for questions

people immediately start asking questions about various agenda items & also procedure questions. very few of these are answered. the first agenda item is posted - decisions taken since the previous meeting.

the board gives us "a couple minutes to read the above". everything's getting a little muddled already because people keep asking questions (reasonably!) about agenda items. there are several questions about the specific agenda item of "decisions taken since the previous meeting". some of the questions are getting answered by otw volunteers but none by board members at this point.

the board moves on to the next agenda item without answering questions about the "decisions" item. people are asking for a separate channel for questions but none is created. board members tell us they will try to get to all the answers at the end, but that we should send any additional answers to the board through the otw contact us form. many people point out that they've rarely gotten responses that way.

board gives a brief update (that was NOT on the agenda) from the finance committee chair, who was not at the meeting, to say that the 2023 budget was posted earlier this year, and that people can send questions via the contact us form. i'll note here that i sent a message to the finance committee with a question about the 2023 budget two months ago and have not gotten a response.

strategic plan update + question procedure still unclear the board then starts to give an update on the strategic plan, which board members are to vote on today. attendees ask if the full strategic plan draft was shared publicly before this meeting and we are told it was only shared with volunteers, not with members or the public.

they do share an infographic summarizing the strategic plan. hilariously, the first version they upload is so blurry that it's unreadable. they then share a gdoc with alt text. if you are new-ish to otw stuff, this infographic and the jargon in it are probably pretty confusing.

the board keeps giving us "a few minutes to check things out". people ask them to not do that and proceed because we can read while they are typing. questions to the board keep going unanswered and various other people say that we're supposed to hold questions until the end. we again get told conflicting things about how to ask questions. a board member asks us to hold ALL questions until the end, but an otw volunteer points to an earlier statement from a different board member & says that questions on the current agenda item are allowed.

at 45 minutes into the meeting, when most questions are going unanswered (and a lot of only being answered by otw volunteers, not board members), the board disables messages in the main channel so that they can proceed with the agenda. this is not usual board meeting procedure and was unannounced until they did it. people start getting really creative with emoji reactions because they can't ask questions. the board admits that they were unprepared for the number of attendees at this meeting.

attendees then start asking questions in the help channel, which has been put on "slow mode", which means each user can only post every thirty minutes. multiple otw volunteers share in the help channel that they warned the board about preparing for the meeting, and the only change the board made in response was to make it 30 minutes longer than usual.

in the main channel, the board does not have any public discussion on the strategic plan (which has not been shared, only the infographic has), and votes unanimously to approve it.

diversity work update, aka a glorified otw news post the board moves on to the "diversity work update", which is now a standard section of every board meeting. they share two updates - firstly, that caste has been added as a protected class in the code of conduct, and secondly that they've heard the concerns coming from @end-otw-racism supporters and others. both of which were already shared a month ago in this OTW news post from a month ago, which they link to.

seriously, nothing new is shared in this part of the meeting that wasn't in that post. some update!

q&a part one the board asks for emoji reactions again to see how many people are in attendance. unclear why they do this unless they were hoping people might have left? but alas for them, there are still 182 people that emoji react saying they are in the meeting!

the board FINALLY starts answering questions, but they do not yet re-enable messages so that users can ask more questions. they start by addressing the pluralkit issue from yesterday, but they don't give any response about the ableism that was allowed to go unchecked in the channel.

then, BAFFLINGLY, they start with answering questions from someone who wasn't able to make the meeting. how did this person submit those questions beforehand? NO ONE KNOWS. fortunately this person had (imo) good questions, but again, why were their questions given preference? unclear.

okay there were a LOT of questions and responses, so i'm going to stick to sharing the ones that were most important to me, which were about addressing racism within the otw and on ao3. hopefully someone else will summarize other issues!

we finally get our FIRST REAL NEW RESPONSE on a diversity/racism issue! the board says they plan to hire a diversity consultant by the end of the year.

we also hear that changes to otw's terms of service are being proposed to give the policy & abuse committee more tools to address harassment, including "racially-motivated" harassment.

board says the best way for people other than otw volunteers to get involved with anti-racism issues is...to stay up to date on what otw is doing, attend public meetings, and send questions through the comment form. what.

the board does not answer how they have reached out to fans of color in their work to address racism, which i assume means they haven't; they instead say that fans of color are free to provide input/feedback via the contact us form. emoji reactions explode

the board says that the strategic plan has initiatives to combat racism including improving diversity in recruitment (of...who? volunteers, board members? potential future paid staff?), hiring a diversity consultant, & forming "volunteer coalitions"

slight digression from my focus on racism issues because of how many times the board has told us to submit questions via their contact us form: very little clarity on how long it will take for answers to be questions, or how long people spend on responses

the goals for the future diversity consultant are to do an audit of the organization and offer recommendations on how to proceed. couldn't be vaguer lol

otw does not currently have plans to have an internal committee for diversity, equity, and inclusion work, since they're relying on the external consultant, but if the consultant recommends it they'll consider

by the time they've gotten through these responses, there are only five minutes left in the meeting! remember, messaging by attendees has been disabled for the past 40 minutes, so everything the board has answered so far is from people who got their questions in during the first 45 minutes (or, apparently, one person who managed to get in questions before the meeting).

q&a part two at this point, the board FINALLY re-enables messaging for new questions, but clarifies that they will only take them until 9:30pm UTC. which means anyone who did actually wait to ask their questions now only has five minutes to ask them! questions start rolling in immediately. again, going to focus on the ones about racism.

i'm listing questions in chronological order that they are asked, but please note that the corresponding answers from the board are coming WAY later than the questions. the board took until 10:20pm UTC (almost an hour after the meeting was supposed to end) to answer all the questions. mostly i'm telling you this because the emoji reactions on the answers by the board get more limited as people understandably have to leave the meeting lol

the first question of round two is about how chinese & chinese diaspora volunteers have been treated re: the weibo account closure, & board member alex tischer's role in this.

board response is horrifyingly empty, only promising the creation of a new "anonymous form" to receive feedback from chinese and chinese diaspora volunteers on the situation.

an attendee asks for better prioritization of racism & equity issues in the meetings, and better preparation from the board. (note that the addition of "diversity work update" to the agenda is not new, i believe it was instituted late last year)

in response, board admits they were unprepared despite volunteers warning them, says they will take advice from this meeting forward. emoji reactions are out in full force

an attendee asks more details about how the diversity consultant research officer (who is NOT a hired diversity consultant, but an otw volunteer in charge of the hiring process for a consultant) engages with the board & what goals they have for the future consultant

response from board is that they meet weekly, and that the research officer is herself in charge of identifying goals for the future consultant

an attendee points out that "curate your space" tools are not enough to protect users from targeted abuse, including racist abuse, and that asking fans of color to reach out to the board instead of the other way around is bullshit (my words haha)

the board's response to this is to offload that onto the future diversity consultant. SERIOUSLY.

an otw member asks if the diversity consultant will also look at accessibility for disabled users across the otw

board essentially says "yeah, sure" lol

an otw member asks how otw will remove barriers to becoming a voting member and diversifying membership & committee leadership

board's response is that they don't know the demographics of their members or volunteers, which...somehow means they can't remove barriers that would help fans of color or non-western fans from becoming members and volunteers? lmaoooooooo

an attendee asks for accountability in ensuring that the incoming board keeps the current board's promises re: DEI, pointing to improvements made by the 2015 board that were later reversed by a new board make-up

board does not seem to understand this question so answers an entirely different one! (seriously, i double-checked which question they were responding to.)

an otw volunteer asks what the plans are to deal with the "ongoing exclusion and alienation of chinese-speaking volunteers"?

the board repeats that they have opened a feedback form for chinese-speaking volunteers. that's it.

so those are all the questions i saw on racism; as i mentioned, there were TONS more good questions on board transparency and communications, protection of volunteers, moderating board meetings better, lack of feedback collection on the strategic plan, etc.

at PRECISELY 9:30pm UTC, messages are disabled again so that no more questions can be asked. all of the otw board responses that i shared above are from after messages were disabled again.

takeaways this meeting was a complete mess. the process was extremely unclear and made things inaccessible; while the board did (from what i can tell) answer all the questions posted, people were not able to ask all the questions that they'd planned because of the unannounced disabling of messaging.

and then, of course, there's the fact that the majority of the answers are bullshit, which is probably the least surprising thing about this meeting.

it's just ridiculous that they weren't prepared for this. given everything that's gone down in the past months, why on earth wouldn't they assume that people would show up with hard questions? the mismanagement and incompetence is frankly astounding. which i guess is the story of the last few months re: OTW anyway!

so...see you at the next one in a few months, i guess? 🤷🏾‍♀️

[mega-banette]

Ok it’s time to subject you all to my new and improved entirely made up Swan backstory.

So I’m thinking Swan comes from an abusive household. Growing up, the only person who had her back was her older sister. Who, upon turning 18, woke up a 13 year old Swan in the middle of the night and told her to pack a bag and run.

Her sister was able to get a job as a waitress ok, but she barely made enough to cover the rent of their new apartment. Swan tried to get a newspaper round but was turned down. So she ended up resorting to theft. She was good, but not good enough resulting in her doing a few stints in juvie.

On her last stint when she’s 16/17, she meets a girl who takes pity on her and teaches her how to fight. The two get very close (close to the point of Swan realising she’s a lesbian) and Swan promises to get in touch with her on the outside.

Swan makes good on this promise and at first her sister is glad she’s making friends, but then she catches the two kissing and her opinion dramatically changes. She says a lot of things to Swan and basically tells her to get out. So, once again, Swan packs a bag and she runs.

At this point Swan is so confused and betrayed. Because her sister had supported her through everything, on some level she assumed this would just be another part of her to accept. Yet, here she was homeless because of it. Swan then starts to think that if her own sister can’t accept that she’s gay then no one will.

A little while after this Swan gets picked up by the Warriors after meeting Cleon. Now I am a believer that Cleon had a little sister who died. So because Swan reminds her so much of her little sister she subconsciously takes on an older sister role in Swan’s life. Which, after Cochise points it out, becomes far more conscious

So then we have Cleon ‘this is my second chance at having a little sister I can’t fail at protecting her again nothing bad can happen to her ever’ vs Swan ‘this is my second chance at having an older sister I can’t do anything to make her hate me I need to repress my sexuality’

Obviously Cleon doesn’t give a fuck that Swan’s gay but it takes Swan a while to realise that.

[k-she-rambles]

project manager for this conference still can't be bothered to get my name right

[wutheringhestia]

returning home having acquired an additional grandma, made so so many coffees, gotten a key cut for my beloved housemate, and one for my friend so that they can come use our aircon even if we’re out/asleep/etc. now I get to lie in bed and read til work. community house tuesdays I love you so badly

[clonerightsagenda]

In other news the Silt Verses episode with the waiters at the rich people's party was extremely on the nose but well executed enough that I mostly didn't mind.

[saaraahka]

I think worst part this Christmas (apart from family) was seeing my crush since forever (10+ years) with her new partner not only yesterday but on december 25th as well. It just makes me feel silly. Every year I go listen to Bach's Weihnachtsoratorium with family it just nice tradition and I'm slut for classical music. And like she didnt notice me during the first part and I just suppressed all anxieties and thoughts and tried not to think about it. But yesterday she was there too and on another bench with her new partner. I didn't notice at first but then we eyed eatchother like a dozen times during the concert.. and me being myself just had sommuch anxiet and wanted to say hi and wish new year but then just idk didnt manage to find the curage to say anything or move towards her after and jsut hurried away so all night and day ive be feeling so sad and pathetic. Deep down, i know im not her style being way too shy and subby and inexperienced for her, and well, she prefers boys. i just genuinely hope they treat her well, and she's happy and feeling loved and even more so for finding someone who also enjoys classical music so but yeah, I wish I would have said something and didn't feel like this. Idk I hate myself so much. But also yay me for living like in a perfect costume drama straight out of a century old book. except those usually end well some how or with inocent intimacy in dark corners of a theaters grand staircase

[ratcandy]

got to hold big scorpion again today everything is right in the world

[sepiasys]

Hi I got back from game night, I had the worst performance/luck but I still had a lot of fun :33 Was much better than the other ceremony, honestly ^^;;;

My headache shifted to the middle of my head (mostly) btw which sucks :( the headache/pain meds have done nothing for me 🥲 so I'm just gonna try and sleep now ^^;;

[trans-yllz]

AKHDMCUKSNDM Hours after essentially giving up on getting an education job I got an email back for a position I applied to literally yesterday?? which would be an after school teacher at a private school in the richy rich part of town which is actually so so funny to me but well. it's a job

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Oh god.

This summer you sent our mutual friend a package, to get to me. An heirloom, a bit of camp history. Passed down to me.

And on that package, your phone number and address. Your phone number, that I had long deleted from my phone because the urge to call you was always too strong.

When I last saw you in person, you said that when you finally moved to the city it would be with your girlfriend. You would move in together. And surely, she would become your fiancee and then your wife.

There it is. On the package. Your new address, in the city.

I have to keep myself from calling you right now. You probably have my number blocked, and I truly don't know what I'd do if you answered. But I would give anything to hear your voice again.

Even if it's just you saying, "Hello? Who is this?" While her voice is in the background, asking you what you want for dinner.

At this point, I don't even need to be the voice in the background asking what you want for dinner.

I just wish I could be the voice on the other end of your phone call.

[scentedinksandwhackedseals]

my eye (desire to check out a lot of books) is bigger than my stomach (ability/motivation to actually READ all of those books)

[goldtoothmaster]

I never understand the whole 'I love this character so I'm going to ignore most of canon about them' EXCEPT for about Martha Jones. To Me she married her first fiancée and became an ER doctor at a teaching hospital and she volunteers with unit during international emergencies but they only let her have a unit ID because they know they couldn't control her anyway. To me.

[bleachbleachbleach]

I don’t think I’ll ever be over the fact that Hitsugaya was, by virtue of Aizen’s letter, technically one of the primary/only suspects in Aizen’s murder and the overthrow of Soul Society. Because of the options, he has gotta be… one of the squarest (second only to Komamura, though at the time that guy had a BUCKET ON HIS HEAD). 

At the same time, though, Hitsugaya also manages to engage in only the MOST sus behavior.

Like, can you imagine the decadal Gotei audit. Some paper-pusher in 1st who was assigned to some other non-Aizen, non-ryoka project during the Soul Society arc gets put on the audit committee and he, like most of the Gotei, knows nothing about the ryoka invasion or the facts around the three captains’ “disappearances” some time ago (only as much as was reported in the SC). And he’s going through people’s personnel files and reading stuff like, what 🙃 the fuck,,,

Auditor: Do you have a connection to 5th Division Vice Captain Hinamori? Answer yes or no.

Hitsugaya: Yes.

Auditor: Describe the nature of that relationship.

Hitsugaya: We’re acquainted.

Auditor: Be more specific.

Hitsugaya: What are you getting at?

Auditor: Were you her arresting officer in August 2001?

Hitsugaya: Oh. Yes.

Auditor: And you assumed control of the 5th Division leadership shortly thereafter? What about 3rd Division Vice Captain Kira? You were his arresting officer as well?

Hitsugaya: Yes, though I’m not sure what that has to do—

Auditor: And SHORTLY THEREAFTER, did you not infiltrate the 3rd Division grounds and assault 3rd Captain Ichimaru?

Hitsugaya: “Infiltrate” is a little—

Auditor: We have third party eyewitness accounts stating that not only did you draw your sword, you released shikai, resulting in—

Hitsugaya: Resulting in nothing!

Auditor: AND IN A SUBSEQUENT ALTERCATION INVOLVING THIRD DIVISION VICE CAPTAIN, WERE YOU NOT 

SUSPICIOUSLY PRESENT FOR THE DETONATION AND DESTRUCTION OF A CIVILIAN BUILDING????

[Bleach e303]

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

“hey so there’s been a bunch of exposures recently but we’re gonna have the volunteer party this week bc it’s outdoors so we’ll be fine. yeah it’s a bunch of people all talking maskless face to face in relatively close proximity but we’re outside so any transmission would of course be impossible” be so fucking for real