#daily recommendations

[phoenixyfriend]

Calls for Action, Call Your Reps: 3/12/24

This is USA-specific, as that is the place I live and know.

Find your elected officials.

As usual, most of my information on what bills are on the floor comes from GovTrack. I am including some suggested listening/reading (you can find text versions if you google the title and 'transcript') at the bottom of the post. I am also including a current event that is likely to be a very powerful argument, with the right politicians. The event is prefaced with a red warning tag, and followed by event-specific verbiage.

Suggested verbiage and strategies for calling your elected officials. We've recently seen politicians, including Biden, start to pivot towards the "Israel is increasing danger to itself" argument in public statements.

The most immediate and pressing issue at this moment is the famine in Gaza. The air drops are inefficient and dangerous (several people died due to a parachute malfunction), and the floating pier will not be ready any time soon. Trucks across land borders MUST be allowed in.

At this time, the three greatest factors in that famine are:

Israeli bombardment (destruction of existing food stores and farming land).

Israeli blockades of the Egyptian border into Gaza, preventing aid trucks from places like the US from reaching people, and turning away trucks on their own side of the northern and eastern border that contain items like medical scissors, solar panels, and anesthetic.

The cessation of funding to UNRWA, which has been the lifeline to Palestinian civilians for decades, and is currently the best and possibly only chance to save the one and a half million dying civilians

This information is being reported by the WHO, UNRWA itself, UNICEF, and more, along with journalists that are in Gaza at this time.

Both House and Senate:

Reinstate funding for UNRWA. While the claims made by Israel that employees of the relief agency were involved in Oct. 7th are troubling, THEY are not well supported, and western officials did not do their duty in investigating the claims before cutting funding. This arm of the UN is currently providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to the 2.3 million displaced peoples of Gaza. It is especially disturbing and concerning that the many children of Gaza, who are already suffering due to this conflict, are now having this support revoked. Many sources are also claiming that the evidence is flimsy at best.

Urge both Senate and House to refrain from funding Israel, or to at least put some strings on it. The IDF cannot be given funding without some regulations on what they can do with it. They have proven that they are unwilling to take steps to protect civilians.

Sanctions must also be placed on Israel for its continued impediment of aid intended for Gazans, including aid from the US.

Urge for the US to stop vetoing ceasefire demands in the UN. No, the suggested replacement written by the US is not an excuse.

Not directly related to Gaza: It looks like they’re gearing up for another push at KOSA. The canned email responses I’m getting are really proud of being in support of KOSA, which is… bad. It is also bad for people outside the US, including Palestine, apparently. VOTE NAY.

Not related to Gaza:

The US, France, and Canada are meddling in the Haitian government and pressing for "peace" under US terms. The international community cannot continue to seed problems in this country for their own purposes. Also, feel free to drop a note about how France and the US need to pay reparations for the double debt.

Domestic affairs: Press for a less harsh immigration policy than the one currently in Congress. Press for investigation into the Boeing whistle-blower death, and for stricter oversight and safety regulations on large corporations.

[spacetrashpile]

y'know what would be super fun to do for halloween/october... watch one movie adaptation of dracula for each day in october and then rank them all at the end of the month

[dailyshittymumbojumbodoodles]

Day 191: When you remember you can use yourself as drawing reference

[kugisakiss]

as promised, the spy x fam parody AU

I had some fun thinking about this like 2 years ago and only made a couple of sketches at the time.. but then I started cleaning them up last month and before I knew it, it spiraled out of control to become this monstrosity. I can't help it, as you can all tell by now, I love coming up with scenarios to get all my little guys interacting with each other

some details i didn't put in:

the Kudou parents are absent like in the show

whatever is happening on Haibara's end is probably super messed up but I haven't thought of any of the details

Akai gets fancy tech stuff, like the voice changer, from Agasa. Agasa comes to help babysit Conan sometimes and he gives him all his little gadgets. Akai hasn't said anything about it but figures he could use it considering the amount of crime he comes across

the facility shinichi was in is like in the original story, it exists to research esp to create super soldiers which is why he knows everything he knows

Conan regularly eavesdrops on Akai and Rei's top secret phone calls which is how he learns their real names. He can't help it, he has really good hearing

Conan and Subaru have different last names because Conan thinks "Okiya" is lame and wants to keep the one he made up on the spot. Their story is that when Subaru and Conan's mother (Edogawa Fumiyo) married, they both kept their own last names and Conan was given Edogawa when he was born. They've kept it this way to "remember Conan's dead mother"

[puppyeared]

happy valentines day <3 i wanted to do more, but sadly i only had enough time to complete these two

please also don't forget Rafah is under attack and urgently needs help. you can buy esims, check the BDS boycott list, click the daily donation button and email your representatives (USA).

there will also be a global strike february 18 - 24.

[justarobowren]

Day 3: Spark!!

This lovely design is from @kitsuneisi and @xmaruu11 ‘s DDVAU or Double Hearted AU!!! I love both of their art so much, they inspire me a lot :]

[mangachi]

[spineless-lobster]

I need patrochilles like a fish needs water bro I’ll die without them

[batty-pham]

Daily fic rec master post!

BatPham/DPxDC

October

Oct 1 - But I Want to Be Let In, Not Out

Oct 2 - Robin's Egg

Oct 3 - Shadow of a Bat

Oct 4 - Life, Death, and In Between

Oct 5 - One Fall, Two Rise

Oct 6 - Barely Surviving in a World Antithetical to My Existence

Oct 7 - Stalking Astronauts: Gotham's Latest Social Media Craze!

Oct 8 - There! That's the Ghost Who's Been Stealing My Shit

Oct 9 - I'm King Boo

Oct 10 - A Second Life

Oct 11 - Phantom Children: Redux

Oct 12 - Have you heard of Danny Wayne

Oct 13 - Hollow

Oct 14 - Danny's New Batty Family

Oct 15 - The Curious Case of D. Grayson

Oct 16 - Breaking news!

Oct 17 - The Kings Coffin

Oct 18 - Ah, Sunflower

Oct 19 - Contractual Obligations

Oct 20 - Close enough to be whole again

Oct 21 - Raise Hell

Oct 22 - Three Vigilantes and a Pile of Parenting Books

Oct 23 - Adoption Runs in the Family

Oct 24 - thirty-odd days of chasing an enigma

Oct 25 - Ghost Kings and Gotham Bats

Oct 26 - A King in Arkham

Oct 27 - TWINcognito mode

Oct 28 - A Little overshadowing never hurt anyone

Oct 29 - Vertical Limit

Oct 30 - Deja Vu

Oct 31 - Rigor Mortis

[folkandbooks]

A quick reminder that it is perfectly okay to still go to your tarot guide in the middle of a reading, no matter how advanced you are in divination. It’s okay, even, to go to more than one guide if you’re not sure that the first one’s description was accurate to the context. Tarot is all about following your intuition and doing what you feel it’s right.

[almondcroissantsandink]

Lucy Westenra (The Bloofer Lady) variant Dracula cover

[phoenixyfriend]

Calls for Action, Call Your Reps: 4/23/24

This is USA-specific, as that is the place I live and know.

Find your elected officials. Remember, emails are good, but calls make the most impact. Suggested verbiage and strategies for calling your elected officials. We’ve recently seen politicians, including Biden, start to pivot towards the “Israel is increasing danger to itself” argument in public statements.

There's a LOT on the floor this week, but this is what I'm going to encourage:

Call your senators. Aid to Israel has already passed the house, but has not yet been voted on by the Senate. Call TODAY.

Use this script:

Israel has been engaging in human rights violations, as confirmed by US State investigations, even prior to Oct. 7th. In that regard, it is a violation of the Leahy (lay-hee) law for the US to provide funding to the battalions and units accused credibly of these violations. With commentary from Netanyahu and his government opposing the threat of sanctions against SPECIFIC units and ongoing refusal to cooperate with United States demands to increase aid and reduce civilian casualties in Gaza, it is unlikely that they will be discretionary with the $26 billion in aid that the House passed.

As a constituent, I strongly oppose the passing of aid to Israel until strong, practical conditions are placed on that aid, as the existing process has proven ineffective. It is unreasonable to continue providing aid to Israel while sanctioning Iran when we have seen Israel instigating this third front in what appears to be a bid by Netanyahu to secure US funding through endangering his own people by attacking the Iranian consulate in Syria.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post.

[melannen]

Dracula cross-stitch sampler pattern

Since I've had time on vacation, I finished up a cross-stitch pattern I started a year ago in the first Dracula Daily round, based on the words Dracula uses to greet Jonathan Harker when he comes to the castle: "Welcome to my house. Come freely, go safely, and leave some of the happiness you bring".

I wanted a sampler for my front hall, but all the patterns I could find were very Hot Topic Goth. Nothing wrong with that, but my goth aesthetic is more "creepy thing found behind the wall in an old attic", and I wanted a pattern that my aunt wouldn't realize was anything out of the ordinary. I was looking around for inspiration and stumbled on an 1871 sampler by 12-year-old Jemima Clements in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. It's a little bit early for Dracula but the aesthetic was spot on, so I spent a long time squinting at a zoom of the best download of it they had to copy the wolves and the letters, and then left it for almost a year because I got frustrated trying to figure out how to get a good-formatted pattern out.

When we came up on a year I transcended frustrated and went with the good-old fashioned grandma method and transferred my pixels to a spreadsheet. So on the off chance you want a creepy Dracula sampler for your front hall, I now have it in .pdf and a downloadable Google Sheet. The .pdf is formatted to print on legal paper, but it will be a bit small that way; you are welcome to fiddle with the spreadsheets to get it the size you want.

PDF of the pattern of the Dracula quote ^this will not work if your browser redirects to https because my webhost messed that up, but it should work if you force http

Google Drive link to a shareable/downloadable Sheets file

The pattern uses 7-10 different thread colors; I don't believe in locking in brand-name floss, so the pattern includes color description and it's up to you to find stuff in your stash that looks good together.

I could not come up with a decision on the border, so the options are:

Make all the flowers plain lavender

Use a variegated purple for the flowers

Pick 4-6 different shades of lavender/light purple and alternate them - this is most similar to Jemima's border

Use the "allium flower" pixel art pattern I coded into the pattern (recommended only if you recognized the allium flower pixel art pattern I used.)

[bleekay]

i can accept that teenaged zuko had defined abs only because you know that boy was not hydrating. fighting everything and everyone at all hours of the day and just absolutely did not drink enough water

[thatsbelievable]

[reactionimagesdaily]