#or some guidance

[1mnobodywhoareyou]

Do you want to support fundraising efforts but feel overwhelmed?

As a white auDHD* person engaged in mutual aid efforts, I have some advice. Take what works for you, leave the rest. These strategies have been effective for me, and while not perfect, they can be beneficial. The important part is to *do* something.

See posts at a time that doesn't work for you? Save them somewhere for later and set a dedicated time each day/week/month to work through your list and move funds around.

Overwhelmed because of the sheer volume of asks? Create a system that works for you - give to the next one you see, prioritize the ones that are the closest or furthest from making their goal, etc. The only bad system is one that doesn't get people funds.

Worried that you're sending too little? It all adds up! 100 people sending $5 is $500. Consider finding a match to double your impact! That said, don't sit too comfy with your contributions, especially if you're financially privileged. If $5 is comfortable for you, bump up to $10 and so on.

Worried about sending too much? Set a budget. Stick to it. I will say, from experience, that this is highly unlikely and most of us have more than we think. You may find you can sacrifice some luxuries to help others in need.

Person you want to support is in a different country/currency/use a pay app/website you can't? The easy answer to this is to find someone else to support. But there are ways to work around this. Use your friends and networks to move money around. Paypal from Canada to the US and forward via Venmo. Use Wise to transfer from the UK to Canada and forward via etransfer. Etc etc etc.

Genuinely cannot afford to part with any funds? Share directly with your networks and include a call to action. It can be overwhelming and counteractive to reblog/forward every fundraiser. Instead, create a system with clear and appropriate boundaries.

Concerned about scams? Examine your suspicions of scams - these often arise from biases. Check resources for validity. When in doubt, help someone else. No need to report suspected scammers - just say no and move on.

*IMPORTANT NOTE* always always always send as friends and family. This lessens fees and taxes for the recipient.

Make fund redistribution a core aspect of your life. Incorporate it into your budget. Send funds at regular intervals based on how your income works. Dedicating 5-10% of your income is a really great place to start.

Feel free to add other tips and advice in the tags. Friendly reminders that shame is not an effective motivator and sustainable action is imperative.

*I specify this because a lot of flavours of neurodivergence deal with black and white thinking and/or perfectionism and it impacts our ability to *do* things. These are also tenets of white supremacy and do require us to actively work against them, even when it's uncomfortable/distressing.

massive massive thank you to @bbreaddog for proofing this for me <3

[raintides]

halsin's cozy bear hugs

[sifuhotthot]

I know quite a few people have pointed out how Ozai sees himself and Iroh in Zuko and Azula - the soft cowardly first born and the more deserving second born - but I think something that’s neat is that it seems Iroh does the exact same thing.

Iroh loves Zuko and sees him as his own son, saying that he is a troubled young man and acknowledges all the terrible things he went through. Iroh gave Zuko constant support and acted as a guiding light, a pillar to lean on. Zuko makes numerous mistakes, life ruining ones, but Iroh is always there.

Iroh did not give that same consideration to Azula, but instead said that  “she’s crazy and needs to go down.”

Iroh would tell Zuko not to give in to Azula’s deceit and selfishness, and that he must fight her in an agni kai to take his rightful place. He sees in her his brother, a tyrant, a monster - not a fourteen year old girl shaped by surroundings. A fourteen year old who, to my knowledge, has caused less problems than Zuko in the general world. 

Iroh remembers the mistakes of his past and sees Zuko repeat the same, and tries to help him off that path before it can go too far, that he is a Nice Young Man who is simply misguided. 

He sees what Azula in the future is capable of and decides that this is what her future will be. This is all Azula will amount to. Azula will be nothing more than another cruel member of the family. Azula needs to go. 

[go-see-a-starwar]

RIP Ani 💀 [links: obi - ani - dala]

[damian-lil-babybat]

'Dead Poets Society' gang

Headcanon that these four drop poetry and literature quotes on their conversations unprompted.

Jason 'English-major-I-only-visit-the-manor-for-the-library' Todd-Wayne

Damian 'I-master-liberal-arts-unlike-you-plebs-PHD-holder' al Ghul-Wayne

Cassandra 'I-learn-English-thru-Shakespeare-as-god-intended' Cain-Wayne

Duke 'only-title-holder-of-vigilante-poet-and-will-cuss-you-just-as-poetically' Thomas-(future) Wayne

[tricoufamily]

‘what would the villareals look like if i had made them this year' landgraab edition

[redr0sewrites]

i will forever defend these two- NOT to start discourse but they are both so heavily mischaracterized by the fandom its INSANE like omg yes they are flawed but they are also trying their best PLEASE leave them alone 🙏🙏🙏

as usual im yapping in the tags if anyone cares

[lesbiannieism]

the same thing that happened to logan is happening again to jack doohan. if anyone even cares.

[forgetful-nerd]

I make 2012! Leo a bi-disaster purely because I want him to randomly sneak into Karai’s home one night and go:

“Ok you know how—please stop throwing knives at me—you know how you like the same gender, right? Well how would I know—yes this is important—how would I know if I liked men?”

[reality-detective]

If you want to feel connected... Talk to the Sun/Son and the Spirit will rise up in you. 🤔

[shootingstarpilot]

saw your post last week about your job i hope it went okay!

First off, thank you so much for checking in, that is genuinely so sweet of you and I appreciate it tremendously. Now, am I answering this three weeks late because I wanted to have an actual resolution for you?

Yes. Yes I am.

Am I also about to vent for several paragraphs, screaming incoherently into the void as the insane stress of the past few months searches desperately for an open valve?

Yeah, that too.

So. February 14, 2025. With no formal warning and only 24 hours of informal warning from other rank-and-file staff, myself and several thousand other probationary employees (meaning those with less than a year in their current position) were unceremoniously and illegally terminated. Termination notifications stated that our "subject matter knowledge, skills, and abilities do not meet the Department's current needs." This comes into play later, because this is patently false. Myself and many others had promotions to permanent status in the works before the federal hiring freeze condemned them to the void. These terminations did not involve any of our direct supervisors or anyone who had actual knowledge of the quality of our work.

These notifications were rolled out by region. Sitting at my computer, watching the texts roll in from friends at parks across the country, knowing mine was coming and not being able to do a damn thing about it...

Yeah. That was fucking miserable.

I get very lucky. My boss goes to bat hard for me and gets me a position with our partner organization; I am unemployed only for the weekend. A lot of national parks have these (most libraries and the like have them too). These partner organizations are often vital to the functioning of the park. As an example of what they can do- because they're non-governmental non-profits, they can assist in fundraising efforts and solicit donations that federal regulations bar parks (as federal entities) from participating in.

I am, again, tremendously lucky. Other probies have families to support. Other probies are left without paychecks entirely. We are supposed to have access to our benefits for a month after being terminated; many find their health insurance is now inactive. Other probies, after uprooting their whole lives to move to remote locations for their dream jobs, are suddenly left isolated and unmoored. Many have to move back home, closer to friends and family who can help support them.

And then March 13 rolls around, and two separate judges (US District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco and US District Judge James Bredar of Baltimore) order the Trump administration to reinstate all fired probationary employees by March 18. Fully reinstated, meaning they can't just put employees on paid admin leave and call them "reinstated."

I don't know how the other agencies handled this, but just for the DOI:

Going completely against the court orders, the DOI splits all probationary employees into two groups. Group A are mostly front-line probies, those involved in visitor services, maintenance, etc., and are to be reinstated immediately. Group B are mostly back-of-house- admin, resource management, and the like- to be placed on paid admin leave. I'm in cultural resource management, so I was placed in Group B. Also worth noting- all of those notifications about group designations and reinstatements? We got absolutely nothing in writing. All of this is conveyed by phone calls from our direct supervisors, who are as baffled and furious as the rest of us.

(If you had any faith left that "oh, they're doing this to save money!", let that put those to rest. Paid admin leave means you're paying people to do nothing. We all were chomping at the bit to GET BACK TO DOING OUR JOBS.)

So, of course, this sets off a ruckus. We are contacting the courts, we are contacting our union reps, we are contacting our congressional reps, those of us who live or work in one of the 19 states that filed the lawsuits are contacting our attorney generals. We care about the work we do. We are not content with paid admin leave.

And the ruckus works. The next day, we receive notice that the group designations are no longer valid. Everyone is being reinstated, effective immediately.

Great.

Until the Supreme Court strikes this down on a legal technicality, saying that the states and the union do not have "standing" to sue. Importantly, they're not ruling on the legality of the firings themselves; that question is still making its way through the courts.

The Department of Commerce, which includes agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, immediately re-fires all their probationary employees. This is because DOC leadership is full of a bunch of stupid cunts.

DOI leadership does one thing right and decides not to re-fire their probies until the legality of doing so is decided. This is good, because it gives more time for current probationary employees to make it to a year of service, thereby taking them off probationary status. This is also what happens to me- three days after the SC ruling comes down, I make it off probationary status and breathe a (very tentative) sigh of relief.

Now I am faced with a different problem.

There are a few different categories of employment. You can be permanent, which is exactly what it sounds like. You can be seasonal, which is also exactly what it sounds like. Or you can be term. Term employees function on an annual renewal; positions can be renewed for up to four years. Normally, while the renewals themselves are only processed the week before your term is up (for some godforsaken reason), you'll usually know whether or not you're getting renewed a few months beforehand because your supervisor will tell you whether or not they've filed the paperwork to extend your term. This is generally fine, because having the advance notice lets you prepare and search for new jobs. HR basically rubber-stamps your supervisor's decision.

However, in this new hellscape, whether or not you get renewed is no longer up to your supervisor. It's up to the Office of Personnel Management, led by the guy who said he wanted to "traumatize" federal employees. Also, I cannot stress enough-

THE GOAL OF THIS ADMINISTRATION IS TO GUT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

So. You know. We're all having a great time.

There is no uniformity and no guidance. Some terms are getting renewed. Some are not. These are scattered across regions and divisions and offices; there is no pattern to be found. This is becoming the depressing norm.

Again, my boss goes to bat for me. He tells me he filed the paperwork for my renewal the moment he found out I was getting reinstated. He is arguing that in order to meet the new order to "prioritize keeping parks open" (I'm not even fucking touching that right now), he needs to be allowed to keep his staff so he can reassign them if necessary. He is giving me multiple long-term projects to work on. He says he is optimistic, even though he doesn't look it.

I am not.

I am back-of-house, meaning that I do not directly impact the visitor experience the same way a staff shortage of front-line rangers would. I work in cultural resource management, which this administration is aiming to demolish. I spend the next few weeks tidying things up as much as I can for my successor, trying to process the grief of losing a fantastic job, doing very bleak math with my meager savings to figure out how far I can stretch them (the answer: not very), and applying for other positions. I try to take some sick time and fail because I actually really love my job.

This would all be so much easier if I hated my job.

Fast-forward to today. It's the last day of my term. I resigned myself last week to not being renewed. I still have not heard anything, not even about a termination notice- non-renewal of the term still requires paperwork actions. I am plodding along and trying to prioritize the most enjoyable parts of my job.

Then, with less than six hours of my term left, I find out that my term has been extended.

I have so much work to do.

I can't wait.

[fumifooms]

Ness having lived through insidious emotional abuse and neglect & grown up to be meek and submissive… Vs Kaiser having lived through overt physical and emotional abuse and neglect & grown up to be assertive and confident……….

Kaiser being aggressive and violent because of survival of the fittest and it’s What Works, and Ness being sooo mean and judgemental and verbally abusive to others because words are what decide your worth, other people’s vision and value of you are what decide your worth, because words hurt so so much and it’s his best weapon. The people who best know how hierarchies are

[merlyn-bane]

embedding images on ao3 (or at least how i do it)

step one - create a work skin

this is step is optional, technically, but it'll make for better viewing across different devices. go to your ao3 dash, and on the left menu (or the top menu if you're on mobile) you're going to click on 'skins'. click on 'my work skins', and then click on 'create work skin'. make sure that the type says work skin, and then put in a title. this is just for you, so it doesn't really matter what it is. then in the css box, you're going to copy and paste this exactly:

#workskin img {

max-width: 100%;

height: auto;

}

save it.

step two: host your image

you can't actually host images on ao3, and i don't recommend hosting them on tumblr either. you need a static link for the image and tumblr's are always subject to change. ive never been able to get drive to work for this either but that might just be user error, idk. when i need something hosted for ao3, i use dropbox personally. from here, the instructions are going to be with that in mind, other image hosters might be different.

upload your image and copy the permanent link.

step three: put your image in your wip

in your ao3 wip, scroll down to 'select work skin' and click on the skin that you made earlier

in the text editor itself, make sure that you have it set to rich text rather than html. place your cursor within the editor where you want the image to go and then click on insert/edit image. in the menu that comes up, you're going to paste your image link. if you're using dropbox to host, you have to change the dl=0 at the end of the link to raw=1. i'm not sure if this applies with other image hosters.

if you want to adjust the size of your image in this menu, make sure that the proportions are locked. there will be a little lock icon next to the width and height boxes. i usually size mine at around 750 to 800 on the longest/widest side but this piece is totally up to you. you can also click and drag the image size within the text editor itself, but if the image is very big this may be more difficult.

step four: profit

(for legal reasons this is a joke. thou shalt not profit from fanworks lest ip holders decide to get litigious)

[saccharineomens]

Their best relationship development is still to come, but the chapters today's episode covered are a great start!

[yxvz]

loooooooved finishing tbosas and going to the tag on tumblr dot com just to be absolutely ASSAULTED by the sheer amount of bird-hater friend-betrayer girlfriend-killer just-like-his-father heartless manipulative tyrant president coriolanus snow FANFIC

[galacticsabc]

hmmm. I think I'm getting a bit better at drawing horses.

Here's Titan, she's a phantom horse from my worldbuilding. She kinda ended up having the most backstory ever simply because I was trying to consolidate some old writing that made zero sense with the new stuff I've written.