#voluntering

[originalleftist]

If you're wondering why polling averages are suddenly showing Trump winning despite all the bad news he's gotten lately- it might have something to do with this:

Basically, Republicans are ratfucking the polling averages by churning out huge numbers of partisan polls, and the polling aggregators/analysts like 538 aren't doing due diligence to compensate for it.

Now, what is the purpose of this?

Well, in the immediate-term, it creates a narrative that Trump is winning, boosting morale of his supporters while demoralizing support for Democrats and Harris.

Beyond that, if polling averages show that Trump is winning ahead of election day-which we can pretty much guarantee they will, because see above-then they will use that as "proof" of fraud if Democrats subsequently win.

Basically, they are engineering a pretext for their next coup attempt in front of us.

The only numbers that decide anything are actual votes. So ignore the polls, and VOTE.

[reasonsforhope]

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

--

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

[thewrittenpodcast]

THANK YOU AO3 VOLUNTEERS WE SAY IN UNISON

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

best thing about batman is that he's a superficially grimdark character, gothic & brooding & angst ridden etc..........but then it turns out he has a million hobbies, regularly goes on adventures with his besties, and has a dozen adopted kids he's raising with his devoted foster dad. good for him

[fairsweetlonging]

truth serum / system reveal au where shen qingqiu gets hit with an uncloaking spell that reveals the system in the reflection of his eyes every time it pops up.

during one of his missions, in the treasure hoard of some dragon-like creature, he finds a golden, oval shaped hand mirror, its gaudy style more victorian based than anything (airplane you hack!), that doesn't seem to do anything when he looks into it. but when he does, it reveals the system's screen in his eyes.

he doesn't notice this, of course, because he can't see it, and the system, surprisingly, stays quiet.

the peak lords think he's cursed.

maybe mu qingfang is the first to notice, during the mandatory post mission check-up, when shen qingqiu is scrolling through his most recently accumulated points and mu qingfang can see the strange vividly-blue lines reflected in his pupils. it's gone when shen qingqiu blinks, like it was nothing but a trick of the light.

it comes out when yue qingyuan is visiting and, just as he's done laying out the plans for a new mission, shen qingqiu's eyes glaze over and a bright blue box takes over the whole of his iris. shen qingqiu goes quiet; the thing in his eyes moves, shifts, pulses for a second, like static worms crawling all over his pupils. then he blinks, and it's gone, and shen qingqiu accepts the mission that yue qingyuan was almost sure he would decline.

maybe there is an intervention, when the peak lords corner shen qingqiu at qian cao peak and try to figure out what's wrong, subjecting him to all kinds of treatments and curse-finding spells that turn up empty, they can't find anything.

of course, the silencing threat is still very much up and running. at first shen qingqiu was kind of confused by the whole ordeal, but when the peak lords start describing a "strange blue box", he realizes, with sickening suddenty, that they're describing the system. and he can't say anything.

this only makes everything worse, because their fellow peak lord now keeps evading every question and acts like he doesn't understand. liu qingge points right at his face and asks, "that blue box, what is it?" and shen qingqiu laughs nervously and starts talking about how bright the weather is and surely it's the sky and nothing to worry about!

even worse, during the intervention the system thought it was a good idea to start talking to him, so now even the peak lords who hadn't seen it and who might have been persuaded by light tricks and reflections, get a first row view that no, that definitely isn't a trick of the light.

they try to do the whole thing of "are you in danger, blink twice" but shen qingqiu can't even do that because it's still a direct admittance!

maybe eventually he starts saying vague confirmations that don't actually confirm anything, like "this master hears what you're saying", or maybe he goes with a classic "this master can neither confirm nor deny that." but the system starts warning him for that too and eventually he stops saying anything, which worries the others more.

luckily mu qingfang catches on that every time they ask a direct question about the box or shen qingqiu says anything vaguely confirming, it appears. it doesn't appear when they ask about curses or demons, so it must not see that as a threat.

for a little extra angst: maybe the peak lords keep pressuring him for answers, and at some point shen qingqiu gets fed up and snaps out something like, "why don't you understand that i'm not allowed to answer that!" the system counts this as a direct admittance, threatening it's existence. so it punishes. shen qingqiu has a qi deviation so bad it lasts two weeks and takes two people every day to cleanse his meridians. the system doesn't appear in that time. it doesn't appear for a long while after that, either. the peak lords stop asking, mainly because shen qingqiu will instantly leave the room if they do. they don't stop searching for a cure, though.

shang qinghua returns from a business trip and catches on the second someone mentions a blue box and forced silencing.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

Reblog if you love AO3 and appreciate their volunteers who are working harder than God, fighting battle after battle, making sure the place that is a safe space for every fandom is staying up and running for all of us

[hiveswap]

?

[lastoneout]

the whole guilt-tripping language in posts about important topics paired with how I'm still getting bitches in my notes talking about why it's actually good to tell "bad" people to kill themselves continues to prove to me that a lot of people have absolutely no concept of social justice or activism outside of assuming the worst of and then viciously attacking strangers on the internet

[watcher0033]

Y’all, the Archive admins are made up of VOLUNTEERS. And they have been working for 12-13 HOURS STRAIGHT.

I better not hear any complaints when donation period comes around. OR ELSE.

cosplay by @woahchriswoah on Twitter

EDIT: How do we show appreciation to the volunteers? For me reading these deep dives on OTW issues u guys apparently it's been said multiple times that one of their objective statements is to have paid staff for ao3 and there's a surplus of donations they haven't used up or the other community solutions that needs to address. For those more financially literate feel free to analyze, snipe me or add to the discussion etc. linked here by deepa. They’re cool and these yearly analysis they did aint no joke.

But Seriously what can we do for these volunteers? The probable burn out from this entire fiasco would be no joke. @ao3org

[handmadecrybaby]

Picture this.. we spend all day by the pool sipping drinks and swimming in the sun. We come back to the room and you fuck my brains out in the shower and now we’re going to order room service and watch cheesy hotel tv in bed

[dragonsbluee]

All of us gathering as ao3 goes down for the second day in a row.

[reasonsforhope]

"According to National Coalition for the Homeless, 40% of the country’s homeless youth population is comprised of LGTBQ+ teens. 

When New York native Austin Rivers took up knitting during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was this staggering figure that drove him towards action. 

“I don’t have the capacity to build a shelter, the network or the connections to help in that way, but what I can do is knit,” Rivers told NBC News. 

“And I know that New York City is cold, so I decided I would start knitting and create this nonprofit.”

That’s when he founded Knit the Rainbow, an organization that distributes free handmade garments to those in need. 

And nearly five years after it was first created, Rivers’ knitting collective isn’t just serving the queer community in New York City.

Their nationwide network links local yarn stores and local nonprofits with over 550 volunteers from 45 states. 

As of 2024, they have collected and distributed over 25,000 winter garments — including sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, and socks — throughout homeless communities in New Jersey, Chicago, Detroit, and beyond. 

Once clothing items are shipped to Rivers’ apartment, he works with volunteers to unpack boxes, tag and sort donations, and pack and deliver them to local shelters that provide housing to LGBTQ+ and HIV+ homeless youth. 

Although the organization’s impact is wider, and the piles of mail have grown higher, Rivers still has a hand in day-to-day deliveries. 

“We’re going to do it whether it’s rain, or snow, or shine,” Rivers said in his NBC News interview, pulling a handcart topped with boxes. 

Those clothes could be the difference between frostbite and hospitalization, especially in cities that often drop below freezing in the wintertime. 

But Rivers also noted that every handmade item — knitted, crocheted, or stitched — has a dual impact, because every piece of clothing is made with love. 

“A lot of the times, the reason that they’re unhoused is because they were kicked out by their families,” Rivers said. 

“We’re not just providing warmth, but we’re also providing that love and that compassion that they so often don’t have.” 

To the members of the community Knit The Rainbow served, he had a clear message.

“There are thousands of people out here that are constantly thinking of you and using their hands to make things for you,” Rivers emphasized. “So don’t give up. Keep going.”

To download free knitting [and crochet] patterns, donate a garment, or sign up to volunteer, you can visit the organization's website to get started." 

‍-via GoodGoodGood, December 23, 2024

[irondadmadlads]

Ao3 is back up!! Enjoy your fics and don’t forget to show your support to the volunteers working through the DDOS attack!

[whipcreamsucks]

this sucks so bad i need to (remembers suicide jokes only make my mental health worse) join a secret society revolving around elaborate eye motifs, literature and also fire-fighting