One year since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine

Recommending four groups to donate to: 1. https://www.comebackalive.in.ua/home Come Back Alive or Back and Alive, a well-known and reliable group providing equipment to soldiers. They have been working for many years, before the scale of the war increased and the international community started paying attention.

2. https://voices.org.ua/en/ Voices of Children provides psychological and other aid to children affected by war. They have likewise been working with kids from war-affected Donbas even before 2022. They have a Patreon if you'd like to set up a monthly donation.

3. https://u24.gov.ua/ United 24, the official government platform raising funds for specific projects around the categories of military, medical, and reconstruction. Currently raffling off five signed Star Wars posters by Mark Hamill to donors until March 24th, in case you needed more incentive.

4. https://kyivpride.org/en/ Kyiv Pride fights for the rights of Ukrainian LGBTQ+ people, and if there's anything that annoys Putin more than Ukrainians or LGBTQ+ people, it's Ukrainian LGBTQ+ people. Included on the basis of both queer solidarity and annoying the hell out of that homophobic warmonger.

"Childhood happiness is when in the ruins of the house you live in, you find your cat alive." - Oleksandr Lykhodid

Fight for them as they fought for you

Mykyta Tatyanko "Zhyvchyk", a soldier of the 501st separate marine battalion, is still in captivity. He hit the front pages of all the world's media because he was simply helping the wounded during the shelling of the Mariupol maternity hospital. Because he just wanted to save someone.

In Mariupol, Zhyvchyk provided moral support to the locals. Ksenia, a resident of the city, met the soldier when a residential area was shelled. That day, March 12, her family was injured and slaughtered - her 16-year-old son and her sister's husband were killed instantly. "I was in a state of shock: I wanted to commit suicide because half of my family was killed in front of me, and the other half was not sure if they would survive," Ksenia said. The young defender helped the woman to keep her morale up. Mykyta convinced her that she shouldn't do anything to herself because many people around her needed help. "You are needed here, let's go help," Ksenia recalls. Ksenia told Mykyta's mother, Larysa, everything in detail, and told her that she had become the heroine of a movie about Mariupol. She also talked a lot about Mykyta in the movie, but she didn't give them any details. They are still in touch. Once she said: "Maybe you will be offended by me, but now Mykyta will be my adopted son." And Larysa was very happy about that, because now they both pray for him sincerely. Larysa was also contacted by one of the guys who was in the TRO and headed the security of the hospital in the city center. In a conversation with the soldier's mother, the defender said that in Mariupol, her son shared his food and medicine with the residents. Mykyta gave away almost everything he had.

Please, share stories of our defenders in captivity. Many of them, including Mykyta have been there more than 2 years. You can only imagine what Russians do and tell them. Russians entertain themselves by breaking people, especially Ukrainians. They fiercely hate people who protect and fight for freedom. I hope our people find even more power in themselves to live through the hell of russian captivity. And when defenders all come back to their homeland, they will be themselves, in a healthy state like body and mind. There so many people are waiting for them. They deserve only good things after all of that.

The gorgeous Frank with important message in Kyiv.

ukrainian steppe in spring, donetsk region. undated (old photos)

Donate to Ukraine

United 24: General fundraising

Come Back Alive: Specific projects

Prytula foundation: Specific projects

Dzyga’s Paw: General fundraising (animal themed 🐶)

They need all the help they can get.

Hospitallers: Volunteer organization of paramedics who work directly on the front line.

Kolo: Targeted campaigns and subscription.

“JUST MARRIED,” Fernando, seated, and his husband, both members of Los Angeles’ Blue Max Motorcycle Club, get pulled over as they leave their wedding ceremony, December 1969. Photo c/o @onearchives. In the mid-twentieth century, the Blue Max Motorcycle Club, along with many other gay motorcycle clubs, provided an alternative to gay bars, which were constantly at risk of police raids and harassment. #lgbthistory #lgbtherstory #lgbttheirstory #lgbtpride #queerhistorymatters #haveprideinhistory (at Los Angeles, California)

fun fact: motorcycle clubs in the U.S. were founded and run largely by gay men who missed the homosocial camaraderie of being in the U.S. military during WWII. the lifestyle and aesthetics of those motorcycle clubs gave rise to many of the stereotypical/classic gay “looks” (leather, chaps, etc) and indeed to the gay leather scene itself (both the gay male leather/biker scene and the lesbian/dykes on bikes leather/biker scene)

Just to add to this - the classic “metal look” that heavy metal rock came to be associated with (leather, studs, tight fitting clothes) was introduced by Rob Halford of Judas Priest, an openly gay man who says he was simply wearing the look from the gay leather subculture on stage, and people started imitating him.

So the two “iconically heteo” fixtures of masculinity - biker gangs and heavy metal music, are both actually just gay culture that heteros unknowingly adopted.

it's the start of the week, there's still time!

whats the fucking point of having laws if people can keep making led headlights

Stanisław Witkiewicz, Noc ukraińska (Ukrainian Night)

1895, oil on canvas

The Pechersk Lavra monastery complex in Kyiv, Ukraine in 1918.

The area was blown up by the Soviets in 1941.

The medieval Saint Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv, Ukraine, shortly before it was demolished by the Soviets in 1935. X

Here's a website where Palestine GoFundMes are vetted and shared that you can send out to people. The url is gazafunds.com

Easy to use and simple. Just share the site whenever someone asks for GFMs for Palestine.

All campaigns: https://gazafunds.com/all

russia increases the usage of chemical weapons in Ukraine

Khreshchatyk, Kyiv, Ukraine in the 1980s.

Russian propagandists want to "restore historical justice" by capturing Finland, Poland, Baltic States and Alaska. Serbia will join voluntarily, they believe.

I think we could just take St Petersburg instead, rename it to HISTORICALLY ACCURATE ORIGINAL Nevalinna, and melt all the oligarchs' golden toilets to pay for infrastructural improvements of the common people in the area and try maximize the average person's happiness, and they could revive Ingrian language, and we drink mead and dance into the sunset and return to animist worship of forests (we'd also have more forests. A great future.)

I feel like my mind is divorced from my body watching people talk about Eurovision today. Every morning, afternoon and night, for seven months without stopping, I have looked at innocent men, women and children blown to bits, maimed, killed, crying over the white shrouds and what remained of their homes and of their loved ones. And I turn my head, or scroll for a second longer, and some disgusting piece of shit is getting excited at the vanity displays of western genocide apparatus - Eurovision today. Met Gala yesterday. Oscars months ago. Superbowl this winter. Do you people not have shame? Do you not feel at all? Do you not feel disgusted, knowing that these same events you drool over are being used to enforce and further this genocide? That they are propaganda bits? That the bloodiest airstrikes happen during them, because Israeli animals know your attention is elsewhere? Do you not feel anything? Are you not human?