Series of round doggies I’ve been drawing recently!

Southern California is on fire

In 2024, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass defunded the LA Fire Department by $17.3 million.

The LA Police Department, however, got a $138 million budget increase.

Among the firefighters, 30% of them are inmate firefighters who are risking their lives for $2 an hour. Only for them to not be able to get a job as a firefighter once they're released.

There are now 4 fires burning across Socal. The one getting the most attention is the Palisades fire which has grown to over 11,000 acres. Alongside it is the Altadena fire (over 10,000 acres), Hurst fire (700 acres), and Lidia fire (50 acres).

Due to the unprecedented Santa Ana winds, which have blown to over 100 mph, firefighters have not been able to make a dent on these fires.

A thousand homes have been destroyed. Two people lost their lives from the Altadena fires.

Instead of showing sympathy for the thousands of victims, right wing conspiracy theorists on twitter are blaming the fires on LA Fire Chief, who is a lesbian, while Trump is blaming CA Governor Gavin Newsom for not removing water from a delta that would have endangered a native species.

Not climate change. Not the Resnicks, a billionaire couple who took control of California's water supply and now use over 150 billion gallons every year for their companies.

If you're in Southern California, please download the Watch Duty app. It brings up to date information on the fires along with evacuation zones. If officials tell you to evacuate, you do it. Make sure you look up shelters and mutual aid organizations where you'll evacuate to. If you have to abandon your car, please move it to the side or leave your keys in the car so firefighters can move it out of the way.

The consequences of this disaster will be catastrophic. It's become increasingly clear that our government officials will not protect us as they would rather fill their own pockets. Stick together. Protect your community as best as you can.

Please keep Southern California in your thoughts. We're going to need them.

Planet fitness is offering free showers, wifi, and charging stations to first responders and residents in the LA area who've been affected by the fires btw.

mutual aid los angeles (MALA) has put together a spreadsheet with valuable resources for people affected by the ongoing los angeles wildfires and wind storm. the sheet is constantly being updated with resources such as shelter info, animal boarding info, addresses for distribution centers, volunteer opportunities and so much more.

please share this spreadsheet widely

For anyone looking to donate, as well as the spreadsheet, here's a short list from 'Today' NBC site (Jan. 8th 2025) -

by Tomoaki

mutual aid los angeles (MALA) has put together a spreadsheet with valuable resources for people affected by the ongoing los angeles wildfires and wind storm. the sheet is constantly being updated with resources such as shelter info, animal boarding info, addresses for distribution centers, volunteer opportunities and so much more.

please share this spreadsheet widely

Climate change is real, even if your government denies it. You know that the summers and winters of your childhood are gone, even if your leaders say otherwise. Keep fighting even when things seem hopeless.

At the end, if the rich choose to let the Earth grow too hot to sustain us and the oceans swallow the coastlines, we can take peace in knowing they have only delayed the inevitable for themselves. The Earth does not care if you came from money.

There are solutions to climate change.

I know we probably all know that, but the tone here is very doomsayer and I want people to know we're not out the game just yet.

I genuinely think that climate deniers' main strategy has been "they gave us a deadline, so if we run out the clock people will think it's hopeless and just give up".

Fuck the deadline. Do it anyway.

You can get the biggest bang for your buck by donating to lobby groups who push policy. If you find one you like, maybe they even need volunteers.

You can also give to charities hoping to address the effects of climate change.

In America, I highly recommend giving to Trees, Water & People. TWP is an indigenous charity that funds indigenous-led projects for protection, conservation, and cleanup of natural resources.

You can still contact your representatives. But if you're frustrated by the federal or state level, start local. My city has projects to increase use of solar and public transportation. There are citizen led projects, ballot measures, city council meetings. Work small if you have to, but there are things you can do.

And of course, continue to push hard for an end to wars and US weapons sales, as these are some of the biggest contributors to climate change.

I can't lie, I find it very odd that posts cautioning people against donating to individual* campaigns and promoting the idea of supporting mutual aid efforts and community kitchens in Gaza can rack up 10k notes--while a post promoting a community kitchen (that I can personally vouch for) struggles to get 1k notes, and has barely pulled in a couple hundred dollars over the past week.

I actively try to avoid using guilting tactics in fundraising, but this is weird to me. It's like people are using these posts as an excuse not to do things they already didn't want to do anyway, rather than actually taking their recommendations on board...

*In my experience, these campaigns often support large extended families their neighbours

MAQMAP is a community kitchen aiming to support families in the Mawasi Al-Qarara area.

Mohammed is planning to distribute food parcels, each containing one liter of vegetable oil, one kilo of sugar, one kilo of rice, one kilo of lentils, one kilo of pasta, and a can of sauce, to the 70 families in Mawasi Al-Qarara camp later this week.

Thank you so much for all of your help so far. Any money that you can spare would really help to keep this initiative going in the coming weeks.

what is HAPPENING

Hey guys, with so much love, and as someone with an actual English degree:

Please just use Sparknotes if you're going to do this. I get it. I do. But chatgpt or other genAI shit doesn't actually know what's important for you to know, and in some cases it might fully make shit up. Use sparknotes. Failing that, talk to someone who did read it. I'm begging.

The question hidden within enemies-to-lovers is “who will love me at my worst?”, the question hidden within friends-to-lovers is “who will love me at my most mundane?”, hope this helps

Personal space? Nope - never heard of it.

Is that…… them

YALL THERES MORE TO THE SERIES

"sir this is a wendy's" = "I have no idea why you're here for that but this is possibly the LEAST relevant place for you to be right now"

"ma'am this is a map store" = "this is an even more relevant place for you to be than you know yet"

Also idk if I need to state this publicly again but hello, Ai is my name and I'm an artist but I draw things with my hands. I'm not artificial intelligence; if anything, I'm organic stupidity.

I made a watermark 🌸

/squints

that's it, that's the organic stupidity part

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