reminder that your intrusive thoughts don’t represent who you really are
your brain is where you sandbox and process ideas, and not everything you think implies some secret underlying evil that you’re barely holding in, or something
it’s natural to think about things you don’t want to think about, because it lets you break down the ideas and understand them better, and help understand why you dislike those things and why it’s healthy for you to dislike them
Today I got called by someone claiming to be the IRS. They left three
identical
automated voicemail messages before I woke up, telling me that I needed to call them immediately and that it was urgent.
Upon calling them at the number they gave, I was told that due to some mistakes with my taxes there was a WARRANT FOR MY ARREST, and that if the matter was not solved DURING THAT PHONE CALL, police officers would come ARREST ME AT MY HOUSE in 30-35 minutes.
They used a bunch of scare tactics and sounded fairly convincing.
I told them I was going to verify with the police, hung up, and called the local police. Before I got out more than “Someone called me claiming to be the IRS–” the police officer said “Oh that’s a scam. The IRS will never call you on the phone.”
After talking to a handful of people about this today and looking it up on
The IRS will never call you on the phone about taxes owed without first having mailed you a bill.
The IRS will never
ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone.
The IRS will never
threaten to bring any law-enforcement groups to have you arrested for not paying.
The IRS will never
use email, texts or any social media to discuss your personal tax issue involving bills or refunds.
If the IRS has a problem with your taxes, you will be given months to handle to situation. The government does not call you and require immediate action. If someone is calling you requiring you to respond instantly, they are not the government. It’s a scam.
This one might be obvious but just in case: NEVER give out your Social Security Number over the phone, or in any other context unless it is absolutely vital.
These scam artists try to scare you into making fast choices based in panic and fear. If someone contacting you is trying to scare you into giving them money, they are not the government.
If you know anyone who has anxiety, English isn’t their first language, or who has reasons to be extra afraid of the threat of police, or any other reasons for this type of scam to be especially stressful or effective, please make sure you give them this information. Tell your friends, your siblings, your coworkers, your parents, your grandparents. Please spread this information.
A similar scam has been going around Portland, but instead of the IRS they claim to be the electric company and your power will be shut off immediately if you do not pay them in a very specific way during the phone call. A lot of older folk, ESL speakers, and small business owners have been taken in, because there’s nothing quite as terrifying as having your living situation threatened.
Doll Divine has been working on making a gemsona doll maker for a while and… it’s finally out! Click here to find it! It’s super cool, especially if you have a gemsona and can’t draw, or if you’re just trying to make a new one!
There are a ton of different gems to choose from, several shapes, and several places to put the gem(s)!
Not only that but there’s pretty much no limit to what body type your gemsona can have! You can customize EVERYTHING. You can even add more arms if you want to make a gem fusion!
You can give them cool outfits and cool eye(s) and cool classes and pretty much cool anything! I literally made this one in live five minutes so if you actually take your time to make one just imagine how cool it can be.
Aang is about the strike the final blow and kill Ozai while in the Avatar state, and all the past Avatars of all the Four Nations are speaking through him, but he stops, and the glow fades from his tattoos
and the fire and the water and the earth drops away, and all he’s left with is Air, his native element, the element of a people that were wiped out, and the air surrounds him with this simple grace and dignity
and it’s like, even with all the power in the world, Aang remembers who he is, he remembers what he learned from the monks, he remembers his heritage, and he stays true to it. It’s no accident that Air is the element he’s left with when all the others fall away, that it’s Air he’s surrounded by when he comes out of the Avatar state and decides to spare Ozai’s life.
The Air Nomads were wiped out by ambush because they had no military power, Aang was brutalized in his fight with Ozai because of his mercy, and everyone, including his friends and past lives, were urging the necessity of killing OzaI. Ozai himself taunts Aang “your people didn’t deserve to exist in this world, in MY world”. But against all this, Aang refuses to let go of the ideals of compassion and mercy. He refuses to believe that power and violence are the only ways. Aang sparing Ozai was the last, bittersweet stand of the Air Nomads: not vengeance but true justice, an affirmation of the power of their beliefs, an assertion that the ways of peace, freedom and forgiveness are vital for the world.
I mean, how much courage does that take, when your entire culture has been wiped out by a violent world, to still say “No. What my people believed has value, has strength.”
reckless & terribly gay 