this is super helpful!! I've been trying to figure out how to stay on top of the news without getting facebook or twitter.
If you live in the US and want a way to follow good non-right wing news for free, consider:
Subscribing to PBS News on YouTube (they have a news hour every night/half hour on weekends, broken up into smaller consumable segments. Sometimes they live stream national events like the inauguration. You don't have to watch it all, but pick and choose what to watch & when. Like, say, only watching the half hour weekend segments).
Subscribing to NPR News on whatever podcast app you have (they do 5-minute news updates throughout the day; you usually only need to listen to it 1x/day to get highlights).
Subscribe to nonprofit investigative online news source ProPublica; you can sign up for either daily, weekly, or top news stories sent to your email. You can also follow them on sm.
Okay this one isn't free, but if you have any extra money, don't underestimate how important or endangered local newspapers are. Subscribe if you can. Some papers will also send you short summaries if you're a subscriber, and you can also follow local papers on social media.
Remember that just generally getting deluged with news on social media is not good for your mental health, and is much more susceptible to misinformation or propaganda. Getting news online works best when it's supplemental to verified news sources; usually as grassroots, on-the-ground info from people you know and trust who are living out a certain experience.
You can keep a particular online space "safe" from politics without hurting anything, provided you make routine space for good, responsible news in your schedule.
AND that you make sure to follow a diverse group of people and support their inclusion in that space, even if you're online for a niche interest (in almost any online hobby, there are lots of people who are not at all the same class, race, ethnicity, gender identity, from the same place, etc, etc). Honor, protect, and value a wide variety of voices even in your online hobbyist spaces, while also making regular time for real news? You'll find yourself with a decent snapshot of information from both the top down and the bottom up about how the world works and is impacting a wide variety of people.
Without feeling like you have to absorb/respond to everything happening every single moment of every day. For the next 4 years
To all of my queer and trans siblings, we will survive.
To my fellow beautiful Black and Brown brothers and sisters, we will survive.
To my fellow women, we will survive.
To our friends who were once strangers across the ocean in Palestine, The Congo, Sudan, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and more, we will survive.
To the next generation, we will survive, so you can too.
To fight, is to survive, so that’s what will continue to do.
Misha is doing so much for all of us and I'm so glad for it
So i heard the news hadnt made it here yet
Edgar Meelow
I've finally drawn my favorite boy! Edgar is my oldest and most beloved OC, and i used to draw him all the time. I've never drawn him from this angle - but I'm super proud of how it turned out! i used alcohol markers, ink pen, and colored pencils.
my first digital drawing of Edgar (from 2020) as a comparison. this piece was made before i had decided much about his story, so all the royal details were undecided and unused since. this was also during my early days of digital art - when i first started looking at programs outside of MS Paint, but i still had a screenless drawing tablet.
trying to get back into drawing little comics. this is of Sebastian, an OC whose story i haven't fully figured out yet, but i know it's tragic
Okay I JUST realized I never posted these on here—- BUT BASICALLY, about a year and a half ago I started doing these experimental black hairstyle posts that were threads long on Twitter, to give artists a source of inspo for their black ocs whose hair they wanted to try something new with! There’s more to black hair than just the selected styles portrayed in media, and I thought it would be fun to show people how much texture, shape, fades, length, and style can be combined when drawing black hair—-cause it’s a kind of manipulation our hair can do irl! The OG posts were lost with the hacking of my original Twitter account (@/bagels_donuts) but I’ve since reuploaded the whole thread to my new Twitter (@/ItsDonutsFR)! I hope artists on tumblr find these useful, sorry it took me so long to post them here😭🙏🏾 I’ll upload them all in parts!
Part 1: Long masc hairstyles + playing with fades
final painting in my art class, took about an hour and a half
drawing of an elf that i'm taking to a competition very soon - will let you all know how it goes! inspired by the elves in the LOTR series, and the concept of infection in general. the final image almost looks inverted with the colors i chose, which i love because of how it adds to the unsettling feeling
i grew up in places that had fireflies, and it was beautiful. they don't make much noise like cicadas and crickets do - they just quietly drift around at night, and occasionally flash their lights. they like to hang low over the fields, weaving between grasses and tree trunks to find each other. i loved watching them for hours, sitting in a camping chair in the yard with my parents, and it was like living in a lullaby
Wanna do something useful, that really does have an effect? I have been calling my reps in the Senate, Congress and State Gov.
I've been calling every single day since the election, a different issue and solution each day. It takes about 1 min per call. Hate phone calls? Email them!
My own calls on issues have ranged from Voting No on Trump's cabinet picks, his violations of the constitution and out civil rights, LGBTQ+ Rights, and his unforgivable pardoning of violent seditionists. Pick the issues that matter to you most. Make a list!
example: "Hi, I'm [ ] from [ ], and I wanted to let [Rep] know how I feel about [issue], and that they should [solution]. Thank you!" and then they take your contact info and thank u for using your voice. Be polite, and try to be succinct! One issue per call or email.
They have to listen to us. Every phone call helps me feel a little better, and is a more effective use of my voice than complaining on social media.
Stay strong, fellow Tumblrites ♥
he/they | artist, twitch streamer, youtuber | check out my stuff! commissions ARE OPEN!! see commissions tab on my blog for more info, or reach out to me!
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