Faga Morgana

We are 4 disabled trans girls struggling to get by as we keep getting hit with misfortune after misfortune. My partner Kali is totally disabled and has been fighting for years to get the benefits it deserves. I have been declared unable to work due to an injury I received months ago, but I have no choice but to work anyways.

I am responsible for 4/5ths of the rent in the place we're staying, totalling $1800/month, before utilities and personal bills. The goal is for me to be kali's caregiver so that I can stop doing gig work that is destroying me, but we can't do that until after Kali's Disability hearing next month

Please help us keep our home long enough to make it to this hearing!!

I'm hopeful all will go well and it will be approved, but in the meantime we could still use some assistance. Please help keep a safe home for disabled trans women afloat this Pride Month. We are all working our hardest despite our limits. I'm only responsible for about 1/2 of our total house expenses now, down from 4/5 (now $1150 rent + $250 utilities).

We are 4 disabled trans girls struggling to get by as we keep getting hit with misfortune after misfortune. My partner Kali is totally disabled and has been fighting for years to get the benefits it deserves. I have been declared unable to work due to an injury I received months ago, but I have no choice but to work anyways.

I am responsible for 4/5ths of the rent in the place we're staying, totalling $1800/month, before utilities and personal bills. The goal is for me to be kali's caregiver so that I can stop doing gig work that is destroying me, but we can't do that until after Kali's Disability hearing next month

Please help us keep our home long enough to make it to this hearing!!

A CT scan I had two days ago revealed stenosis in my lower back that has likely been the cause for my chronic pain that I've had to largely ignored by doctors for over 10 years. I'm having some kind of leg pain and weakness that has been so severe I can barely walk

The absolutely pervasive mentality that unwanted criticism or critique shouldn't be given and should be ignored is why fans of color don't stay in fan spaces.

And I am not going to mince words here:

A lot of you are racist. A lot of your fan works are racist.

That might have been difficult to hear. And if it was, you should probably reflect on why that was.

"Fandom etiquette" has created a space where fans of color either bite our tongues and eventually leave or say something, get dogged on, and then eventually leave.

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.