Vampire enthusiast

Help a Palestinian family directly:

gazafunds.com - Donate directly to a Palestinian family in urgent need of evacuation, medical attention, food, rebuilding homes/businesses etc. (Spotlights 1 verified gfm at a time so if you don't know who/where to donate to just go here and donate to the one they show you!)

Help provide tents (urgent):

The Sameer Project: Currently providing tents for displaced families in Gaza (emergency bc tents in Rafah are being burned as we speak) (paypal) (gfm)

Food, cash & essentials:

Care for Gaza: Working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash, medicine & other essentials to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)

Direct Aid for Gaza: also working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash & other daily essential suppliess to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)

Water:

Gaza Municipality's water project: The official Municipality of Gaza needs help rebuilding the water infrastructure in Gaza City to restore access to clean water and waste management services for the people of Gaza. (This campaign only has a couple of weeks left but it's still only at 15%!)

eSIMs (urgent):

guide to buy & send esims for gaza

crips for esims for gaza: If you don't know how to buy esims or don't have the capacity to manage them (e.g. topping up regularly), this team of volunteers are collecting funds to buy & manage gaza esims regularly

Medical Aid

@watchanddream Sure! This got a bit lengthier than I intended, but I wanted to try and be thorough.

Put far too simply, xenia is the practice of hospitality, but it's also a ritual and in a sense a contract between guest and host. When a stranger arrives at your doorstep, you're expected to feed them and give them a gift as the host. Typically, you're not even supposed to ask them their name until they've finished their meal. Once you've done this as the host, the guest is now expected to share stories and information about themselves, and not burden you or your household. Typically, people focus on how hosts violate xenia, but guests can also violate xenia.

This is called a guest-friendship, and once it's established, you are expected to offer the same to your host should they ever visit. It's a ritual of hospitality, yes, but it's also used to establish alliances and can be passed down through generations. For example, in the Iliad, when Glaucus and Diomedes discover that their grandparents were guest-friends, they decide not to fight, but rather exchange armor.

Theoxeny is a common story you see in myth where a god (typically Zeus) disguises themselves as a mortal and requests to be hosted by someone. Should the host follow the rules of xenia, they'll be rewarded, but if they fail, they'll be punished or killed.

This is important to the Odyssey, as it comes up multiple times, but in particular, the cyclops, and the suitors. In both these instances, Odysseus arrives disguised and gives a false name, the practices of xenia are failed, and Odysseus reveals himself and punishes the one that failed to follow xenia. The suitors in particular fail xenia, as they both fail as hosts, AND as guests, for burdening Odysseus's household.

happy neil day (20th anniversary edition?!?!!)

You aren't dead, but you're leaving our friend group.

You aren't dead but you've moved to a different state and now we text twice a year.

You aren't dead but you blocked me.

You aren't dead but we stopped talking, not on purpose but so long ago that I wouldn't even know what to say to you now.

You aren't dead but you're a stranger to me now.

You aren't dead but we lost touch and now I don't even remember your username.

You aren't dead but I ended things with you and now we never speak.

You aren't dead but I still have to grieve you. Whether I'd change it if I could or not, you're still a presence that I'm used to and now you won't be there anymore.