It was a Tuesday in 1981 when the San Francisco police kicked in the door.

Inside the small apartment, they expected to find a hardened criminal. They expected a drug kingpin. They expected resistance.

Instead, they found a 57-year-old waitress in an apron.

The air in the apartment smelled sweet, thick with chocolate and something earthier. On the kitchen counter, cooling on wire racks, were 54 dozen brownies.

The police officers began bagging the evidence. They confiscated nearly 18 pounds of marijuana. They handcuffed the woman, whose name was Mary Jane Rathbun.

She didn't look scared. She didn't look guilty.

She looked at the officers, smoothed her apron, and reportedly said, "I thought you guys were coming."

Due to the uptick of ICE activity across Maine, let's shine a spotlight on organizations serving the community there and make known ways anyone anywhere can help, starting with Project Relief.

Project Relief is a Black immigrant-led mutual aid and racial justice collective based in Maine. Since 2019, we’ve been on the frontlines defending immigrant families from ICE, providing emergency food and shelter, and funding legal support for those detained. We are not a charity. We are a community of immigrants and allies building power together because no one should face deportation, hunger, or homelessness alone.

This is where support of Project Relief goes:

Providing Legal Support & ICE Defense: 'When a community member is detained by ICE, we act fast. We use mutual aid funds to pay for immigration lawyers, cover legal fees, and support families through every step of the process. No one faces deportation alone.'

Providing Emergency Shelter & Housing: 'Safe housing is a human right. We’ve provided homes for dozens of individuals and families, especially women and children, who were at risk of homelessness or displacement.'

Providing Mutual Aid & Community Defense: 'We are immigrants helping immigrants. Our network mobilizes during ICE raids, advocates for policy change, and takes to the streets in solidarity with those targeted by systemic racism.'

"When institutions fail, community steps in.

Every act of giving — every dollar, every meal, every bed — comes directly from people who care. That’s what makes Project Relief different: we are powered by the people we serve."

People need to be fed. Check to see what your local food pantry situation is. Make hot meals for people you know have been out in the cold for hours on end. Emergency kits for field medics need to be supplied. People need help getting to the pharmacy, the grocery store. Help shovel your neighbor’s sidewalk if you’re able. Find a way to do something.

Apply the Four Universal Laws of Gun Safety to your magical practice and you'll be golden.

Always assume all guns are loaded. For some reason I will never fully understand, a lot of people do baneful magic under the assumption it isn't actually going to work. When you're doing baneful magic, you need to assume that it will work, and that it will work devastatingly, to its fullest capacity.

Don't point your gun at someone you aren't prepared to kill. Don't do any magic if you aren't prepared for it to do exactly what you asked it to do. If you cast a spell with the potential to kill someone, you have to be prepared for it to do that. If you cast a spell that could destroy someone's family, you need to be prepared for it to destroy the family in any way the magic sees fit. If you aren't ready for that, don't fucking do it. When I made a poppet of some fucker who attacked my goddaughter, and started breaking its bones, I was fully prepared to actually break his bones. When he ended up in the ER for an injury on the same limb I had just broken, I accepted that as the consequences of my actions. If you don't know how to set and enforce parameters on a spell, don't use a spell that can do things you aren't ready for.

Keep your finger off the trigger until your target is lined up and you have made the decision to shoot. Don't just be flinging shit out into the universe. Don't send out a spell until you have fully laid out what it will do, what you won't allow it to do, the consequences, the sacrifice, and everything else. Don't cast that spell until you are fully confident in your informed decision.

Look, I made a collection of Fandom cakes that I found!

The recruiter is not your friend. The military employs child psychologists to learn how to make you think the recruiter is your friend.

The recruiter is allowed to lie to you and makes more money if they do.

The recruiter is paid a commission to groom children into cannon fodder.

The recruiter will tell you you're special and will go into special smart soldier programs instead of combat. They're lying.

The recruiter may tell you they can tell if someone can get PTSD or not and only recruit people like you, who won't. They're lying.

The recruiter may tell you you'll be too busy attending free college (!!) to go overseas. They're lying.

The recruiter may ask what countries you want to travel to and promise you bougie placements on military bases in those countries. They're lying.

Even "It's just four years!" is a lie - the government is allowed to hold you past your enlistment period with a stop-loss order.

The recruiter actually has zero power to decide anything that happens to you after you enlist and they more importantly don't care what happens to you.

If you enlist, you will be brainwashed to make you willing to do things to other humans that you would never be willing to do today.

You will be ordered to do things that will kill children. And you'll do them.

The military is not the only way or even the best way for you to go to college or start a career.

Military brainwashing will actually make you into a terrible university student because it degrades your ability to think critically and question your sources.

Having PTSD and/or a TBI will make it harder to be a student and keep a job.

Veterans' benefits suck these days.

Being a veteran drastically increases your risk of homelessness, suicide, alcohol and drug dependence, prison time, and becoming an abuser to your loved ones.

The military will expose you to chemicals that will drastically increase your chances of developing cancer.

The military will withhold information about your rights to conscientiously object after enlisting.

A lot of high control groups use this tactic to isolate their members. It’s absolutely not just evangelizing Christians. New age wellness cults often encourage their members to make outlandish and offensive accusations regarding the mental and physical health of other people or their children, because they know that the backlash their members receive will reinforce the idea that the “mainstream” simply has no room for people who like crystals and essential oils. White supremacist cults will seed the vocabulary of new recruits with Nazi dog whistles that fly over those recruits heads, specifically so that they will get clocked as possible neo-Nazis and shunned by anyone who might offer them another perspective and help them to get out before it’s too late. And a lot of left-leaning political cults strongly encourage members to share their views in the most inflammatory ways possible, and then say “you see? everyone outside of this small circle is evil and cannot be relied on” when, inevitably, that produces bad results.

Sometimes I think that activists fall into these patterns completely accidentally, either because they were raised in culturally Christian evangelical environments and never unpacked it, or else because they just aren’t any good at approaching things in a non-inflammatory way and no one’s shown them how.

…But sometimes, these structures emerge in activist circles because those circles are legitimately becoming high control groups.

I think some things to watch out for especially in this regard are:

Are you being directed to behave in an extremely hostile and alienating way? (even if it’s by someone who you trust!)

Does the group you are in immediately shut down any conversation about the effectiveness of an antagonistic strategy? In particular, do they shut that conversation down using in-group stock phrases?

Is experiencing harsh rejection seen as something of a rite of passage?

Do you receive more validation from the group you are in after you have been rejected by someone outside the group than at any other time?

Have you ever been concerned that the antagonistic strategy you are using hurt someone you cared about, only to be quickly advised by members of the group that that person was toxic and that you should actually completely cut them out of your life?

These to me are all pretty significant red flags about the group in question, whatever the specific thing that brings people together there is. If you start noticing them in a group that you are a part of, be that an in-person activist circle or a Discord server or anything in between, take a step back and seriously consider the possibility that the good thing that you joined is turning into something different, and possibly dangerous.

[Alt Text for Screen Readers: A Spell for Clear Memory]

Request: [by @pomegranatebones] A simple spell that can be used for forgetfulness or to help with the retention of certain habits. and small events. Easy to perform with limited tools and components, and able to be done in the moment throughout the day. The request is for a spell that can be used in real time immediately after an act or event occurs that they want to remember, but I have also included an adaptation for planned use to promote generally better memory and mental clarity. Please note that this is not intended as a replacement for any medical or therapeutic advice.

Version One - Real Time Memory Charm to Commit Specific Things to Memory: After doing or seeing something that you wish to commit to memory, tap the forehand or temple with the index finger of your dominant hand, saying:

Memory, find yourself. Thought, unwind yourself. Come back clear. Come back true. By what I know, and what I knew.

Version Two - A Charm Bag for General Improved Memory & Clarity: Acquire a square of blue cloth from your own clothing or bedding. On it, write or stitch the words "memory" and "thought". Place a black feather (any black feather that is legal to have in your area, a feather dyed black, a depiction of a black feather, etc. are all suitable), a forget-me-not, and a piece of ash wood.

Say the cham aloud as you bind or sew the charm bag shut, making sure that your breath flows over the charm as you do.

Memory, find yourself. Thought, unwind yourself. Fly back to me from scattered parts. By plume and petal, wood and bark.

Once bound and completed, this can be carried with you or kept in a place associated with mental efforts (work desk, with study materials, etc.).

Adaptation & Symbolism Notes: 1. The words "thought" and "memory" written or stitched into the charm can be replaced with the names of Huginn and Muninn. It can also be replace with the name(s) of any gods, saints or figures that you associate with memory and thought. 2. The black feather is included because its association with Huginn and Munnin as well as the raven's association with wisdom and hidden knowledge. If you do not hold this association, it can be replaced. 3. The ash wood is included because of its association with Óðinn and with quests for knowledge. If you do not hold this association it can be replaced. 3. The spoken charm here is adapted to fit the components used in the charm bag, if you make modifications, you can adapt it yourself or use the spoken charm from Version One.

some people's disabilities may be more based in how society treats disability, but personally, i would always have debilitating symptoms.