Kids understood Miraculous better than most of the adults MLB fans out there. This says something about the mentality of the fandom.

every time i say tumblr staff (and tumblr itself let's be real) made social media worse by never punishing harassment, allowing people to get comfortable pushing cancel and callout culture so they could harass and dehumanize anyone (especially minorities) they want without ever having to worry about consequences, an attitude they brought with them to other websites like tiktok and twitter after the 2018 porn ban....

This is what I'm talking about. tumblr staff doesn't give a shit if you're stalked and harassed, but if you're a trans woman posting selfies? instant ban.

tumblr staff has NEVER done anything to protect its users, but now they're actively participating in doing the harm.

While we're on the topic of the godawful moderation on this site, I think it should definitely be known that in the (somewhat recent) past I've reported blogs on here run by young teens who were interacting with/trying to follow my 18+ blog and engaging in blogging about mature content (about sex & specific kinks) and every single time I got a response from staff that said these bloggers were not violating ToS. When you can literally report minors engaging in explicit activity (using the options presented to you in the report process) and the people in charge look at it and go "no that's fine actually" you really do just give up on reporting anything potentially dangerous on here.

There has been a new wave of bots following me again, and I've been doing my due diligence of block and report. Once again, a reminder to any new accounts:

If you do not want to be blocked and reported as a spam/bot, make sure you change your pfp to something, add text to your bio (even if it's just "not a bot, just a lurker" and change your blog's title.

I’ve made my choice, im abandoning this blog.

I’ve learned a lesson, I can’t be openly trans on the internet.

Ever since I started getting a lot of attention on all my posts it’s been unbearable non-stop harassment. All because I dared to be a trans man on the internet who made posts about being a trans man. All because I dared to be a trans man who made sexual jokes. All because I dared to be a trans man who had a fucking backbone about anything and didn’t let people walk all over me.

I’ve gotten hundreds of transphobic comments and asks, and staff hasn’t done shit about it. I report and I report but nothing. The people who harass me just say up. They can tell me to kill myself. They can call me slurs. They can send me rape threats. And staff just lets it happen.

And I’m tired of it. I just wanted to have fun . I just wanted to shitpost.

I’m going to make a new general blog - one where it’s just me and my friends making shitposts again. Mutuals can DM and ask what it is.

Ok it turns out I ain't fucking finished here because it seems like everyone has stopped fucking talking about how @predstrogen @predesterone literally faced targeted harassment from terfs, nazis and the lolcow forms for YEARS to the point of her having to remake multiple times because she kept getting deleted due to mass report spamming and no matter how much she reached out to staff to ask them to help her they NEVER FUCKING LISTENED, then to further rub salt in the wound the ceo decided to personally delete @predesterone and ban her from tumblr for life just because Rita made a joke post wishing that the ceo would die in a car hammer explosion, then despite Avery not being on tumblr anymore the ceo took it upon himself to personally stalk her to twitter and breach data protection laws by revealing a bunch of blank blogs Avery had for shits and giggles just so he could keep personally harassing her, all this just for people to turn Avery's multiple year long harassment into "Ha ha another social media ceo had a meltdown!!! XDDDD" "CAR HAMMER EXPLOSION!!! XDDD", none of you actually care about the suffering of trans women and it fucking shows, you all make me feel sick!!!

Hello! I just wanna say I really like your Disney Villain writings, they are funny and really cute! Can I request where the Disney villains are fighting over who is Y/N’s favorite villain? I thought it would be funny

Oooh great idea! This one was so much fun to write! (Can you tell that Honest John’s my favorite?)

No, I’m their favorite!!

————————————

No one knows how the conversation subject was brought up, but it more than ruined the villians weekly poker night. Curses filled the air and sidekicks where used as meat shields.

“I’m easily (Y/N)’s favorite person out of all of us, no- this entire park!! No one is better friends than Gaston!!” The Frenchman boasted, loose hair’s flying around his face. “They regularly compliment my physique, and they sneak me in special hair products!! There’s no room for argument!”

“Oh please frenchie, (Y/N) isn’t as daft as the other cast members. They have taste for more refined gentlemen. Like yours truly.” Captain Hook scoffed, ignoring the glares from the other villians. “Might I remind you how they gifted me the entire trilogy of ‘The History of Piracy’? Or how much they enjoy my culinary skills? They have supper with me every Tuesday.” Hook affirmed, more than confident he had bested the competition.

That was quickly interrupted by a swift *bonk* on Hooks head, Jafar looming over the ex- pirate with his staff in hand.

“While I agree with (Y/N)’s taste, it surely isn’t a cowardly captain.”

“Why you-” Hook started, only to be bonked on the head again.

“Why me? Well that’s easy, I’m a very persuasive individual. I’m able to… ‘charm’ those in upper management to give (Y/N) longer breaks, or keep any unsavory park guests from harassing our dear caretaker. (Y/N) obviously favors someone who makes their job easier.”

“Your joking right? Didn’t I see (Y/N) yell at you for 30 minutes straight because you were eyeing that princess Jasmine?” Hades chimes in, finally deciding to butt into the conversation after watching the other villians argue from the sidelines. Jafar stopped speaking, averting his eyes and mumbling.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought. But c’mon guys, you know it’s ya boy here who’s (Y/N)’s number one pal.” Hades points his thumbs towards himself.

“I was one of the first people here who (Y/N) met, we knew each from day uno. I can’t count the amount of times that they’ve kept my shit-ass sun god of a brother from bugging me. And they even made the most adorable altar for me, with pomegranates and the whole works!!”

“Oh, so gauche. If it wasn’t for my expertise (Y/N) wouldn’t be half as stylish as they are. Not to mention our ‘girls nights’. I’ve opened an entire new world of skincare for them!” Cruella hissed. (Actually remembering she had to pick up (Y/N) that special cream made from horseshoe crabs)

A threadbare glove raised amidst the crowd, Honest John appearing from seemingly nowhere

“Im sorry to disappoint you all, but it’s myself who’s won (Y/N) heart. They’ve fallen for my effortless charm lock, stock, and barrel! I mean, I’ve been their nap partner countless a times, they quite enjoy cozying up to my fur.” John preened, smiling back at the memories of warm afternoons snuggled up next to (Y/N).

“Fur!? Why you little- I’ll skin you-”

“Just wait till (Y/N)-”

The poker room devolved into full out brawl, nearby cast members rushing into the room in attempt to break up the crowd. All the while, in an empty back room (Y/N) was sharing a sandwich with their guest.

“Y’know what, Ratigan?” They said between bites. “Your my best friend.”

The rat stared up at them, finishing his bite,

“…. Ew.”

Yandere Asmodeus and Fizzarolli

With a Nifty Darling

Ps. I take requests ;)

● You three met at Asmodeus' club.

● You had no idea how you even ended up in the club but you did and when some fucker decided to hit on you? Well, they didn't come back in one piece.

● That's when Fizzarolli and Asmodeus saw you. You were stabbing some poor sap while manically laughing as blood flew everywhere.

● Fizzarolli couldn't help but burst out laughing. Seeing a small demon stabbing another demon that was six times their size while every other demon was avoiding the murder zone was hilarious to him.

● Some idiot thought it was a good idea to take advantage of this, however, and climbed on the stage, trying to harass Fizzarolli.

● Asmodeus, of course, saw this, but before he could even act himself, there you already were, stabbing the asshole with the same little knife.

"HAHAHAHAHHA STAB STAB STAB"

● They were in love.

● Fizzarolli and Asmodeus approached you, and you stopped your stabbing when a big blue hand picked you up.

"Hello darling, what brings you to my club?"

● Your neck cracked by how fast you turned your head as your one eye got bigger and your pupil got smaller.

● Don't tell anyone, but that scared the shit out of Fizzarolli and Asmodeus (and they loved it).

"GAHAHAH, you're a bad boy, aren't you?"

● You somehow got yourself out of Asmodeus' grip and began climbing all over him as you touched and poked anything your little hands could reach.

● This amused the both of them.

● And from then on, the three of you could always be seen together.

● Let's say this setting had happened BEFORE the start of the show. Their yandere tendencies aren't that noticeable as they definitely aren't in love with each other and you. But later on? OHOHOHOO.

● Moxxie was singing on the stage for Millie under Asmodeus, Fizzarolli, and YOU interrupted them.

"Give me a thrust." Fizzarolli takes this as his que to make trumpet sounds as you climb all over Asmodeus.

"Show me some lust." Que Fizzarolli, continuing the trumpet sounds as you mischievously look down at the imps from Asmodeus' shoulder.

● Yeah, in the end, you tried to stab Moxxie but were stopped. Poor you :(

● On another note, you don't really like being at the club. Cleaning is one of your favourite "hobbies," and sometimes you get overloaded with the need to clean when you're at the club. Asmodeus and Fizzarolli, of course, take notice of this and try to keep you at Asmodeus' Chambers. (Which can be quite hard as you are small, fast, and agile).

● After the Mammon incident, Asmodeus and Fizzarolli aren't as shy in showing their love as they were before. Fucking they don't do with you, sorry honey but you are tiny compared to them, but they love you all the same. What came as a surprise to them, though, was how inexperienced you actually were.

● Before, you were gigging about "bad boys" and all that, but when they declared their love for you, you just froze and stared at them with that big ol' eye.

● Hun? Are you okay? Why did you freeze like that?

● They look at each other with concerned glances, and in a minute, you just continue cleaning as if nothing happened, muttering about "roaches" and "winning."

● Ignoring that, Asmodeus' nicknames for you are "Darling, Sweetheart, Devil's Ivy..."

"Darling ____, please let's NOT harras the staff, okay sweetheart?"

● Fizzarolli likes to call you "Doll, their highness (as you two like to play pretend sometimes), Cheshire..."

"___ be a doll and give me the powder, please?"

● Their yandere tendencies aren't that visible for others (or for you at least), but they are insanely overprotective. You can't leave the palace without THE BOTH of them.

● There was this one time though...

● You were at the club, sweeping around feverishly when you bumbed into some random sinner, and they spilt alcohol on the table.

● "Fuck you're making a mess!" The sinner yelled at you, only to freeze in horror as you begun to bawl your little eye out.

"I- I'M THE MESS?! WAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

● The sinner might just have peed their pants when Asmodeus and Fizzarolli ran over. They were panicking as this was the first time you've ever cried (at least in front of them), and you wouldn't stop bawling your little eye out.

● They tried to calm you down but nothing seemed to be working, not even the funny faces Fizzarolli made that usually managed to make you cackle manically. Thankfully, you calmed down as you begun to fiddle with the small balls on Fizzarolli's hat.

● By this point, the sinner had already run out, and the one's left in the club minded their own business to NOT inquire Asmodeus' wrath.

● Don't worry, little devil, Asmodeus, and Fizzarolli took care of the piece of shit that made you cry <33

You are never the mess.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I would like to remind everyone that Nifty IS NOT a child, though her body is small. She is canonically 22!! And is seen having sexual feelings towards other demons, so PLEASE do not come complaining in the comments!!!

Though criticism is appreciated ♡

bc I can feel it in my bones that even though I haven't seen it yet, it's happening somewhere and it's gonna get worse.

Can we all agree as a community to do a few things while we get more information trickling in about the layoffs:

We will not bully the devs that are still on staff at bungie. It was the CEO's/the higher ups decision to do mass layoffs. It is not the fault of the remaining developers for who says/who goes. They are people just trying to do their job please be kind to them

We will not bully/harass the people who still want to play the game. This is a game that means a whole lot to a lot of folks, and we shouldn't shame them for continuing to play. There has been no official boycott/protest made (at least from what I've seen as of 11/1/23) by developers or unions to protest the destiny franchise. If you choose to refund your preorders or stop playing that's a-okay. It's your choice to do so, there's no shame in that. Just be mindful that not everyone is ready to drop a game they've put months of their lives into enjoying.

We will support the developers in giving them proper, constructive feedback and stop cycling the "this game is officially dead" mindset. For months we've had a hate train of people shitting on the game and it's lead us to this point. I won't say it's directly responsible for the layoffs, but from what we've been shown the current community sentiment definitely was a part of the decisions. There are issues with the game, yes, but there's a difference between spouting every single thing you dislike about destiny and giving feedback on how you want to see changes be made to bad/disliked systems.

just,, fuckin be kind to each other y'all. We'll never have all the answers as to how and what caused us to get to this point, only theories. Play the game if you want to, don't if you don't. If you're tired of playing, take a break. I know things suck right now but sometimes walking away is the best option.

some of these r people I made up some are based on actual mutuals or inspired by posts if not directly drawn from them but know I came up with these out of love. I love uuu my mutuals

mutual 1: made more art of the war criminal as a catboy in the style of Cabanel's The Fallen Angel. drawn in a fugue state in 2 hours

mutual 2: wrote a little poem as I waited at the bus stop *one of the most heart-wrenching poems you've ever read*

mutual 3: I NEED SLOPPY FROM THAT OLD MAN NOW‼️

mutual 4: I NEED SLOPPY FROM THAT OLD WOMAN NOW‼️

mutual 5: inventing a new kind of drug *photo of a joint made from columbo-themed rolling papers*

mutual 6: if this team scores against mine again I'm flying to their stadium to personally blow them all up

mutual 7: now see her sillay *photo of their cat everyone knows by name*

mutual 8: now see her sillay *photo of their car on fire*

mutual 6: which one of y'all reported me to the authorities I WAS JOKING

mutual 9: dnd session today if glumpus and glumpo don't resolve their sibling issues and put it behind them then the world is gonna end they are LITERALLY having this much beef and a character is already dead in the middle of this fight to save the world

mutual 10: I'm gonna have glumpo fuck old woman cheddar tonight

mutual 11: they were insane for this one *screenshot of them listening to the alphabet on youtube*

mutual 12: look at my son *oc everyone knows by name and loves*

mutual 13: hey guys staff terminated me again because they said my repeating replying to dumb as shit tumblr ads with the wikipedia article text for japanese giant salamanders was "harassment" reblog to help me find my followers again

mutual 14: hey guys my blog got nuked because I told a proshipper to kill themselves reblog to help me find my followers again

mutual 15: *callout post for mutual 14*

mutual 16: *20 reblogs in a row of art of dio brando with huge tits*

mutual 17: did a quick makeup test for the show! only took me half an hour this time ^_^ *photos of intricate professional-level work to make them look like a skeleton*

mutual 18: going to the arctic to find out if those men fucked on the doomed expedition wish me luck 👍🏻

mutual 19: hey guys we haven't heard from mutual 18 in a week I think they were serious

mutual 20: i think i hauve covid *photo of a sheet of white paper*

mutual 21: if I don't get to see this band in concert I'm making a pipe bomb (FOR LEGAL REASONS THIS IS /J)

mutual 22: got high with my manager on break and why's he kinda... like he's married (for now) butWIAT THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE

mutual 18: in the arctic just killed a seal. I've never felt more alive

mutual 23: just got to heavensward sooo excited to play this expac... heard it's crazy good

mutual 24: hey mutual 23 what do you think about haurchefant

mutual 23: he's my favorite. why

mutual 25: DYING POSTPONED I JUST HAD THE BEST SOUP EVER!!!!!!!!

mutual 26: LOOK AT MY WOL BOY *picture of their warrior of light with massive boobs*

you: awesome *reblogs it*

I'm still thinking about that post I saw circulating with the list of blogs run by Tumblr staff with people cheering in the tags about how they were gonna block and/or send hate mail and like.

would you do that shit to a Walmart employee? find their social media handle and encourage everyone to dogpile them for Walmart's horrible labor practices and the Walton family's greed? would you follow a McDonalds cashier to their car just to yell at them for too many food allergens in your burger bun?

then stop doing it here. stop being comfortable with saying horrible things in text boxes aimed at companies and read by real people - which is what happens in almost every circumstance. feedback left on an Amazon review? email survey after a phone call? real human people have to read those - especially if you're not going through an official channel. no one gets paid enough to deal with bullshit off the clock.

this website has its issues, but harassing the staff for stuff they didn't choose and can't fix on their own is only gonna make the people who do care quit faster.

on otw's $2.5 million budget surplus: for fuck's sake do something with our money

the recent ddos attack on ao3 illustrated that the otw (@transformativeworks) has amazing volunteers who were able to get things up and running again after a cyberattack. and i’ve seen a bunch of different people urging others to donate to otw in light of the attack.

the problem? not only are the volunteers not going to get any of the money, but the otw likely isn’t going to do anything else with it, because they already have more than $2.5 million in budget surplus that they have not been transparent about with their members, and that they have no plans for.

yup. we’ve known for years that otw had at least $1 million in their “reserves”; they’ve said so at their last two public finance meetings in 2021 and 2022. but a few months ago, @manogirl and i went digging a little deeper because we suspected that there was even more. 

and we were right. from the documentation available, our estimate is that at the beginning of 2023, they had $2,585,841 that was not dedicated to any purpose. this does not include money they had budgeted to spend in 2023 on regular expenses. just extra. (keep reading to see how we got that figure.)

equally appalling? they have all this money and are barely earning any interest on it. satsuma on dreamwidth looked at their 2021 tax returns and found that only ~$10k of their money is held in an interest-bearing savings account, which resulted in them earning only $90 in interest income for 2021. the rest of it is not in interest-bearing accounts. it is just sitting there.

looking at all the crises and dysfunction that have been discussed and uncovered over the past few months - racist harassment and the three-year-old promise to hire a diversity consultant; the mistreatment of volunteers by the otw board both related to last year’s CSEM attacks, and, separately, mistreatment and racism towards chinese and chinese diaspora volunteers both in the past and recently with the closure of the otw’s weibo account; and of course, this latest ddos attack - all of this indicates that there is severe dysfunction within the org. and donors throwing more money at the organization clearly isn’t helping.

the otw board needs to get its shit together and hire people to help with these things. this is not a new idea - there’s been talk for years about hiring paid staff, and in fact, at their july 2021 board meeting, otw said they would be appointing a volunteer who would be known as the “paid staff officer”, to come up with a plan for hiring paid staff. (to be clear, the “paid staff officer” would be an unpaid volunteer.) it’s been two years since that commitment. they have not, to my knowledge, appointed that officer yet.

it’s infuriating, because otw’s “scrappiness” as an organization is constantly used to defend their obstruction of action on things like racism, and this ddos attack will be used to further that agenda as well. but otw doesn’t need to be scrappy. they are well-resourced and could be using that money to set up more sustainable systems, instead of burning out and mistreating their volunteers, and reneging on commitments to address racism and harassment.

at the very least, if they’re not going to do anything with their massive budget surplus, they should stop taking more of people’s money. but we’d rather they did something useful with it.

if you want to see this change, the otw finance commitee holds a public meeting where you can ask questions and give them feedback. last year it was in mid-october. you do not have to be an otw member to attend. i'll definitely be making noise about it once the date is announced, but you can also follow otw's socials.

one brief aside: at the time of posting, a lot of these links are not working because the otw's website is still down. i copied these links from a twitter thread i made in the past and they should all be correct, so you just may have to wait until the site is back up to look at them.

now, to debunk some common excuses that people (not otw representatives, mind you, but just people on the internet who have decided to defend the org) give when confronted with how much money otw has:

MYTH: otw needs to keep $2.5 million in cash reserves in case of an emergency or unexpected revenue shortfall. REALITY: it’s true that nonprofits do need SOME cash reserves for those cases. typical practice is to have 3-6 months’ worth of operating expenses. otw’s current operating expenses are ~$520,000/year, so 6 months would be $260,000. (and, in fact, when i was told by an otw finance committee member that they had $1 million, they were intending 25% of that to be for emergencies, around $250,000). if you were being REALLY cautious, you could have reserves up to one to two years. but $2.5 million is enough for almost FIVE YEARS OF OPERATING EXPENSES. that is an absurd amount to be hoarding, especially when otw’s history of fundraising is that they always exceed their goals, and always make more money in donations than they need for their expenses within a given year. MYTH: they need this money for legal costs if they get sued. REALITY: otw gets most of their legal expenses donated, which is also not listed in their budget, but is in their audited financial statements. in 2021, the most recent financial statement we have, you can see on page 10 that they received just over $230k in donated legal expenses. they do budget some minor legal expenses yearly: in 2023 they’ve budgeted a little over $5k for “registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools”. however they do not have a history of even spending that much: in 2022, they had budgeted $4k for legal expenses and only spent $244 (see cell C29 of the budget spreadsheet). they have never been sued, and they do not appear to budget for litigation costs. and when, in the past, they’ve been asked about what their reserves are for (back in fall 2022 when the finance committee told me they had $1 million in reserves, even though this was patently false given their tax documents for 2021), litigation costs were not brought up.  MYTH: they just haven’t had enough time to figure out investment options. REALITY: they clearly have at least one savings account set up to generate interest, which only has $10k in it. even if they haven’t figured out a full investment portfolio, why wouldn’t they put more money in that account? in the u.s., the federal deposit insurance corporation (FDIC) insures bank accounts up to $250,000, so they should have at least that much in there. absurd. also, they have had plenty of time even for a larger portfolio. if you search “investment” on their site, you’ll see that they’ve been talking for YEARS about investing their reserves. more specifically, at both their 2021 and 2022 finance meetings, they said that they needed more time to research investment options. as usual, they have had far more time than they need.  MYTH: they need this money for new servers. REALITY: otw does in fact include expenses for new servers and server maintenance in their yearly budget reports. you can see this in their 2023 budget spreadsheet if you go to the sheet “program expenses” - under “archive of our own”, you’ll see server expenses. the $2.5 million is money that is EXTRA to their listed expenses and revenue in that spreadsheet.

finally, see below where we’ve given more context on otw’s budgeting and showed our work in coming up with these numbers.

showing our work

firstly, i should note for the record that i sent a message to the otw finance committee through the contact us form on the otw website on may 11, 2023 to ask them to state the amount in their reserves.

it has been two months and i have still not received a response (which i find funny, because at the last otw board meeting in early july, the board specifically said to use that form to contact the finance commitee if we had questions about the 2023 budget), so @manogirl and i were forced to do our own math. we've had this work checked by a number of people, but of course we were only able to work with the information the otw has made publicly available.

a few things you need to know about the otw’s budgeting:

they release yearly budget reports on their website (here’s their most recent one, which shows what they project for 2023 and their “actuals” for 2022), but they do not include their surplus in this report - they only include the revenue and expenses for each year

they also provide both their yearly audited financial statements and their yearly tax returns (form 990s) on their reports & governing documents page, but currently, the most recent statements we have are from 2021

otw typically raises more money in donations than they need within a year, so their surplus is always growing 

they have used the term “reserves” in the past to talk about money, but we don’t know exactly what they mean by “reserves” - is there a dedicated account that they consider their reserves?

because of these uncertainties, the goal for @manogirl and i was was to figure out how much of a budget surplus OTW had at the beginning of 2023, and because we don’t know how they define “reserves”, we defined it as how much they had in liquid assets that were not being dedicated for a specific purpose in their budget. (liquid assets are anything that can be converted into cash quickly – e.g. not equipment like their servers, nor anything that would be held in a long-term investment account, etc)

the first document we looked at was their 2021 audited financial statement. the key number is on page 11, under the section on liquidity, where it lists their end-of-year liquid assets as $2,315,841.

so at the end of 2021, they had over $2.3 million in liquid assets.

but since their 2022 audited financial statement isn’t up, we had to turn to their 2023 budget, and specifically, to their 2023 budget spreadsheet, where they show the “actuals” (what they actually raised & spent in each line item) for 2022 in column C. as i mentioned, they don’t list their reserves in this spreadsheet - only the revenue generated & expenses paid within that year, not anything carrying over from the previous year unless clearly outlined.

so at the bottom you’ll see that their net income (revenue minus expenses) in 2022 was $493,564.94, and that they then transferred $400,000 of that to the reserves sometime in 2022.

and the remaining $93,564.94, their adjusted net income for 2022, presumably carries over to help pay initial expenses in 2023 before they started earning more revenue. they also transferred $130,000 of their reserves BACK to help with that at the start of 2023.

so now we have the numbers we need to calculate the surplus (including reserves) at the start of 2023:

$2,315,841 (liquid assets at end of 2021) + $400,000 (transferred to reserve in 2022) - $130,000 (transferred from reserve in 2023) = $2,585,841 USD at the start of 2023

so that’s our math. otw had $2.5 million at the beginning of this year in surplus, in addition to around $223k (last year’s $93.5k in income and the $130k they transferred back from the reserves at the beginning 2023) to fund their expenses for the first half of this year. this does not even include the hundreds of thousands they raised in april 2023 during their fundraising drive.

okay the main part of our documentation is done, but if you want to read a little bit more about what @manogirl and i learned from doing this deep dive, here are a few additional thoughts/nuggets:

first of all, OTW is incorporated in the u.s. state of delaware, which is interesting because as @manogirl researched, delaware is a tax haven where 501c3 nonprofits don’t have to pay any business tax. plus, in many u.s. states, nonprofits have a limit on the amount of money they can keep without spending, but this too is not the case in delaware. of course, incorporating in delaware to take advantage of those benefits is not illegal! but it is very savvy, a characteristic that seems to have not continued with their financial management past their original incorporation lol

next, some more detail on their finances from their 2023 budget spreadsheet. let’s start with revenue.

the most interesting thing to me here is that while their spring and fall membership drive donations bring in the most, non-drive donations are also substantial. also their “total unrestricted net revenue received” is $975,638.36 in cell C16. however, for some reason, when they calculate their net income for the year, they use cell 12, “total unrestricted revenue” ($1,012,543.42) instead. the difference between those two cells is that cell 12 is the amount before their transaction fees are subtracted. but i have no idea why the transaction fees would be ignored when calculating their net income. is this an error?

next, their expenses, which came out to $518,978.48. not too much surprised me here except how low their legal advocacy spending still is, plus  the fact that they’d given francesca coppa a grant for her book on the history of fanvidding, lol. (i’ve written more about this; so has wistfuljane on dreamwidth if you scroll down a bit from here).

it’s also interesting to look at what they’ve budgeted (both the revenue & expenses they’ve expected going into the year) for 2022. in every revenue category, they have exceeded their goal, except for $50 in “other income”. and in most of their expenses categories they have overestimated their needs, except for going over about $700 in the transformative works & cultures, & about $500 for development. this just shows how much they are able to meet their yearly expenses (overestimated) with the revenue generated each year (underestimated), & still have substantial amounts left over (almost half of revenue transferred to reserves)

so that’s what we’ve found. if anyone else notices weird things in their budgeting, please let us know!