..or just an irresistible opportunity to dish out some payback?

You stated legitimate concerns about the repercussions if the farcical situation of trying to force StC or some other charity to publicly accept the money continued. Fine. You should’ve held off on taking any actions until a discussion about alternatives had taken place where donators were allowed to have their say. What the hell would’ve been the problem with cashing the cheque and leaving the funds sitting in your bank account until after such a discussion? There was absolutely no need whatsoever to decide on your own what the next move was going to be.

You’ve also suddenly discovered misgivings about the self-promoting nature of such a public donation. Partly because of similar misgivings I actually had from the off, I never got involved in this (personally though, if I thought the results of an effort such as this could be beneficial overall then I would have put those misgivings aside, but your mileage my vary). You on the other hand either had no such misgivings to begin with, or you were able to put them aside for whatever reasons; doesn’t matter either way, really. Your change of heart does not make the responsibility you accepted null and void. Your responsibility was to use those funds in a way that the people who donated it wanted it to be used. If you really couldn’t bring yourself to go through with that anymore and have it on your conscience, then you should’ve cashed the cheque and said ‘I have the money back with me but I want out; someday else needs to take it off my hands’. But of course, that’s not what Todd Knows Best (or Todd Doesn’t Care What’s Best But Knows He Can’t Be Stopped) did.

And then we have the clincher. Your self-important admission that this whole thing has been about giving this community the finger; about proving you aren’t a “trained monkey”. Forget the pragmatism of escaping from a losing situation. Forget the principle of avoiding gratuitous self-aggrandisement. Todd wanted to teach the GC cultists a lesson. That this figures in your reasoning at all speaks volumes. It’s about as petty and narcissistic as I’ve seen you act. How dare you abuse a position that you accepted in order to act on behalf of a large body of this community to make such an immature ‘you don’t value me enough’ gesture. This is genuinely shameful behaviour. When I’ve called you on your lack of dignity in this little escapade before, your only reply was basically ‘yeah, but it’s Girl Chat, so it doesn’t matter’. If you weren’t using the trust as real people real as your plaything, it would be funny to watch you denounce us for our immaturity and then proceed to make such a spectacle of yourself. Such is life. When you’ve calmed down from your latest shift in attitudes about activism, sex etc, I can see you re-living this and cringing.

At least do what H-W suggested, and verify to Lindsay where the funds have gone. He trusted you and got burned, so you owe him the risk of him making public what he tells you. There are perfectly good strategic reasons not to though, plus I don't think he'd stoop as low as you've stooped in this whole charade, and if he says he'll do something I'm sure he'll make every effort to do so. I could be wrong though. It wouldn't be the first time, and I wouldn't be the only bad judge of character.