#“iM aFraID to REblOg bEcAusE [family member or My ChiLDReN] wiLL FInD IT!1!!!1”

[virgoheartt]

psa.

hey guys!! so, i don’t usually make posts like this because outside of the roleplay community, i’m not incredibly helpful or resourceful. however, over the last couple of months i have gained a lot of knowledge due to my circumstances that i’d thought i’d share in case anyone is going through exactly what i am right now, and that is: trying to get integrated within a homeless shelter that is clean, safe, helpful, and can equip you with things in life you might be lacking or struggling in, due to financial instability or whatever happens to be your situation. this post is very long and will be put under a read more, as not to disturb the flow of anyone’s dash. it will include links to helpful websites, clarifying and debunking some common myths about homeless shelters, resources for every state in america, and more (all placed on a page on my blog, as tumblr was being a massive ass about having this show up in the tags with certain links embedded)! i do apologize that this only covers the united states and not other countries, and if anyone has any resources or resourceful posts on tumblr about homeless shelters and what they’re like/what they can do/etc in other countries, please do message me with the link and i’ll add it to this post as soon as possible!! PLEASE LIKE AND/OR REBLOG THIS AS TO HELP SPREAD WORD AND HELP THOSE GOING THROUGH POSSIBLE HOMELESSNESS RIGHT NOW.

so, first and foremost, i would like to debunk a few common myths, that i myself, even had before knowing more about homelessness and shelters.

the first is that many think a homeless shelter will be worse than living in their toxic, possibly abusive household. and that is simply NOT TRUE. as someone who has lived with an older, highly abusive family member and then recently, a really toxic family member who drains me mentally and emotionally, i can tell you it’s not worse than what you’re going through right now. it’s going to be a massive transitional period, where simply luxuries the majority of us have (such as cell phone service, laptops, tvs, entertainment, etc) will become just that: luxuries. things you can only obtain after overcoming homelessness. but i guarantee you it’s worth it. a lot of those who face homelessness, i came to find out, are those who show a pattern of poor life skills. many are ashamed of it and to be honest, i was too at one point. but i’m not anymore. because 9/10 times, good life skills weren’t taught to growing children, as poor life skills usually roots from parents or parental figures lacking in sufficiently teaching their child/children how to live outside of survival mode. and that’s not okay, but it will be. because you’ll learn life skills through people who want nothing more than to see you succeed.

you have to be gone during the day, at which time you have to carry your belongings around. now, typically, if a homeless shelter is actually good and of some quality and value, you’re not going to be gone all day carrying around nothing but your belongings and standing in the heat, cold or whatever other disastrous weather that you might face while being homeless. a nice and helpful shelter will keep your belongings safely stashed away while they help you in the pursuit of finding a job, equipping you with things such as job readiness and preparation classes, transportation, and clothing, all to ensure you become successful. (*IMPORTANT SIDENOTE: not all shelters will offer all of the above, but that doesn’t mean they’re not good shelters to stay at. even those shelters which don’t have a lot of funding and thus, don’t have all of what is said above, a good shelter will try it’s hardest to find outside resources to help with your circumstances and situations.)

the majority of homeless suffer from severe mental health problems and substance abuse. while yes, according to a study taken in 2010, one in four homeless individuals suffered/currently suffer from a serious mental illness (and i just happen to fall into this category, as i’ve battled with schizophrenia since the age of fourteen), city officials have stated that lack of affordable housing, unemployment, and poverty are still the top three causes of homelessness in a survey conducted by the us conference mayors in 2014 and roughly is it said that one-third of those adults who are in shelters had chronic substance use problems in 2010, according to SAMHSA. that is about 184,666 sheltered adults out of a rough estimate of 554,000 adults living in a homeless shelter, according to the department of housing and urban development (hud) in december 2017. and compared to how large the united states’ population is, that’s not all too bad, considering. another thing to note about homeless shelters is that the good ones will always test for drugs/alcohol upon arrival and even if they decide to take them in, they’re helping them take initiative in getting sober and staying sober as a requirement to stay in the shelter and their program.

homeless individuals live most of their time in the streets. however, according to HUD’s survey, about 69 percent of homeless americans lived in shelters in 2014. and if not a shelter, it was said that at least 30 percent of unsheltered homeless seattle residents live or at one point lived in a vehicle of some type, according to the vehicle residency research progran.

your personal property will be stolen, no ifs ands, or butts. although you will need some sort of money saved up or after sustaining a steady income through a trustworthy employer, a lot of shelters (especially the ones that are of the golden few) will offer some type of place for you to put your things on a rent-type basis until you can get into transitional living. and more often than not, they tend to be air conditioned. however, as much as i’ve looked into it, i couldn’t find a place that helped individuals with storing away personal property at no charge or at a late charge.

now, some things in which a homeless shelter can/will help you with are the following (as always, please do your research prior to staying at a homeless shelter, if you can. thus, when you do the research you can see if they offer any of the following and if it doesn’t say on their website, then you can definitely inquire about it. if they don’t offer it nor give you resources to some outside resource that can help you, DON’T STAY WITH THEM.):

mental and physical health sevices

substance abuse services

employment assistance

shelter

transitional housing

permanent housing

housing coordination community integration

navigating around

case management

crisis medical services

crisis transition

some helpful resources/a short description of what they help with are listed below but the links can be found here (*IMPORTANT SIDENOTE: if you’re in fear for your safety in terms of searching for somewhere to stay and such, please be wary that computers can be monitored and it’s impossible to 100% completely clear, so please, if you are afraid your internet usage is being monitored, please call the national domestic hotline, which the number is listed below):

what it’s like to stay the night in a homeless shelter --- here is an accurate descriptive inside look at what it’s like to stay a night/a few future months at a homeless shelter, as written by an undercover journalist.

homelessshelterdirectory.org --- a website that will help give you all sorts of helpful information from quality/emergency shelters to helpful programs to help end homelessness and in almost every city in the united states.

the national domestic hotline: 1-800-799-7233 or 1-800-787-3224 TTY for the deaf/hard of hearing --- a hotline for anyone of any age who is experiencing domestic violence. they’re open 24/7, 365 days a year.

ending message: homelessness is a demographic of people who have faced some sort of trauma in their lives, whether it be multiple incidents and varying from one thing to another, to simply only facing sudden homelessness, it’s a problem that faces a lot of people on a day-to-day basis all around the world, and even currently in my life. i hope this has helped in some sort of way and especially if it helped to relieve some anxiety you feel around staying at a homeless shelter, which i do sympathize with, but wish you the best in building a life for yourself again. if anyone needs me to clarify or touch on some more things or anything specific that i can try to help with, feel free to IM me here or for a short time (as i won’t have my laptop with me as to not encourage the chance of it getting stolen) i will be answering as much as i can in my inbox regarding this.

[cometcrystal]

Okay, I officially want to get into the gorillaz because of all your reblogs. So, if you are not busy, please Tell. Me. Everything. I want to know history/best songs/fun facts/anything. Please and thank you.

im so excited!! i love that my reblogs made you wanna get into gorillaz that makes me so beyond happy

gorillaz is a virtual band, and the members are 2d (lead singer), murdoc (bass), noodle (guitar), and russel (drums). these are just characters, though, and the irl members of gorillaz are MANY. there’s been SO MANY people that have worked on gorillaz, and i wouldn’t be surprised if it was in the hundreds. but the main guys are damon albarn, who does the music, and jamie hewlett, who does the artwork!

the best songs from each phase are just my own opinion and all of their albums are definitely worth full listens, these are just the ones that i personally love the most!

self-titled

5/4. i have no excuse for this one it’s just sick

clint eastwood, which is what a lot of ppl say but honestly? there’s a reason this one was the big single off this album

slow country, bc it is SO overlooked

demon days

o green world, i love the creepy horror movie noises in it

dirty harry, especially live performances, go look up the BRITS performance of this song and look how much fun the kids are having

don’t get lost in heaven/demon days. the first time i listened to this pair of songs, i was at an assembly for school and ignoring it with my ipod and it was an EXPERIENCE

plastic beach

welcome to the world of the plastic beach, you cannot go wrong with snoop dogg

rhinestone eyes, because it feels very classic gorillaz

on melancholy hill is beautiful and ethereal 

DONCAMATIC

others

rockit is just a jam lets be honest

the soulchild remix of 19-2000, which i actually like better than the original

revolving doors (i count this one as other bc The Fall is such an anamoly of an album)

doyathing is just so much fun

let it out is shaping up to be my favorite song off of humanz we’ve seen so far but i am filing it under “others” because the album isnt out yet!

AND there is a certain order you should watch the music videos, since it goes with the story! phase 1 is ok to watch out of order imo but phase 2 and 3 need to stay in order.

Tomorrow Comes Today

Clint Eastwood

19-2000

5/4 (Storyboard)

Rock the House

Rockit

DARE

Dirty Harry

Feel Good Inc.

El Manana

Stylo

Melancholy Hill

Broken (Live Visual)

Doncamatic

Rhinestone Eyes (Storyboard)

DoYaThing

and now ill do my best to summarize the entire lore! this will be under a cut because it is so so much already. the gorillaz wiki also does a really good job of explaining this story on each of the character’s pages if you want more detail!

pre-phase 1 and phase 1 (xxxx-2000)

murdoc is the oldest member, and he grew up in a shitty household where his father made him humiliate himself for money. his nose got broken in fights several times and permanently misshaped it

2d grew up in a good household with supportive parents, and his first job was in a record store. this is where murdoc crashed his car one day right into 2d’s face and put him in a coma, making one of his eyes pure black

murdoc was assigned to look after 2d as part of his probation, and ended up giving him MORE head trauma when he tried impressing some girls with car tricks w/ the comatose 2d in the car. 2d woke up with both his eyes black, and murdoc knew he had to be his dream band’s frontman. 2d’s paranoia and anxiety is made worse w/ murdoc around

russel’s backstory is the saddest i think, he grew up in america and had several close friends, but they were all killed in a drive-by shooting except him. their spirits inhabited his body and they come out sometimes to rap, like his best friend and soulmate Del does for clint eastwood and rock the house. but he also suffers really bad mental problems because of this

murdoc kidnapped russel to be the drummer for gorillaz after he secured 2d, and russel was going to leave until he heard the kind of music murdoc wanted to do, and liked it

all 3 of them stayed in a run-down music studio called kong studios

noodle was created as past of a japanese experiment about manufacturing superchildren for the military, and her specialty was music but her brain is programmed with knowledge on how to kill. after she and the other children turned 10, Mr. Kyuzo, who was in charge of the project, saved noodle after the government scrapped the project and killed all the other children.

gorillaz was originally going to have 2d’s girlfriend at the time, paula cracker, as their guitarist, but she was booted after she and murdoc were caught fucking in one of the stalls at kong studios

so they needed a guitarist, so they put out an advertisement and literally moments later, a giant crate showed up at kong. noodle was inside, since mr. kyuzo had seen the ad and sent her to safety. the only word she could speak in english was “noodle”, so that’s how she got her name

the band released an album and toured and all that band stuff, you can see some of the slice of life stuff on youtube in videos called “bitez” but the Fancy Dress one is kinda tasteless on murdoc’s part, im just warning you. it was from 2000 and gorillaz has moved past jokes like that, even with murdoc

eventually, the band was allowed to make a movie, but due to arguing between everyone, they felt the tension was too high and decided to split up for a while

in-between phase 1 and phase 2 (2000-2005)

2d went back home and worked at his dad’s carnival, had a good time

murdoc lived in a brothel and then went to prison for a while but escaped

russel just wandered some but the grim reaper found him and took the souls of his dead friends from his body, leading to him having a massive breakdown. he lived in ike turner’s basement for a bit after that

noodle went to japan to learn about her past (since she didn’t remember anything about the project due to mind wiping) and the phrase “ocean bacon” triggered her brain to remember everything. she also remembered how to speak every language bc that was part of her programming

when noodle returned to kong by herself, she spent a while getting rid of the zombies while she wrote the first draft of the album demon days. she called the boys back when she was done because she needed them to help her finish it

phase 2 (2005)

after the album demon days was out for a while, noodle had been considering taking another break (lmao can they please chill out for two seconds) so she made a plan with murdoc to help her FAKE HER DEATH

he helped her make it look like the floating island in the feel good inc/el manana music videos crashed and she died in the wreckage, but she escaped

there’s SO many versions of this story, one of which noodle DID die and went to hell, but murdoc is unreliable and noodle said she faked her death in a recent phase 4 interview so i believe her

with noodle gone, the band saw nothing else to do but go their separate ways yet again, 2d and russel greatly saddened by noodle’s disappearance 

phase 3 (2010)

murdoc cannot go too long without attention, so he decided that gorillaz needed a 3rd album. he kidnapped 2d AGAIN and couldn’t find russel so he jsut created a drum machine to drum in his place. the only problem is, their guitarist was “dead”

murdoc went to the el manana wreckage and found some of noodle’s DNA, and using this, created cyborg noodle. cyborg noodle is modeled after her 15 year old self, and is equipped with several guns, some of them built into her. she never speaks

murdoc takes all of this to an island that is the furthest from any point on land that he has decked out; plastic beach. it is just an island of floating trash with a condo on it. he keeps 2d in the basement, which terrifies him since 2d is afraid of whales and they go by his window underwater every way

there is also a villain in this phase named the boogie man. i’m honestly not sure what his motivation is other than being evil

russel hears that murdoc is up to some fuck shit so he straight up just. walks into the ocean and starts swimming to find him. on the way he eats something radioactive, and this makes him grow to the size of a building 

noodle has also decided to come out of hiding for reasons unknown. she has the same idea as russel; she’s going after murdoc on a cruise line, when the boogie man’s pirates find out she is there, and attack the ship and sink it

noodle escapes on a lifeboat with only her guitar, and ends up finding russel in the ocean! she and her dad have both gotten bigger in different ways and she just sticks with him

they find plastic beach, which is being attacked by more pirates. noodle kills cyborg noodle after cyborg malfunctions and tries killing murdoc, but also? 2d said in a recent interview that cyborg noodle is still alive? so who knows

2d is swallowed by a whale (dont worry he ends up fine)

in between phase 3 and phase 4 (2010-2017)

the doyathing video does not fit with current canon so everyone in the fandom just agrees it was someone’s dream, probably 2d’s

murdoc escaped the plastic beach battle and lived in a submarine w/ cyborg for a bit until the government found him and threw him in jail again. they agreed to let him out if he created a 4th gorillaz album, so he works on trying to round everyone else up again

the whale that 2d was in died and washed up on a shore somewhere, and 2d crawled out. he lived as a castaway for a little bit until he figured out there was a town not far from where the whale washed up, and then he just spent peaceful time there. he voluntarily went back to the rest of the band after this

russel was harpooned in the ocean and taken to north korea, where he existed as an attraction for a while, cause he was still a giant. his lack of a food source made him shrink back to normal size, and he was let go. he went back to london and was eventually contacted by murdoc 

noodle woke up in a japanese fishing village after the pirate attack, and a family there helped her so she decided to work for them to repay them. while working for them, she accidentally released a demon, and spent years tracking him and finally killed him

after taking care of that, noodle packaged herself up and shipped herself to murdoc just like she did when she was 10 

and now everyones just having a good and fun time not kidnapping each other or trying to kill each other

and that’s pretty much it so far!! like i said, the gorillaz wiki has really good biographies for all the individual characters

that was so long but i tried condensing the story as much as possible! i hope this was helpful for you and if you have any more questions please ask, i love talking about gorillaz so much but it’s also a very confusing lore with contradictions