#And a houseless person just trying to sleep

[theblehthatbloos]

Got to work, organized some stuff, I left work for an appointment, went to the wrong clinic, rushed to the right one, got my three holes swabbed, up to date on shots, almost beat the shit out of someone, saw three dogs(very cute) walked around the neighborhood, got home, ate and now I'm about to go online.

Average Monday

[ashleywool]

Coach Z is not a character anyone wants to admit finding relatable, and YET, here we have a cartoon from 2006 that perfectly depicts my mood since 1/21/2024, and also serves as a convenient segue into me info-dumping about my weird health issues.

I'm getting more bloodwork tomorrow to further confirm or deny the possibility of Cushing's, and/or to narrow the culprit down to either the adrenal or pituitary glands. Endocrinologist doesn't think it's Cushing's based on what I told her, because of course she doesn't, and she was skeptical in all the ways I knew she would be. But I'm trying to be patient and not take it personally or assume the worst...after all, I'm just an autistic rabbit-hole researcher with too much unstructured time, and she is the actual expert. It's her JOB to be honest about what she thinks and not jump immediately to the conclusions I want to hear. Goodness knows I'm always lecturing people about not jumping to conclusions and running their mouths about MY area of expertise. Besides, even the most compassionate doctors are working within a system that sets them up to burn out and work ineffectively.

That's why I'm still not mad at the ER doctors at Bellevue who dismissed my ovarian torsion pain as "stress." They were surrounded by clearly destitute and houseless folks who were just looking for a place to sleep or something to eat or to clean a wound before it got (more) infected, because God forbid we actually enact a single piece of legislation to help these people stay safe, sheltered, nourished and cared for on a REGULAR basis so they don't have to rely on emergency rooms because there's literally nowhere else to go. Like. Of course the doctors weren't thinking about the possibility of ovarian torsion at 3am. Who has the energy for those thought processes when you're too busy trying to put Band-Aids on a constant, systemic bullet wound?

Buuuut it's still frustrating to feel like you're not sick enough to be taken seriously (or, more to the point, not fat enough). I really wanted that MRI. But for now, we've got a dexamethasone suppression test (took the pill tonight, will draw blood tomorrow morning), plus a testosterone test and a DHEA sulfate test, both of which would either identify or rule out underlying adrenal issues.

I also ordered the cortisol saliva test and 24-hour urine test on my own, because I already know they're gonna make me do it anyway and I don't have time to wait to be told to do something I already know I have to do. I had no idea ordering your own lab work was something people could do--you technically can't do it in New York, but I'm close enough to Connecticut to access facilities that will do it.

So yeah, those are my creepy Coach Z problems today. Sorry it's not fun Broadway stuff. When I get to the bottom of this and rectify the problem, I promise we'll get back to the fun Broadway stuff.

[carriesthewind]

On the topic of the library marginalia poll, in one of the posts you alluded to the topic of street art/grafitti, which I found really interesting, because I think it's a good comparison with doodling in library books. In both cases you're "adding something" to something that doesn't belong to you.

But I think there's a difference to how we relate to both of these things. Library books are explicetly a loan. Which means that a. It's not your property and b. The main obligation you have as a borrower is to take care to not damage the thing.

On the other hand, with street art/grafiti, the property on which you've painted something is not yours, but a. There is no obligation of care and b. The tags and grafitis exist in a public space, and as such the sense of private/public (as in belonging to the State, the City etc.) property is kind of diluted, and it begins to feel as if it belongs to "the community" and not an owner in particular.

Which leads us back to the other library marginalia poll of who do we think the library books morally belong to. And from the results i've seen so far, there seems to be this same kind of idea that a book belongs to the community (which might explain why some people do doodle in the margins)

Anyways, thank you for the poll and the further discussions on this topic.

This is really interesting (and enlightening for me)! I hadn't been thinking of this issue from the social contract/duty of care perspective, because I tend to favor and default to a harm-based perspective. (That's just my personal preference/instinct, not a judgment on the validity or usefulness of a social contract-based perspective.) But that makes a lot of sense that a lot of the people answering "because it's not your property" are coming from that perspective (with the unstated, but presumably implied, social contract term regarding the duty of care). Under that framework, it does make sense that people would prioritize "because it's not yours" as a singular answer over the harm-based analysis, because breaking the social contract is a separate harm, and usually we expect the harm-based analysis to be baked in to the social contract at the point it is made, so there is not necessarily to do a further harm-based analysis. (Although - and this is my preferences/experience showing - I still do think it is really important that people be able and willing to do further harm-based analysis, as there are many contexts where stopping at the social contract level can lead to real harm. This is why I initially brought up the use of public space by houseless individuals - there is a social contract to not sleep/camp in public places, but if we stop there, we end up criminalizing being houseless.)

I also agree with your analysis of the "yes" answers in the context of community ownership. I personally do see library books as belong to the community, but think the "yes" answers are still (very) wrong because being a "partial owner" through your membership in the community does not give you permission to harm other community member's access to communal property. (I think the social contract version of that would be, as part of the joint ownership through the medium of the library, we all agree that we have a duty of care in borrowing a communal resource.)

And yes! That is exactly why I added the "Yes, because if it bothers other readers, they should just buy their own copy" response to the poll! I was trying to figure out what justifications people who write in the margins of library books could possibly have, and one of my thoughts was, well, maybe they think that because they are part-owners (as members of the community) of a community resource, they should be allowed to use it as they please?

(If I was doing the poll over, based on the responses, I would have instead put, "Yes, as long as it isn't too obtrusive or disruptive." Because the sense I'm getting from some of the responses is that some people think that writing in the margins is bad, but things like underlining or putting asterisks or writing occasional notes in light pencil is fine because it is unobtrusive and/or doesn't damage the books (it is extremely not).)

I also agree that the social contract/duty of care perspective can also help answer the graffiti question! I don't entirely agree that there is no duty of care with regard to public spaces, but I would agree that the duty of care is different. For example, in my view, there is an obligation to not actively disrupt the use of the space for others, e.g. not litter (although I know a lot of people do) and not play loud music on my phone (although again, I know a lot of others disagree), but there is no duty to prioritize other people's use of the space (e.g. no obligation to be quiet), and no obligation not to alter the space (as long as the alteration is not harmful/doesn't interfere with the basic functionality of the space.) So under my framework, graffiti on buildings or train cars or whatever is fine, as long as it isn't hate speech or whatever(because that is harmful), but graffiti that covers signs (and thus interferes with the basic functionality of the space) is harmful. (Although I think that I'm slipping back into a more harm-based analysis.)

Thank you for the very interesting question!

[lapeaudelamemoire]

Really tired but don't want to sleep yet, somehow. Want to talk with others but tired of typing and communicating over text, email, chat. Want to talk but tired.

Many thoughts and many things I'd like to do that I never feel I have the energy for. I have the time now, for a bit, but somehow can never seem to get around to getting up and to it.

Many thoughts, like -

I still haven't adjusted to being here. I'm not sure I ever will. Sometimes you put something in an environment that doesn't suit it and that's just that.

I don't like having coffee or an afternoon tea in the morning, I like having it at 4 or 5pm. I like sitting for hours on end from afternoon to evening somewhere.

Those are just not the hours kept here, for those things to be possible.

I like going out at night for supper. I like going for a stroll around the shops at night sometimes. I like night markets.

I need and like good public transport. I enjoy going for walks where things are good to look at. I like trying out new cafés and I'll go back religiously to a place I really like and think is pretty.

But it isn't like that here.

It came to me the other day that these places aren't built to be nice to walk about in. These settler cities. There are no squares or plazas or wide avenues like those in the old towns and cities in Europe and no vibrant urban nights like back in Asia. There are just streets and roads you walk down to get somewhere, whether it's into the residential streets or from the train station out in the middle of them somewhere through the dark unlit roads at night to get to a single high street, where cars and train tracks and maybe trams travel along and pass by.

The architecture doesn't feel like it's meant to be looked at on these streets, really. The low buildings are only adorned with rectangular shop signs that only sometimes match the actual shop that now occupies the space. Empty shop spaces abound. Above a clothing shop an old peeling cardboard-like sign might say Tina's Hairdressing. There are rows of these, facing each other and going all the way down the street, sometimes broken off and in strips. And then there's nothing more.

You don't even notice the building facades unless you're across the street and look up. Some buildings, especially in the city, genuinely are beautiful, but many look in somewhat poor repair. And the shops are soulless square and rectangular spaces that change all the time.

When I travelled in Europe I enjoyed going to sit in churches because they were so often beautiful, and quiet. The churches here are not. The two nearby, in and just outside of the city, are tourist attractions. The other two a little further into the city, sitting across from each other, are beautiful - but you can't seem to really go in unless you're worshipping for Mass or something.

The streets are crowded and often busy, but don't feel like there are places to just be.

Some places you feel happy to walk in and down, because it's pretty, because there are things to look at, because looking at them, their beauty, makes you happy.

This place is not like that.

People walk down the streets here to get someplace, not because the buildings are pretty to look at and being around them gives you pleasure. When you look or walk down the street, your gaze meets only empty shop lots announcing For Lease or Rent, For Sale signs with dark empty spaces beyond and a houseless person lying in the alcove of its glass front doors, advertisements, or shops that say 'Up to 90% off!' in the window. Some new business has opened up in the space that the previous new but now no longer there business was, with the new sign plastered over the previous décor. You lose track of what it was. The walls are white and bare but the blue lightbox of its sign is something else than what it used to be. Across the road there's another shop that has changed its face too, sporting a new name in huge, painfully bright white LED lights that spell out something else. The old sign sticking out at a 90° angle hasn't been changed, though, saying the name of what used to be there still. Next door is a new nail salon all open space with an all-white interior and only all the requisite furnishings, nothing more, a lone white fluffy rug in the window showing nail designs. None of the shops have bothered to make much of a renovation effort. They never do, because they don't often last very long. Even if they're a franchise or branch. The revolving door of shops go on. Shops move into side streets and new ones take their place, with the walls always stark white and bare-shelved under equally white fluorescent tube lights. Utilitarian and cheaply thrown together and you feel like if you just reached out and touched the wall and rubbed it, the new layer would come crumbling away in that spot like dry plaster. Over and over new shops open and close and get painted on like changing make-up by caking it on, layer after layer, scraps of what used to be there still underneath it or even simply repurposed, completely exposed. Down one of the alleys all the side that used to be a café is now closed and caged off. Elsewhere, a kitchen counter and bar taking up the whole side of the room that must once have been a lounge or lobby left completely bare and empty, next to which a short way across a desk has been placed perpendicularly. A receptionist sits answering calls redirecting clients because their psychiatrist is no longer taking new clients, a pink flying pig wall décor to the side of them a few feet away and above on the wall. Behind them, dozens of animal decals, facing the hanging chandelier. Back in the city, shop signs change faster than the shops can open, newspaper in the glass obscuring the view beyond lasting longer than the names, so ephemeral they may as well merely be lingering smoke. Paper pasted up with tape announce 'Easy Chicken' with a menu but whose doors never opened, next to a 'Leased' sign and a notice stuck over it saying "Noodle shop coming soon".

Nothing is beautiful here, it's just meant to sell you something. Church souvenirs. Bubble tea for four months before the next short-lived bakery moves in, before it's emptied for renovation and becomes a Chinese restaurant fated to then turn into a retail shop which doesn't work out and switches to selling phone accessories. Gutted, hollowed-out buildings with shops gouged out and then put back in, gouged back out and put back in; the frames peeling around them, around the edges, the cracked doorways above.

[androdjinni]

When I was just out of the army and I was living with a roommate our lease ended and I couldn't find anyone to help me pick up the lease. I couldn't afford it myself and my dad was living with somebody else and there was no room for me. My sister was off teaching English in Korea. I was not ever going to go back to the army.

Basically there was not much I could do to get a roommate at the time and I wasn't very good at navigating the world yet. The army only teaches you to be independent in very specific ways.

A friend of mine opened up her attic to me. This is in Arizona so the summer was absolutely brutal. I spent a lot of time trying to save money, painting, playing on my Wii, and sweating so much that I don't know how I could have stood it when I think about it now. And this is fun, that situation ended when the guy she was fucking decided to touch me while i was sleeping. I freaked out so hard I hid in another friend house. They found me sleeping on concrete under a desk in their guest room.

The only difference between me and any person who's homeless and on the street is that I had somebody who had some extra space that they decided to let me use despite their landlord not allowing them to have roommates. That's it.

Anyone who thinks that they're above something shitty happening can go ahead and take a look at everybody who's living on the street who thought the same thing.

Also, do you think you're an independent person who speaks their mind? Have you done it so many times that nobody will give you house room when you need it? How much ass do you feel is appropriate to kiss so that you have a fallback plan? How nice do you have to be before someone decides your homelessness isn't just a result of your bad personality and lack of friends? Did your parents have enough kids so you have siblings to ask for help? Did you have enough kids to take care of you or did you decide to not have children? Did you save enough money? Did you really save enough money? Did you save enough money for medical bills and car problems and people dying and retirement? Did you have every contingency accounted for? WHY DIDN'T YOU KNOW WHAT COULD HAPPEN? Including whatever horseshit the economy does? Oh good, then I guess it isn't your fault.

If you did everything correctly then you get to be one of the "good" homeless, the deserving homeless. Sure hope sleeping on the street doesn't hurt or anything. Sure hope you're not depressed and don't need help for your stress aggravated mental illness. Hopefully you don't need or want drugs or alcohol at any point, you know those things that people who get to have houses get to do when they have bad days? Sure hope you don't argue with anyone in public or talk to yourself while you walk.

If I wasn't such a people pleaser maybe my friend wouldn't have given a shit about me I don't know. Then all the people I work with could look down on me the same way they do all the houseless out there.

[zakiark7911]

I want to apologize in advance to Christians for coming off very angry! I have attended so many Christian churches &, since I am not cishet (among other reasons), I have been burned in so many ways by each one. The anger is coming from a place of hurt.

When I think of American “Christians” or “The Church” (as in the people) regardless of denomination, there are 3 pictures that immediately come to mind.

The first is a white person foaming at the mouth, eyes popping out of their skulls, veins bulging, face red, holding signs up with the gay F word & how everyone is going to hell.

The second is basically every insane government representative that is obscenely racist & wants everyone with a uterus to have white babies or die.

The third is a charismatic pastor who lives in a mansion, hops on his private jet to get lunch with government representatives, buys every car or fancy suit he can, is sexually abusing every other child in the church, & abuses his wife on the regular when he isn’t cheating on her.

Whenever I see a post on any social media expressing why people ultimately left their church or stopped being Christian, there are SO many posts below by Christians like “I’m so sorry that happened to you! That isn’t how it is at my church!” “I mean, maybe don’t let people shape how you view Jesus?” “Find a new church! Don’t give up!” “We are all sinners! Church is exactly where those sinners are supposed to be! Jesus heals!” “Those aren’t real Christians! Find some real ones like me!” “This can’t be real, no pastor would ever do that!” “What denomination was that? I’ve heard bad things about…”

If #NotAllChristians, then I am really gonna need all the “real” or “good” or “Christ like” Christians to step the fuck up! I need them to match the absolute FREAK of the insane ones holding transphobic/homophobic signs! I need them foaming at the mouth in rainbow! Rainbow crosses! “Jesus was Ace/Aro” & “Jesus loves The Gays” signs! I need them to be counter protesting the crazies with bullhorns! I need the church go-getter, Debbie, to post a sign up sheet in the fellowship hall for counter protests, driving & protecting abortion patients, making meals for houseless people, ETC!! When a pastor is caught being a pedo, the church needs to come together & give their tithe to the affected families &/or services that help victims of sexual abuse! If the pastor doesn’t go to jail, then they need to tell him to get out & everyone at the church should be emailing him, texting, mail, flyers on his door, etc to get him to go to a place where they help pedos from hurting people! The congregation should never let that ex-pastor sleep or go outside until he checks himself into some sort of hospital or intervention program! Since Christians believe they are “stewards of the Earth”, they should be leading the charge on reversing climate change before we destroy “God’s gift to us” the earth!

If these evil freaks are not truly practicing “real Christianity” then PROVE IT. Let me SEE an example of “WWJD”! If The Church is a reflection of the Christian God then I don’t find that god worthy of praise, worship, love, or respect at all. If “real” Christians really “love” Jesus, then why are they letting evil bastards use his name in vain to champion their bigotry & hate?! If someone lies about your loved one spreading terrible ideas about them to everyone, don’t you want to shout from the rooftops about how that isn’t true?! Are you not upset that people are trying to push as many people away from what you believe is the only way to be spiritually saved by spreading lies?! Christians aren’t in a battle against “non-believers”, they are in a battle against their own kind who is actively trying to feel special by gatekeeping “salvation”! But they either don’t understand this, aren’t willing to fight for their god or his children, or are just quietly agreeing with the evil cruelty that their freak Christian kin are doing but don’t wanna be too loud about it!

What IS a Christian? What is “Christ like”? Don’t tell me to read the Bible! I’ve read it & I don’t care. I need Christians to SHOW ME!

[herenortherenearnorfar]

For the fanfic writer's director's cut, the last scene of Alive at the Wake, because I've talked about it with multiple people and gone back and forth on what could happen next.

Yeah! Alive was probably my favorite story this year just because it was such a big project.

The theme of this fic is No Good Choices so the ending scene is just a reiteration of that. Whether Celebrimbor chose to destroy the rings or keep them intact it wasn't going to end well for Celebrimbor; after the One Ring is made he and Sauron are hurtling towards destruction and only one of them is a demigod. No matter what happens next at the end of Alive it's bad.

From a Doylist perspective I had the idea of Gollum finger biting before most of the rest of the story came together, it was always going to be the plot climax. And then once it happens... all the resolutions felt anti-climatic. Celebrimbor dying is a bit of a letdown, that's what he's been trying to do since the start of the story. Sauron wrestling the ring off of him is also a bit boring. Dark Lord Celebrimbor would be interesting but also a very different kind of story, it wouldn't jive with the tone. There is a potential eucatastrophe there; maybe Celebrimbor counts enough as a creator to be able to destroy it, but that would mean killing the person he loves!

In a story about the inevitability of tragedy, about the equal hopelessness of both giving up and fighting back when you're just that classically doomed, it almost felt wrong to give the main characters the relief of an ending. In CoH at least everyone gets a canonical death. They did it, it's over! Narrative limbo is a torment that never ends and it can make for some really exquisite Lady and the Tiger endings.

Figs too need wasps, he remembers that much. Nargothrond kept fig trees on the mountain slopes above the city. Finrod had them at his table. Every season, a few weeks before they were ripe, he’d gather Finduilas and Celebrimbor around and cut open a green fig to reveal the dead black insect hidden inside, before telling an impenetrable parable about the cycles of nature.

I love when Finrod gets to be a bit much even in stories he's not a featured character in. He's such a camp counsellor. Also it brings back the parasite wasp theme from earlier; the parts of nature that are ugly or hard to understand, the complicated parts of the world that Sauron, in his quest for efficiency, would strip bare.

“I’m tired.” Simple honesty is better than complex lies. “So very tired.” The weight of existing still bears down on him. This is the fatigue that must have sent Great-grandmother Míriel to her wakeless sleep, a heaviness of limbs and heart. He feels like one of the wandering dead, those houseless spirits and unquiet wights that walked even in sunlight in the last days of Morgoth’s nibbling war. Like them he is driven by an aching purpose.

“Yes, you have done a number on yourself, precious.” Sauron’s reproach is fond, the roaring anger of the first days after Celebrimbor revealed the destruction of the Three has faded to a haze of disappointment. Maybe he too realizes that if Celebrimbor had successfully hidden the last rings he’d already be dead. As easily as Sauron is given to merriment he’s just as quick and wild in his anger. And he hates to be denied.

Death seeking behavior! Family trauma! War trauma! The inevitability of the canon plot! A lot of good things here. Also, it is always nice to sneak a gratutious precious in there. Is it twee? Yes, but I enjoy it.

They’re just two misericordes locked together now, spare metal with killing points.

There's the mutually assured destruction aspect here, but also the idea that evil and exhaustion both whittle you down. They make you a shard of what you are. Mostly spiritually but sometimes physically as well, there's a reason that the hobbits are associated with wealth and roundness and joy while Gollum is skeletal, withered by the ill health effects of the Ring. Very medieval aesthetic representations of wellness.

With just an exploratory nuzzle he finds the Ring and kisses it too, gratified by how red the sudden touch turns Sauron’s ears. He may have sheared himself to pieces but the chunks remain connected. Just as his veil is more a piece of himself than he likes to admit, so too is this ring.

It's the eternal question "Does Sauron feel whenever people gently caress and whisper to the One Ring?" Here I've taken the bold stance that the answer is yes, and he likes it. Mostly because it supports a broader idea of embodiment; the Ainur may not be native to their bodies but they are influenced by whatever they fling themselves into.

“What exactly,” Sauron says after what feels like an eternity of gasping, “Were you planning to do next?”

The central question! And honestly, I don't think Celebrimbor knew. He just needed to do something, even if it was pointless, even if it was destructive. Sometimes you can't stay still any longer.

If the little whispers filling Celebrimbor’s head since he first touched the cursed thing are proof then it is not loyal. It has been singing of glory, of Ost-in-Edhil built high again. All great deeds that a shambling revenant has no place in. Celebrimbor’s experience with great rings and the pale, pillowy haze of sorrow dulling his mind make these shining dreams feel false.

One interesting thing about the Ring is that it seems to feed on ambition, hunger, desire. Not always the desires Sauron would have, he wouldn't sit in a cave for years or make a garden, but it always prompts some secret need, some hidden want. One of the reasons it's so ineffective on hobbits is because they're so content, I assumed a similar logic would apply to deeply depressed people, people who have already lost everything and know they can't get it back. All Celebrimbor wants is his city and his boyfriend back and neither of those are possible, one is razed and one is unwilling.

If Frodo hadn't volunteered I can only assume the backup plan was Maglor. Saddest elf in a decently large radius.

I know you and it doesn’t change a thing.

For the first time in months he feels horribly, miserably alive.

Yeah. Yeah. It's about understanding Sauron completely and utterly even before he puts on the ring and still not being able to sway him. The first thing to break through his grief following the Three Rings is Sauron, the determination to stop him, the undissolvable love of him, and finally his Ring. Celebrimbor has lost everything and he loves someone with more acuteness than most people could ever love, he's wearing a part of his soul right now, and all he wants is to die at his hand. Yet at the same time he knows that he can't, not if he can do something to stop him, not if he can help people. Even at his worst moments Celebrimbor is so driven to help people, he can't even give in and let his ex murder him. But just being close to him, feeling that intensity even through violence, is enough to make him almost whole once more.

Because he ultimately does feel beholden to the people of Middle Earth AND he has ring experience, my personal vote for what happens after the ending is probably Dark Lord Celebrimbor followed by a very messy collapse. Possibly he brings down Moria a few centuries earlier than timelined. But I left it open to interpretation for a reason; I think it's stronger as a quantum state. Celebrimbor is both murdered and still a prisoner and evil and has just killed his lover and he's miserable in all those situations.

[maggotmouth]

          hillo sexthy legends !!   i’m nora and i’ll be writing margo colby n probs sm1 else bcos lets be real, i lack self-control. u can find her pinterest here n some info abt her sexy self below the cut. plot with me on discord ( hot girl midsommar#8664 ) or in my ims !!  x o x

     * CAMILA MORRONE, CIS WOMAN + SHE / HER  | you know MARGO COLBY, right? they’re TWENTY-THREE, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, ELEVEN YEARS? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to SCRAWNY BY WALLOWS  like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole BLEACH WHITE SNEAKERS POUNDING ON A GYMNASIUM FLOOR, USING THE SAME BLUNT SCISSORS TO HACK THE SLEEVES OFF AN EXES T-SHIRT THAT YOU USE TO CUT YOUR 3AM FRINGE, A WALNUT-SHAPED ACHE IN THE PIT OF YOUR STOMACH FOR THE PERSON YOU COULD HAVE BEEN thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is AUGUST 8TH, so they’re a LEO, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( nora, 25, gmt, she/her )

CLICK ANYWHERE ON THIS SENTENCE FOR SEXII GOOGLE DOC!!

bullet point summary of margo.

—   born margaret but NOBODY calls her that. its colby, coach or margo, and go to the privileged few. margo grew up in the creek commune n then dropped out of school cos of a teenage pregnancy so she was a bit of a cautionary tale back in’t’day (said tht in my yorkshire accent). she now works for summer camps coaching pee wee soccer and pee wee cheer, as well as helping out her beekeeper dad on his honey farm, which is jst north of abernathy creek, and working at scuba on the off seasons.

—  its just her and her dad, and has been for as long as she can recall !! everything she knows about her mum could fit on the back of the weathered passport photo she keeps in her wallet of a stranger who shares her face - her name’s melody, or at least tht was name she used when working as a dancer, she’s from argentina and dropped mag’s dad as soon as someone w more money came along.

—  margo’s father is a beekeeper with his own organic honey company. margo and her dad moved to irving in the early 00s, the summer between grade school and middle school, because her dad had heard about the communal living in abernathy creek and wanted to lend his skills there and live off the fatta the land in a very lenny from of mice and men kinda way.

—  for a few years of middle school margo was bullied for living with the ‘freaks from the creek’, but when they realised how chill her dad was with underage drinking, margo ‘keg-bringer’ colby soon gained popularity among the more renegade students. every so often, the high school parties would happen at her end of town, occasionally with members of the commune even offering the high schoolers a spiritual experience they’d never forget (often in the form of mushrooms) which meant people tried to stay on her good side. to get an invite to a margo colby party handed you a free pass to make up the most ridiculous shit about the commune you liked and nobody else could say anything, because they’d never been to the creek.

—  at school, margo had a lot of ‘behvioural issues’ bcos of undiagnosed adhd, she found it difficult to sit still for hours n write down huge chunks of information n her restlessness was seen as laziness. she was encouraged to do sports, as were most of the kids who weren’t that academically inclined, but she turned out to be pretty hot shit at sprinting, because she grew up surrounded by bee houses and he who runs slowest gets stung, baybeyy!! so yea, in school sports became her LIFE. she was gonna get a sports scholarship to college but ended up dropping out of school in senior year n becoming one of those kids who could have had it all but lost it.

—  she had sex with sutter at a house party when she wasnt really ready because it felt like the right thing to do at the time and everybody else was doing it. she’d attended health class, she’d seen the corny videos. she knew about all the statistics, but she also knew that it had never happened to anyone she knew and the pull out method was basically safer than the morning after pill and way less expensive.

—  a teenage pregnancy knocked her out of the runnings for prom queen and meant she had to leave school early. she didn’t go to college when her friends did, instead she spent the time interviewing potential foster candidates and eating her weight in lindt chocolate while marathoning love island in her room.  

—  she had a son, who she passed off to someone else a couple of towns away.  it was a closed adoption which seemed like the best idea at the time, but she now wishes she had access to his life.

—  after peaking in high school and jumping between jobs for a few years, she got a more permanent role at scuba which she loves with all of her heart and soul, but unfortunately a bar job doesn’t pay the rent.  

—  she works at summer camps coaching  junior soccer and netball on the side. she’s extremely competitive and takes it very personally if her team lose. the kids all call her, coach colby n write her longwinded letters about how they’ll never forget this summer camp before they go back to their suburban picket fence houses n she keeps all the letters in a drawer n takes them out to read when she’s feelin depressed.

—  enjoys surfing and worked for a number of years on resorts like mila kunis’ job in forgetting sarah marshall. she went on to work 18-hour days as a stewardess on luxury yachts which is a part of her backstory i added after watching season one of below deck because i guess i really am that fucking impressionable. met most of her surf friends doing tht but said she’d never in her life do it again bcos it was mostly just picking up after rich white ppl for shit pay. she came back to irving n thats when she started doing the summer camp jobs so she could move out of the creek n get her own apartment. 

—  she never actually finished senior year so she’s currently going to night school at the community college to get through her exams and is trying to save to go to college or open university. she wants to major in criminology. she’s super ambitious but also super adhd so she fluctuates between thinking she can achieve anything to just feeling like a failure n thinkin whats the point

—  used to shoplift to feel joy and as an act of resistance to her hippy commune routes, but now sees herself as a reformed, bin-diving freegan (sims 4 eco living can i get a hell yaaaa). also she thinks it’s totally wrong to steal when you have enough money and clearly don’t need to steal to survive, ppl risk imprisonment for basic necessities, so for her to do it for a brief thrill and some new shades felt a bit derogatory

—  was raised jewish. became a vegetarian as a child because it seemed, at the time, easier than having to explain which foods she was and wasn’t allowed to eat together, so she just cut out meat entirely. still a vegetarian now and dabbles in veganism, although its become less about not eating certain meats in the milk of their mother and more about her global impact / carbon footprint

—  nurses little animals to health in her garden. has a hedgehog name OJ short for orange juice not the other one filthy pig. her and her dad have always been huge animal rights activists and existed on a vegetarian diet. the only one in their house who isn’t vegetarian is their cat, auggie. (short 4 augustus gloop)

—  has a lot of stupid ass stick and poke tattoos. there was a phase during her years as a barmaid where she wanted to train as a tattoo artist n would mostly practice on herself or any friends who would let her

—  she doesn’t form many long lasting friendships cos she tends to be super excited when she makes a new friend and just see them all the time but then it wears off and she can ghost a bit. she’ll always coming pinging back but she’s not the most predictable or loyal friend, sometimes she’ll sleep in your house every night for a week and then you won’t even get a text from her for a month. her best friends are elderly neighbours and houseless people she meets when volunteering at the foodbank. she thinks they’re more authentic than most of the ‘fake posers’ she meets down the vela pier

—  calls herself a butch lesbian but still has sex with men when she wants validation. sexually attracted to some men, especially effeminate men, but only romantically attracted to women. very possessive of the gals in her life.

—  stopped giving a shit about getting older or adhering to anyone elses bullshit standards, realised it was all fake p much as soon as she dropped out of school and one by one her friends just stopped texting her

—  lives in one of the lofts in port apartments. it’s open plan with rugs and lava lamps everywhere. she has a palette bed. its all very ‘sustainable chic’. like, oh wow, a pallet bed that im supposed to think you made from scratch but i KNOW you got it  off ebay because you thought it looked trendy

—  constantly says shes poor but still buys clothes from urban outfitters. sus.

—  frequently found at fannies flirting with the cute bisexual bartender with a choppy black bob.

general vibe / personality

vibrant, vulgar, self-absorbed, tenacious, veers bewteen apathetic and dogmatic, temperamental, flighty, unreliable, magnetic, charismatic, passive aggressive, likes to play devil’s advocate, takes the moral high ground. estp and a leo

likes: 70s music, john wayne movies, black mirror, philosophy, cowboy chic culture, dc comics, the smell of locker rooms,, deep red lipstick, lacrosse sticks, smoking weed from a bong, dogs, karaoke, pet rats, kate moss, late-night strolls, hawaaiian shirts worn open over a bralette, skinned knees, thai food, picking the apples at the very top of the trees, zip-lining, cigarettes, the idea of pegging but not the practical application of it, decorative lamps, LGBTQ+ pin badges, worn-out furniture, twangy electric guitars.

dislikes: girls who call other girls ‘pick me’ girls, woody allen movies, mental mathematics, wealthy children, quentin tarantino, ironing, institutionalised misogyny, the imaginary future, french literature, ‘dump him’ feminism, wes anderson films, spoken word poetry nights, college-educated bar staff who act like they’re better than you,  indie softbois, the general mentality of cheerleading squads.

aesthetics

orange peel, the smell of bleach, skeleton drawings in the margins of a journal, thumb holes poked through the cuffs of your sleeves, bleach white sneakers pounding on a gymnasium floor, setting dumpsters on fire for the hell of it. a hit flask of vodka decorated with hello kitty stickers, split knuckles, alien conspiracy theories and sci-fi paperbacks, doc martens with fraying laces, a child in an oversize bee keepers suit, scabbed knees, not eating your greens, smiling with a mouthful of blood, and piercing your own ears with a safety pin when your dad wouldn’t take you,  a tennis racket you punched through in a fit of temper, feet pounding the earth until your soles bleed crimson, sleeping in a cherry lip balm and scrunchies to keep the wild locks from your eyes.

hoo boy this is getting LONG AS FUCK but here are my wanted plots

wanted plots

ok margo’s been in irving since she was like 10. she’s quite a vivacious person?? she dresses completely instinctively without any sense of cohesion so she stands out. a guy once told her she was wearing the ugliest outfit he’d ever seen and he thought that was so cool and brave of her. but anyway where was i going.. she grew up in the abernathy creek so stuck out like a sore thumb,,,, maybe ppl who were super interested in the creek or maybe poked fun at her bcos of it idk.....

b4 she dropped out, margo used 2 b in with the cool kids at school bcos her dad would buy them booze and rarely ask for the money. maybe a fun plot cld b with some of the ‘it girls’ she used to hang around with b4 she got pregnant n dropped out and they all went off to college n stopped texting her.

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! some1 she feels like she knew before irving ???

since margo literally can’t differentiate between romantic and platonic love, she’s got off with so many of her mates, so i want awkward friendships where they nearly dated, or exes that have now just turned into weird friendships. fwbs. enemies with benefits. all the angst. all the slow burn mutual pining we hate each other narratives

locals who play sports. margo wld be all over community soccer n take it way too seriously. maybe ppl she plays hockey with. girls who she’s like, weirdly intimate with but its not a thing cos the other girls straight !!! what do u mean !! aha just fun !

she works part time at scuba. i want a mate that just goes and sits in there talking to her until her manager gets angry.

she's also a surf instructor and occasionally works as a lifeguard!! gal has like 7 jobs ik but regular swimmers hmu

ppl she coaches at the gym !! she wants to be a personal trainer

i reckon she might have recently started meditating to try and calm down her mind cos its always bustling with thoughts, n i think she’s p interested in buddhism so if anyone’s a buddhist hmu

someone she’s trying to make a zine with on female empowerment and women in film and art, etc. just a very feminist zine. 

TLDR:  angry sports gay, former high school track prodigy turned drop out, who likes feminist literature, wearing leather jackets over slip dresses, and smudged red lipstick.

this was so long !!! im sorry !! if you’ve read this far have a biscuit, love x

[leafy-wings]

glory for the ask meme?

good morning!

for this ask meme

Sexuality Headcanon: lesbiab Gender Headcanon: nonbinery.. demigirl maybe. “girl maybe but fruity” A ship I have with said character: i postulated this before tentatively but; glory x snowfall? ehh? i really want to write a fic of them hanging out, where glory introduces snowfall to the idea of suntime, mirroring the scene in hidden kingdom where its like “the first lesson is to sleep. you need it” yknow! glory understands snowfalls queen trauma so well, glorys young too and while her legacy is success she only became queen to save her tribe in the face of a horrific prophecy. i would love to see a more slowburn for snowfall realizing nightwings are pretty ok and glory could help, sympathizing with the things that they did while under pressure while still forgiving/not forgiving them. like i think glorys the best character for making the point of; what happened to you was wrong, bad, and unnecessary, it was done with malicious intent, but those that did it thought it necessary, were not doing it for fun, and no longer have the need to do it. the intersection between.. justice, revenge, and healing vs sympathizing and understanding the grief those against you might be going through and understanding that since theyre not going away you need to come to terms with them. ofc their situations are different but i think a nice parallel and different enough to make a point. id love to see them argue about how the monarchy is bad or maybe have snowfall consider lax rainwing protocol for icewing society as well as the games to become queen so she doesnt have to kill or be killed. i also kinda maybe ship snowfall x hazel so maybe all 3 of them are there. i like it A BROTP I have with said character: i want glory and peril to be friends.. i wanna write a short character study fic about them and how they viewed their time under scarlet. i think of all people glory would understand needing to be weaponized to keep oneself safe, and i like the idea of peril more apprehensive to approach glory because of her emotions. she feels more feelings than peril does who only ever really feels angry or excited. OH YEAH i really wanted to write a fic where they have a lil therapy session because sunny insists upon it, but its only the two of them to see if they can socialize, where glorys supposed to drop her mask scales because hiding her emotions isnt healthy while peril has to try and pin down her feelings while they talk because she needs to learn social cues and other dragons feelings and what better way than with a dragon who shows their feelings so clearly? i just want them to talk about the fallout of the prophecy in a very frank and understanding way. plus i like tsunami and glory, i feel like perhaps tsunami was not nice enough to glory while under the mountain while still wanting to defend them, tsunamis shtick is trying to protect her friends while glorys shtick is trying to protect herself and a few save dragons around her. id love to see the both of them try and get the other to have more wide reaching empathy for others as well as. argue the ethics of being queens gfhjgfd A NOTP I have with said character: glory and deathbringer i fucking hate deathbringer. aside from the age (and yes actually id be uncomfortable with an 18 year old dating a 30+ year old too yeah thank you) deathbringer is just too immature and giddy and non serious. i know the conceit is supposed to be, just like thorn/smolder, that its a character who is serious and haughty as a defense mechanism getting their walls broken down by someone who pushes them into having fun where theyre actually also fun and mischievious and joking on the inside, but like. this is NOT the time. hes annoying and aggravating and i dont see the charming aspect when i know that glory is young and traumatized and in the midst of basically the worst event of her life and deathbringer is basically the first dragon whos nice to her SPECIFICALLY to flirt with her. and i cant believe that deathbringer knew WELL That the rainwings were being kidnapped and tortured TO DEATH and didnt do basically anything to warn her. he is a NIGHTWING adult during the time in which they are enslaving her tribe so i can safely side with snowfall on this one and say Fuck Nightwings Until They Repent. A random headcanon: glory definitely makes wide reforms to rain/night society in regards to being more progressive and welcoming. making more accessible houses for houseless rainwings, getting rainwings to actually raise children, getting schools and places for therapy, just overseeing all the business of the rain/night kingdom to have it be more “normal”. not that she wants them to act like other tribes because thats “normal”, no, of course not, she loves her tribe(s) including with all their strangeness and proclivity for nature, but.. sometimes legislature is there for a reason so you dont get unfair treatment, and glory only seeks to see her tribe treated fairly General Opinion over said character: i like glory! shes one of my favorites; i sympathize with her a lot in being traumatized and unsure of how to deal with it. the part at the start of the book where she ruminates about kind of missing being with scarlet hit me so hard... i understand how it is when youre traumatized so thoroughly and basically alone though you have friends AROUND you, that you become a bit “selfish” because you just want to see yourself safe, and then the ensuing protectiveness you feel over people like you. i like that she cares about justice, which is not always kind and given through nice words. i do wish her trauma about being almost MURDERED by her guardians as well as abused ALL HER FUCKING LIFE was grappled with more (and yes im one of the anti sunnys who think she was a real bitch for demanding that glory forgive the dragons who TAUGHT HER SHE WAS WORTHLESS. if sunny feels bad for the guardians who didnt abuse her to the extent that they did glory than thats HER issue, and she has no place pushing the decision to forgive them onto glory, when iirc webs never even fucking feels bad). she also gets a hard case of “turns into nothing when its not her POV” and so fucking aggravatingly is that her given personality trait is “i love my boyfriend who is 2x my age”. her aggression, sense of justice, wittiness and haughtiness are scrubbed clean and replaced with little romantic quips with some guy i hate. she has so much left to her character and so much insight to offer in a lot of what happens in the book but, no, shes just set aside.. id also love to see what shes actually doing as queen

[sweetsmellosuccess]

TIFF 2020: Day 3

Films: 3 Best Film of the Day: Nomadland

Nomadland: Perhaps no American director since Terrance Malick has made more of the collapsing light of dusk and twilight than Chloe Zhao. Much of her new film, which stars Frances McDormand as a transigent woman (“not homeless, houseless”), who traverses back and forth across the west in her beat up live-in van, doing seasonal work, takes place in that particular kind of vibrant half-darkness that shrouds the desert and its mountains with a magic kind of mystery. Zhao, whose previous film, The Rider, was one of the very best of 2018, has a way of focusing on the margins of society, the poverty stricken and the non-conformists, finding distinct poetry and longing in their journeys. Her storytelling is economic but powerfully effective: In an early scene McDormand’s character, Fern, is pulling items out of a storage facility she has somewhere near the now-defunct town of Empire, Nevada, where she used to live. Amidst other pieces of ephemera, she comes across a battered old jean jacket and freezes, holding it close to her face, emotion clouding her face. When we find out sometime later her husband died shortly after the gypsum factory where he had worked shut down, we connect the piece of info with her emotion from before. Nothing is overt in Zhao’s palate (which will be interesting to see play out with her next film, The Eternals, as part of the MCU), everything moves in these subtle shades, like the soft shadows of firelight on the faces of the congregation of fellow nomads Fern meets up with later, down somewhere in the Sonoran, after being invited by her good friend Linda May (played by Linda May). There, she eventually comes to meet fellow wanderer Dave (David Strathairn), a sweet-hearted man who clearly feels something for Fern that she chooses not to address. The film isn’t plotted so much as it stays in contact with Fern, as she hits the road from one place to another, spending time with another woman in a trailer, Swankie (Swankie), who only has a few months to live, or intermittently working odd gigs at other RV spots, or the occasional stint at an Amazon warehouse. Things happen with her of a type  —  she gets a flat, her car’s engine requires a large sum of money which requires her to visit her sister briefly  —  but what Zhao wants us to see isn’t so much in the mundane details of Fern’s life, as to her steely commitment to her lifestyle. She’s willing to pay the large sacrifices in order to keep her freedom, drawn as she is to the painted highway hyphens. Most such films treat the wanderers as afflicted, bereft, emotionally stunted until the right person allows them to happily shuck off their feckless lifestyle for something solid and permanent: In Zhao’s remarkable work, Fern’s ceaseless wanderings aren’t viewed as her flaw, they are her strength.

Summer of 85: Something has clearly gone horribly wrong at the beginning of Francois Ozon’s tragic romance between two young men who meet on the coast of Normandy one summer. Alexis (Felix Lefebvre), a 16-year-old who lives in Normandy with his parents, his face pale and strained, is being held by the local gendarmes as he tells us in VO just how obsessed he’s always been with the idea of death. Someone has died, it would seem, and Alexis doesn’t wait long to inform us the identity of the corpse: It’s a handsome young man named David Gorman (Benjamin Voisin), whom Alexis meets during a sailing mishap that leaves him capsized, eventually fished out of the water by his new friend. David is abuzz with energy, a glowing lantern that attracts attention wherever he goes. In very short order, he’s made friends with the more naturally cautious Alexis, and they eventually become lovers (a curiously chaste film, their big love scene happens behind the closed door of David’s bedroom, with Alexis telling us in VO that we are not allowed to see what happened, but it was “the best night” of his young life). But their love quickly becomes unbalanced, with David all too happy to flirt and hook up with nearly anyone in a moment’s notice, and Alexis feeling increasingly marginalized, until they get into a huge argument in which David mercilessly tells his friend he’s become bored of him. The film flips back and forth from flashbacks of their story, and Alexis’ current predicament as somehow connected to the eventual death of his lover, having at last to write out what happened, as lead by his kindly English teacher, to offer an explanation for the caseworker who’s trying to keep him out of further trouble. Ozon seems to be working at cross purposes here, avoiding some of the most obvious trappings of the retrospective love story narrative, only to fall headlong into others. The initial narrative hook  —  trying to determine Alexis’ involvement in David’s death  —  turns out to be a clunky red herring, and the love story itself, beyond some beautiful shots of the two of them sailing together in the late afternoon sun, feels less organic than ordained, a necessity for the plot to plough ahead. Lefebvre turns in a fine performance, and Voisin is suitably both charming and ruthless, but it all feels more than a little played out.

The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel: Back in 2003, Canadian documentarians Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan made The Corporation, a film that chronicled the depressing rise of the corporation as becoming the de facto government in those countries in which they are prevalent, the laws changing to grant them ever more freedoms and powers, going so far as to treat them legally with individual-type rights. Now, 17 years later, Abbott and Bakan have gone back to the boardrooms to further chronicle the ever-more powerful and pervasive corporate entity, and their shift in philosophy, from blatantly serving none but their shareholders seeking ever-spiraling profit, to their “new” approach, in which they pay lip service to doing better by the planet and taking social responsibility, only to ratchet up their endless batch of dirty tricks to ensure that almost literally every public-based system in the world  —  from water to education  —  is privatized and allowed to become new profit centers for them. It’s all prevalent, and nefarious and depressing as hell, as you might imagine, as we watch the corporate titans all congregating at the infamous annual gathering of Davos, making self-congratulatory speeches about how much more caring and compassionate they’ve become since the 2008 meltdown, only to be revealed as further tricks of their endless branding. Tying this attitude into more current events, the filmmakers connect the COVID crisis with government’s capitulation to corporate wealth, laying out the “playbook” corporations are using to further turn the country’s wealth over to their infinitesimally small cadre of super-wealthy stakeholders, concluding their most successful maneuver is to defund a government social program until it fails, blame the government for its failing, and suggest that the solution is to hand more control over to them. But just before you pour the bottle of sleeping pills down your throat, the filmmakers see fit to relent a bit, and show how popular uprisings, in countries all over the globe, have led to substantial change. They also suggest that activists have finally learned it’s not enough to protest from outside, but they must get elected leaders in place who can truly stand behind a fundamental change in policy. The film doesn’t have the completeness of their previous effort  —  one gets the sense they sacrificed some breadth for the sake of topicality  —  but it does suggest there are ways in which we can make a difference, and the protest marches, against Wall Street, and police brutality, and for unions, and the end of systemic racism can be a real solution if enough people are motivated to go out and make a difference. The literal fate of the planet is at stake, either way.

In a year of bizarre happenings, and altered realities, TIFF has shifted its gears to a significantly paired down virtual festival. Thus, U.S. film critics are regulated to watching the international offerings from our own living room couches.

[katiekoff]

When The Plague Comes

Hey guys! Actually I’m an author and write fanfics usually (not drawing, lol). I haven’t write for ages but The Arcana made impossible thing - that game made me want to write again. I write on Russian and I have never ever translated my fanfics. But! The Arcana made impossible thing [2] - it made me translate this. Alas, I’m only imroving my English and I’m not sure if I translated it correctly. So if you will read this and find (and I know you’ll find) any mistakes, please let me know. I tried my best and my only hope is that the translating is understandable.

Thank you for your time!

When The Plague Comes

PG || Drubble || Angst || Asra, fem!MC, Julian, Valdemar is there... somewhere... || Pre-canon

Summary: When the plague comes, everyone has their own reason to stay in the dying city.

Sometimes it seems to her that bright azure sky glows red. That the grass, the trees and even the ground became scarlet with rich ruby shade. People on the street avoid each other fearfully, glare at the faces of strangers, looking for slightest signs of illness. Some houses bare their toothless windows and it’s seems the darkness there takes shape – a human or a demon – and it’s seems the darkness ready to take you, to strangle you, to paint your whites of the eyes with scarlet color of fresh blood.

There are not children’s cheerful laugh on the streets anymore, there are not any strolling musicians with their music; fortune tellers don’t drag the passersby to their booths, don’t spread the bones, rocks or colorful cards. Everyone knows the fortune, both their and the whole city. This fortune flowing through flooded districts with the red water; running along the road with the red beetles; standing at the exit of the city with gloomy wardens – there is no escape from the city, there is no entrance to – even if there will be a madman who would like to get up close to the dying Vesuvia.

She feels the breath of the Death everywhere, even in the shop: tart aroma of the dried herbs mixed with the sweetish smell of rot; this smell rises lump in the throat, lingers in the nostrils. She thinks that this smell has a taste – a taste of rotten fish that covers the coast and the docks. Neither the potpourri, nor water or spiced food can’t kill this taste, - to tell the truth, it seems to her more and more that the food has the same mawkish, nauseous and rotten taste.

She hates the palace and its dungeons, where the brightest minds of the city trying to find the cure. She hates the dark dungeons and their stale air filled with hopelessness and despair. She hates Valdemar’s unwinking gaze – they seem to be the only happy person in the city. Or, maybe, in whole world – she no longer believes there is countries and people anywhere who don’t know what the plague is.

Julian doesn’t sleep for ages and she sees his haggard cheeks, sharpened cheekbones and bruises under his eyes – even his usual grin faded and thin lips fold in narrow line with the suffering fracture. She brings him the new reports every day: the plague is progressing, no survivors, from the first signs to death passes less and less time, there’re only houseless and the doctors in beaked masks on the streets. Julian shuddering at first, looking to her with the hope, but in recent days there’re only despair and muted question in his eyes.

- Ten, - says she today.

- Thirty, - she will say tomorrow.

- A few hundreds, - that will be to the end of the week.

And then they will stop counting.

There is only hatred in her eyes when she watches over the wagons riding to the docks. Everyone knows: this is one-way trip. Next there will be the Lazaret, crematorium and seashore, where they will bury all that remains of you. The doctors look away from the heavily laden wagons: their wheels leave the heavy furrows on the mud, and the horses are exhausted. Sometimes there’re screaming and crying for help heard from the wagons – not everyone loaded in the hastily built carts are dead. These screams haunt her by night and she wakes up, surrounded by ghosts, and almost sees their ruby red eyes.

As Valdemar becomes happier, Julian more pale, and the other doctors – nameless – replacing rapidly, and you don't need to ask where they disappear. The days merge into the infinite change of exhausted faces, groaning, the smells of rot; they coloring in the shades of red – the water, the sky, the ground, the eyes, the ulcers, cloaks and masks of the plague doctors; they fly by like a moment and last for ages and it seems to her that no one could break free from this vicious circle. She almost stops returning to the shop – there is not much time for this, and she spends all her time in the dungeon, and she stays overnight there, in the dark, gloomy dungeon where the blood doesn’t wash away from the floor already. And one day Julian returns from the palace with an unreadable expression on his face and says that the count gets down with plague.

- The eyes only, - says Julian and looks away. – Nothing more.

But she knows: when your eyes turn red, time is running out and all you have is a several days at most.

The Count turns out to be resistant – two, three, ten days pass, and Julian says that he got worse, but he lives.

- Why him? – asks Julian. Everyone think about it – in the palace, in the streets, in the dungeons; the doctors and all the dying patients whispering about it – the rumors spread across the city faster than the plague. The doctors die, the scientists and people around the streets die, but the Count, who is hatred by almost all the city, lives.

It seems that Julian stop sleeping and eating at all, he is locking himself at his office and she knows the Count demands cure from him. But there is no other person who wants to find a cure more than Julian himself and she knows that as well.

Soon the streets become more empty, more houses become abandoned and even ruffians don’t break the windows. One of these days she returns to the shop for changing her clothes and doesn't even try to let fire: she learned to orient in the darkness long ago. Changed quickly, she hears the door’s slam and freezes, turned to the window. They haven’t seen each other… how long? A week? A month? She has already lost the count of these days.

- Selene? – Asra’s voice sounds like he didn’t sleep for ages – just like Julian. – It’s good you’re home.

- I’m leaving, - says she unemotionally, calmly and coldly.

- No, - says Asra and comes closely. – We must leave the city, we can’t do anything here. There is no cure and the city is dying, Selene.

She straightens her back, squares the shoulders and closes her eyes.

- There is always a way out, Asra. Julian will find the cure, definitely. And I will remain with him.

- You can’t really believe it. Come on, grab your stuff and let’s leave. I know how to get past the guardians, - says Asra impatiently. She hears him walks around the room putting his stuff and books in the traveling bag.

- I’m staying, - she repeats.

- No you don’t! – Asra is almost screaming when he puts his hand onto her shoulder. She shakes his soft palm off the shoulder and repeats it again with the same cold in her voice: she’s not leaving.

- But why? – even while she is face away from him, she almost sees the despair in his eyes and feels him runs his fingers through his fluffy hair. – Why do you want to risk your life? I can’t allow you to do that!

- I don’t need your approval, - she says. – I won’t leave the city like a coward. I'll remain with someone who do something. Anything.

- Do you consider me a coward? – Asra asks. Pain, mistrust and emptiness – that’s what she hears in his voice.

- Yes, - she says. – You aren’t worth Julian’s little finger.

- Julian, huh. Is that so? - he says.

- Is it.

It seems her words destroying Asra completely. All she hears are ragged breath, heavy steps while he goes down the stairs and slow, unbearably loud creak of the door.

She exhales and leans her forehead to the cold dusty window. Nothing are reflected in the dark window but it seems to her that she sees reflection of her own eyes – green and unusually bright against the ruby red whites of the eyes.

She works in the dungeon another few days and feels eyes on her: interested and hungry – from Valdemar, sympathetic – from patients. She considers herself lucky – she hasn’t any ulcers, her body doesn’t cramp, all she has is overwhelming weakness. Good fortune smiles at her one more time: when she loses consciousness, Valdemar are busy with something very important and don’t see how one of those nameless doctors lifts her.

Through the fever and insufferable headache, she sees in flashes: a wagon's wooden boards with dried blood drops; a piece of the scarlet sky; smooth surface of water; high walls of the Lazaret. 

When she, like the others, brought down to the cold floor, she can smell the rot and burning – suffocating, sweetish smell which soaked the crematorium walls. She wants to live madly, she wants to go to the journey with Asra, make tea for him, pulling his soft hair; in the same time, she wants it will be over – all that pain and fever, compared to which the flame won’t be felt.

It seems the thoughts about Asra completely crush her head – with the shame, guilt and a timid hope that the resentment was so strong that he won't get back, won't looking for her; that he will be in safety in his Nopal sanctuary or somewhere else. That he will be happy – sooner or later. That he will live.

When she sees scarlet flame strikes in front of her, when she smells the burning skin – her skin – all that she can is to hope that someday, in another world, she could tell him the most important thing.

- I’m so sorry.

[thesinglesjukebox]

TENILLE TOWNES - SOMEBODY'S DAUGHTER

[5.45]

...who had a boyfriend, who looked like a girlfriend that I had in February of last year...

Stephen Eisermann: It's so easy to turn a blind eye to the people on the side of the road who ask for money, but this song does a good job of humanizing these people. It reads poorly, but I know so many people who view those less fortunate as others and less human. But they have a story, as Tenille Townes sings, and it is a disservice to view them so negatively. Maybe giving them a story doesn't change the way other people treat them, but the rough country tune and lived-in vocal do well to remind us that everyone is someone, even if they're standing behind a sign that is asking for money. [7]

Ramzi Awn: Tenille Townes echos and reverbs through her cascading dreams with a natural rhythm and undeniable fight. Down to the gym, "Somebody's Daughter" is the kind of song that gives you faith in songwriting. Townes hangs on tight in the hook, and comes through -- shines, really. [9]

Thomas Inskeep: Shiny, au courant country production (the drums are mixed LOUD) supporting one of the best lyrics I've heard in the past year, wondering about the background of a homeless woman who Townes sees panhandling. Townes has a great voice too, unique as hell. This is what I wish (much) more contemporary country sounded like. [9]

Alfred Soto: I expected "Another Day in Paradise" -- privileged white person noting homelessness. Tenille Townes's big voice is subtle enough, however, to project curiosity about the woman without requiring us to congratulate her for noticing. The production, though, does call attention to itself, as if the women were Noriega and Townes and co. were the Marines blasting Guns 'N Roses. [6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Hold on, you're telling me that homeless people have names and personal histories? And you're starting to empathize with them because they may have run lemonade stands once or been someone's first kiss? "Somebody's Daughter" is music for people who find some sense of moral satisfaction in simply pondering the plight of the less fortunate. "Somebody's Daughter" is music for cowards. [0]

Katherine St Asaph: Often with glurge songs, it's the little details that are most revealing. Here, it's the names: "She could be a Sarah, she could be an Emily, an Olivia, maybe Cassidy." Individually these names are too extremely popular to code as much (though, if I'm nitpicking, they were extremely popular in different decades, and surely the speaker'd notice whether the woman's 35 or 18). But together, they suggest formerly middle-class, likely white bounds on the person to whom Townes, Luke Laird and Barry Dean are extending their empathy. The names betray the respectability politics: the speaker's empathy comes after picturing this woman with an idyllic childhood of besties and lemonade stands and prom dates just like we ("we"?) had, as if maybe if that weren't so automatic to imagine, they wouldn't write a song about her. Shame about the track, too, remarkably robust guitars stuck reluctantly in church. [3]

Iris Xie: Definitely a song to play at a fundraising banquet, right before tapping the mic and asking for more funds to donate and support social welfare causes. Or maybe it'd be part of a time capsule to let aliens know that our society has failed in providing everyone homes and our current political and economic system utterly fails at supporting everyone except for the corrupt rich. But no, we sit here, listening privately to a plaintive song that helps remind people to be humane and not see houseless people as a nuisance, and to break out of the compartmentalization that is required to survive in a world like ours right now. The lines "Well, no one's gonna ask what she wants to be / Or why we're both stuck here at the mercy of geography / And whether it shines or rains" is a deft and evocative take on the fates wrought upon the most marginalized, and due to life requiring intense compartmentalization to get by, the awkwardness and sadness that comes with bumping into a houseless person on the street and cursing systemic inequity. The swell in the final chorus, and how it fades out for the outro, helps cement the force of Townes's point -- we're all connected with histories, and let's not forget about that, even with the callous, careless ways one could treat each other in daily life. [7]

Andy Hutchins: "And can she even tell that I don't know what to say?" is maybe the most patronizing thing said during the run of "Somebody's Daughter." Clearly, Tenille Townes does know what she wants to say about homelessness (or prostitution, or drug addiction, or whatever vague plight has befallen the person whose misfortune Townes blames on the "mercy of geography"), but she's putting it in a song about a convenient subject and not words spoken to that person. No, woke country from the vein tapped (and in the lane cleared) by Ms. Musgraves need not be sociologically rigorous -- but if it's going to sound like friggin' "Barefoot Blue Jean Night," it might try compensating with compassion beyond "a coupla dollars" and wondering out loud whether those down on their luck have feelings. [3]

Julian Axelrod: The morality politics are murky, but the details and that voice shine through clear as day. The specificity and micro-macro balance evoke a worldliness that blends well with the country trappings, like a Kinks song transposed to the heartland. Tenille Townes sounds way more like Julien Baker than either artists' fanbase would like to admit. [7]

Tim de Reuse: In the bridge, Townes laments: "I don't know the reasons why / I'm the one who's driving by / and she's the one on the corner of 18th Street," and then cuts it off without a moment's consideration as to what any of those reasons might be, as if the factors that cause people to end up without a place to sleep are random and unknowable. To make such a revelation out of the idea that homeless people are people, and then have absolutely nothing to say past that -- ah, how quintessentially 21st-century! [4]

Alex Clifton: Look, I love a good Message Song, but I'm not sure about "Somebody's Daughter." It's fine, capable, but by the time the outro hits the entire song passes out of my head. If your goal is to make a message about homelessness stick, making it into easy listening might not be the best bet. I hate overly maudlin ballads that turn into after-school specials, so I'm glad this didn't fall into that trap. I just want a little more from it. [5]

[Read and comment on The Singles Jukebox]

[chat4change]

Blog Post #1

SadieLee Crume Leadership and Social Change UNST-242A-001 Fall 10/23/2022

Blog Post #1

Every night in America over 300,000 men, women, and children sleep in homeless shelters. This does not include the over 200,000 people sleeping out in the streets. It makes you wonder how we as a nation let this unfortunate situation get so overwhelming. 500,000 people are lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing every day. This issue is important to me because I believe as a human race we are failing one another. Many people have stopped caring and just want the less fortunate off “their” streets because it is an eye sore. These “eye sores” are just people that need some extra help. We have all received help from others in our pasts and now it is our turn to show kindness. 7 out of 10 people in America are one paycheck away from being houseless. With enough series of unfortunate events, this could happen to you or someone you know. The only thing that is separating “us” from “them” is money. Our nation is systemically built for people to fail. We need others to fall so others can succeed. Apparently, we think that there has to be this unbalance for our country to function correctly. The main reason for the drastic increase in the cost of living, rent prices raising, and inflation as a whole. 

Historically it is believed that the origin of this problem tracks back as early as the 1640s when vagrants were defined as outcasts of society. With time homelessness emerged as a national issue in the 1870s. When the Great Depression came about the unemployment stats raised due to the economic crash our nation was facing. These were the building blocks for where we are today with this unfortunate issue. Portland Oregon has been in a state of emergency regarding homelessness for three years now. This is not going to be an easy problem to solve. If it were easy we wouldn't still be seeing starving people on almost every corner. We have lost sight of the definition of community and need to be putting it into action. There has been some action taken with state officials but I believe we need the working-class citizens to pick up the slack where the government is falling short. We can all make a difference if we listen and care instead of getting annoyed and turning a blind eye. 

I am from a small town that did not have much homelessness and I am witnessing it up close for the first time in my life I am trying to understand how they got here. When I first moved to Portland in 2021 I was living in South East where it was extremely gentrified. I am now living in North East and have seen the effects of this rapid growth of gentrification. There are homeless camps in my neighborhood on almost every corner. I may be passionate about this topic because it is new to me but also because it affects the place I live and want to help the people who live here as well, even if they don’t currently have a permanent place to call home.

What comes to your mind when you think of the word homeless? What do you see? How do you feel? If your first reaction isn’t sympathy then you may be a part of the problem. If we don’t start caring more and working on these issues then the problem will get so large that it may be unsolvable. The problem is already large but we can’t let it keep growing because it impacts the availability of healthcare resources, crime, safety, jobs, and the use of money. Homelessness impacts the present and future. Breaking the cycle of homelessness, one person, one family at a time will be beneficial to all. Furthermore, we can take hold of our humanity again and be proud.  

Sources:

“59% of Americans Are Just One Paycheck Away from Homelessness - Invisible People,” June 14, 2021. https://invisiblepeople.tv/59-of-americans-are-just-one-paycheck-away-from-homelessness/.

Texas Homeless Network. “A History of Homelessness in the United States,” August 13, 2021. https://www.thn.org/2021/08/13/history-of-homelessness/.

CaringWorks, Inc. “Community Impact | The Community Impact On Homelessness.” Accessed October 23, 2022. https://www.caringworksinc.org/our-impact/community-impact/.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Health and Medicine Division, Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, Policy and Global Affairs, Science and Technology for Sustainability Program, and Committee on an Evaluation of Permanent Supportive Housing Programs for Homeless Individuals. The History of Homelessness in the United States. Permanent Supportive Housing: Evaluating the Evidence for Improving Health Outcomes Among People Experiencing Chronic Homelessness. National Academies Press (US), 2018. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519584/.

[cybermoonmoon]

“...flow”

A few photos I took while "Houseless" on the Outside. 

There are many morning shots because come dawn I had to clear out. The alley shown is one of where I rested,...not slept. This till my sister put me up in hotels while a home could be found, and renovated. 

Even then I'd crouch, and doze in the corner of the hotel room. Laying down was not done.  On the street such is suicide. I'd position myself so I could see every angle out there. Even in a four star hotel I listened for movement. 

The habit was with me for years after. That first hotel night I felt heard 86 movements. I remember because I wrote it into a journal I kept. I had meant one day to do a one person act based on it. I never did. 

I left or tried to leave it behind me. It was a long while before I could sleep in a bed. Longer before I stopped counting sounds. Try that. Count the movements that surround you. You will find that even birds have shadows. 

This will give you a sense of the outside. I don't write these notes to upset. I write because I must. Sometimes like now it just comes back. Like a memory of war. I can't stop it only flow with it.

[allmyleftistsliveintexas]

Austin, Texas: Vote No on Prop B

Election Day: Saturday, May 1

Early Voting: Friday, April 19 - Saturday, April 27

Last Day to Register to Vote: Thursday, April 1

Check Your Voter Info & Register at votetravis.com

What is Prop B?

In May 2021, Austin voters will decide on whether or not to reinstate The Camping Ban, which would make it illegal to camp in public spaces, to sit/lie down in some outdoor spaces, and to panhandle at night.

The language is:

“Shall an ordinance be adopted that would create a criminal offense and a penalty for sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk or sleeping outdoors in and near the Downtown area and the area around the University of Texas campus; create a criminal offense and penalty for solicitation, defined as requesting money or another thing of value, at specific hours and locations or for solicitation in a public area that is deemed aggressive in manner; create a criminal offense and penalty for camping in any public area not designated by the Parks and Recreation Department?”

This essentially means it would be a criminal offense to camp, sleep/lie down, and/or panhandle in certain places and times in Austin.

For many of our unhoused neighbors, there are simply no options for shelter or income in the city and many are forced to live on the street.

With nowhere else to go and no hopes of other income, Prop B would make it illegal to be a person experiencing homelessness in large parts of the city.

Affected Areas

Prop B would make it a criminal offense to camp in public, sit/lie in public, and panhandle at night in the areas within the red square. 

Via KUT

This area runs from 38th street south to Cesar Chavez and from N. Lamar east to I-35. It also goes around Oakwood Cemetary, and to Chicon street from E. 7th Street to E. Cesar Chavez. 

History of the Camping Ban

note: it has been fairly difficult to dig up old articles to research and provide context. this history is a summary of what I could find but isn’t a full or complete telling of events. 

The Camping Ban was first instated on January 25th, 1996. This ordinance made it class C misdemeanor to sleep, store personal belongings, cook, or start fires in public areas. There were an estimated 6,000 houseless people on the streets in 1996 with a population of 548,000. (For context, there were an estimated 2,506 houseless people in Austin in 2020 with a population of 1,000,000.) Additionally, there was only one free houseless facility at this time, with just 128 beds and strict limitations on using the facility. ARCH didn’t open until 2004.

Mayor Bruce Todd first introduced the ordinance and it eventually passed with a 4-1 vote, with one council member abstaining and one council member absent. The council member who voted against the measure was Jackie Goodman, who stayed firm in this position throughout all her years on council. As were the rules, council had to pass this ordinance three times before it became law, January 25th, 1995 being the third time. 

In talks about whether or not to pass the measure, council member Gus Garcia stated in 1995 that “This ordinance is probably not the answer. This ordinance is not going to fix the problem. But we have to begin somewhere.” 

When it was officially passed in 1996, it was met with a 200 person protest. The loudest people in opposition of the ban were the houseless, the police, and local activists. Many people stated it was unconstitutional, a violation of houseless people’s rights, and unethical to displace people without somewhere for them to go.

Originally, the Austin Police opposed the ban because they didn't have the resources to enforce it and didn’t see it as a solution to the fundamental issue of houselessness. Lieutenant Michael Urubeck who was in charge of enforcing the ban stated “it’s not going to work in the long run.”  

Additionally, The Downtown Austin Alliance, who represented downtown businesses and supported the ordinance, boldly acknowledged in 1997 that "The purpose of the ordinance was to protect our public properties and as a preventative measure against public disorder, not the separate issue of the homeless." - Downtown Austin Alliance 1997

When it was first passed, city council also called for a review on it’s effectiveness. In 1997, they found that the camping ban "provided a tool for immediate relief of unwanted situations, but has failed to provide an effective deterrent or any permanent solution to the transient issue." (they called people experiencing homelessness “transients” back then.)

In 1997, there’s a couple articles showing that city council had plans to rescind the camping ban that year, however I was unable to find what actually happened after their plans. I skimmed through the July & August council meeting minutes but have not been able to find anything about repealing the ban. I think it’s safe to say that while talks were promising, the city elected to keep the ban. Additionally, there was lots of talks of building “homeless campuses” at this time but I have been unable to find whether or not they were actually built. Also I want to note that these campuses were often seen as separative and ways to push the houseless community somewhere else, aka not solutions. 

Anyways...

Since then, talks of repealing the camping ban have arisen time and time again, each time following very similar arguments: 

1. The camping ban doesn’t work in medicating the issue of houselessness in Austin 

2. The camping ban is morally bankrupt and borderline unconstitutional without giving people a place to go

3. The camping ban seeks to protect property, not people

Among advocates for rescinding the camping ban is Richard Troxell, who has been fiercely and loudly against the camping ban since the beginning in 1995. He regularly attended council meetings for years on end to speak up about it and has continued advocating against it to this day.

Why are we talking about this 27 years later?

Despite wish-washy support for the ban in it's inception in the 90s, the ban remained in place from 1996-2019. In July 2019, City Council voted 9-2 to repeal the camping ban with council members Alison Alter (D10) and Kathie Tovo (D9) voting against. Basically, this allowed unhoused people to legally sleep in public again.

Three months later in October 2019, city council voted to partially reinstate the camping ban. This measure further defined where camping would not be allowed, like within 15 feet of a residence or business or near ARCH/other shelters. With this partial ban, camping is still allowed outside of those areas.

In August 2020, an organization called Save Austin Now led by Travis County GOP chair Matt Mackowiak, submitted a petition to allow the public to vote to reinstate the camping ban. Initially, it was thrown out by the city clerk because it lacked the necessary number of signatures to be put on the ballot. 20,000 signatures are needed. They submitted 24,598 signatures (the lowest number of any recently filed citizen-led petition), but only 19,122 could be verified so the petition was thrown out.

However, in February 2021, Save Austin Now tried again and received the required 20,000 signatures to put the ban on the ballot. It has been widely stated that canvassers for Save Austin Now collected signatures using purposefully vague language, stating that their petition was one to "help the homeless" without providing signers the truthful information that the petition sought to reinstate the camping ban. Hundreds of signers were able to have their signatures removed after hearing about the manipulative cavassing, but not enough to keep the ban from the ballot.

Public Safety

Supporters of the camping ban say the ban is needed to protect public safety. How are the camping ban and public safety related?

People who argue the camping ban is needed for public safety seem to forget that unhoused people are part of the public. When you deny people shelter, even if that shelter is just a tent, you immediately endanger those people. They are more susceptible to theft, violence, and danger in general. Providing a safe environment for the unhoused is public safety.

Despite the repeal of the camping ban in 2019, the rate of violent crimes where the perpetrator was unhoused and the victim was housed decreased by 1% in 2019.

In fact, the rate of violent crimes where the perpetrator was housed and the victim was unhoused rose 7% in 2019, suggesting that it would be more likely for a housed citizen of Austin to commit violence against an unhoused person of Austin, and not the other way around.

There is no available data that shows that banning camping in public keeps the public safer.

“It looks like the least likely thing to happen with any violent crime involving a homeless individual is that it would be involving someone who is not homeless.” - Greg McCormack, Executive Director of Front Steps

Prop B Creates Criminal Records

Between 2016 and 2018, APD issued more than 10,000 citations to unhoused people who violated the camping ban. Most of these citations were issued for sitting or lying on a public sidewalk or outdoors. These citations cost up to $500. The average cost was about $160.

As can be expected, many unhoused people were unable to pay these fines. About 6 in every 10 citations issued resulted in arrest warrants after people failed to pay their fines in court.

With an arrest warrant on your record, it is measurably more difficult to qualify for essential services like housing and employment. Prop B would make the homelessness problem in Austin worse.

"Having tickets, arrests and warrants associated with these ordinances, sets people back from the goal of escaping homelessness; it prevents them from getting jobs and housing, and the vast majority of folks are trying to get out of homelessness. They are trying to get services, housing and employment so that they can get a roof over their head and restart their lives." - Chris Harris, Just Liberty

Why You Should Vote No on Prop B

1. Prop B criminalizes poverty.

Sitting, panhandling, and camping in public are often an unavoidable realities for those experiencing extreme poverty. To be criminalized for  not having a house to sleep in is morally bankrupt. No one should be forced to carry a criminal record just because they're poor. 

2. Prop B does not offer solutions to homelessness.

By making it illegal to camp in certain areas, the camping ban seeks to push the unhoused population out of main city areas without providing anywhere for them to go, or any actionable solution for the homelessness problem as a whole. The broader issues of inequality and poverty are not addressed in Prop B, and voting yes would only further endanger people experiencing homelessness.

3. Prop B would make it more difficult to escape poverty.

It is much more difficult to qualify for housing and employment opportunities when one has a criminal record. By criminalizing homelessness, unhoused people are more likely to get criminal records that would prevent them from accessing essential resources that are vital to transition from homelessness thus feeding the cycle that seeks to keep poor people poor.

Shelter beds in Austin: 812 Unhoused people in Austin: 2,500

The Housing Authority of The City of Austin waitlist for public housing has been closed since 2018. When it's open, the wait is 5-10 years.

The Housing Authority of The City of Austin waitlists for public housing at two other sites have also been closed since 2019 and 2020 and also have excessively long wait times.

The average wait time for housing through the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs is more than 3 years.

experiencing homelessness is not a crime. vote no on prop b.

research is work! buy me a coffee?

Sources:

votetravis.com

What is Prop B? Source

https://www.austintexas.gov/news/council-orders-elections-eight-propositions-may-1-2021

Affected Areas Sources

https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1459657/?utm_source=showcase&utm_campaign=visualisation/1459657

https://www.kut.org/austin/2021-02-04/the-city-clerk-has-okd-save-austin-nows-petition-to-reinstate-homelessness-bans-teeing-up-a-may-referendum

History of the Camping Ban Sources

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/1996-02-16/530585/

https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Planning/Demographics/population_history_pub.pdf

https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2020/05/austin-sees-10-year-high-in-the-number-of-people-experiencing-homelessness/#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20people%20experiencing%20homelessness%20in%20Austin%20hit%20a,25.

https://austin.culturemap.com/news/city-life/01-15-20-austin-population-explode-past-1-million-by-summer-2020/

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/1997-07-04/529209/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=59736855&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjM1NzAyNDMwMCwiaWF0IjoxNjEzMDg2NTk4LCJleHAiOjE2MTMxNzI5OTh9.kR_Q35oymBXM41oMWIs2zRUjL-V0i6E0NY98ubRiWnw

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/1997/06/16/story1.html

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/1997-07-04/529210/

http://www.austintexas.gov/content/archive-council-meetings-held-1997

Why are we talking about this 27 years later? Sources

https://www.statesman.com/news/20190621/city-council-rescinds-measures-that-critics-say-criminalize-homelessness

https://www.kut.org/austin/2019-10-29/as-austin-rolls-out-its-revised-camping-and-resting-bans-the-future-is-uncertain

https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2020-08-05/save-austin-now-petition-to-reinstate-camping-ban-fails/

https://www.kut.org/austin/2021-02-04/the-city-clerk-has-okd-save-austin-nows-petition-to-reinstate-homelessness-bans-teeing-up-a-may-referendum

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/where-the-push-for-a-new-austin-homeless-shelter-stands-now/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CHowever%2C%20Austin%20currently%20only%20has,related%20to%20homelessness%20over%202019.

https://affordablehousingonline.com/housing-authority/Texas/Housing-Authority-of-the-City-of-Austin/TX001#wl108037

https://affordablehousingonline.com/housing-authority/Texas/Texas-Department-of-Housing-and-Community-Affairs/TX901

Public Safety Source

https://www.statesman.com/news/20200209/violent-crimes-with-homeless-suspects-victims-went-up-in-2019-data-show

Prop B Creates Criminal Records Sources

https://www.kut.org/austin/2019-06-20/most-tickets-for-homelessness-result-in-arrest-warrants-that-can-make-finding-housing-hard

https://www.kut.org/austin/2015-10-05/no-sit-no-lie-citations-handed-out-by-the-thousands-and-most-go-unpaid

Vote No Sources

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/where-the-push-for-a-new-austin-homeless-shelter-stands-now/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CHowever%2C%20Austin%20currently%20only%20has,related%20to%20homelessness%20over%202019.

https://affordablehousingonline.com/housing-authority/Texas/Housing-Authority-of-the-City-of-Austin/TX001#wl108037

https://affordablehousingonline.com/housing-authority/Texas/Texas-Department-of-Housing-and-Community-Affairs/TX901

Additional Reading:

Mapping Out a Solution: Austin’s Homeless Task Force 

This Ain’t No KOA: Don’t Let the Tent Flap Hit You on Your Way Out...

[willowashmaple]

delusional but a (reasonably) happy life.

Narratives are everything in today’s society. Political operatives, marketing professionals, preachers of Prosperity Gospel, “Law of Attraction” promoters, and motivational speakers all run on this principle.

In many ways, I know I maintained my sanity by controlling the narratives about me, and by fighting whatever the narratives and labels society wanted to impose on me. 

I have survived more than a decade of homelessness and extreme poverty through this. As someone who was a product of the Word-Faith branch of Pentecostalism and a hopelessly gullible soul that used to believe anything (at least for a while), the most reasonable thing I would do was to deny the predicament I was in. That I was somebody, not nobody. Otherwise it was unbearably depressing: I was a literal bum, a chronic homeless, with obvious signs of severe mental illnesses, who was too anti-social and defiant to ask for help. And I managed to pass myself off like a “normal person” pretty well. I was able to successfully infiltrate the world that would otherwise never allow chronic bums to step a foot in, maybe out of fear or prejudice, or simply that they don’t belong there. 

In retrospect, I was very likely delusional and my life was almost entirely founded on make-believes, and this has been the case since my early adolescence. I used to believe in all sorts of fringe ideas, such as conspiracy theories and fringe legal theories. I was able to convince myself to be all kinds of somebodies even though there was no objective evidence to go with it. And by convincing myself to be that somebody, I was able to present that make-believe self to the world around me with a relative ease, and I was also adept at quickly learning just enough facts, jargons, concepts, and terminologies so I could carry a conversation and not be immediately seen as a poseur (but in retrospect I now know I was extremely arrogant and made a big fool of myself). 

Don’t take me wrong, this was a blessing. This was also a coping mechanism and survival mechanism. Because I was able to do this for many years, I was mostly able to stay away from the most depressing aspects of street life, such as shelters, jails, and soup kitchens. The downside to this, was that I lived outside far longer than 95 percent of all who have experienced houselessness, including nearly all of my 30s. 

I was delusional. But I was rather happy, to a reasonable degree, even when I was freezing my ass in the middle of snowy December at 2:30 in the morning trying to sleep. I had something to look forward to. I was resilient. I was capable of dreaming. I had life.   

I was pretty much a real-life Sara Crewe, constructing own make-believe world to maintain sanity until (in the classic Word-Faith/New Thought/Law of Attraction style) something comes to manifestation. 

This year, as I recover from the worst autistic burnout of all times in the midst of the COVID-induced social isolation, I became increasingly critical of this past. All that I feel lately are shame, embarrassment, self-loathing, guilt, regret, and anger at myself for being so delusional. I am deeply unhappy. And depressed. And hopeless. Suddenly it had occurred to me that I was just a nobody. 

The “conventional wisdom” is that this is good. Who should suffer from delusion, right? This has got to be a sign of healing. Growth. Self-responsibility. “Adulting.” 

But I wonder: which is really better, delusional but happy, or “sane” but extremely unhappy to the point I can barely get up every morning and do something? 

Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan assert that religion and faith are harmful delusions. Yet, it is also true that these “harmful delusions” have shaped the history of the United States in a mostly positive way, provide ethical and moral underpinning for our social fabric, and even offer numerous health benefits. And religious people tend to be happier and healthier.

I don’t know. I could’ve done better, for sure. But now shame and regret are literally tormenting me and keeping me from moving forward. I feel like I have accomplished so much more when I was delusional.