#Had to get my visa put in the system

[starsandspacefog]

BTW YOURE AWESOME!!

HAGSGDJAJ TYYY YOURE MORE AWESOME

Also this is kinda funny bc I accidently starved myself yesterday but we ball

[pregablin]

I dreamt that the Swedish police had a piss k!nk, probably not far from the truth...

[broidobe]

𝔩𝔞𝔴𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔩𝔬𝔳𝔢

requested!

☾the reader, a foreigner in the country, faces the risk of having to leave, but slash proposes a marriage of convenience that turns into something much deeper, shifting their friendship to something more☽

☾warnings: friends to lovers, marriage of convenience, fluff, mild language☽

⁎⁺˳✧༚guns and roses masterlist

you’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider, not because you didn’t fit in, but because you were always just a little different. coming from overseas, the language, the culture, the whole system, it all felt like a puzzle you could never quite solve. but somehow, you found your way into the inner circle of the guys—gn’r, that is. they made you feel welcome, like family, like you belonged.

then came the paperwork. the visa complications. the deadlines. and before you knew it, your future in the country was in serious jeopardy. you didn’t want to leave, especially not now when you finally felt like you had something worth holding onto. but the law was the law, and the options were slim.

“shit, this is such a mess,” you muttered to yourself one night, sitting on the couch in slash’s living room, your mind racing with options. you could leave. you could figure something out, but you didn’t want to. not when everything felt like it was just falling into place.

slash, who had been sitting across from you, playing his guitar, stopped mid-strum and looked at you with a furrowed brow. “what’s going on with you, babe?” he asked, his voice concerned but also laced with his usual laid-back charm.

“I have to leave,” you said quietly, trying to keep the weight of it from making your voice crack. “My visa’s expiring, and there’s nothing I can do.”

slash’s eyes narrowed, his fingers pausing on the strings. “you can’t leave. not now. not after all this time.”

you looked at him, a mix of disbelief and confusion crossing your face. “I don’t have a choice.”

there was a long pause, and then slash leaned back in his chair, giving you a smirk that was equal parts playful and serious. “well, we could get fucking married,” he said, the words leaving his mouth like they were the most natural thing in the world.

your jaw dropped. “what?”

“yeah,” he continued, his tone teasing but also strangely sincere. “you need a way to stay here, and I need someone to put up with my shit. it’s a match made in heaven.”

you stared at him, the idea bouncing around in your head, disbelief turning into realization. “you’re serious?”

“dead serious,” he said, his smirk widening. “I mean, we’ve been friends for years, right? we get along, we’ve already put up with each other’s weirdness... why the hell not?”

you blinked, still processing. “but… marriage? just like that?”

“hey, it’s not like we’re strangers,” he said, leaning forward, his eyes locking with yours. “plus, I’m kinda thinking that it might be more than just a business deal for me.” his voice softened, that familiar warmth you hadn’t fully noticed before settling in.

you swallowed, trying to make sense of it. this was slash. your friend. your rock. the guy who made you laugh when you were at your lowest. could this really be happening?

“you’re saying… we’d get married for real?”

“maybe not in the way most people think,” he said with a wink. “but hell, we’re good together, aren’t we?”

you couldn’t help the nervous laugh that escaped your lips. “are we?”

he grinned, a playful glint in his eye. “we are now.”

and just like that, the idea didn’t seem so crazy anymore. you looked at him, seeing more than just the friend you’d known for years. maybe it wasn’t as insane as it seemed. maybe it was exactly what you needed.

“okay,” you said, your heart racing. “let’s do it. let’s get married.”

slash chuckled and stood up, walking over to you with that easy confidence you loved. “we’ll figure the details out later, but for now, you’re not going anywhere.”

and just like that, the lines between friendship and something more blurred, turning into something neither of you had expected—but maybe something both of you needed.

[anexperimentallife]

We should find out soon if I need bone grafts and/or implants for my mouth. It will depend on whether I have enough inner jawbone left to retain regular dentures (they're making another set now to see if they can adjust them enough to stay in)--If not, we have to figure out if there's enough bone left for four implants (to hold dentures in), and whether that would be cheaper than the bone graft surgery (or if BOTH are needed--because the worst bone loss is RIGHT where the rear implants would need to go).

The good news is that my oral surgeon is offering to discount the surgery by quite a bit if it is needed, so it'd only take me maybe five or so years to save up the cash for it, assuming no other emergencies in the meantime and I let my other surgeries slide.

Honestly, if we can get this and my throat surgery taken care of within the next year or two, my hip, knee, and (possible) spine surgeries can wait. Yeah, it's a lot of pain, and I have to curtail walking activities, but I can get around on my cuff crutches most of the time as long as I don't overdo it.

It's frustrating, though, because if the contract to adapt my story to a game hadn't been canceled, AND if El's birth certificate error (which left her stateless) hadn't coincided with a pandemic and cost us our entire savings PLUS donations to correct, AND if I hadn't had COVID FOUR FUCKING TIMES, AND if COVID/Long COVID hadn't fucked up my eye and heart and immune system and general health so much, we'd be so much better off financially and health-wise.

We're fine for day-to day stuff; no worries about rent or groceries or anything like that, even with paying off all the debt from the birth certificate/citizenship snafu (Long story short: We're both US citizens, but had our daughter here in the Philippines, and a birth certificate screw-up left her stateless just as our visas were expiring and in need of a renewal trip, meaning it cost a LOT to be able to stay in-country with her until we could get that sorted so she could travel with us).

It's just the stuff that requires several hundred (or in some cases thousands) of dollars up front that fucks us up. Like, all my oral stuff is cash only, because you can only really use a credit card for most medical/dental stuff here if you're admitted to a hospital as an inpatient. No, I don't know why. So I can probably put my throat and other surgeries on credit cards, but we have to pay down our debt more before I'm comfortable doing that.

[lesbianashleywilliams]

So those of you who have been following me may have noticed that I all but disappeared for about three months...well, that's because I've been planning to go to Japanese language school, and the wheels have really begun to start turning!!!!!!

I have been given the opportunity of my lifetime to be able to attend a Japanese language course at the International Study Institute in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward. The course runs for a year, with the opportunity to extend it to two years, if my grades and money are sound [insert sound of children cheering here].

Being able to study Japanese locally and long-term has been a life goal of mine since I was fourteen. Though I'll probably never be able to fulfill my teenage dream of being an interpreter/translator for expats, this feels like the next best thing. Due to suffering from several comorbid chronic conditions that have majorly altered my life, most notably the beast known as systemic lupus erythematosus, I will probably never be able to seize another chance like this ever again. I won't be going in as a total novice, as I was able to take a year's worth of 1000-level Japanese language courses in college…before I had to drop out…… Since then I've been self-studying and using language exchange apps for practice, but nothing will beat the experience of using it in the day-to-day.

At this point in time (January 2024), my first six months of tuition have already been paid for. I am currently in a quiet waiting period while I wait to get to the next steps of the Certificate of Eligibility/Student Visa process. Before that, though, I need to secure my flight and housing. For the sake of my health, safety, privacy and comfort, a sharehouse will not be an option; I will have to seek a private apartment. I am here today to request assistance with the aforementioned flight and initial housing costs. It's still too early to commit to either of those, but:

The average cost of flexible one-way flights from where I am to either of the two Tokyo metro airports (Haneda and Narita) is running around $1200

I am doing some preliminary apartment scouting and am hoping not to exceed $800 per month (I will be traveling with suitcases and will need to properly store them). The apartments I am looking at do not require a security deposit or key money, but will probably come with a guarantor fee.

Now because I'm not going over there through one of the more common avenues - through a university or a job - I have to do it myself. Real life has meant that I've had to dig into my bank balance a bit, and after paying for the first six months I'm a little under the 2 million yen (~$14k) threshold that Immigration likes to see for a year's study. I'm lucky enough in that I will at least have a regular source of (unearned) income, as well as a financial sponsor; it's just the bank balance, flight, and accommodation that are hanging me up. Right now I am setting the initial goal at $3000, but I expect to move those goalposts at least once. Any extra will go towards a flight home for the Christmas holidays in December. After that, it'll go towards paying down my credit cards as much as I can prior to leaving the United States.

I can provide my conditional letter of acceptance from ISI, as well as the school invoice and receipt of the bank transfer for the first six months of tuition upon request (identifying information redacted, of course).

Because there's still a couple of months until I'm set to fly out I put together a GoFundMe (now that's a name I haven't used in a while) to idly collect whatever help I can. At the very least I just need this post to circulate enough to eventually cast a wider net outside of Tungle.hell.

GoFundMe

If you can't use GFM, V3nmo and P4ypal are also options:

V3nmo: @/venus3palette

P4ypal: @/fantasytheater

Again: I'm not in that much of a hurry, and the situation isn't dire! Thank you for combing my wall of text!!!!

[sucka-1]

The 2nd Trump admin so far---simplified edition---

I saw a post on reddit asking what Trump has done so far, but my reply was too long, so I thought it'd be worth adding here instead

Main points are emboldened, sub points/related actions are italicized→

1. Instated tariffs(taxes on companies when they import goods and products from foreign countries into the US) on all countries except for North Korea and Russia. These tariffs have caused markets to plunge and have raised prices greatly for just about all products in the US. The way that works is that, many people have the misconceptions that tariffs are a tax on foreign governments, but that is not the case. They are a tax on companies importing products made in specific foreign countries to the US. These companies, to make up for the loss of money from the tax, raise their product prices---therefore, the buyers, Americans, have to pay 200 more dollars for their iphone that was fabricated in Taiwan, and 10 more for their coffee, the beans that were used to make it being able to be grown almost exclusively in equatorial countries. Raising product prices is also cheaper than bringing their(tariffed companies') manufacturing force back to the US. The tariffs have also been placed on countries with incredibly small populations, such as McDonald island, with a population of 0. There are now fears of a recession, or historic depression, as we are more than likely to lose these trades wars.

Trumps ideas on tariffs are inspired by the books of Peter Navarro(a man who has also worked as an advisor for him), whose main source for the information in his books is Ron Vara, a fake person Navarro created to put into the resource sections of his books so his information would appear as if sourced from a real economist or historian, and not his own head.

2. Created ICE, an organization that raids locations where they suspect illegal immigrants are. These places can include homes, schools, offices, etc. So far, it has deported several people wrongly, such as a Maryland man, who specifically was ruled not to be deported, as he had escaped to the US from South America after being threated by gangs there. It has also defied court orders from judges to return planes carrying immigrants. Trump has also changed laws that allowed many foreigners to enter the country legally for years now, to make it so that, anyone who had entered the country in those ways in the past, are now illegals to be deported. They have also created a point system, where, if an individual gets 8pts, they can be deported, which has lead to the wrong deportation of a gay barber who had two tattoos on either of his arms of crowns, which earned him 4pts each.

These people are not detained or allowed to contact their lawyers when they are taken. They are immediately deported, without due process(The rule of law, for example, getting to speak to lawyers/getting a court hearing/getting thorough investigations or background checks before being deported). It has also been found that ICE has detained people and kept them in their(ICE's) vehicles before drafting the documents for their reason for detaining. Many on the left fear that soon a native American citizen will be racially profiled and deported to country they've never been to. Denying due process for anyone on US soil is illegal and unconstitutional.

3. (somewhat related to ICE)Detained/Inhumanely detained foreign travelers(NON-immigrants) who attempt entering the US legally. For example, an Australian MMA coach and youtuber visiting the US for a seminar who had a slight mistake in his VISA, who was kept in a federal prison directly among actual criminals for 24 hours. Some of the guards spoke to him as if he were a criminal, and he got involved in a fight with an inmate attempting to steal his(the MMA coach's) items. He details the story of his experience on his Instagram account: coachsubotic. Or a French scientist who was detained and denied entry for having messages criticizing Trump on his phone.

and

Detained immigrant young people who have insulted the administration or have openly supported the liberation of Palestine, justice for Palestinian civilians, and end of the genocide(ethnic cleansing/mass murder of a certain people group) of Palestinians. For example, a Turkish woman who travelled to the US to get an education, who was kidnapped off the sidewalk by police officers wearing masks because of a plead in an article written by her, asking the US government to consider divesting(un-investing) in Israel. Her plead was deemed "support for Hamas" and her VISA was revoked without her being notified. She was taken from Massachusetts to Louisiana. At one point, her lawyers had no way of knowing where she was located, and therefore, no idea what jurisdiction she was under for them to make a petition for her VISA to be reapproved. Or a Chinese student who came to the US when she was 7 years old who got her green card revoked for having attended peaceful protests fighting against the expulsion of students who had publicly defended Palestine.

4. Created a crypto-currency rug-pull(also known as coins, meme-coins, or shit-coins) called $TRUMP. Its somewhat complicated to explain what a crypto-currency is from the start, but to put it simply, there things that people can invest their money into, just like stocks, and a rug-pull is when the creator of the crypto-currency 'pulls out', which is a way of stealing all the money that investors invested.

5. Pardoned January 6th, 2021 rioters who broke into and vandalized the capitol building. Many officers were assaulted by rioters that day. The capitol building itself had to undergo heavy repairs. Trump incited this riot because he did not accept the result of the 2020 election and believes it was stolen and fraudulent. Rioting and riot incitation is illegal.

6. Threatened to annex Canada, Greenland, and the Panama canal.

Threatened to annex Canada: This has eroded the relationship of the two most culturally similar and closest allied nations in history. There isn't anything in particular the US would gain from this besides population, land area, and some negligible natural resources such as more snow or plants that probably only in that biome.

Threatened to annex Greenland: This is because Greenland is, despite being enlarged by the common map projection(ways that a spherical globe is broken and stretched to be placed on a rectangular map), a relatively sizeable landmass in a good geo-political location on earth, and, as global warming continues and more parts of Artic Ocean melt away and open up, Russia and the US(Canada rather, though next is us) have a direct northern route to each other. Because of this, Trump wants to annex Greenland, a Danish territory currently seeking sovereignty(independence). Typically, countries would just place military bases in a sovereign point of interest like this (for example, all the US military bases in the Philippines, Japan, and just about every country surrounding Eastern China) so it is atypical to imperialize in the Contemporary era for this reason.

The Panama canal has been taken. The background to this is imperial desire is that originally, the US helped Panama gain independence from Colombia in the early 1900's specifically to build the Panama canal.

This(alongside the trade wars) has caused almost all countries on Earth to lose a centuries worth of trust we had earned, and eroded American hegemony(dominance/significance in the world).

7. Not attended the transfer of the bodies of four American soldiers(Dignified transfer) who died during training in Lithuania back to the US. Presidents typically attend dignified transfers as a way of honoring the men who have fallen for the sake of the country.

8. Banned Trans people from participating in the military and asked for anyone experiencing gender dysphoria(dissatisfaction with ones own gender at birth and belief that ones gender at birth, also known as biological sex, is not the same as their gender, or gender expression) to leave. This means trans Americans will no longer get the chance to serve their country or gain the military benefits that every other able-bodied American can if they so choose.

9. Discussed a 3rd Presidential term multiple times. Serving more than 2 presidential terms is illegal and unconstitutional.

10. Ruled that there are only two genders in the United States, that women are females, and that females are "person[s] belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell" and men are males, and males are "person[s] belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell". This means that everyone in the United States is Agender(Genderless) as no human being has either large or small reproductive cells at conception(though, people often make the joke that 'everyone is female' as the tissue there looks akin to a female reproductive cell early on).

11. Changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to 'The Gulf of America', and the name of Mt. Diwali(The name the native peoples gave it, and that we've recognized as a way of respecting them) to 'Mt. McKinley.'

12. Allowed a civilian without clearance to enter official meetings. Allowed a civilian who was not approved by Congress to handle a government department. This civilian stayed in the country illegally, defying the constraints of his VISA, and is therefore an illegal immigrant. This civilian has about 500 billion dollars in his bank account.

13. (Adjacent, but significant)DOGE(Department of Government Efficiency):

One of the first things they did was fire hundreds of FAA(Federal Aviation Administration) employees, who keep planes in the air and organized. There has now been an uptick in plane close calls and mishaps, such as a plane flipping and landing upside-down. They have also defunded the national parks, which bring in magnitudes more than the amount that is spent on them. They have also defunded science research, such as research for curing cancer and making cancer aid more efficient. They also made cuts to social security(tax money allocated to aid Americans in their old age).

Hundreds of employees from other departments and gov. funded sectors have also been fired, re-hired, and paid for their time away, meaning a loss of thousands of peoples worth of money for time where they were not allowed to work, therefore, money was spent on work that that was not done, and unnecessarily not allowed to have been done.

14. Allowed Bibles to be required to be present in all classrooms and effectively rendered the point of public schooling void, as public schools exist specifically to be inclusive to all students and not encourage only one identity. So far, this is only the case in Oklahoma, but the fed has yet to declare it unconstitutional and force the requirement to be dissolved. This defies one of the founding American principles of separating church and state. It is illegal and unconstitutional to involve the church with the state.

15. Removed DEI(Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) laws, which have historically existed to fight against discrimination, primarily racial(intentional and unconscious racial biases), in the job hiring process, and to fight against discrimination in the work place. Often before DEI, people with high merits and achievements were not hired due to conscious or unconscious racial biases. This means those racial, among other biases, will begin affecting people searching for employment once again.

16. Taken down government website pages of significant historical American figures who are minorities, such as famous baseball player Jackie Robinson. They have also taken down the Spanish version of the white house site.

17. Made voting and updating social security more difficult for the disabled. Now people, including the elderly and disabled(for example, an elderly man who DOGE employees decided was dead who had to drive a long distance to reassure that he was alive,) have to travel to voting offices and social security offices to vote and make sure their social security is intact.

Many of these laws have directly been caused by Trump using executive orders, which have yet to be deemed as going beyond his executive power or not. A loophole in the Constitution is that, there are no constitutional enforcements of judges orders, therefore the things judges deem only follow through if people in the government recognize it, which is why nothing has occurred to Trump or his appointees for the mentioned crimes, pre 2nd admin crimes, pre 1st admin crimes, and the following crimes.

---Adjacent---

1. Hegseth(one of the people Trump appointed) created a group chat on a non government messaging site called 'Signal' and discussed classified information with other high government individuals. We know this because he accidentally added a reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the group. Only government messaging sites are allowed for classified messaging. He was also recently found to be doing classified messaging on Gmail. Insecure messaging such as these, especially google, can be hacked or accessed by foreign intelligence. Classified messaging on non-government channels is illegal.

2. His wife has a rug-pull of her own as well, $MELANIA.

3. Elon Musk(one of the people trump approved, who was not appointed by Congress) raised a sieg heil(a hand signal, where the arm is raised forward, pointing straight, at an angle. The hand signal supports the Third Reich, also known as Nazi Germany). The hand sign is debated to be intentional or accidental. He has also been supporting AfD, a neo-Nazi party in Germany that is essentially revising history and downplaying the Holocaust.

4. R.F.K(one of the people Trump appointed) has indirectly caused the first measles death in the US since 2015 with his anti-vaccine rhetoric.

---

All of the stories and examples I've used are public and well known. You should be able to paste them into the search bar and keep up with developing stories from there.

[letsgobarbs]

Question Tag Game

thanks for the tag @mushgloomz how did you know i love talking about myself?

Do you make your own bed?

no <3 i roll out of bed and then i roll back in again. the bed is made as long as my sheets are tucked and the blanket covers me :) the only time i make the bed is when the sheets need to be changed.

Favorite number?

none but as soon as i read the question the number 47 appeared to mind so i'll let him have his moment. i have the gravitational constant tattooed on me its not my fav number as such but it signifies a story.

What's your job?

currently, i work as an assistant for a lawyer, so i draft legal notices/letters for him. i also work as a career counselor so i help people pick majors/careers, shortlist schools, look over SOPs help apply, prep for SATs and language tests, do visa paperwork that sort of thing. both my current jobs have nothing to do with what i studied for graduation.

If you could go back to school, would you?

yes, that is very much the life plan. funny how i can help everyone else do their application but i have procrastinated on mine for three years now :) i need a kick up my butt. i studied astrophysics for undergrad and wanna do my masters and phd in that as well. wanna be a college professor. Because every college professor i have ever met has been a main character and they are literally so cool i want their lives.

Can you parallel park?

yes, i was taught but i have not driven for a long time.

Do you think aliens are real?

absolutely and they might be closer than you think. in our solar system my money is on a few of the jupiter and saturn moons like europa??? she's crusted up like a pizza but because of the tidal forces from jupiter's thick juicy gravity she's got a liquid ocean underneath. and it's said to be more water than Earth. water is a requirement and one of the signs of life. SPACE SEA MONSTERS SPACE SEA MONSTERS SPACE SEA MONSTERS SPACE SEA MONSTERS

Can you drive a manual car?

it is all i have ever known, automatic cars don't make sense to me. what do you mean push a button? get out.

What's your guilty pleasure?

none <3 but also all of them. all my pleasures sometimes make me feel guilty because more often than not i have put aside something very important that needs to be done to have that pleasure. also i don't think i deserve much but that's for my therapist to unpack sounds like a her problem.

Any phobias?

everything that feels like i can't manage, deep oceans, deep space, isolation and abandonment too all the existential fears too i love those particularly.

Favorite childhood sport?

i used to swim competitively until we moved to a school that had no pool after which i played badminton also competitively nothing too impressive just for my school and within the state. i also played soccer briefly. haven't touched sports since school but i enjoyed them all and can't pick one.

Do you talk to yourself?

always. im hilarious. also i am the third funniest person in my friend group. despite that awareness i am my only entertainment.

Tattoos?

i have two atm. one is the gravitational constant, and another is the BTS song epiphany. im not that into bts anymore but i would always have to thank them for getting me through a rough spot in life. that song particularly is probably nothing special in the grand scheme of things but it touched me when i needed it most.

i also had an appointment booked with my favourite artist for a full sleeve tattoo. but they had to cancel for family reasons and my visa ran out so i had to leave. still waiting on it and i will have it one day.

Favorite color?

all of them literally like the ugliest of browns and oranges can still shine very well when they find their place i am quite poetic about colours.

Do you like puzzles?

i love them!!

reveal yourselves: @paradiselady19 @peepawispunk @probablyreadinsmut @jolapeno @iknowisoundcrazy @coulsons-fullmetal-cellist @damneddamsy @clubsoft @stellamarielu @galaxyedging @for-a-longlongtime @missredherring @misguidedasgardian @tinytinymenace @guiltyasdave @sizzlingcloudmentality @slimybeth69 @pedrospookie

[mesetacadre]

The whole of Korea is thus what is called “iron-curtained” country. But who, one wonders put the curtain up? After I applied for a visa to North Korea and got it, I learned that the big American agencies did not want the news. They told me flatly that they preferred to get the tales of the Soviet zone from the refugees who ran away from it, which is about like getting one’s facts about London from Berlin during the war. They assured me that I myself would get no real facts in the Soviet zone, but would be watched and handicapped at every turn. It is therefore necessary to state first how I got my facts in North Korea. When I reached the airport in Pyongyang, the capital, a courteous Russian major of the army’s press department offered me his services in getting about. He arranged a room for me in a hotel with western style beds and food and was useful for first routine contacts. Then I told him that too much guidance would invalidate my observations, and that I wanted to go around alone among Koreans. He got the point; thereafter I made my own plans. I travelled from coast to coast across the country, visiting villages, industrial plants, rest homes of the social insurance system. I picked up interpreters where I found them; some had learned English in American missionary schools. I talked freely to farmers, workers, factory managers, women, writers, officials. I got my facts entirely from Koreans, all of whom seemed glad to talk and unconstrained. If and when I met Russians they usually declined to comment on Korean affairs, saying: “It is the Koreans’ country; ask them.” I had freer and closer contact with Korean people in the Russian zone than any correspondent has reported, from the American zone. My strongest impression was that the Koreans seemed to think that they were running things. They were even naive about it. Again and again I was told that the “democratic government,” the universal suffrage, the land reform, the expanding agriculture, industry and education was the work, as one farmer put it, “of our own hands.” The Russians, they insisted, were just there because of a treaty with the Americans, and only to give advice. “The Russians liberated us from the Japanese,” said one, “but we Koreans did all the rest.”

In North Korea: First Eye-Witness Reports, Anna Louise Strong, 1949

[macro-pulse]

THE HEROES WHO SUED: MEET THE PLAINTIFFS

pregnant women, advocacy groups, and entire states said "not on our watch"

let's talk about who actually had the courage to immediately sue the Trump administration. these people and organizations are heroes.

THE LEAD CASE: CASA v. TRUMP

What is CASA?

Full name: CASA de Maryland (but they operate in multiple states)

Founded: 1985

Mission: Immigrant advocacy and support

Members: 120,000+ across Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania

They've been fighting this fight for 40 years

Why CASA had standing:

Their pregnant members would be directly affected

They'd have to divert resources to help stateless babies

Their entire mission would be undermined

Some staff members were personally affected

Individual plaintiffs with CASA:

Several pregnant women (names sealed for safety)

Due dates ranging from March-July 2025

Mix of undocumented and temporary visa holders

All fearing their babies would be stateless

One plaintiff's statement:

"I came here to study engineering. I fell in love. Now they want to punish my baby for existing."

THE STATE CASES: WASHINGTON v. TRUMP

Lead plaintiff: Washington State

Why Washington stepped up:

Large immigrant population

Tech industry depends on foreign workers

State constitution has stronger equal protection

Governor Jay Inslee personally pushed for the suit

Joined by:

Oregon

Illinois

Nevada

New Mexico

Their argument: "This will cost us millions and create chaos in our systems"

THE MEGA-CASE: NEW JERSEY v. TRUMP

Lead by New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California

This was the BIG one - 18 states total:

New Jersey (lead)

Massachusetts

California

New York

Connecticut

Rhode Island

Vermont

Maine

New Hampshire

Delaware

Maryland

Michigan

Minnesota

Wisconsin

Colorado

Hawaii

New Mexico

Nevada

Plus:

District of Columbia

City of San Francisco

Their collective argument:

30% of all US births would be affected in some states

Massive administrative burden

Violation of states' sovereign interests

Constitutional crisis

THE INDIVIDUAL PLAINTIFFS

While sealed for protection, court documents revealed patterns:

"Jane Doe #1"

PhD student from India

Married to another student

Due in April 2025

"I'm getting a doctorate in biomedical engineering to help cure diseases. My baby will be stateless?"

"Jane Roe #2"

From El Salvador

Fled violence

Asylum pending

Due date: May 2025

"We escaped death threats. Now my baby faces a different kind of death - civil death"

"Jane Poe #3"

Tourist visa overstay from Canada

Partner is British on work visa

Due June 2025

"We fell in love in America. Our child will be from nowhere?"

THE ORGANIZATIONAL PLAINTIFFS

Beyond CASA:

ACLU - Representing individuals nationwide

Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF)

Asian Law Caucus

National Immigration Law Center

Various local immigrant service providers

Each organization showed:

Direct service impacts

Resource diversion

Member injuries

Mission frustration

THE STANDING ARGUMENTS

Why courts agreed they could sue:

States:

Administrative costs (new systems needed)

Conflicting federal/state citizenship records

Public health impacts (people avoiding hospitals)

Education system chaos

Economic impacts (brain drain)

Organizations:

Diversion of resources

Frustrated organizational missions

Direct member injuries

Associational standing

Individuals:

Immediate injury (baby would be stateless)

Concrete and particularized

Actual or imminent (due dates approaching)

Redressable by injunction

THE SPEED OF RESPONSE

Timeline from EO to lawsuits:

January 20, 3pm: Order signed

January 20, 11pm: First suit drafted

January 21, 9am: CASA files in Maryland

January 22: Washington State files

January 23: Multi-state coalition files

By January 25: 15+ lawsuits nationwide

The legal community was READY.

THE COURAGE REQUIRED

Think about what these plaintiffs risked:

Undocumented plaintiffs exposed themselves

Named their due dates and locations

Became targets for harassment

Put their families in spotlight

All to protect their unborn children's rights

THE COALITION BUILDING

What's remarkable is the diversity:

Blue states and purple states

Large states and small states

Border states and interior states

Different affected populations

United in opposition

Massachusetts AG:

"This isn't about politics. It's about the Constitution and basic human decency."

THE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

These plaintiffs did everything right:

Filed immediately

Made compelling arguments

Showed concrete injuries

Built broad coalitions

Won at every lower court

They should have been able to protect everyone.

Instead, the Supreme Court said they could only protect themselves.

That's not justice. That's just selfish.

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[notnowkitten]

do you actually like ur husband & if u don’t can u not leave him ??

hey sorry i didn't get to this yet i was making dinner when u sent it last night and i dont get much time to myself.

so like. im not sure what depth of honesty you're expecting so i dont know how to answer this actually. its complicated, on both accounts.

i was a completely different person when i decided to move here 3 years ago. i was seeking adventure and boy did i get it! but my frontal lobe was underdeveloped, i was desperate to be loved, had nothing to lose, and of course i was in love with him. i still am, somehow.

i think it's moreso that he literally wants nothing to do with me. he is not attracted to me. he puts a pillow between us at night. i genuinely think he doesn't like me or love me. he likes having me around to make his life more comfortable - feeding him, doing household chores, listening to his rants. aside from paying our rent he doesn't help me with anything and he's not interested in me as a person. there's zero affection, he refuses to do things with me or really do anything outside of his strict personal routine (99% sure he has undiagnosed autism but he refuses to accept this) and yeah if anyone was curious he does hit me sometimes im not joking about that. that's life!!

i should stop myself ahead of this tangent bc i could go on. he has his share of flaws and annoying habits but i'm not certainly perfect either. i just wish he was nicer to the woman he claims to love.

in regards to taking action to dissolve this (dumping his sorry ass) i'm not dissing your level of maturity here when i say im guessing you've never been married. 'leaving' is reeeally not that simple, logistically or emotionally. it'd be way easier if we were just dating but marriage is a binding legal contract. again i dont mean to sound condescending it's just more complicated than many would assume.

plus, as you may or may not know, i immigrated from the US to australia to be with him. might sound unwise but at first it wasn't, i saved up plenty of money to fund my move and establish myself here, i did everything the right way, and i'm still waiting on immigration to process my visa after nearly 3 years. that's not really something you can just hit undo on. it's not like i just moved across town into his place, i moved across the literal planet.

financially i have nothing to my name and he doesn't have much more. the economy is really bad here. i did get a job but i havent started getting paid yet, even when i do it's only one shift a week. he, in combination with mental illness, has isolated me from having a support system. i have no friends, no confidence, no safe haven. my family can’t help. (1. they dont have much themselves 2. they’ve done enough already 3. my mom is my closest family member and she thinks he’s an angel so that’s not happening.)

money (or lack thereof) is definitely a factor but even if i had it i can't just up and break my lease on our apartment. we also have a cat who is like our child and i really do not want to leave her. cats do indeed have feelings and form close bonds with their people and i couldn't break her little heart like that.

plus australia’s divorce laws are utter bullshit!!! you have to be officially separated and living separately for a whole year in order to file for divorce. not to mention well he’s basically threatened to either end himself or live out the rest of his life wallowing in misery if i ever leave him. i can’t have that on my back. i’m fucked. basically i’m fucked!!!

ultimately it is what it is. i just wish he would like beat the shit out of me once and for all so that i had undeniable physical evidence. i mean, he does that, but not in a way that anyone would notice. even if he did... i don't leave the house enough to anyone to notice/care.

i've kinda given up on having a fulfilling relationship or expecting better from him. instead i'm trying to seek happiness through self initiated means. hobbies and stuff. self-improvement.

the hardest part is knowing that i want a family - most who do start by my age - but he would make a terrible father, and the longer i wait, the less time i have to find anyone else who would be a decent parent. torturous position to be in. but i got myself here didn't i.

[spaceumbredoggos]

Why do I headcanon that Ford would be against a lot of ABA practices and compliance based practices when it comes to autistic individuals and he’d be a huge neurodiverse advocate? Is it because I keep wishing he was the father I should have gotten instead of the ableist piece of shit that put me in compliance based ABA with strong usage of aversives such as heavily restricting electronic use for special interest as a bargaining chip and taking everything out of my room including myself when I would have an autistic shut down? Currently writing an AU of my self insert fic where Ford met them in 2015, two years after canon, and started mentoring them then before they had to endure abuse from both the system they were put in and Bill (I also hc that Bill made self insert’s meltdowns and issues worse from him abusing them in their nightmares.)

Do I need therapy? Yes. Am I afraid of therapy because of ABA that enabled my father’s abuse? Absolutely. Am I projecting all this bullshit on my self insert as a way to cope when I don’t get weekly visits with a therapist, which is something I need, and group therapy? Yeah. Is there any other solution besides venting to strangers on the internet and breaking the promise to myself that I wouldn’t vouch a single piece of clout to my father’s own ill doings? Please tell me because I don’t want others to go through what I’ve been through. I want to heal, but the American Neurodiversity system, like all things American, is really shitty. I wanna get my work visa and move to Canada, but at the same time, I wanna be a huge neurodiverse advocate. Why does it have to be so polarized and political to show basic human decency? The world is not black and white. I know that.

Why do I keep presenting myself onto these fictional characters as a way to escape? They’re not real and it’s not therapy. And I don’t wanna keep clouded on what should have happened because it’s unhealthy. But how the fuck else am I supposed to process?

[oldsargasso]

You have had your hands full! Don’t worry I have ENDLESS fanon thoughts so I will do my best to keep your ask box company 😌

Yes the advantage of feeding ourselves is we get to pick the menu!! I am CERTAIN at this point that Garfield and Benz simply pulled this ship out of thin air and made up their own headcanons to fill in for their lack of screentime LMAO. And NO YOU HAVE NOT TOLD ME ABOUT THIS WIP!! HOOKUPS FOLLOWED BY BETRAYAL?? BY TONY’S TOTALLY NORMAL PA?? YES PLEASE. I am basically eagerly awaiting everything you write at this point. AND YES KENTA IS INVESTED! How can his new boyfriend keep his visa if the team’s funding gets cut? Tragic.

This is why Kim is the realest to me. He asked for none of this and just rolled with the punches when most ppl would have either kept their heads down or fucked off. Objectively The Best. (SHFKFKFJJD Try telling Kim that Tony is his new owner—see how that goes down 😆)

(You are so right as always. Kim deserves ppl kneeling at his feet.)

Double offenses against us specifically, I’ll never recover. I’LL NEVER FORGIVE THEM IF WE DON’T EVENTUALLY GET SOME SORT OF FOLLOW-THROUGH! But yes supportive bf Kenta, it’s absolutely canon, he was definitely lurking in the stands somewhere.

Winner is so iconic and I love him… (multiple timelines running in our heads to carry all of the five hundred ships this show has provided)

Please give me ALL of your thoughts about collars, I beg of you, I live for this. Kenta would ABSOLUTELY be wearing his on the regular—he needs that reassuring weight under his shirt (totally normal about it saying “Kim’s” or smth similar on the tag). Like he’s fine with being a dog as long as it means he’s a beloved pet who doesn’t get cast aside! And Winner is ABSOLUTELY the type to bitch about a collar. He prob tried to make fun of Kenta for being collared (gets almost stabbed for it), but also passive aggressively moans about “Where’s MY present?” and then bitches about the collar when he DOES get it. And I’m SCREAMING HE DESERVES TO BE MUZZLED he’d be so cute… And Dean would look SO pretty in his collar (when is he NOT pretty tho lbr). PLEASE feel free to go on about what they look like! Kim can carry the keys to the collars around his neck 😌

I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE FICS! The KentaDean one is basically written just for the two of us. “The system works” LMFAO RESTORATIVE JUSTICE IN ACTION? Dean thinks he’s being SUBTLE but he has the BIGGEST puppydog expression when he wants something, like he emotes SO much in comparison to Kenta and Kim.

“He’s not a narcissist he’s just oblivious” ahdjfjf OUR BELOVED DUMBASS LOSER… I love the way he was as Tony’s henchman, like “I’m gonna be SUCH a good evil henchman my parents told me I was basically overqualified for this job—you want bodyguards? I’ll GET you bodyguards. I let those guys escape but I TOTALLY foiled their little scooby-doo plot because I am the BEST henchman. I’m SOOO much better than Kenta you know like fuck that guy and his stupid handsome eyes-“ Again it’s like… he gives himself so much affirmation he doesn’t need it from others; it’s just attention he wants. He’s SO interesting! And I love the contrast of Kim’s response to Tony being “Absolutely NOT” while Winner’s is “Absolutely YES” they should fuck about it, for our enjoyment.

I’M PLACING MY BETS ON THE MV COMING OUT THIS FRIDAY (prob late evening for you?). I think they’ll save the more emotional ones for after the fanmeet next week (unless they’re only doing one MV drop a month in which case haha catch me lying deceased on the floor!) 

HOW COULD YOU BREAK MY POOR LITTLE HEART LIKE THIS?? DEAN HAVING SOMETHING WITH KIM (A FRESH START) ONLY TO END UP FEELING LIKE HE’S BEEN REPLACED… AGAIN�� WHY DO WE KEEP PUTTING HIM IN SITUATIONSHIPS AND THEN MAKING HIM FEEL REJECTED. I’M HURTING 😭😭😭 I feel like having Kim’s attention would be so fulfilling? Rewarding? That the slight absence of it is like the sun going out. DEVASTATING (and DELICIOUS for me). But Pete just dropping Kenta off like Kim is running a doggy daycare is hilarious dkfjehshf I have this mental image of Pete carrying Kenta by the scruff of his neck?? And Dean is self-destructing while Kim is just. Unfazed about all of it! Dean wants him to be jealous, meanwhile Kim is like. “It’s physically impossible to be jealous of Winner. But if he hurt you, if he forced you, if you hated it, that’s a different conversation.” I just really need someone going to bat for Dean. There’s something to explore about the difference between possessiveness (what Dean wants or thinks he wants) and protectiveness (what Kim will actually provide).

I will send you five million more words about my ideas once you’ve had a chance to read the fic, since it expounds a lot on what I mentioned before and also just my feelings about our doggies. Also I’ve got like, various heat scenarios to talk about as well! 

honestly Garfield and Benz are throwing themselves into this ship with no reservations. I hope they get cast in another show together clearly they deserve to make out on camera like they want 😌

I'm honestly like. mad about that fic lmao I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote a whole bunch of it in my notes app and then when I woke up the next day I CLOSED THE NOTES WITHOUT SAVING. devastated. have to start from scratch. BUT now I'm like. it would probably work better from Kim's POV? but then I'd have to rewrite this which I really like lol :(

When Mr Tony had told Kenta to organise for Kim to be picked up from the airport and taken to the hotel, he definitely hadn't meant for Kenta to do the chauffeuring himself. But finding the loopholes in Tony's orders was how Kenta managed his life these days, so he was waiting in Arrivals in his usual black suit with a printed sign at 6pm the following Tuesday, surrounded by a group of men attired and be-signed much the same. Which was probably why Kim didn't give Kenta a second glance as he walked up. No big deal; Kenta’s used to being overlooked. “K’Kim?” he asks in polite confirmation, although he recognises Kim very well from the photographs he’s studied. Kim gives him a nod. This time he takes a good look at Kenta, sharp eyes sweeping from his carefully styled hair down to his perfectly shined shoes.

anyway then they go to Kim's hotel room and hook up and it starts from there.

Kim in the last few episodes is the BEST. he's just like "time fro breakfast! sure I'll chase down a teenager for a phone. sure I'll come along and beat up Winner in a funky jacket. sure I'll join your racing team and adopt north and sonic as my babies."

I NEED A FOLLOW UP I NEED A SPECIAL EPISODE OR A SEASON TWO. I hope we get something, even tiny crumbs, from the fanmeeting coming up. until it happens I can live in hope lmao.

!!! NOT THE KEYS THAT'S PERFECT!!! oh for sureee Kenta wears his basically all the time. its definitely black leather, right? he has a day collar something like this. or it says return to owner with Kim's details!! and then he has a more substantial collar for when they're at home, with rings for attaching a leash or ties to. yessss Winner. he doesn't care about it but also he should be given presents especially if other people are getting presents! I feel like his collar is red. probably leather as well. spiked!! or maybe something like a martingale collar so it's fine until someone pulls on it. imagine how pretty something like this would be for Dean though! or was thinking like an actual chain necklace/choker so he can wear it all the time and it's all delicate. I'm just imagining them all at the club or whatever, I think Kim deserves to hook his fingers in Kenta's collar while they're sitting drinking and pull him in until he's practically in Kim's lap. or maybe dancing and Kim tugs Dean's shirt down to show off his neck and Kim's claim.

IT WAS SO GOOD as you could probably tell by the insane comment I left. Dean has NO POKER FACE WHATSOEVER he's so easy to read!! how did he get away with any crimes!

the bad guy mv….DELIGHTFUL. even if it was just singing and dancing I love it with every part of my heart.

we keep putting Dean in this situations because he's….so pretty when he cries and is all emotional. BUT LIKE. Kim's not even stopping anything with Dean! in my head he's not even really starting anything with kenta, he's just being supportive and helping the guy integrate into society like a functioning human being. but of course nobody can use their words. Dean alwasy goes from 0-100 INSTANTLY. "It’s physically impossible to be jealous of Winner" LMAOOO. so true. askjfh PAINNNN. Dean definitely thinks he wants possessiveness - I think that's why the polycule works because Kim does offer protectiveness but I think both Winner and Kenat go for possessiveness. Winner because they're HIS things. and Kenta because he's had so little and can't lose any more. Kim is like. "unhealthy! but also…kinda hot." sometimes you just want a dude to go a little bit feral over you. okay.

!!! SEND HEAT RELATED THOUGHTS IMMEDIATELY. we should also talk about designations. I think in the show they're all just. not alphas. but personally I cannot write Winner as anything but an alpha. I tend to go for the other three as betas except for the fics I started early in the show with Kenta as an alpha lol. and I just started messing about with a sci fi au where perhaps Kim's suppressant chip malfunctions and it turns out he's not a beta and now he's about to go into heat in a very cramped ship... but I'm pretty sure I can be convinced any way for these four lol.

[anexperimentallife]

Pain meds have kicked in, so I apologize if this ramblea.) Had a couple of people ask why we're not actively fundraising for my surgeries and the debt accrued because of our personal Series of Unfortunate Events* (especially now in the aftermath of an unprovoked attack that did irreparable damage to my eyes--the vitreous humor is separating, which they say cannot be fixed, and the pre-existing retina separation on my right eye is also inoperable) or for trying to move back to the US where I could use my medical benefits.

The short answer is that although of COURSE we appreciate the people who donate, there are so many folks in worse positions than us (in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Congo, etc., not to mention folks even in developed countries lile the US whoin danger of losing their homes and so on) that I cannot in all good conscience ASK for money.

So like, yes, I still need the throat(!), foot, and joint surgeries (among other things), and yes, we've had to go deeper in debt for disability aids and my replacement teeth (which I should have sometime next week!).

BUT... my heart is apparently getting better!

That was the thing we were most worried about (so worried we started to fundraise to move back to the US to use my medical benefits) so if those other things get put off for another couple of years, so be it. The eye doc says I'm eight years away from cataract surgery. We have enough to pay our bills and give ourselves the occasional treat while paying down debt, and that's going to have to be enough for now.

*If you're new here...

You may not know that @thesurestthing amd I are a disabled, neurodivergent US couple living in the Philippines, where an issue with our daughter's birth certificate left her stateless in the middle of COVID travel restrictions just as our visas were expiring, and kicked off an expensive two-year bureaucratic nightmare about the same time the company I was licensing game rights to for an old story declined to renew the contract--that, plus me getting COVID four times and suffering mega-complications that involved--among other things-- multiple hospitalizations, me being on an oxygen machine for a month, long covid that has deatroyed my immune system, a persistent two-year foot infection that required surgery and specialized antibiotics, plus there was our daughter's medically complicated birth requiring a c section, and a few other emergencies that put us into the hole we're currently clawing our way out of.

(As an aside, if you and your partner give birth in the Philippines, make DAMN sure you triple-check the birth certificate before accepting it--the bureaucracy here is so intense that making ANY corrections can take literally years; we have a friend who was born and raised here who cannot get a new passport because his birth certificate still lists his name as "Baby Boy," and he finally--in his forties--has almost given up trying to get it fixed.)

[corruptedplaylist]

act iii: final notes

edit: 4/9/2024: added some more stuff!!! i'll put this emoji 🫧 next to the new things so u know where to scroll.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH I FINISHED MY FIRST FULL LENGTH FIC HOLD ON LEMME JUST THROW UP IN THE CORNER REAL QUICK

i am sooooooo normal rn anyways let's get into it thank u for having me on the show, mr. kimmel. i've had a raging headache all day so the content underneath each sections will be kinda short. i'll go through and add more to it once i recover but i wanted to get this up before the week got too busy!

krolia

guys…. im so sorry for the angst….. it was necessary for the plot…….

maybe it’s just me projecting but in the actual show, i kind of wish we had seen more of the emotional fallout that occurred after krolia revealed that she was keith’s mom. because let’s be real here, there’s no way that keith’s traumatized ass would just willingly accept her back into his life. he’d have questions. he’d be in disbelief. it’s hard for him to open up to others and he carries a lot of hurt from being abandoned.

it was crucial in the course of this fic to have that confrontation between krolia and keith. it's not always going to be rainbows and sunshine, and even though they both missed each other deeply, you don't just automatically connect and forget everything that's happened. even if keith hadn't gone into the foster system, he definitely would have carried a lot of anger and hurt towards krolia when she shows back up. i'm sure that things won't just be smooth sailing and they'll need to hash things out multiple times as they rebuild their relationship but that first fight was a big hurdle to get over.

if you’re curious, i have a whooollleeee backstory for what happened with krolia and why she couldn’t get back to her kid. i couldn’t really fit it into the fic but i’ll put it right here for those who are interested:

2000: krolia in the US on student visa, first year of of PhD program

krolia meets heath and they fall in love

2003: krolia gives birth to keith

2008: krolia finishes grad school/PhD program/doctoral degree and applies for a work visa 

2009: she and heath and baby keith are living their life but krolia’s parents find out and are like girl you need to come home NOW or we will disown you 

krolia’s family are really wealthy and powerful 

krolia: i’ll come back for you guys idk how but i will 

krolia goes back to the states

2009-2011: she and heath write letters but then the letters start getting intercepted by the family and eventually peters out

krolia in arranged marriage and thinks her partner forgot about her or didn’t care

meanwhile heath doesn’t know what happened to krolia but can’t do anything about it bc she’s in a diff country and he doesn’t speak korean

2011: heath and keith move to texas for job or whatever

heath tells keith all about krolia and how she loves him but can’t be there and obvi that fucks keith up bc he misses his mom but where tf is she? how does he know she loves him if she’s not even there? he's a little kid

2013: heath dies and keith is put into the system

heath has no other family members

krolia put her english name on the birth certificate and so ofc she doesn’t exist in the US

texas social services try to reach out to krolia along with some friends but letters are intercepted

2016: someone reaches out to krolia after she finally gets facebook 

friend: thinking of you. miss you. so sorry about heath

krolia: …. what the fuck about heath?

friend: uhhhhhhhh

krolia goes on rampage to her family like wtf u mean u didn’t tell me that the father of my child is dead

cousin shows up with the intercepted letters (official notice from social services, heath’s letters and pictures, keith’s little notes and drawings)

krolia starts the process of legally and financially emancipating herself from her family (she basically was Britney’d)

2017/2018: finally is free and able to get a job in the states

starts tracking down heath (they only had a forwarding address for krolia so they’re like wtf who is this bih)

at this point, keith has already met the shiroganes and changed his name

krolia is in a different state and can only do so much 

spends the next few years trying to find him, hires P.I., again keep running into blocks bc social workers and case managers are NOT going to budge on giving up keith's personal information

2023, winter break: krolia reaches out to keith through facebook but it goes into his spam since they’re not facebook friends

allura

what better allegory for sacrificing yourself to save the universe is there than graduating college? in all fairness, i felt like sticking to the notion of allura saying goodbye and leaving the group had its merit, just y’know, i wanted to take a step down from the whole dying thing. i tried to pay homage to the canon material as much as possible while also providing my own spin on things.

one thing that’s been important to me is depicting allura as a college student. sure, while i think most iterations of allura as a kind and a great leader and intelligent are great, even in modern au fics, i just wish there had been a bit more... silliness? outside of her being like the girlboss, the hell yeah supporting character or love interest or bone-tired leader, i always wonder what she would have been like if she hadn't had to save the universe and was just trying to heal on her own terms. yeah, i nerfed her parents in this universe but i tried to showcase her doing normal college things as well, like presenting at research conferences, getting a bit messy drunk, having pizza nights and group hang outs. the funny thing about grief is that life does not stop for it, so you have to just figure things out along the way.

i also didn't want to elaborate too much on her relationship with lotor. she didn't magically heal from that one conversation with lance in chapter 8 but i wanted the readers to get a taste of what was going on in her head through their dialogue. plus, it was a little moment to show how she was allowing herself to open up to other people like lance. no one woman is an island, no matter how much of a bad b!tch you are.

🫧 also, i wanted to include it somewhere but basically, keith knew allura and romelle were hooking up since chapter 14! keith caught romelle sneaking out of allura's room early one morning and he just kept it to himself because snitches get stitches.

pidge

they are so precious to me. they're an amalgamation of 2 of my closest friends, and well, me.

i always knew that pidge was going to be a super important piece in klance development. while lance and keith are great friends, i think pidge played a crucial role in bridging them together in the beginning, before the two of them had cleared up their misunderstandings and made that truce. sure, allura asked them to be on the paintball team but pidge really forced the two of them into close quarters. lance might have extended the offer to keith to hand out without pidge or he might not have. honestly, i'm not really sure. but pidge inviting keith to hang out in chapter 4 was a quiet but big moment because both keith and lance are friends with pidge and will set aside their differences long enough to tolerate each other's presence in a shared space. pidge just has #babyofthefriendgroup privileges.

🫧 i honestly think that after the main two, pidge has undergone the most growth (physically and emotionally) throughout the fic, even though they're a supporting character. we can all benefit from community and friendship but i think pidge needed it a little bit more.

🫧 i partially wrote pidge to represent my younger self, especially when i first attended college. i was scared and alone and i had never been away from home and it was a struggle to form new relationships (and figure out my gender identity. mannnnnn fuck that). it was nice to see pidge find their place and niche among the greater social fabric of college, kind of like comforting my younger self for all the loneliness and uncertainty i endured.

hunk

i love hunk so dearly. ngl, i wanted him to have a bigger arc than he did but hopefully i did a decent job at making feel more well-rounded as a supporting character. i decided to actually kind of lean into this distance in the later chapters as well, esp from lance's pov, as they both got busier. at the end of the day, though, i knew that those two would come back together. hunk is a kind and sympathetic friend and his and lance's friendship will persevere because they're good communicators. their little talk in chapter 17 was me talking to myself and to anyone else who has went through a similar thing where they find themselves drifting a little farther from a friend.

people get busy and that's okay! there will be ebbs and flows in every relationship. even though shared history is a crucial part of a friendship but it can't be the only thing that will keep it going. you need to nurture it and tend to it in order for it to keep it alive and flourishing. hunk understands this and he and lance will be just fine after their talk. hunk is probably the most emotionally intelligent person after adam in the group, and i'm glad he was there to help both lance and keith out when they needed it.

adam

this man!!!!! got i have gotten so fucking attached to adam throughout this fic. he is so dear to me. i know in chapter 10 i wrote from adam's pov and he's a goofy guy in his twenties who's just trying to be a good dad friend but somehow he ended up being a voice of reason and comfort for klance in this fic. lance misses his family a lot and i think adam can not only relate to lance with the homesickness but also lance has started to rely on him a bit like he would with his siblings.

i wanted to try my own spin on adam and keith's relationship. i've seen fics where adam and keith hate each other, don't interact much, or adam takes on a parenting role towards keith as a kid. i wanted to look at keith and adam in the context of two people who both love shiro and then grow to be good friends/surrogate brother-in-law? idk. long story short, adam is very emotionally intelligent and i think he genuinely wanted to get to know keith outside of his connection with shiro and was patient enough to coax keith out of his shell. i tried to write in small ways adam takes care of keith like giving him LactoJoys because Keith likes the taste better than Lactaids, being there for him for his panic attack, adding food to his plate. things that won't draw too much attention, because we all know how keith is about receiving acts of kindness.

i mentioned this in a comment under one of the chapters but all of the advice adam gives keith is either advice i personally received myself or something i wish i could tell my younger self. i hope those words bring you comfort as well!

shiro

i had a lot more planned for shiro but goddammit i had no fucking time or space at this panned out. it's more so klance's story than shiro's.

look, there's a small moment in chapter 18 where shiro is very pleased (and a little surprised) that keith has talked about him with krolia. it has less to do with his faith in keith and more with how he sees himself. shiro has already acknowledged that he has heavy imposter syndrome and deals with his own struggles with self image. it's just always a jolt to your system when someone (could be your own family or your partner of years) validates your relationship.

shiro loves keith very much and just wants to be the best big brother. he has such eldest child syndrome, where he tries to pretend that everything is fine even though things are actually crumbling around him. the thing is, though, you can't build intimacy— real, lasting intimacy and depth in a relationship— without being vulnerable. shiro understands that even though he wants keith to work on opening up, he has to do the same and reciprocate the actions, or else neither of them will really get anywhere and be stuck in that loop of "are you mad at me/i feel like you're hiding something from me/i don't really know who you are."

i tried writing a bit from shiro's pov but i quickly realized that that would drastically change the tone of the fic so i had to scrap it. i might post a little oneshot in the distant future with adashi, though.

keith

🫧 i've talked about this before but although i think keith grew the most as a character in the canon show, that shit was WAY too fast and off-screen. also, i know that the whole found family trope is what drew a lot of fans to voltron in the first place (like me) but is the found family in the room with us rn? i felt like they all started to fall apart or at least weren't as close as the show wanted us to believe. it felt a lot like telling with no showing. other than some occasional moments in the show, the whole #teamasfamily felt hollow.

🫧 i wanted to build on this potential found family for keith's character. he's never had a support system before and he's used to pushing people away but now he has a whole ass friend group that's ready to fight for him if he gives the word.

🫧 initially, when i was writing keith's pov and trying to get a feel for his voice and tone, i struggled a bit. keith is one of those characters that i liked and sympathized with, but getting into his head was a whole different story. i'm more of a lance kinnie but once i got the hand of keith's voice, it was a lot easier. some of my best pieces of writing are from keith's pov! i tried to be as cognizant of keith's development as much as possible as i wrote (think me having various checkpoints for his journey whereas with lance i could just coast on vibes), and i'm pleased with how far he's come.

🫧 although both keith and lance's progress can showcased through their consciousness and thoughts (like duh ur reading from their povs), i leaned into keith's behavior as a way to portray his progress a bit more than lance. things like him being more open to physical affection, not sitting on the outskirts of group dynamics and sticking to shiro, and allowing himself to collect things, which by the way:

🫧 i like the idea of keith's room, once being so empty and ghost-like, is now full of stuff, mementos of his relationships that he's built. i tried to sprinkle in some relics from past chapters (paintball flag, polaroids, ticket stubs), as well add some new tidbits, like shiro giving him a cacti and that korean cookbook!

proud of u, keith bby <3

lance and marco

no i did not just torture lance for the sake of torturing him i would never do that to my boy.

i know this is a fanfiction, but from the start, i wanted to ground this fic in reality and breathe some life into it. lance's little arc with his brother having a substance abuse problem was loosely inspired by events in my personal life.

🫧 i'm not saying that everyone goes through something as drastic as a loved one going to rehab, but as young adults, when we leave home for uni, jobs, other opportunities, etc, there's this worry that something bad will happen while we're away. and often times it does. someone gets sick, a beloved pet passes away, it's all bound to happen. your childhood becomes a thing of the past, and things that you thought would stay the same just won't.

i projected a lot of my feelings onto lance ngl, and writing him work through his own grief and guilt over not being able to be with his family when they're going through a crisis helped me process a little bit more.

although lance had a happier ending than a lot of families might get in reality, i still wanted to show lance having a support system at college and realizing that he has a second family to lean on, and people who love and support him. he doesn't have to pretend to be okay for anyone and that's okay.

black paladin lance or as close to it as i could get

it was so important for me to make lance the new captain of their paintball team, as a stand-in for the black paladin arc he could have had in the show. he’s always been a selfless guy who puts others first and really pulls up when he needs to. he deserves to be recognized for that. not only did every single one of his friends validate him, but the person he looks up to the most literally endorsed him. lance struggles with his inferiority complex and the election scene was a little feel good moment for me, personally, so that he could receive the acknowledgement he deserves, especially with his growth. he's gonna be an awesome team captain (he'll be shuffling down to shiro's room at 2am covered in hickeys and talking about paintball strategies).

wrapping up loose ends

i tried to wrap up as many loose ends as possible and give all the characters a proper send-off. originally i wanted lance and hunk to also move into the house in castle street, like repurpose the basement or something but i realized that that just wasn’t possible because most college basements don’t even have heating or like,,,, a livable arrangement.

ultimately, i think it makes sense for pidge to be the one to take up allura’s room at the house. pidge has lived a single during the academic year but they also had lance and hunk right fifty feet away so it’s not like they REALLY lived alone that year. there was also the logistics of the house having a vacant room, and as much as i would have loved to have all of voltron under the same roof (hunk and pidge sharing a room, keith and lance sharing a room), i think they would kill each other. pidge filling in the gap felt like the right move. and lance and hunk are gonna be over a lot anyways, so it’s not like much has changed in the trio's group dynamic.

🫧 what was your favorite chapter to write?

i think i have different chapters in mind for different reasons, even if it's a copout answer. here are the chapters that are dearest to me:

chapter 4: recalibration this is the chapter where i really got to play around with character interactions. keith and lance's worlds were beginning to integrate in chapter 3 but in this chapter, i got to explore different friendships, like keith & pidge and lance & hunk, and the dynamics they entailed. you can see how important these friendships are to both lance and keith, and how their connection with others eventually helps them to reflect on their previous feelings toward each other, like "hmm maybe i've been too harsh with the other."

chapter 10: let's go to the beach the group dynamics were so solidified to this point, and it was so fun to write. i loved writing from adam's pov and being able to zoom out and showcase klance's relationship progression.

the winter break interludes i waxed poetic about these in a previous faq but to reiterate: i'm really pleased with the way each individual chapter turned out. i love a good character study, and it was a great challenge to my writing and characterization to dig deeper into their home lives and see how the past confronted the present, where their respective childhoods were brought into the light, and how long-held notions of belonging, home, and identity were challenged and remolded.

chapter 17: warm and light my beta reader drunkenguac said that this was some of my best writing and i've been coasting off of that validation for the past 4 months. keith's reunion with his mother was especially cathartic for me. as an adoptee, writing this chapter honestly helped me work through some of my feelings about my adoption as i pictured what it would look like if i was ever reunited with my birth mother. i'm very fortunate that i didn't have to go through the same experiences keith did, but i tried to imbue as much humanness as possible into his section.

chapter 18: moving on it just felt like a proper send-off, the one that we never got from s8 of voltron. i wanted the last chapter to basically have this vibe of "hey, things won't be the same but it's going to be okay because we have each other." when shiro tells matt in the end, "we'll still be here," that's me as the author, telling you, the reader, that this fic will still be here whenever you want to revisit it. it was a comfort to write and i've heard that it's a comfort to read, which is so so so gratifying. when i set out to write this fic in august of 2023, i didn't have any plans of grandeur or even expect like more than 100 people read it— it was just a passion project that i decided to share, and i'm glad that others have sought safety in it. outside of fandom, this fic is a love letter to my own college experience. i remember reading a college au fic when i was still in high school and lonely and closeted and repressed and wondering if i would ever be able to get out of my hometown and find a community as tightly-knit as the fic portrayed it. in a way, i got to reflect on my college experience by writing looking out for you. i find solace in this fic when i read back over it, and i can see aspects of my adventures throughout my freshman and sophomore and junior and senior years, waving from behind a thinly veiled curtain. this fic is dedicated to all the people who made my college experience.

anyways that's me rambling for now! thank you again to everyone who has tuned into looking out for you. this is the first piece of creative writing i've done in a long time, and i never expected to actually finish it. i'm so happy with the way it turned out and the love it's received. until next time!

[j-exclamationmark-l]

Finally in America.

My mom is dying, hardly wakes up due to morphine.

My partner is in Japan. It's been a nightmare trying to bring him over here. I am so worried about being around my dad. I don't have money for a hotel room and am staying with him. He put me through so much emotional abuse when I was younger. I am still taking medicine to deal with the trauma. I tried five years of therapy but all my therapists could say was, "Why on earth did your dad do that?" And no one could help me because they couldn't get over how bizarre he is. I've even been asked what I did to deserve it. I need my partner here with me for support...

My brother called me Tuesday morning last week (October 8) to tell me my mom's condition deteriorated. He said wait before I make a move, he wanted to confirm with the doctors before I flew over and put my job in jeopardy.

Wednesday, October 9, my brother said please come. My partner and I both tried the US embassy's website, on his computer, on my computer, on my ipad and phone, on his phone, but the website kept kicking us out every time we tried to fill out a field.

Thursday, October 10, he finally was able to access the website and they told him to wait 24 hours while they put his information in the system before he could even have the option of trying to apply for a visa.

Friday, October 11, he was finally able to ask for an interview. They made him confirm several times that he has to pay $300 to even schedule an interview and that this money is non refundable. After he confirmed he understood, we found out the earliest available slot was January 2025. My mom doesn't have that long. We called and pleaded with the embassy and they said we could mark it an emergency and that they'd get back to us within three business days. That meant they would not touch his paperwork over the weekend.

I decided to fly out without him and wait for him here. My work said they'll have to let me go because real people devoted to the company shouldn't care about their mothers dying.

Monday, October 14, was a holiday and no one was willing to deal with my partner.

Tuesday, October 15, he was told he was approved to have an interview the next day, October 16. Then they actually told him to stop calling because if he annoyed them, they'd put his paperwork back further out of spite.

Wednesday, October 16 (time difference and all), he finally had his interview. He brought all the medical documents talking about my mom's condition. He said the interviewer listened to him and then denied his visa because she said, and I'm paraphrasing what he told me, she thought there was a possibility I'd want to stay here, and he wouldn't want to leave me and he'd become an illegal alien. She also encouraged him to apply again, even today, and said "There's a chance you'll get interviewed by someone other than me and they'll feel more sympathetic toward you and give you a visa." I'm so mad that they're basically admitting the ruling was arbitrary and they're telling him go back and spend $300 to try again, don't give up.

I'm so angry and upset and don't know what to do. I feel so alone and isolated during a time I need someone with me more than ever. I mentioned the other day to my dad I was expecting my partner to fly in any day now. My dad scoffed and said there was no way they'd let my partner in. I'm furious thinking he's right.

I don't know what to do. I sent an email to the embassy pleading my partner's case from my end and mentioning things like why I need my partner here to support me and how my dad has been blaming my brother and me for being such bad children that our mother made the conscious decision to get sick because she hates us. He's making our distress worse and having someone supportive like my partner around would make things easier. My partner also wants to meet her before she passes. I don't have ties here besides my mom and brother and want to go back to Japan as soon as possible.

I don't know what else to do. I don't even know if they'll read it, or if I was too emotional. If anyone has any advice...

I feel so lost and alone.

[saratravel]

So let's talk about yesterday. It's a loooong story so sit tight.

The day before as I was resting up from finishing up Vilnius sightseeing, I started looking ahead to the next days. I was to pick up a car at 8 but my hotel breakfast started at 8 and I wasn't going to pass up a free meal so I accepted that I'll get to the car around 9.

Pick up car (was going to take public transit but decided it was easier to grab a Bolt), hit up an ATM, go see castles on the way to Kaunas, see an art collection/sightsee in Kaunas to kill time until 3pm check in. Since it's a Sunday, the place I'm renting from isn't in office, but I am told everything is set up for me. This was the part that was worrying me, plus figuring out what to do with me car. There's street parking, I'm told, but the American in me is iffy about public street parking.

I fret. I fret a lot. I sleep only two hours. But there's no way out than through it, so I start my day with my breakfast and head on out. At 8, I paid the remainder of my hotel charge with my card and pay for my Bolt to the car rental.

At the car rental, I pull out my card to pay. No big deal, I've used it twice before. The guy behind the counter looks at the receipt printed in Lithuanian:

"It says the payment is over the limit?"

I freeze "....what? I have not been told about a limit."

We try again, same thing. My phone starts buzzing, informing me of the blocked charges. Usually, either by text or email, I'm able to respond somehow to say no there are valid and try again. There is no such option this time.

The cashier suggests trying to break the sum in two. The first one goes through- great! The second is blocked "the payment is over limit." So we're thinking there may be a daily limit. A daily limit I have never been informed of.

"And it's the middle of the night in the US..." says the cashier.

"I was given a 24hr number, let me go yell at someone."

I call. Robo-call answer, please give your card number to look up.... Sorry, I can't find it, let me connect you to a representative.

I wait 5 minutes. A tired call center representative picks up. "Can you give me your number...." As robotic as the robo-call machine, he says every 30 seconds, "Please wait one moment....."

Until 5 minutes later, finally, "our systems have not been working. I can try to look up your account via social security number as well...."

I explain my situation. I'm in Europe, I'm trying to rent a car.... "I would be happy to help you, but our system is down. Please call again in 1-2 hours after we have re-set the system."

"But I'm stuck here."

"I would be happy to help you, but-"

I begrudgingly thank him and hang up. I ask the cashier if it's possible to pay for the other half with a card number. It's a little embarrassing calling up Mommy to help when you're a 30 year old woman, but I know she would be happy to do all she can. But, it's about 2am where my family is, and midnight where my husband is. No one answers their phones. At a loss, I contact my friend in Norway, where it is about 8 am, to at least have someone to talk through the situation.

At this point, the worst that would really happen is I sit in a car rental waiting area until the Visa servers work. I have about 10 euros cash on me, plenty for meals here. I had eaten a big breakfast, so I wasn't hungry anyway and still had a few back-up snacks. It's a safe area, and I'm right by the airport, so I could probably find a physical exchange booth for the rest of my US cash. It is an inconvenience, but nothing is risking personal harm. I remind myself of this as I continue to problem solve.

Then, my Norwegian friend sends a life raft. He offers to front the other half. I nearly begin to cry. We have been close friends for a decade and both of us have treated the other to airfare (I had gathered money from our friend group to come visit us in America in 2015 and he and another in that group surprised me with tickets to Reykjavik in 2018). I wish I could fully put into words how much I cherish him as a friend. He demands 400 hugs as payment when we meet in Helsinki. I think I can do that (and also pay him back the money, of course).

Once the car is paid, they hand me a key and. I am on my way. It's castle day, so let's drive to the castles and call my bank again. It also happens to be Father's Day in Lithuania so the castle and outer lake area is packed. I find street parking and sacrifice 2,50 euros for an hour of parking. I use some of the time to call Visa back, as it had been about two hours since the first call. The woman who answers explains again that the servers are down but they are definately working on it. Cards have been declined and no one can access accounts, I'm so sorry for the inconvenience.

I explain my situation again.

"Oh, that is not good."

"No.... no, it's not."

"Please call back in 1-2 hours."

".....Okay, thank you."

I get out of my car and start walking to the castle. The original plan was to go inside, maybe take a tour. There are two castles in the area- one on an island and one in a peninsula. I go to the island one and try to clear my mind to enjoy the view. There are boat rentals, souvenir shops, and some interesting peddlers selling knick-knacks such as wooden bird call whistles. It's much easier to walk past when you have no money, though, so I press forward.

Along with the father's day crowd, it's also just very crowded with tourist groups. I take some pictures of the outside and inside (before the ticket booth) and give a quick walk around the outside. Then, I have an idea. A bit of a crazy one, but it may just work.

My itinerary was to do castles and Kaunas sightseeing. The next day was the big driving trip to The Hill of Crosses, roughly 2hr from Kaunas and 2hr to my next accommodations in Kleipeda. It's way out there, but this is one sight I really did not want to miss. Since the car is paid for and has a full tank of gas, and the Hill of Crosses is free to see, I would likely not need to use my card for hours. It's a 2.5 hour drive from where I was.... that should give Visa plenty of time to sort their shit out.

And this is the nice thing about solo travel. I don't need to confirm this plan with anyone else. I don't need to worry about another person's needs. Don't need to do restroom stops or food runs for anyone but me. And I grew up running up and down I35 in Texas for hours, so I'm more than ready for a spontaneous trip. I can assess myself, balance my resources, and do what I need to do for no one else but me. I hop back in my car and set off....

That's all for this post, it all resolved in the end and I have cash and can use my card again! But I need to start my day so I'll post more about the drive and The Hill of Crosses later.