#I saw and heard more from my friends over the pandemic than I have in literal years

[thebibliosphere]

One thing I really miss from the pandemic was when you could rent new release movies at home. As a disabled person who is largely confined to home, it meant I finally got to watch a lot of new releases and be up to date with all the things my peers were watching and enthusing about.

As it is, I'm probably not going to get to see Barbie for several months until it comes out on MAX. And by then, most of the hype will be over, and the hype is so much of what makes it fun! It's the ability to be included in a way that doesn't hurt me or cause me undue distress, and like so many accessibility things that were implemented during the pandemic, it's just gone.

idk, man. I'm just... I have a lot of emotions over what it means to be disabled and to have your peers just constantly move on without you and not even notice they're doing it, and you're just the lonely kid that never got invited to the movies because you're Different so a few months later you take yourself to blockbuster and watch the movie alone in your room and know you'll have no one to talk to about the new fun thing you love because everyone else has already moved on without you. Except you're not a kid anymore. You're an adult. But you're still nursing that hurt because the rejection never stopped. You're still Different. And no one makes allowances for things like that.

[swappedandtrapped]

Rent Help - Part 1

Hey, first thing I'm posting here. Character consistency with AI is difficult for me, so just go with it.

It wasn't a good time in my life. The pandemic hit, making me unemployed. I stayed at home to avoid getting sick and with nothing to do I was starting to find any excuse to go out of my room. I was renting this flat with another guy I found on Craigslist, Roy.

Roy was my age, he moved in from some place outside the county a few years ago and we managed to stay out of each others' way. Maybe except a few times I heard his booming voice shout at the TV, cursing other players in some online game. He was also too comfortable in the house, taking off his shirt and staying like that even when guests came over.

Slowly, the world came back to order. The quarantines stopped, but I was still out of a job. I ended up searching for a long while. I was struggling and really tried to be frugal. Eating cheap, saving up, the usual. But my savings were about to run out.

I was desperate, and even though I felt bad doing so, I asked Roy if he could lend me the money for rent. Roy, to my disappointment, refused. He said he had really bad experiences with friends he lent money to, but never payed him back. I begged, said it was a sure thing, I was willing to do anything, sign contracts, whatever he wanted.

"Sorry man," He said. "You know how it is, I can't let my friends owe me money," He insisted. "But if you're willing to do something for me in return, I think we can still work something out." I was hesitant. "What do you mean? Like doing your laundry?" "Well. Sort of." He smiled. "Just make sure to be free this weekend so you could help me with that thing." It was either that or become homeless, so I jumped to hug him "Yes, of course! Anything! Thanks man!" "No worries. I'll give you the details Friday morning."

The week went by quick. I wasn't sure what he wanted, but I guessed it was just some house work or doing errands for him. He was straight, so anything sex related was out of the question. I relaxed and knew that I won't be kicked out of my place. At least this month.

…

Friday morning came, but my alarm didn't go off. I woke from the direct sunlight peaking through the window curtains when I knew that my window was facing west. But the first thing that I knew was wrong was the smell. Something smelled... Wrong... Like someone else's laundry. In my half-asleep state, I turned on my side to get my phone to check the time. Eyes still closed, I couldn't feel the phone on my nightstand. I opened my eyes to see where the hell was it, but my heart stopped when I first saw my hand.

It definitely wasn't my hand. Darker skin, hairier, and a bit bigger than mine. I saw it was attached to a foreign arm with the same features of the hand. Darker skin, more hair, and bigger than mine. I gasped in fright and used the hand and arm to take off the blanket and reveal what was underneath.

Not my body. This is definitely not my body. I was wearing only pajama shorts, which I never do. My chest was thick, heavy, and hairy. My gut spilling over its own weight. My legs wiggled with fat from my movement. Wait, is this… Roy's body? I touched my chin and felt the beard Roy had. I took a look up from my body and saw I was actually in his bed, which is also in his room. What the fuck happened to me? What is going on? I run to a mirror to see if my fear is true. All I saw was Roy, having the same expression of horror I had.

I screamed, only to quickly stop and cover my mouth. What the hell was this sound coming out of me? "Ahh, test, test." I tried to listen and realized I also heard Roy's voice coming my throat. MY throat! I couldn't escape it. I tried looking for a way out of this body, clawing my skin to find an opening, but all I did was hurt myself.

I was out of breath. I started to sweat. The world was spinning and I had to sit down. After crashing on the shared living room sofa, my heartbeat lowered to a normal pace, but I was still shocked. "What the fu-" I said, surprised again to hear Roy's accent through my teeth. Was this a dream? What the fuck is going on?

"Can you keep it down? It's barely 8 o'clock." a voice behind me said. My voice. My real voice. I looked up to see who I assumed was "Roy?". I stood up to face him. "I didn't think you'd wake up this early, but whatever, I guess we can do this now." "You… You knew about this?" I stammered. "Wait. Did YOU do this?!" "Don't make a big deal out of it man, I told you I'll needed you on Friday." "FOR WHAT!?" I shouted, with his booming voice. "For replacing you?!"

"Don't give yourself too much credit. It's just for this weekend.". He started getting ready to go out. "And I don't need you to replace me, I just needed to not be me for a bit." "WHAT THE FUCK ROY?!" I started getting out of breath again. Maybe even a low-key panic attack. "Why didn't you say anything about that? I thought I was just gonna clean your room or something!"

"I don't understand why you're so upset. You're getting free rent money for basically just sitting on your ass all day." "Because you TOOK MY BODY." "Don't be dramatic, it's just for the weekend. I'm borrowing it." He put on my coat on his way out. "Couldn't you tell me before? How did you even do this?"

"That's not important, I've had this thing since I was little." He started putting on my shoes and tying his shoelaces. Listen, if you don't want this, we can switch back now, but forget about the rent. I'm not giving out free money. It's your choice."

I started to form an insult, but quickly realized this might be my only option. And is being in Roy's body for a weekend really that bad?

"And this is just for the weekend?" "Yes." "And all I have to do is stay here?" "Or go out, I don't care. I just need your body." "But why?" "That's where the money comes in. Most of the pay is for you being discreet about this." The gears in my head turned. "What, like something illegal? Sex? Don't do weird shit in my body." "Nothing sketchy, I promise, but I really need to go. I'll be back tomorrow."

He closed the door after him, leaving me still shocked at the situation he got me into.

Thanks for reading. Part 2 out soon.

[ingravinoveritas]

Just saw a post as well as a thread on Twitter about an incident that occurred at the stage door of Nye tonight and I am so sad and sickened to hear about this "fan's" behavior, both toward Michael and toward other fans. I've done many stage doors in the past (the most recent was going to see Ink on Broadway just before the pandemic) and seen a lot of entitled/unruly behavior from fans, but this woman and her mother barging into the bar, demanding a meet and greet, and then coming out and being horrific to other fans really takes the cake.

Michael works his ass off for endless hours to put on an amazing show every day/night. He gives 110% to every line, every step, every note in that musical number. Nye is a physically demanding play/role, and to get a show of that caliber from someone who is a master of his craft is more than anyone could ask for. Stage door--as lovely as it is, as fun as it can be--is not something he is required to do, especially when he's already feeling exhausted or under the weather. One thing the last several months have made clear is that Michael loves meeting fans--taking pictures, giving hugs, signing stuff, and just connecting with people. But the fact that this is not even the first time we've heard about fans going into the bar to bug him should be more than enough to give us all pause.

No one is entitled to Michael's time or attention. This particularly reminds me of an incident on Twitter a few years ago where one fan and their friends would not stop tagging Michael and demanding that he say something they wanted him to say. He'd been so incredibly giving and generous of his time with fans up until that point...and yet the second he drew a boundary, that fan and some others turned on him. Amazingly, that alone didn't put him off of engaging with the fandom entirely, but I have been in enough fandoms in my life to know that it is exactly behavior like this that will ruin things for everyone.

It also seems that Michael did come out following this incident tonight but had to leave, and he actually apologized to the nice fans who were still waiting (while apparently looking visibly upset himself). I know he apologized once before as well after a different fan went into the bar to get him, but we're beyond absurdity at this point. That Michael feels compelled to apologize for something that was not even his fault and especially after what that fan did absolutely breaks my heart, and is something that just should not be happening.

The run of Nye at the NT is nearly over, and I hope this won't put him off of doing stage door in the future (either for the remainder of this run or when it transfers to Cardiff), but I honestly would not blame him one bit if it did. What a loss it would be, though, both for the fans and for Michael...

[veryintricaterituals]

I am Jewish, what does that mean?

I was born in Colombia on the 49th anniversary of Hitler's suicide, I was raised here but I lived in Israel for about four years. I am not white, I don't look white, and my first language is Spanish. I came back to Colombia three years ago because of the pandemic.

I grew up Jewish and swallowed all the pro-Israel propaganda, I moved there looking for better opportunities and somewhere safe where I could come out of the closet. It took me less than a month to understand where I really had ended up in. It wasn't so different from my own colonized third world country filled with violence.

I did my best, I voted against the current Israeli government four separate times, I worked with and was great friends with many Palestinians and Arab Israelis (there unfortunately is a difference), I went to protests, I donated blood, I donated food and money. I fucking hate Netanyahu with all my heart.

For two years I taught English at a low income school in Jerusalem where all my students were mizrahi jews (from Arab countries) whose families had been kicked out of various surrounding countries in the 20th century. When I spoke to their parents and grandparents they talked about Iran, Morroco, Egypt, Yemen, with such longing and they brought me the most delicious foods. (Two of my students were killed two weeks ago, kids, barely 18 now, much younger when I taught them, I remember them).

My great grandmother on my mom's side was born in Jerusalem and raised in Egypt until all Jews were expelled and she had to flee with my newborn grandfather. They ended up in Colombia because she spoke ladino (Jewish dialect that is close to Spanish) they were undocumented, without a nationality because Egypt had rejected them, they had to lie and pay for falsified documents in order to get a passport, I still have a Red Cross passport in my house with my grandfather's name that determines he has no home country.

My great grandparents on my dad's side were born and raised in Bielorrusia and had to escape with my newborn paternal grandfather from the progroms after they destroyed their shtetl, they tried to make it to the US but they wouldn't take any more Jews so they ended up in Colombia.

My great grandmother on my paternal side was born in Romania, at the age of 12 she got on a boat with her 15 year old cousin, not knowing where it would take them. Her parents had both died and antisemitism was on the rise. She was so afraid that they were going to send her back that she threw her passport (that said JEW in capital letters) into the sea when they arrived at the port of a country she had never heard of, to this day we don't know when her birthday was.

My maternal grandmother is Colombian, she was born and raised here, Catholic until she converted to marry my grandfather, and yet when I went looking up our family tree I found we came from Sephardic Jews that had been expelled from Spain almost 500 years ago by the inquisition.

There are less than 400 Jews in my city that homes over 4 million people. My synagogue has been closed since October 12th, our president has equated all of Israel with Nazism on multiple occasions in the last few weeks. The kids that go to our tiny Jewish school have stopped wearing the uniform so that they cannot be identified. Ours is one of the countries with the least amount of antisemitism in the world. Someone in my university saw my Magen David necklace and screamed at me to go back where I came from. I went online and saw countless posts telling Israelis to do the same.

I am Jewish, I am latina, I am gay. My story is complicated, my relationship with my community is complicated, my relationship with my country is complicated. My relationship with G-d is complicated, my relationship with Israel is incredibly complicated. My history is complicated.

I am Jewish. What does that mean?

[winniethewife]

I had all and then most of you, Some and now none of you.

(Peter Roiter x reader)

Prompt: Can’t let you go

A/N: For my Event Nine weeks in hell and Angstember

Warnings: Angst, Death, Use of very generic names for NPCs,

Words: 605

There was nothing left in this timeline for him, everyone he had cared about was gone. She was gone. It made sense to join this time traveling initiative to stop the pandemic, that way, in another life, she was still around.

“Can I request one thing, before you send me back?” He asked the official.

“If I can accommodate it, I would be happy to help.” The man with the boyish face looked at him.

“Theres…one night in this timeline I’d like to go back to one more time before I…” He thought it was a long shot but the man nodded.

“What was the date?” He asked simply

“Halloween 2046.” He said. The night they met.

~

She walked in to the bar, her friends on her tail as she takes a look around. Their usual hangout was packed to the brim with costumed locals and people from out of town. She reaches to pull down the skirt of her witch costume again, she really should have tried it on before tonight, and she could have returned it for a size larger. Oh well Hindsight is 20/20. She walked up to the busy bar, her friend Mary taps her shoulder. She turns to look at the girl in the devil horns and bright pink hair.

“Hey I’m gonna stop by the bathroom, get me a Cosmo?” Mary asked innocently, She rolled her eyes.

“Alright but I’m not opening a tab for you to put all your shit on okay? I’m closing out.” She wasn’t going to let her friends drink free just cause she’s the one with a better paying job. Mary put her hand to her chest in Mock-offence and their other friend Jenny laughed.

“I would never…okay I would but still, I’m offended you think so little of me.” Mary wandered off, Jenny adjusted the Cat ears on her head and looked around.

“I think the whole town is here tonight.” Jenny Said surprised

 “I think it’s possible, there seems to be a lot of out of towners too.” She replied as they both walked to the bar to order their drinks from the bartender Arthur.

~

Peter watched her from a distance, He knew this moment so well, because he was there the first time it happened. There she was drinking with her friends, the two would later be her bridesmaids at their wedding. He was new to town, just moved there for work. She had grown up here, and never strayed far, he saw his past self observing her from the end of the bar, his own Halloween costume of Sherlock Holmes was something the two of them would make jokes about for years to come. He watched as Past Peter waved Arthur down and pointed over at her. He could hear his own voice in his head.

“I’d like to buy the Witch a drink.” He said. Arthur had obliged his request and handed her usual drink to her, and after an exchange of confused looks and exchanges, she walked over to him. Peter leans in closer to hear her voice, just one last time, to hear those words once more.

“Hello Detective, how can I help you solve the case?” Her voice, he had missed it so much. He watched for a moment longer, knowing he only had so much longer. Just as the scene around him started to fade he heard her laugh at his dumb joke.

He felt free.

He knew he could do anything now, to save another timeline, to save another her, so another him could have more than just the night they met.

~

Masterlist

Taglist: : @silvernight-m @queerponcho @boredzillenial

[chibi-celesti]

Infelious Rhaplanca (May my Love Reach You Someday)

Pairing: Your TW fav x Reader. (For this story, they are the role of Prefect.) Gender neutral pronouns used for Reader.

Synopsis: You chose to save those you love by ending it all.

(To end the Overblot pandemic, one live is forsakened for the survival of many.)

A/N: Rhaplanca and Maoh are mythological Gods in the lore of Ar Tonelico(specifically AT II: Melodies of Metafalss), but you can perceive Maoh as another way of Reader referring their love as Maoh in this case as they(Reader) are the Rhaplanca of this tragedy.

This is based on the song of the same title of Ar Tonelico III Soundtrack. The translation was from AbstracGarden, one of many channels that have translations of Ar Tonelico and Ar Nosurge songs.

~Infelious Rhaplanca~

Everyone… I'm so sorry.

I don't want to leave you all, but if I don't do this then you all the rest of the world will suffer.

There is hardly any semblance of life left. The black iquor spreading like wildfire to many realms, transforming-no corrupting-everyone, magical and magicless. Relishing in tormenting so many people of this beautiful world. 

That's why…!

The Prefect of Ramshackle ran as fast they could to the highest point of their destination, the Tower of the Great Sorcerer. While it is leagues away from everyone else fighting for their lives against the Blot in each of the Seven Realms they've seen during their time in Twisted Wonderland, they knew it was the best choice for what they had planned. 

They looked down to their hands at the eight blot stones, knowing the ritual needed them plus one more energy source to expunge the malicious darkness once and for all. Looking back at everything they've experienced in the last year and a half in this world, it was hard to hold back their tears. It wasn't long before the dam finally broke. I don't want to leave you, but I don't want you to die either. Please forgive me, and may my love reach you and others.

They thought back of their friends, the highs and lows they experienced with them. The chaos of challenging each Overblot born from years of concealed anger and sorrow. And lastly, their thoughts drifted to him. That one person who made a difference in their lives. The person they loved so much, one who they wanted to share their future with. Live on for my sake, please?

Once they felt like they had nothing left to shed, they proceeded with the ritual. Placing the stones around them in a circle, they rose to their feet and began the rite of (METAFALICA) to save the world.

~Rrha ki ra chs longherna mea sos juelicc yor etealune,

En wearquewie yorr iehaw anw plargamera der zayea pauwel.~

~Presia, rrha quel ra shyfac rre Lasnatine chs weareqye oz plargmera.~

~En rre murfanare oz mea,

Meycray tes inferiare terrma, Maoh.~

MARRSEFXIL

EFAHECDOY

TITSSSYE

AZIYVRS

FOGQUW

AABIM

LXAE

IYX

CI

A

[I call upon the creation of the new World, METAFALICA.]

With each word recited, they felt parts of their body deteriorate. They thought it would hurt more than this; however, that wasn’t the case. It was painless, freeing almost. And the more they sang the rite for crafting a better world, the lighter they felt. The tears fell from their cheeks again, wishing they saw their beloved once more and hoping that he is not angry at their decision to do this.

“Prefect!!” They heard someone shout at them in the tower. They looked as best they could in their current state-

And saw the one they love, battered but still alive. With horror written all over their face. “What are you- STOP!! PLEASE!!” He rushed to their side, begging them not to leave him. He grabbed at them, or as much of them that is left. “Why?! Why would you do this?!”

“I…wanted…to save you… and everyone.” They were beginning to feel tired. “Saving everyone…is more important…than a magicless human’s.”

“THAT’S NOT TRUE!!” He rebuked them. “YOU ARE IMPORTANT!! TO OUR FRIENDS, TO ME!! DO WE NOT MATTER TO YOU?!”

They shook their head. “No…never…you all…,” they’re having trouble speaking and their eyelids were getting heavy as more of their body faded up to their upper chest. “I love you all…so much…” One more tear slipped from their eyes as they felt their lover leaving them a kiss on their lips one last time.

“I love you, too.” His voice broke as he saw the remnants of his beloved disappear in his arms.

Soon, the ground beneath his feet began to glow, blinding and swallowing him in a warm light. The light continued to spread all over Twisted Wonderland from the Queendom of Roses, Briar Valley and the Far East, to the depths of the Coral Sea and Isle of Woes. Monsters and Phantoms of Blot, and people close to succumbing to the darkness were engulfed in the light. The beasts dissolved away into the light mercifully, and those close to death were healed and rescued from its clutches. The nature of the planet was reforming itself, cleansing away the Blot from its veins.

The Prefect’s last wish to save those they cared about was fulfilled.

>///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////<

Hope you enjoyed this bucket full of angst. The sad feels hit me like a truck and this came out from it.

[gracefullou]

I’ve been thinking about this and looking at peoples reactions on the setlist and the biggest problem to me is not 1D songs but the fact that there’s THREE 1D songs and like genuinely if I went to the festival and I saw him then afterwards I’d left with a feeling of “he doesn’t have enough solo songs”& “he’s still stuck on 1D” when it’s not true and we as the fans know that but the gp doesn’t.

Also I do understand him putting the songs that the gp knows and blah blah blah but well the gp knows jho (or at least some people) so he could’ve sang it instead of another 1D song or a cover which no one knows anyway. But overall I think Louis is stubborn and he won’t listen to us (esp since we’re such a small group of people lol) buuuut I’m really glad to see that the fans are saying very loud that they want more solo songs on the setlist because Louis deserves to know that his solo songs >1D songs and that people love them more so I hope he sees all the complains lmao

Hi, anon. I agree with everything you said. No matter the angle you see it from, it's not looking good. At first, i was disappointed solely for the fact that all these covers are taking up the place that fitf songs should've had. Simply bc i believe in its potential, i believe that every fitf song is so much better than any one direction song. I believe that no cover (one direction or not) is the key to win people over, but fitf is. Not in i'm a solo louie only his solo songs are good kind of way but bc it's the truth. Everytime the transition between a fitf song and a one direction one happens, i feel the dip in the quality. It's frankly striking. Fitf is my favorite album ever but also, i always make all my family and friends listen to Louis' music (usually not in an obvious fangirl way) and never has anyone said that this song is bad or that they didn't like it. On the contrary, most are now casual fans/ listeners and get excited along with me when a new release of his aporoaches. I also know what i felt/ thought when i heard fitf for the first time and that's why i have no doubt in my mind that an artist could not ask for a better representation. Fitf is EVERYTHING. I just wish Louis believed that too 😔. Anyway, the more that i think about it, the more obvious it becomes that Louis is waisting a lot of potential with his setlist choices. First of all, it doesn't send the message of a solo artist that is confident in his work. It can frankly paint him as the ambitionless loser from a dead band who can't move on from the break that the media (and some of his so called fans) try so hard to make people perceive him as. When in reality, he's been up to SO much since the pandemic. People respect ambition, they respect hunger for success and validation so why put yourself in a position where you can seem to not care enough? Larries and ot5s are horrible we know that (see how they're celebrating fucking seven of all things and then they have the audacity to claim that they love him and it's the toxic solos who don't respect his previous work 😬) but i can't help but feel that somewhere, sometimes Louis is responsable as well. Fans take cues from their "idols" and Louis is not helping with the three covers. I don't even know what he's trying to achieve with it 😭. Bc he does sing an awful lot of covers even at the tour shows when he knows the crowd is mainly his fans. Like the directioners that do show up now will show up even if he reduces the number of covers to one (and everyone will be happy then ☺️). He also needs to stop thinking too highly of 1D and assuming everyone is a fan. A lot of people are not. A lot of people don't even know their songs. It's been nine years, people move on. Today was the first time that i was left feeling a bit underwhelmed and not on a high after his set. It's one thing to sneak 4 covers on a regular tour set (it used to be less rip 💔) it's a whole other thing to fill it with those and leave your own beautiful songs off in a tight set like he has on those festivals and he needs to understand the difference ASAP. And it's not that he doesn't have "popular" songs under his belt. Back to you, just hold on, miss you are more than enough familiarity for any audience. Also, as much as he cares about "popularity" when it comes to 1D songs, he doesn't seem to care for the same for his own. Hello always you has over 100M streams on Spotify with no promo or playlisting and it's not even a single. Hoth, Chicago, angels fly, bigger than me are the most popular fitf songs after waoyf but they're nowhere to see on the setlist 😃. Instead of wdbhg why not reward fans with a favorite? Megamix is a clear fan favorite. Or defenceless as a nod to the fans' dedication and effort in 2020 for example? Or maybe he does reward them... With one dead songs 😭😭😭

[thebookofjubilations]

The Voice

How did you find your voice?

That’s one of the big questions folks ask me about my songs. When did you know you were writing with your authentic self, singing with your authentic voice? I suppose that this question could be about how I learned to sing, but I don’t think that’s what folks are usually asking. What people want to know is, how do I hear the voice that tells me what to write?

Voices, the ones in our heads that guide us through our days and nights, are invaluable to us in many, many ways. There’s the inner voice that guides us through cooking an old family recipe, for instance. Another voice tells us when it’s time to get up from writing and make the kids lunches in the morning before school. That one is talking to me now, as I write, in fact. There’s the inner voice that tells us we should call our friends, another voice that tells us we should be exercising. After years and years of playing shows, I have a voice that tells my body, every afternoon, that it’s time to go to soundcheck, whether or not I have a show that night. Then, there are the weird, dislocated voices that sometimes seem like ghosts and feel like lost angels who call out unexpectedly for help or suggest bizarre conduct. I’m sure that if you think about it, you can identify at least twenty different voices carrying on in your head at any one time.

I’ve come to think of my own artistic voice as something akin to starlight. Day or night, starlight is always present, but I can’t approach it. Starlight has to come to me. And no matter what I’m doing, I know that the starlight is there, perpetually raining down on me in perplexing rays of clarity and nonsense.

Saw you standing by a golden wall Your brindled skins, your bergamot

I remember hearing these words in my head the last time we played the Beacon in New York. I was sitting on the big, fancy steps in the lobby, waiting for soundcheck. The voice was very clear, but those two lines were all it said. A long time ago, I would probably have let it go by me, but over time I’ve realized that that snippets like this make me happier by helping me to cultivate a sense of beauty in the world around me. I didn’t know what those words the voice had spoken meant, yet, but I knew that I didn’t want to forget them.

This is where I arrive at the most important piece of advice I can offer about hearing that inner, artistic voice:

Write down what your voice is saying.

It doesn’t have to be a sonnet or a thesis or a concerto. It can be a single word, a single line, a single concept, but if you don’t write it down, if you don’t get some record of it, you are denying that voice its reason for being.

Think about it this way: our inner voices constantly bring new things into reality. They constantly change and rearrange the physical nature of things, all around us. Your inner, artistic, voice has this power, as well, but not if you don’t bring what it tells you physically into the world, first.

I’m not going tell you how to get those ideas down, because I don’t care how you do it. I’ve written on the backs of pizza boxes, in nice, leather, journals and spiral-bound notebooks. These days, I write a huge amount on my phone. I don’t care if it’s not romantic. The ideas are more important than the aesthetics. Plus, on my phone I can record all kinds of little musical ideas, which works well for me. Your way might be completely different. None of that matters so much as giving credence to that inner, artistic, voice of yours by taking the moment you need to bring it into being. It might take ten seconds to make a note. That’s enough. You’ve hauled the mysterious chest up out of the waves and onto the beach, you can figure out what’s inside once you’ve caught your breath.

A couple of years later, deep in the heart of the pandemic, I returned to the phrase I’d first heard about brindled skins and bergamot, back on the steps of the Beacon. To my surprise, locked inside those few words was an entire, mysterious song called “Black Crown,” that I ended up recording for Spectral Lines. None of it would have happened if I hadn’t caught that first phrase spoken to me by the voice.

I’ve made a lot of records and written some novels, and over the years I’ve come to recognize this voice well, but I believe wholeheartedly that all of us human beings have it, whether or not we choose to hearken to it.

Your inner, artistic voice is there, I’m confident. It may be fragile as starlight, it may sound as fleeting and chaotic as a gust of wind, but it’s saying something to you and you alone. A tiny idea or an earth-shattering one, only you can bring it into the world, and you can only do that if you write it down.

[the-b-journal]

Lady Miss Detty Episode 2 Truth Talking - The Essay 13 June 2024

How I Started Loving Men in Wigs

I witnessed a live drag performance for the first time ever yesterday and it was E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.

It was my first time attending a pride-related event and it did NOT disappoint. I had so much fun with Rica and some of my friends from class. We were dancing and singing and just having a great time. I still can't believe i got to see Maxie and all the other amazing queens. I've always loved international drag queens but seeing some local ones, let alone from my own university, i cannot stress enough how incredibly proud i was.

I discovered drag back in 2020 when there was a pandemic going on and i had nothing better to do than scroll thru tiktok. Every now and then i would come across some videos of Trixie and Katya from their show UNHhhh. Back then, i had no idea who they were. I'm aware that they're men dressed as women, of course, but i didn't know that it's called drag and that there is a whole world centered around it. Still, i found myself finishing and liking their videos because they make me laugh and also because i was very attracted to the both of them (i still am!)

One day, i came across this video of Katya and Violet where they were doing a Fashion Photo Ruview of their season 7 sisters. I'm not even joking one bit when i tell you that my heart literally stopped when i saw that video of Violet for the first time. She was wearing this dominatrix leather outfit and she had like a half-up, half-down black wig with styling at the front (i don't know how to fucking describe a wig please spare me) and thought, "Oh my god. I've never seen a more beautiful human being in my life." And when i heard her laugh for the first time in that same video? It was over for me. I was done. She got me from that moment.

Until now, the effect she has on me is insane. She's just so unnaturally beautiful and confident and i fucking love her for it. Her drag aesthetic is IT for me. I was so into her that i made a drag race twitter stan account four years ago because i was going out of my mind keeping my love for her to myself. I think my account lasted for a good couple of months then i had to delete it because she did something stupid and people were hating on her. During that time, i accumulated quite a number of followers and made a couple of hit tweets about Violet making me known as one of the Violet Chacki stan account.

My account was doing so good and i made some drag race friends and i really felt like i was part of a community. But then shit hit the fan and people started accusing her of doing something bad so i decided to just delete it permanently. I'm a libra making me very bad at confrontations and there was no way in hell i'm gonna fight for my life everyday trying to defend her name when she doesn't even know i existed. And i think whatever people were saying about her, some of them was probably true. Because no matter how much i love her and how beautiful she is, she's still just a person. She's still a man.

So i left drag race stan twitter and just focused on other queens that aren't Violet. Mainly, Trixie and Katya. Talking about them and what their friendship means to me will never fail to make me emotional. Their videos are what started this whole thing for me and i cannot be grateful enough that those two white bald men exists. I remember back then, i was going through something rough and the only thing that got me through the day was their UNHhhh and I Like To Watch videos. In the process of getting to know T & K, i also got to know drag race and RuPaul and the thousands of other queens that the show produced. For some people it's reversed. They usually watch drag race first and after watching the queen on the show then they would watch other videos or shows that that queen has been on.

For me though, this might be a controversial take, but i actually don't watch drag race. The competing aspect of it is not for me. I don't like watching them lose and be sent home. It breaks my heart every single time. No matter who the queen is. So what i do instead is that if a queen on the show piqued my interest whether it be because of how she looked or how she performs, etc., then i would search her on youtube and start hyper fixating on her for a couple of weeks like a freaking neurotic. That way, i would actually know what that queen's personality is when there is no pressure of competition. This is just my personal take, everybody's different and me, personally, i don't really appreciate competitive shows.

With that being said, i'm going to confess that i've actually never finished a full season of drag race. I almost did with All Stars 7 but i think i got kinda busy so i just forgot about it. Drag race philippines too but i stopped watching when Brigiding got elimanated because she was my bias and i was rooting for her so hard that i cannot bring myself to watch her leave and not make it to the finale. Almost too with Marina on UK vs the World but again, i never finished it for some reason. I used to be embarrassed about this little fact but i think there's nothing to be embarrassed about. I love these queens because they deserve it and work hard for it. Whether i finished their season on drag race or not doesn't really fucking matter.

I'm thinking of writing more about Trixie and Katya but i think they deserve an essay that is solely about them. They have helped me through so much of my shit in life that i feel like as long as i have them and they exist and they're doing their thing, then i'll be fine. I have never had this kind of attachment to other celebrities and it shows just how much they mean to me.

I want to end this essay by saying that i am very grateful to be a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. I mean yeah the idea of coming out to my parents and my relatives knowing i like women scares the shit out of me not because i'm afraid they're not gonna accept me (well i care about that a little bit) but mainly because i don't want to give them something to talk about. Just imagining them talking shit about me being gay behind my back makes me want to bash my head into the nearest wall.

But experiencing what i experienced yesterday, the solidarity of the queer people in my university, all kinds of people being their most authentic self without giving a single fuck, makes me feel so proud and happy to be a part of it. People can talk about us all they want but at the end of day, we're free. We're not doing anything wrong and we're not afraid to pursue what makes us happy even though in the eyes of many people, it's wrong.

I LOVE BEING QUEER AND I LOVE DRAG QUEENS !!!!

I cannot wait to attend more drag shows in the near future. I'm literally imagining spending my non existent money on buying show tickets and making it rain on the queens. It's my dream.

Again, if you reached this point, i love u!

HAPPY PRIDE : )))))))))

Xoxo

[graceschasity]

i wanna get sentimental for a sec because ive been thinking lately about the upcoming 4th anniversary to this account, idk 4 years kinda punched me in the face last week cause 4 years ago i was deep in my tgwdlm fixation (had been for several months before specifically joining the tumblr fandom). take a short trip through the past 4 years with me. black friday hadnt even premiered on stage yet, i wanted to go, but knew i couldnt. it wasnt logical, surely there was no way i could ever go to LA to see a hatchetfield show, right?

i remember black friday premiering on the digital ticket, i remember finding other people to connect with hatchetfield over and making this account, i remember knowing about nerdy prudes must die, knowing it was likely to hit in 2020. i remember the pandemic hitting right around the time they probably would have announced the kickstarter for it. and i especially remember making a dumb little group chat cause i was bored one night, and not even to get into everything else that spawned into, i specifically remember talking about nerdy prudes. everything was shut down, we hadnt heard from starkid in months, nerdy prudes was a pipe dream at that time, it was a fantasy we talked about together, about making trips and meeting up and going to the show, it was all just a dream... until it wasnt.

nerdy prudes means more to me than i can even state. a show that was simply a fantasy, a coping mechanism to get me through the loneliness of the pandemic, is a reality. not only does the show exist, i saw it, in person, with the same people i dreamed i would, and theres even the chance that ill be a part of it in the audience for everyone to see. and now a few months later im going to be hit with the reality of this once again, the upcoming release is a reminder that this all really did happen. it all feels so unreal to me, i cant believe im actually here, this show, and everything leading up to it, are memories i will treasure forever. i am so grateful for everything that has happened to get me to this point. i love this show, i love this community, i love my friends. it would have been so easy for none of this to ever happen to me, im so happy it did. nerdy prudes must die is real and exists and will be public on october 13th. i truly hope this shows means as much to you as it does to me

[apureniallsource]

Niall Horan is just getting started.

From his days as a boy bander (ever heard of One Direction?), to branching out as a solo artist in 2016, to now leading a team of hopeful musicians as a coach on NBC’s The Voice while gearing up to release his third album, Horan has experienced more in his career than most musicians could ever dream of. Now 13 years in, he’s hitting a new stride—and leading the show all on his own. “As I grow up, I understand myself as an artist more and more,” he told VMAN last month. “I’m getting to that place now where I know what I’m good at, and I know what sounds good on me.”

Horan has had plenty of time to play around with his sound. His second album, Heartbreak Weather—which was an experimental foray into heartbreak pop and a solid departure from his folksy 2017 debut, Flicker—was released in March 2020, just as the world slowed to a halt for the pandemic. Instead of feeling sorry about the timing, Horan took his sudden stretch of free time and got to work on album number three, The Show, which comes out on June 9. In fact, the major source of inspiration for The Show came to Horan shortly after Heartbreak Weather’s release, when an Instagram Live with his fans caused him to rethink a concept he’d already written. “I looked back and saw that ‘the show’ was something I’d had written down for a long time, but I never really knew what that meant until we were in the pandemic,” he explained. “And then it was clear to me that life is like a show. That’s what it is: it’s ups and downs, goods and bads.”

In many ways, the album reflects that. Horan dances around the joys of being in love and the pains of anxiety and finds his groove throughout the album’s 10 tracks. And as he settles into this new era, he feels reinvigorated as an artist: “I want to play arenas. I want to play packed shows every night. And I want to work my ass off to make sure that I get there.”

VMAN sat down with Horan to talk about the making of ‘The Show’, and his new singles “Meltdown” and “Heaven.”

VMAN: Congrats on the second single, “Meltdown.” You also have your first single, “Heaven,” which is just such a catchy song. When did you write that one, and did you always know that it would be the first single?

Niall Horan: Yeah, to be honest. When we first did it, I was like, “God, this is it. It’s going to be tough to beat this one.” I wrote it in June or July of last year in Joshua Tree with a few friends of mine. I felt like I’d been missing something like that in the record, and I wanted to write that concept, so I just went for it and it kind of just popped out. I’d been singing the chorus melody for a couple of days, or at least the first couple of lines of it, and I wasn’t really sure what the hell it was until one of the guys started playing the chords, and I was like, “I know what this is. I’m gonna sing over that.” And then the concept really fell into place then afterwards.

VM: Is that pretty typical of your songwriting process?

NH: I mean, there’s one song in the record that I wrote in under an hour, and it was like, the words just came flying out. I just knew what the concept was going to sound like, if you know what I mean. But there are other times, like, I had this piano line forever for “Never Grow Up,” but it was just about finding what the song meant conceptually, and what lyrics go with that. Most of the time, I like to have a good idea of what I’m going to say, so I write a story out. If it’s a dark song, it’s probably going to be a ballad. But sometimes, it’s the opposite. Like, there’s “Meltdown,” that’s 170 BPM, very up-tempo, but it’s actually about anxiety.

VM: Every song on the album feels really unguarded, if that’s the right word for it. How do you let yourself get into that headspace to be so introspective and vulnerable when you’re writing? I can’t imagine it’s easy.

NH: It used to be really hard for me to do that. You just have to do it in a way where people understand what you’re saying, instead of being so introspective that you’re writing every little detail of your life, and people are like, “what are you even talking about.” So you want to relate to everyone, but it can be tough to get yourself to that point. I used to worry about being asked about stuff in interviews…I thought about writing about certain things and just knowing I was going to be asked about that forever.

VM: Yeah, hard to kind of walk that line I guess. Would you say music has always been the way that you’ve channeled your feelings?

NH: Yeah, I do a lot of writing. And sometimes, it turns into songs, sometimes it doesn’t, but I try to write stuff down. This is the most cliché thing that anyone’s ever said, but sometimes is like a form of therapy. I don’t go to therapy, but I do when I sit down and play the guitar, you know?

VM: So would you say then that overall, the album reflects where you are in your life right now?

NH: Yeah, I think it’s the best reflection for sure. Even when I listen to it now, it’s got like everything that I feel two years later, sonically, lyrically, and conceptually. It’s all there.

VM: How did you land on The Show as the album title? I know you have the song by the same name, but what does that phrase mean to you?

NH: The title came before the song, to be fair. Back then, I was taking down notes all the time. I’ve got 101,270 voice notes, I checked earlier. And I looked back and saw that “the show” was something I’d had written down for a long time, but I never really knew what that meant until we were in the pandemic. And then it was clear that life is like a show. That’s what it is: it’s ups and downs, goods and bads. And that felt like a good strong concept to me in terms of sitting down to write an album. And once I’d written the song called “The Show,” I felt like alright, I’m off to the races here a little bit. It just kind of fell into place like that.

VM: So “The Show” was the first song you wrote for the album?

NH: It was, yeah. It was like a 1 a.m. Instagram Live with my fans in the pandemic, because we weren’t going anywhere, you know. I wrote the first verse of the song, and then the whole album just made sense from that. It’s a hard one to describe, how it just came about.

VM: Sonically, then, how do you think you’ve evolved in the three years since Heartbreak Weather?

NH: I’ve really started to bring my influences—the stuff that I listen to—into play now. The stuff that I’m into from the ‘70s is coming into play a lot with all the big, bright background vocals that you hear throughout the album.

VM: Switching gears a bit, you obviously got your start on The X Factor. Now being a coach on The Voice, I’m curious if that aligns with what you thought it would be like to be a judge, back when you were a contestant on The X Factor?

NH: I was like a deer in the headlights, back in the day. There’s loads of famous people who have got your future in their hands, and I was still just taken aback by the fact that I was on a big TV show every Saturday night. I was just loving that we were having such a great time, so I didn’t really look at it from the other side. Now, knowing that I have people’s future in my hands is a scary prospect. I have to make really tough decisions about people leaving the competition, losing team members, stuff like that. I can now understand what it would have been like for those people who had to make decisions on my behalf and my future. Apart from that, it’s just an absolute blast. We spend all of our time laughing, on and off camera. The banter between all the coaches is so good.

VM: So, festival season is coming up, and you’re playing at quite a few. First of all, what are you most looking forward to with that, and second of all, do you think that playing for a festival audience is going to be different from a more traditional concert audience?

NH: I’m so excited for festivals—I’m a huge festival-goer. And I always get jealous when I’m watching the artists on stage, just thinking that I’d love to be up there looking at that sea of people. So, I’m looking forward to doing that. But I also see it as a challenge to try and get some new fans, because I’ve been that drunk guy walking around the field looking for the bar, and then walking past the stage and there’s someone up there playing and all of a sudden, I’m listening to their music online. I’ve done that so many times at festivals.

VM: You’ve got to get the people who are in the back getting food or something.

NH: Exactly. Hopefully, the guy going to the bar looking for a drink or whatever might stick around, then might listen to me online, and then might even buy my new record. You never know.

[mariacallous]

Content warning: This article contains a scene including a graphic sexual assault.

My friend sets aside his cocktail, its foamy top sprinkled with cinnamon in the shape of a hammer and sickle, to process his disbelief at what I’ve just told him. “You want to return to Russia?” he asks.

I met Enrico when I arrived in Stockholm eight months ago. He understands my situation as well as anyone. He knows that I fled Moscow three days after Russia invaded Ukraine; that my name, along with the names of other journalists who left, has fallen into the hands of pro-Kremlin activists who have compiled a public list of “traitors to the motherland”; that some of the publications where I’ve worked have been labeled “undesirable organizations”; that a summons from the military enlistment office is waiting for me at home; that since Vladimir Putin expanded the law banning “gay propaganda,” I could be fined up to $5,000 merely for going on a date. In short, Enrico knows what may await if I return: fear, violence, harm.

He wants me to explain why I would go back, but I can’t think of an answer he’d understand or accept. Plus, I’m distracted by the TV screens in the bar. They’re playing a video on loop—a crowd in January 1990 waiting to get into the first McDonald’s to open in Russia. The people are in fluffy beaver fur hats, and their voices speak a language that, for the past year, I’ve heard only inside my head. “Why am I here?” a woman in the video says in Russian. “Because we are all hungry, you could say.” As the doors to McDonald’s open and the line starts to move, I no longer hear everything Enrico is saying (“You could live with me rent-free …” “You could go to Albania. It’s cheaper than in Scandinavia ...” “We could get married so you can live and work here legally …”).

Part of me had planned this meeting in hopes that Enrico would persuade me to change my mind—and he did try. But I’ve already bought the nonrefundable plane tickets, which are saved on my phone, ready to go.

A week later, I spend a night erasing the past year from my life—a year of running through Europe as if through a maze. I clear my chats in Telegram and unsubscribe from channels that cover the war. I wipe my browser history, delete my VPN apps, remove the rainbow strap on my watch, and tear the Ukrainian flag sticker from my jacket. The next day—March 29, 2023—I fly to Tallinn, Estonia, and ride a half-empty bus through a deep forest to the Russian border. The checkpoint sits at a bridge over the Narva River, between two late-medieval castles. German shepherds keep watch, and an armed soldier patrols the river by boat.

“What were you doing in the European Union?” the Russian guard asks.

“I was on vacation,” I say.

“You were on vacation for more than a year?” she asks.

I reply that I have been very tired. She stamps my passport and the bus moves on.

What I didn’t tell the guard, and what I couldn’t tell Enrico, is that I’m tired of hiding from my country—and that I want to trade one form of hiding for another. I have conducted my adult life as if censorship and propaganda were my natural enemies, but now some broken part of me is homesick for that world. I want to be deceived, to forget that there is a war going on.

“Start from the beginning,” my mother would say when I couldn’t figure out a homework problem. “Just start all over again.”

I woke up on February 24, 2022, to a message from a friend that read: “The war has begun.” At the time, I was an editor at GQ Russia, gathering material for our next issue on Russian expats who had moved back home during the pandemic. I was also editing a YouTube series called Queerography. For a blissful moment, I took my friend’s text for a joke. Then I saw videos from Ukrainian towns under bombardment. Russian forces had encircled most of the country. My boyfriend was still asleep. I wished I could be in his place.

A few months earlier, American intelligence had informed Ukraine and other countries in Europe of a possible offensive. But Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, had responded: “This is all propaganda, fake news and fiction.” While I didn’t necessarily believe the truth of Lavrov’s words, I doubted the regime could afford to tell a lie so big. Vladimir Putin’s approval rating was near its lowest point since he gained power. On the eve of the attack on Ukraine, only 3 percent of my fellow citizens thought the war was “inevitable.”

After the invasion, I spent three days in silence. I couldn’t sleep, and I had no appetite. My hands trembled so badly that I couldn’t hold a glass of water still. When I visited friends, we’d sit in different corners of the room scrolling through the news, occasionally breaking the silence with “This is fucked up.”

In Moscow, armed police patrolled the streets to deter protesters. Soon, the press reported that a man was arrested in a shopping mall for an “unsanctioned rally” because he was wearing blue and yellow sneakers, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. News media websites were blocked in accordance with the new law on “fake news” about Ukraine. People stood in line to empty the ATMs. “War” and “peace”—two words that form the title of Russia’s most celebrated novel—were now forbidden to be pronounced in public. Instagram was filled with black squares, uncaptioned, seemingly the only form of protest that remained possible. The price of a plane ticket out of Russia soared from $100 to $3,000, in a country where the minimum wage was about $170 a month.

If I waited another day, it seemed, the Iron Curtain would descend and I would become a hostage of my own country. So on the morning of March 1, my boyfriend and I locked the door to our Moscow apartment for the last time and made for the airport. In my backpack were warm clothes, $500 in cash, and a computer. We were leaving for nowhere, not knowing which country we would wake up in the next day.

At the international airport in Yerevan, Armenia, flights arrived every hour from Russia and the United Arab Emirates, another route along which people fled. Once we were there, we boarded a minivan to Georgia, the only country in the South Caucasus with which Russia no longer maintained diplomatic ties. The van was packed with families and their pets. From one of the back seats, a girl asked her mother: “Mama, are we far away from the war now?” A night road through mountain passes and volcanic lakes took us to the border. I asked a guard there to share a mobile hot spot with me so I could get online and retrieve coronavirus test results in my email. “Of course,” he replied, “though you don’t deserve it.”

In Tbilisi, the alleys were lit up at night with blue and yellow. On the city’s main hotel hung a poster that read “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.” Fresh graffiti on walls around the city read: “Putin is a war criminal and murderer.”

At an acquaintance’s apartment, we shared a room with two other men who had fled. “The most important thing is that we’re safe,” we reassured each other if one of us began to cry. “I’m not a criminal,” said one of the guys. “Why should I have to run from my own country?” None of us had an answer.

In Russia I was now labeled a “traitor and fugitive.” The Committee for the Protection of National Interests, an organization associated with Putin’s United Russia party, had stolen a database containing the names of journalists who had left the country and distributed it on Telegram. Liberal journalists in Moscow had begun to find the words “Here lives a traitor to the Motherland” scrawled on their doors. One critic was sent a severed pig’s head.

My fellow fugitives and I started looking for somewhere more permanent to live, but most rental ads in Tbilisi stipulated “Russians not accepted.” We tried to open bank accounts, but when the bank employees saw our red passports they rejected our applications. Like so many other companies, Condé Nast—which publishes GQ and WIRED, among other magazines—pulled out of Russia. I was without a job. The YouTube show I edited closed down soon after, its founder declared a foreign agent and later added to the Register of Extremists and Terrorists. Foreign publications told me that all work with Russian journalists was temporarily suspended.

Soon signs began to appear outside bars and restaurants in Tbilisi saying that Russians were not welcome inside. I decided to sign in to Tinder to try to meet people in this new city, but most men I chatted with suggested that I go home and take Molotov cocktails to Red Square. I placed a Ukrainian flag sticker on my breast pocket and wandered the city in silence, ashamed of my language.

My boyfriend and I finally found a room in a former warehouse with no windows, the furniture covered in construction dust. The owner was an artist who was in urgent need of money. To pay the rent, I sold online all my belongings from the Moscow apartment: a vintage armchair from Czechoslovakia, an antique Moroccan rug, books dotted with notes, a record player given to me by the love of my life. Ikea had closed its stores in Russia, and customers wrote to me: “Your stuff is like a belated Christmas miracle.”

One day in mid-spring, I left the warehouse for an anti-war rally that was being held outside the Russian Federation Interests Section based in the Swiss Embassy. The motley throngs of people chanted “No to war!” In the crowd I glimpsed the familiar faces of journalists who had left Russia like me. “Why did you come here?” a stranger asked me in English. “To us, to Georgia. Do you really think your cries will change anything? You shouldn’t be protesting here. You should be outside the Kremlin.”

I wanted to tell him that I grew up in a country where a dictator came to power when I was 6 years old, a man who has his enemies killed. I wanted to say: One time, when I was an editor at Esquire, my boss denounced an author I worked with to Putin’s security service, the FSB, and the FSB sent agents to interrogate me, and when I warned the author, the FSB came for me again, threatening to arrest me and listing aloud the names of all my family members. I wanted to tell the stranger on that street in Tbilisi that I’d had to disappear for a while, and that when I felt brave enough, I had gone to protests and donated money to human rights organizations. That I had fought but, it seemed, had lost. That I just wanted to live the one life I’ve got a little bit longer. But at the time I couldn’t find the words.

A month later, the world saw images of mass graves in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, dead limbs sticking out of the sand. Outside our building one morning, on an old brick wall that was previously empty, was a fresh message, the paint still wet: “Russians, go home.” My boyfriend went back to Russia so he could obtain a European visa, promising he would be back in a month, but he never returned.

I spent the rest of the year on the move: Cyprus, Estonia, Norway, France, Austria, Hungary, Sweden. I went where I had friends. The independent Russian media that I’d always consumed went into exile too, setting up operations where they could. TV Rain began broadcasting out of Amsterdam. Meduza moved its Russian branch to Europe. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta, cofounded by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, reopened in Latvia. Farida Rustamova, a former BBC Russia correspondent, fled and launched a Substack called Faridaily, where she began publishing information from Kremlin insiders. Journalists working for the independent news website Important Stories, which published names and photos of Russian soldiers involved in the murder of civilians in a Ukrainian village, went to Czechia. These, along with 247,000 other websites, were blocked at the behest of the Prosecutor General’s Office but remained accessible in Russia through VPNs.

“During the first days of the war, everything was in a fog,” says Ilya Krasilshchik, the former publisher of Meduza, who went on to found Help Desk, which combines news media and a help hotline for those impacted by war. “We felt it our duty to inform people of what the Russian army was doing in Ukraine, to document the hell that despair and powerlessness leave in their wake. But we also wanted to empathize with all of the people caught up in this meat grinder.” Taisiya Bekbulatova, a former special correspondent for Meduza and the founder of the news outlet Holod, tells me, “In nature you find parasites that can force their host to act in the parasite’s own interest, and propaganda, I believe, works in much the same way. That’s why we felt it was our duty to provide people with more information.”

I wanted to continue my work in journalism, but the publications that had fled Russia weren’t hiring. My application for a Latvian humanitarian visa as an independent journalist was rejected, and I didn’t have the means to pay the fees for US or UK talent visas.

The panic attacks began in the fall, during my first stay in Stockholm. Red spots, first appearing around my groin, started to take over my body, creeping up to my throat. I’d get sick, recover, and then wake up with a sore throat. In October, I learned that my boyfriend had married someone else. The next day, my mother called to tell me that a summons from the military enlistment office had arrived.

I was in Cyprus when, at 3 am one February morning, I woke to the sound of walls cracking and the metal legs of my bed knocking on marble. Fruit fell to the floor and turned to mush. The tremors of a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in Gaziantep, Turkey, had passed through the Mediterranean Sea and reached the island. I didn’t scramble out of bed. I hoped instead that I would be buried under the rubble—a choice made for me by fate. Later that month, my friends in Stockholm insisted that I come stay with them again. I wandered the streets on a clear winter day, buying up expired food in the stores. The blue and yellow flags of Sweden shone bright in the sun, but I saw in them the flag of another country. Back in the apartment, I slept all the time, and when I did wake I lulled myself with Valium. One day I felt the urge to swallow the whole bottle.

Frightened by my own thoughts, I felt how much I wanted to be back in Russia. In my mother country, all the tools of propaganda would keep painful truths at bay. “The news in Russia is only ever good news,” Zhanna Agalakova, a former anchor on state TV’s main news show, later told me. Agalakova quit after the invasion began and returned the awards she had received to Putin. “Even if people understand that they’re being brainwashed, in the end they give up, and propaganda calms them down. Because they simply have nowhere to run.”

Masha Borzunova, a journalist who fled Russia and runs her own YouTube channel, walked me through a typical day of Russian TV: “A person wakes up to a news broadcast that shows how the Russian military is making gains. Then Anti-Fake begins, where the presenters dismantle the fake news of Western propaganda and propagate their own fake news. Then there’s the talk show Time Will Tell that runs for four, sometimes five hours, where we’ll see Russian soldiers bravely advancing. Then comes Male and Female—before the war it was a program about social issues, and now they discuss things like how to divide the state compensation for funeral expenses between the mother of a dead soldier and his father who left the family several years ago. Then more news and a few more talk shows, in which a KGB combat psychic predicts Russia’s future and what will happen on the front. This is followed by the game show Field of Miracles, with prizes from the United Russia party or the Wagner Private Military Company. And then, of course, the evening news.”

I had gone from being infuriated by this kind of hypnosis to envying it. The free flow of information had become for me what a jug of water is to a severely dehydrated person: The right amount can save you, but too much can kill.

“Welcome to Russia,” the bus driver said as we crossed the border from Estonia. I was nearly home. There was no particular reason for me to return to Moscow, so I made for St. Petersburg, where some friends had an apartment that was empty. I used to look after it before the war, coming over to unwind and water the flowers. It was a place of peace.

All my friends had left Russia too, so I was the first person to set foot in the apartment in a year. Black specks covered every surface-—midges that had flown in before the war and died. I scrubbed the place through the first night, starting to cry like a child when I came across ordinary objects I remembered from peacetime: shower gel, a blender, a rabbit mask made out of cardboard. Over the next few weeks, I tried to return to the past as I remembered it. I went to the bakery in the morning. I exercised, read, wrote. At first glance, the city seemed unchanged. There were the same boatloads of tourists on the canals, tour groups on Palace Square, overcrowded bars in Dumskaya Street. But more and more, St. Petersburg began to feel to me like the backdrop of a period film: impeccably executed, the gap between the past and the present visible only in the details.

One day I heard loud noises outside my window, as if all the TVs in town had suddenly started emitting the sound of static. The next day the headline read: “Terrorist Suspected of Bombing St. Petersburg Café Detained and Giving Testimony.” The café had hosted an event honoring the pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, and a bust of his likeness had blown up, killing him and injuring more than 30 people. But life went on as if nothing had happened. St. Petersburg was plastered with posters for an upcoming concert by Shaman, a singer who had become popular since the invasion thanks to his song “I’m Russian.” (He would later release “My Fight,” a song that seemingly alludes to Hitler’s Mein Kampf.) In a candy store I noticed a chocolate truffle with a portrait of Putin on the wrapper. “It’s filled with rum,” the clerk said.

Sometimes in checkout lines at the supermarket I glimpsed mercenaries in balaclavas, newly returned from or preparing to go to the front. On the escalator down to the subway, where classical music usually floated from the speakers, Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto was interrupted by an announcement: “Attention! Male citizens, we invite you to sign a contract with the military!” In the train car, I saw a poster that read: “Serving Russia is a real job! Sign a military service contract and get a salary starting at 204,000 rubles per month”—about $2,000. One afternoon, as I stood on the platform next to a train bound for a city near the Georgian border, I overheard two men talking:

“I earned 50,000 in a month.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, bro. But I won’t go back to Ukraine again. It’s fucking terrifying.”

This was a rare admission. The horror of the war’s casualties—zinc coffins, once prosperous cities turned to ruins—were otherwise hidden behind the celebrations for City Day, the opening of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, and marathons held on downtown streets.

After a week or so in Russia, feeling very alone, I went on Tinder. One evening I invited a man I hadn’t met over to the apartment. I placed two cups of tea on a table, but when the man arrived he didn’t touch his. He threw me to the floor, unbuttoned his pants, and inserted his dry penis inside me. “I know you want it,” he whispered, covering my mouth. “I can tell from your asshole.”

I bit him and squirmed, trying to get him off me. After he left, my legs kicked frantically and I couldn’t breathe. I knew that the police wouldn’t help me. I contacted Tinder to tell them that I had been raped and sent them a screenshot of the man’s profile, but no one answered. That evening I bought a ticket for a night train to Moscow. More than ever, I wanted to see my mother.

“You must have frozen over there,” My mother said as she met me at the door to her apartment outside Moscow. Putin had said that, without Russian-supplied gas, “Europeans are stocking up on firewood for the winter like it’s the Middle Ages.” People were supposedly cutting down trees in parks for fuel and burning antique furniture. Some of the only warm places in European cities were so-called Russian houses, government-funded cultural exchanges where people could go escape the cold as part of a “From Russia with Warmth” campaign. When I told my mother that Sweden recycles waste and uses it to heat houses, she grimaced in disgust.

Thirteen months earlier, when I had left the country, my mother called to ask me why. I told her that I didn’t want to be sent to fight, that I couldn’t work in Russia anymore. “You’re panicking for no reason,” she said. “Why would the army need you? We’ll take Kyiv in a few days.” After the horrors in Bucha, I had sent her an interview with a Russian soldier who admitted to killing defenseless people. “It’s fake,” she responded. “Son, turn on the TV for once. Don’t you see that all those bodies are moving?” She was referring to optical distortions in a certain video, which Russian propagandists used to their advantage.

After that, we had agreed not to discuss my decision or views so that we could remain a family. Instead, we talked about my sister’s upcoming wedding, my aunt’s promotion at a Chinese cosmetics company whose products were replacing the brands that had quit the country. My uncle, a mechanic, had finally found a job that would get him out of debt—repairing military equipment in Russian-occupied territories. My mother was planning to take advantage of falling real estate prices to buy land and build a house. In their reality, the war was not a tragedy but an elevator.

I had arrived on Easter Sunday, and the whole family gathered at my mother’s house for the celebration. My aunt told me she was worried that I might be forced to change my gender in the West; she had heard that the Canadian government was paying people $75,000 to undergo gender-affirming surgery and hormonal therapy. My stepfather was interested in the availability of meat in Swedish stores. Someone asked whether it was dangerous to speak Russian abroad, whether Ukrainians had assaulted me. I kept quiet about the fact that the only person who had attacked me since the invasion was a Russian man, that the real threat was much closer than my family thought. The TVs in each of the three rooms of the apartment were all switched on: They played a church service, then a film called Century of the USSR. There were news broadcasts every two hours and the program Moscow. The Kremlin. Putin—a kind of reality show about the president.

“Do you know what this is?” my mother said as she placed a dusty bottle of wine without any labels in the middle of the festive table. “Your uncle gave it to us,” my stepfather chimed in. “He brought it from Ukraine.” A trophy from a bombed-out Ukrainian mansion near Melitopol, stolen by my uncle while Russian soldiers helped themselves to electronics and jewelry. “Let’s drink to God,” said my stepfather, raising his glass. “You can’t raise a glass to God,” my mother answered. ��That’s not done.” “Let’s drink to our big family,” he said. The clinking of crystal filled the room; to my ears it sounded like cicadas.

Suddenly I felt sick and locked myself in the bathroom. I tried to vomit, but my stomach was empty, bringing up only a retch. “What’s wrong?” my mother asked, standing outside the door. “Drink some water, rest, sleep.” I tried to lie down. My skin began to itch. My friend Ilya Kolmanovsky, a science journalist, once told me: “Did you know that a person cannot tickle himself? Likewise you cannot deceive a mind that already knows the truth.” Self-deception is dangerous, he said: “Just as your immune system can attack your own body, your mind can also engage in destroying you day by day.”

That evening I left my mother’s apartment for St. Petersburg and made an appointment with a psychiatrist. I told the doctor that I felt like the past had been lost and I couldn’t find a place for myself in the present. She asked when my problems began. “During the war,” I answered, careful to keep my face expressionless. The psychiatrist noted my response in the medical history. “You’re not the only one,” she said. She diagnosed me with prolonged depression and severe anxiety and prescribed tranquilizers, an antipsychotic, and an anti-depressant. “There are problems with drugs from the West,” she said. Better to take the Russian-made ones. If the Western pills were like Fiat cars, then these would be the Russian analog, Zhigulis: “Both will bring you closer to calm, but the quality of the trip will differ.”

Though the drugs seemed to help, I began to realize over the next several weeks that no amount of pills could change this fact: The home I was looking for in Russia existed only in my memories. In June, I decided to emigrate once again. At the border in Ivangorod, spikes of barbed wire pierced the azure sky and smoke from burning fuel oil rose from the chimneys of the customs building. This time, as I left, I felt that I had no reason to return. My home was nowhere, but I would continue searching for one.

With financial help from a friend, I moved to Paris and signed a contract with a book agent. I made an effort not to read the news. Still, from time to time, I came across stories about Putin’s increasing popularity at home, how foreign nationals could obtain Russian citizenship for fighting in Ukraine, how the regime passed a law that would allow it to confiscate property from people who spread “falsehoods about the Russian army.” One day, when air defense systems shot down a combat drone less than 8 miles from my mother’s home, she called me and asked: “Why did you leave? Who else will protect me when the war comes to us? Who if not my son?” I didn’t have an answer. “I love you, Mama”—that was the only truth I could tell her.

[buglymcbugson]

found some old writing from 2021 - how beautiful is it to look back on old feelings and know how far you’ve come. trigger warnings on this one for sexual assault xo

“he keeps saying the c word, and it isn’t ‘cunt’”

i’ve started leaving the house now that lena is here

nowhere crazy of course

the other day i walked to yoga class 15 minutes away

alone

this might not seem like a large feat to some

but 6 months ago i had panic attacks leaving the house to walk the puppy

i even said hi to acquaintance yesterday at the grocery store

and i didn’t want to slit my wrists

lena being here brings me out of my shell

she met me without my hardened shell built to protect me from the toxicity of my hometown

she reminds me that i am more than the people of this place perceive me to be

i see this place through her eyes

last week i looked up to the mountains

and i saw mountains

beautiful mountains

i didn’t feel like they were moving in on me slowly until they squeezed all the air out of my lungs

because of my newfound ability to leave the house i’ve also been socialising more

mostly with my cousins, and with jayden

who i guess is one of the closest things to a brother i have (outside of my own brother of course but that’s an extra note in itself isn’t it)

we have naked baby pictures together

he can recount all the bad family fights at thanksgivings we had together

he even complains about my father in the same way i do

most nights jayden invites his friends over to hang with us too

this is another thing my anxiety would prevent me from doing 6 months ago

but jayden’s friends are cool

they all just smoke weed, play music, and tell dumb jokes

they weren’t the kind of people to keep tabs on me in high school

or call me a slut for who i slept with

or kept up to date on who i slept with for that matter

just a few nerdy stoner guys

jack was there tonight

the son of my 8th grade spanish teacher

i hadn’t seen him since middle school

he’s always been chill

no drama

and he was chill tonight, as usual

but then jack said the C word while we were walking down the street

and i had to stop and pause, unnoticed by the group who kept talking and laughing

and repeating the C word

and god how much I wish the word was “cunt”

but the word wasn’t “cunt,” the C word is his name

and as i soon as i heard it the mountains started moving in

it was a little harder to breathe

and my hangnails looked a lot more appetizing for my chattering teeth

i’ve been gone for so long

and isolated for so much longer (due to my severe anxiety first and a global pandemic second)

that i forgot he existed outside the person he is to me

he exists as a friend, a teammate, and a lover to others

but to me, C**** will always be my rapist

and it’s not like hearing jack say his name reminded me about him

there’s not a single day that goes by that i don’t think about him or what he did to me

but it was a reminder that in this place

he doesn’t belong to me or to my story

he’s not simply a character in the story of my life that i retell when i connect with someone in a foreign country

i am no longer the main character

because people perceive him apart from me

apart from my rapist

they perceive him as a jokester, an athlete, and a bit of a party animal

when they see him all they see is his long hair that frames his gap toothed smile and eyes i used to think looked kind

people tell stories and they aren’t about him fucking an unconscious child

they’re about the funny jokes he’s told and the gifts he had to buy for his girlfriend when he fucked up

and about a faaaaaatty bong rip he took one time

i have forgotten what it feels like to be silenced by his name

have my strength and power i’ve developed over years of self discovery pushed back down my throat

because i will never be able to say it here

i couldn’t while it happened

i couldn’t after it happened

and i can’t now

the only thing consistent in my life is the silence that traps me every time the wheels touch down at the Juneau International Airport

i wonder if i’ll ever get to the point where his name doesn’t make me stop in the street

i honestly doubt it

but i walked to yoga alone so i guess anything is possible

[irregularmelody]

I don't exactly know when my passion for writing began. One of my earliest works dates back to 2016, where I wrote for popular media back at the time like Miraculous Ladybug and Five Nights at Freddy's. I was a child with a phone in my hand and infinite liberty on the internet. Perhaps I fell down a rabbit hole and came to realize now. 

Like everything I do, I felt insecure about it. I still do. Even though I was eleven years old, half mindless of my online behavior, I put effort into it. My lexicon wasn't perfect and my writing style was terribly wonk. Lots of spelling mistakes. Formatting? Never heard of it. Planning concepts and scheming out a proper narrative? Nope! Wrote whatever came to my mind, regardless of continuity. 

It naturally came to me, inspired by the works of the others. I wanted to give it a try. And it naturally flourished. With it, slowly was born things such as media literacy, analytical skills, comprehension of symbolisms and metaphors. You know, the whole deal. It was a journey of learning and growth through those eight years. 

I self-taught myself by the way. I analyzed others' works and carefully picked out elements that interested me and those that didn't. Never did I watch or read tips in writing or ever participated in circles meant for beginners. Like always, I prefer to be an autodidact. If there's a word I don't know, I immediately go after its meaning. I have read pages about literary movements such as surrealism, symbolism, realism. I ended up finding my place in symbolism. And just like that, little by little, I molded my writing style. It's nothing special nor revolutionary but I am proud of it.  

Then, I stopped it. 

What do I mean by that? I stopped writing for IPs as a personal project of mine created and assembled in 2020 was born. During that time, I have watched Neon Genesis Evangelion (2019) and Puella Magi Madoka Magica (early 2020, before the pandemic hit). Its themes, its narrative and the overall way they were told made an impact on me. That was it. It was the trigger for the desire to write something original. Something that came from the deepest parts of my mind, unstoppable creativity.

It's still in progress. 

As I focused on this project, I haven't written anything for a piece of media I knew in a very, very long time. I had settled in being a reader rather than a writer out there in places like AO3 and Wattpad. Of course, being the way I am, I developed the art of analyzing (characters and narratives) and writing walls of texts picking apart the smallest of details I found interesting. Madoka Magica is there as proof. Nowadays, poor Null. 

And speaking about Null. Oh, well. What a shocking plot twist. I never saw this one coming. 

A flame I thought it had long lost has been snuffed, rekindled. And the culprit? The Baldi's Basics franchise. More specifically, Null and his little spectacle in Classic Remastered. It has been a while since a character got such a firm grip on me. Homura Akemi was soloing her stay on the podium for four years and this invisible bastard came and decided he wanted to share it. Yes, share it because I love them equally. Same level of obsession. 

It is kind of a rabbit hole of how I got into BBIEAL only now when I knew the game since 2018 but the earliest checkpoint in this entire thing is after the completion of the 404 page arg in the Basically, Games! website. The password one. Skipping a few details aside, the Down by the Docks arg (created by someone who later became my friend, woohoo!) happened and after a few days of its end, a terrible, horrid voice came to my head.

An idea and a proposal. Write something for it. And post it.

…I don't want to spill too much details of the absolute mental torture I put myself through when this popped up in my mind. All I got to say is, HOLY SHIT, IT WAS HELL. I was constantly beating myself over it until I finally got a grip, wrote it and posted it under anonymity. I didn't have the balls to expose myself out there yet. I called the creator and showed it to him and waited for the inferno to arise while I hid in the shadows. At least I had an advantage, they will never know it was me!

Incomprehensible whiplash followed suit as I was met with positive reactions. They liked what I wrote. Even called it a love letter. Maybe it is, I was so overcome with emotions while I wrote that and it spilled onto my words without me knowing. It had been so long since I wrote anything outside my personal project and it was for the Baldi's Basics franchise, for a fantastic arg, for Null. My notes on that work shows my dumbfoundedness. I was surprised with myself. I was surprised by everything.

Time moves forward, other experiences happened and I found myself writing again. Not for my project but for… Yeah. Baldi's Basics. Null. I am a writer inside this community. I am a writer for this community. I vaguely remember once tweeting on how I would stop being so shameful of my works and proudly expose them for the world. So I did. I removed the anonymity and now my name is there for all eyes to see. 

As I speak here, I currently have five works for the Baldi's Basics tag on AO3. Every time I receive a comment, I want to run away from it like a frightened child but all these feelings dissipate when I see that people actually enjoy what I write. Hoping for more. Call me stupid, call me emotional. It makes me want to cry sometimes. 

This insecurity of mine is a matter I have to work on but I promise, as long as I keep writing for this community, my name will forever remain in display. Writing is my tender love and writing for a circle that received me so well is deserving of my blessings. Thank you.

[riverdamien]

All is Well! All Shall be Well! The Art of Saying Goodbye!

"Sloughing towards Galilee!"

"All Shall Be Well!"

"The Art of Saying Goodbye!"

Eighth Week in Eastertide!

May 14, 2024

"Jesus said to his disciples: . . .This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends..John 15:12

I became familiar with the simple mantra “All shall be well” long before I knew its origin. I was having a difficult time emotionally in college and my English professor, who was dying of cancer shared with me in support. It comes from the writings of Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth-century mystic and anchoress who wrote the first book written by a woman in English, The Revelations of Divine Love. In her book, she recounts what she saw and heard in a series of sixteen visions she received from Jesus.

I take comfort in knowing that the famous lines from Julian’s text – “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” – were not first said by Julian herself. They were said to her by God in her vision, precisely because she was struggling to see how, in the face of suffering and sin, all could be well. Julian of Norwich took these words from God, wrestled with them, and ultimately made them her own. She lived in a time of several wars, pandemics, and famine.

These words have comforted and strengthened me through my tough times, and anxieties through the years. These words have provided me with "The Art of Saying Goodbye."

On May 14, many years ago I was confirmed and baptized in the  Methodist Church, one of the happiest days of my life. It was a beautiful spring day, with flowers blossoming, with the sun shining. My family, extended family, and friends were there. We went to a high-end restaurant for my luncheon celebration.

The pastor confirming me was the Reverend David Richardson, newly ordained, and he gave me a liberal-looking background of faith, which saved me from the conservative ministers in the years to come.

Three months later at church camp my heart was "strangely warmed" and my call to ministry became the guiding point of my life.

Throughout my early life, and through seminary and serving churches I experienced a lot of shame.  Shame over things I was "doing wrong", like not wearing a suit in church as a kid, etc, and in the parish every move was watched, and if I slipped and said a cuss word I was shamed or was seen in the wrong place. And when I came out I was shamed by the church immensely. Again the words of Julian "All shall be well!" rang in my ears.

Through studying the Word, I found my understanding of being in the Church as each person who practices the commandment of Jesus to "love one another." The Church is not a building but an individual. Embracing the Kingdom of God as being within one's self, leads us to move out in love of our neighbor. Leads us out to be the collective church in service. For only in service to others is their purpose.

Through this process of deconstruction, I have learned that God is not one of shaming, but one of love, of building up rather than tearing down.

This process has been one of good mental health opening me to my true self, to being open to others, and to becoming more and more compassionate.

Through this process, I have learned the art of saying goodbye to institutions and people who do not welcome and try to shame me and others, knowing it is done in ignorance. Through the art of saying goodbye, I have discovered that "All will be well," and my task is to move on, loving those to whom I am saying goodbye and continuing to practice the Word!

"All Will Be Well!"

===========================

Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min., D.S.T.

Post Office Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

www.temenos.org

paypal.com

415-305-2124

Fr. River Sims, D.Min., D.S.T.

Director

Prayer of St. Brendan!

"Help me to journey beyond the familiar

and into the unknown.

Give me the faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with You. Christ of the mysteries I trust in You to be stronger than each storm within me.

I will trust in the darkness and know that my times, even now, are in Your hands.

Tune my spirit to the music of heaven,

and somehow, make my obedience count for You"

------------------------------------------------

(Temenos and Fr. River seek to remain accessible to everyone. We do not endorse particular causes, political parties, or candidates, or take part in public controversies, whether religious, political or social--Our pastoral ministry is to everyone!

================================

    A donation has been given to Temenos Catholic Worker in memory and honor of Zach, Stacy, and the Reverend Cecil Williams by my old Catholic Worker friend Jim Haber!

[6ofwandz]

So yes, I saw him drinking every night on facetime for months before I invited him to come live with me. The pandemic had just come to America and everyone was talking about going into lockdown. He said that he was working in the basement at his sister's house, his bedroom, after going through a horrible roommate situation with someone who had screwed us both over at separate times. I had visited his sister's house so I knew this to be true, but he was working a full time job and it seemed like a decent relationship with her and everyone else he spoke to. Like I said before, I thought I knew this man. We went to the same high school.

Despite my nervousness at his levels of alcohol consumption in this phase of our relationship, he was the most emotionally open man I had ever experienced, or so I thought. He swooned me with all these seemingly deep conversations. We would smoke together and go down the rabbit-hole of some topic. He knew about my passion for my daughter and my desire to be a constant and active participant in my child's life. (I have a seven year old from a previous relationship). When my mental health seriously collapsed in 2020 and I lost custody of my daughter for a few years while I worked every single day to get better, I thought he was by my side.

A few months into the two of us living together I realized that I never been around someone who drank so much. He was getting these huge hundred dollar orders of alcohol delivered to us during the height of lockdown, and once he started drinking while at work I knew something was seriously wrong.

Then the meltdowns started. He would get so drunk he'd have to spend the rest of the night in the bathroom, slumped over the toilet passed out from how much he had chugged after work. The occasional night where he would become overemotional from drinking became more and more frequent and if I wasn't careful I would have to spend another night listening to him incoherently attempt to rehearse heartbreaking moments of his past he hadn't given himself the permission to process any time before.

As a codependent I didn't know how to set good boundaries with him. I thought that a good boundary was to not get too attached to the idea that he was drinking, to not let it determine how I viewed him. I believed that I was supposed to just stay quiet as long as he was spending his own money, not reminding myself that his money was ultimately impacting me when I began paying all the bills, when I got stuck with the entirety of the electric and gas bills because of another sob story he had given me.

So, I stayed quiet, time after time as I continued to witness him throwing up at parties, screaming at me that he was fine to drive home from the bar, losing hundreds of dollars in one weekend multiple times, after he sexually assaulted me multiple times, once in front of friends. I stayed with him because he seemed like a family man. He encouraged me in my art, told me I needed to get more friends, seemed to believe in me when no one else really did. I stayed because I saw his potential and I believed that when he told me that he wanted to change, but that he didn't know where to start, he was just so overwhelmed, he was scared. I have heard every single excuse in the book and still the kind part of my soul told myself that he was doing his best and I was being too hard on him for expecting to be treated better. For hoping that someone who claimed to love me as much as he did, who made me feel like he genuinely wanted to do life with me, would respect me a little more than he did.

I have been through it all with him these last four years and yet still, to this day, two months after we broke up, he believes there is a chance that one day we will work out, that we will be able to make something incredible together if only he takes the time to heal by himself. The truth is, if you had asked me a few weeks ago if I also believed that I would have said yes. I would have told you that what society said about abusive men is all wrong, they can change. I would have believed myself strong enough to have evaded the attempt of a man who knew he had done me tremendous wrong and yet still believed that he could win me back like he had made such great emotional changes in the two weeks since we had broken up. After all, I spent an entire month planning my escape, nine months before that contemplating once and for all if I wanted to stick around. It took me having to save his life and him claiming that the two issues were unrelated for me to finally get the courage enough to leave. I still have not been successful in getting myself out, however, and this is my rock bottom.