#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 😭😭😭

[starseneyes]

Social Media, Connection, and the Chasms of Loss

I've heard grief discussed as many things. There are so many similes and metaphors constructed to cognitively comprehend the enormity of grief—but none are really sufficient, are they?

And there are so many kinds of loss and grief. But the one really consuming me as of late is the loss of connection—whether due to the death of a dear friend, or the severing of a cord that lasted years before finally fraying to the point it snapped.

But even sadder are the friendships that begin and end so swiftly you begin to wonder if you imagined the friendship at all. And the proliferation of Social Media in some ways united and bound us, but in the wake of Twitter's downfall, I also see the carnage left behind in the chasms of friendship scooped out simply due to migration or lack thereof.

So, in this essay that is more to help myself process an overwhelming loneliness as of late, I want to dive in a bit on the impact of Social Media, the rise and downfall of Twitter, and the avenues available to forging connection for those of us who spend the majority of our days entirely alone.

The early days of the Pandemic proved very isolating with lock downs and whatnot. I am immunocompromised and have always felt we should do what we can to protect one another.

Humans can't exist without some measure of care and protection. If I remember correctly, one of the first signs of community observed in archaeology was the setting of a broken limb—a human being offering assistance and care to another.

In the absence of in-person interactions, I know some of us became a little touch-starved, a little community-starved, grasping for the semblance of society through whatever medium available. Social Media became a lifeline in so many ways.

I started working from home in 2017, when my daughter was born. It was a tough pregnancy. I was finishing Graduate School with the worst Advisor ever at a school I would never recommend.

And when my Littlest was not even a year old, I was laid off from my job of 8.5 years when the parent company absorbed mine. I was offered a new job at the parent company that I knew would bore to me tears, so I dug into the freelance world I'd dipped my toe into.

I had friends, and we saw each other as much as possible. I still threw Chili Cookoff parties and Adult Game Nights and Unoite Parties. I was the organizer. I was the one driving the get-togethers. I loved it. I thrive in that situation.

There's a reason my eighth grade teacher looked at me and thought, "Yeah, this 12-year-old is ready to be my Assistant Director and Stage Manager for our production of Twelfth Night". I excel at organization and creativity. Combining the two is definitely my strong point.

By early 2020, I decided I wanted to get back to screenwriting, and I inadvertently started making friends in the screenwriting world, both PreWGA and WGA.

It was never a calculated thought on my part. I simply reactivated my dormant Twitter and realized Rachel of the past followed a lot of writers, and I kept going. Meeting people. Making connections. Hearing their stories. Sharing in moments big and small. And the early days of the Pandemic pushed us all together all the more.

"Meet ups" and "mixers" that previously took place at restaurants in Los Angeles were online. Folks from all over the world made connections. I was in Zooms with Brits and Aussies and Hispanics and people from all over.

Some of us really found that sense of community we were missing in a virtual setting. Which is a miracle, if you think about it.

I am never as comfortable typing as I am talking. And I am less comfortable on a phone than I am in-person. I love watching how someone reacts, listening to their inflection, considering their body language, knowing when to lean into the laugh and when to give space for the gasp of a sob. Yes, I know my Communication Nerd is showing—I do hold two degrees—but I thrive in situations where I can speak with another human and see them fully.

My father used to say all I needed to do was talk to someone, and I'd have any job I wanted in hand. And he's been mostly right about that.

I truly enjoy communication, so that feeds into how I communicate, I think. I like bringing joy to others. I like making them laugh. I like being there for them when they need someone. It's a gift to be able to hold space for someone when they need it—because even silence is a form of communication.

Twitter became one of the front runners for those who communicate primarily with words. While Instagram has always been image-forward and who knows what drives Facebook at this point, Twitter in 2020 still allowed you to follow who you wanted and see a real-time Timeline.

It became a haven for me. Remember, I'm immunocompromised. My General Practitioner—whom I adore—says, "Rachel, I wish I could write 'weird shit' as a diagnosis". And she said my immune issues are a part of me that isn't going anywhere.

Now, I'm healthier this year than I have been since my 20's. My white blood cell count is at the low end of Normal instead of 75% of what it should be. This is amazing news. But it wasn't the case in 2020, 2021, 2022. And it can go back down at any point without warning. So, I have to be careful.

So, as my friends "went back to normal", guess who wasn't hosting parties anymore? Guess who avoided indoor events far longer than others? And guess who clung harder to her friends on Social Media as a result?

And I am very grateful to have met many of the friends I made on Twitter in real life. It's been sensational to get to know people, whether at meets ups in Washington, DC or Arlington, or chatting on the picket lines up in New York last summer. But the day-to-day interactions were always on Twitter.

Then, Twitter became virtually unusable. Bots multiplied and overtook actual interaction. The destruction of the verification system eroded trust and safety. Every third Tweet was suddenly an ad for something horrible and hateful. Oh, I could go on.

But there was no universal landing pad. It was like closing time at the bar after the show. We all agreed to go to this place even though we know it closes at Midnight. But there's a dive bar across the street where we can go for a few more hours so the party doesn't have to end.

There was no established after-hours bar. Instead, there were a half dozen pop ups that may or may not become permanent locations down the line.

So, some people went to Spoutible. Some went to Mastodon. Some went to Threads. Some dug in on Instagram. Some flocked to Discords. Some went to BlueSky.

And thus this well forged and formed community of Twitter folks I'd come to know and adore fractured.

Not a one of us did anything wrong. We simply responded to the loss of our hub the best we could. But that loss is something I keenly feel.

See, I work from home. Every day. Sometimes I don't speak to another soul the entire day until my children get home. Then, I'm in Mom-mode until they go to bed, and often after that my husband crashes before we can have a conversation.

But at the same time I lost my Twitter community, one of my best friends died. Cheryl lost her cancer battle, and she was the one person I could message day or night. We understood if we didn't hear from the other that they would get to us as soon as they could. There was no expectation but there was this mutual love that I will forever appreciate.

And my IRL friends never quite went back to where they were pre-COVID. I have friends, now, who were once close but now scream against vaccines and attack teachers and curse LGBTQ folks who never did a damn thing to them. And so I'm letting those friendships fall away. I tried to talk to them about some of their views, and met nothing but a brick wall.

So, it's not that Twitter was my only community. But right now—save less than a handful of IRL friends—Social Media is my only human contact most days. And how many folks in the world have this same reality?

Whether due to disability, illness, isolation, or whatever other reason—so many folks look to Social Media as a place to engage with others in discourse, to make connections, to forge friendships.

Yes, this is possible. In the 90's, I knew a couple who met over the internet, fell in love, and one left the US for the UK where they wed and lived together until her passing. You absolutely can make real friendships via a social medium.

Honestly, the person I'm most excited about seeing at WorldCon in Glasgow isn't one of the Special Guests, but it's a human I met on BlueSky who is kindness personified wrapped in big hair and a bigger heart.

We connected somewhere around November/December and it's been one of the coolest things to get to know her and hopefully give her back some of the love she so freely gives.

We have never met in person. We forged this bond mostly via text. Little moments building, one upon the other.

That is the potential of Social Media. And that is something we are all still attempting to rebuild via all the different fractured pieces.

What compounds the difficulty is the insistence of TPTB (wow, I'm throwing it back to my Star Trek WebRing Surfing days with that one) that we trade connection for content—that we power the machine with our posts and comments but sacrifice meaningful relationship-building opportunities.

In short—we are fighting against the very systems we are forced to use in our quest for genuine connection. The systems are gamed with algorithms to push popularization of content we often don't want to see because it's incendiary and causes us to be reactionary.

The true moments of commiseration, celebration, and collaboration are born of tiny moments built upon one another over time. It takes shared time to create connection and for threads to become braided cord. If we're competing with the algorithm all the time, we lose valuable time.

So, in this time where one of my best friends is no longer with us, one of my other best friends is fading away, and the Social Media norms to which I’d adapted have failed—I am flailing a bit for want of connection.

This isn’t to say that we should all commit to Social Media to save our ails in any form. Please do not misread. I am only pointing out that for those of us for whom in-person, consistent contact is an impossibility, Social Media as it previously stood—especially Twitter—has served as a useful tool for maintaining connection.

Will another tool rise up in such a way to dominate the space and create a new centralized gathering place? I truly do not know.

At present, I spend most of my time on BlueSky and Instagram, dip my toes into Threads every so often, Facebook for the sake of distant family members who want to see the kids, and tentatively tiptoe toward Twitter only to check in on my loves who are on that platform and nowhere else.

I tried Spoutible and Mastodon. Neither really took hold. And, of course, I am here. But only about two people from the other places follow me here.

We are all in search of connection—of hearts meeting and minds mingling. Or maybe that’s in reverse depending on what kind of connection you seek. Either way, we are at once island and at the same time thirsty for the waters and waves that link us one to the other.

In this space, I am grieving the death of one of my best friends, the fading of another close friendship due to irreconcilable differences, the isolation of spending every day alone, and the loss of the social constructions that created social stability for me in absence of traditional avenues.

Friendship is precious and dear. However you make connections, build understanding, and develop trust—it is worth protecting and celebrating. So, it is natural to mourn what is lost for whatever reason.

But please don’t let it harden you. Despite all the technological and societal barriers in our way, we will form new friendships that are deep and meaningful. But that means continuing to put ourselves out there.

So, reach out to someone today—to start a friendship, to build a friendship, to nurture a friendship. With so much against us, we have to fight hard for it—but it is always worth it.

[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.

[alimak]

Youth Is Wasted On The Inside

MASTERLIST

The day I heard classes were suspended for almost a week brought relief for me back then. I spent those days with ease and thought, “Finally, a four-day rest!”. I was all smiley and delighted to have a break from school… not until that “four-day suspension” lasted for two years. While I was at the beginning of my youthful age when the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) started, I was rather locked and isolated instead of feeling the “I wish it could stay like this forever”. You know, being a teen forever, but instead, I had my overall well-being affected by the lockdown. I thought: Is this how I am going to spend my whole youth, locked inside my house?

Spending my teenage years to the fullest was one of my goals to ever achieve. Going to prom, going on a retreat trip and a field trip, and graduating junior high school with my former classmates were some enjoyable events that could add to my youthful years. I remember being excited for those days to come and I was planning ahead with my friends in school about what we’ll do when it happens. I wanted something memorable, just like those teen films. All I wanted was good times before I go to my senior year in high school and college.

As the pandemic came, I knew those moments would not occur, although there was a slight bit of hope remaining inside of me that everything would go back to normal when I enter the tenth grade. But, I was too gullible to think that such a disease would go away quickly and it made me depressed as time passed by. As I wait for the pandemic to end, I felt lost because everything changed, not in the way I wanted it to be. I thought waking up every 5 A.M. to go to school was the worst thing that I would go through, but coping in the midst of the pandemic beats it.

As I look back during the lockdown, I can’t help but think ways of how I can distract myself from boredom. I mean, we all had to and it was the hardest part for me because I am not consistent with hobbies–I also had limited resources to find one and my interest disperses because of it. I became more pressured rather than my school deadlines and exams. I have realized that this was probably the reason why I am too lazy to try new things out because I know I would give up too easily and I started to think if there was something wrong with me. Hence, it is also the reason why I spent most of my time on my phone–being online–all day and night.

At some point, doing all of these is a reassurance to myself that I don’t have to be like everyone else. I learned that I was pressured by social media to have a hobby because I saw everyone on TikTok working out, painting, sewing, reading, etc... I realized that I do not need to force myself to have a hobby–rather I need to focus on myself–what makes me enjoy life again. A way that It opened my mind in ways that taking care of myself was much better than anything else.

Eventually, my coping system was: I had to be outside. It is a way how I can handle my well-being over this whole phenomenon. I realized that I needed to be in a new environment every once in a while in order for my energy levels to heighten. I discovered that I like going to new places when my grandmother once told me to buy something from 7-11. I walked around for two hours around our area and I felt content when I got home that I had to write in my journal about the places I went to. Therefore, I figured that it is important for me to be in a place where it is not my house because I have been inside for too long and my mind wanted something new.

I believe that staying all the time at home can affect the mental health of people that it became an emotional trauma. Ever since COVID-19, everyone had no choice but to isolate in their own homes, which also restricted social interactions. Most of the people would only go outside for work or tasks to accomplish. It resulted to individuals increased percentages of depression and anxiety because of being only at home. According to BBC News, young ages were more affected from the impacts brought by the pandemic.

It came along with unwanted changes. Many teenagers have acquired social anxiety. It became hard for me to make friends because of being used to being alone at home and uneasiness builds up as face-to-face classes begin to initiate during this year. It is hard for me who is already shy, who become more shy because of isolation. In fact, it became a stress factor for socialize because it was something I was not used to do doing after being only at home. The changes were challenging.

Furthermore, a state of feeling lost is also a struggle for me. Many people think that time shifted during this pandemic. I did too, as I was mostly doing nothing all day; watching the time past by; study; and sleep. It was such a struggle to make something out of your time for the day, but to no avail it was also a struggle to do something. While for others, they had the luxury to keep themselves busy, but for me, it was challenging, especially when my enjoyments were outside of my home.

Being isolated at home brought unwanted circumstances and the challenge of feeling lost. It personally affected me in ways that it is hard to bring back the old me. I am not close to my old friends anymore and I started to become out of touch with my emotions.

With all of these occurrences, I can’t help rely on imaginations. I had to romanticize the remaining time of my teenage years because the pandemic robbed me from it. But, I do know that: You are trying. I am trying. We are all trying–to fill this emptiness in our supposed “most enjoyable” year of our lives.

As I went through this topic, I thought: healing the youth from the impacts brought by the pandemic can lessen the mental health issues that they face. There is acknowledgement to these issues, but a lack of action in it. This essay is a glimpse of the life of the youth in the midst of the pandemic and the struggle of coping in the “new normal”. I am calling out for schools and officials to provide free therapies and counseling for children. Mental health is a human right.

I conclude, to heal from emotional trauma caused by the pandemic should be included in the “new normal”.

BACK TO MASTERLIST

[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

[winterproductions]

CHAPTER FOUR

Disclaimer: This is an idol!Jungkook and OC fanfiction, preferably for my POC queens but anyone who reads can envision themselves in the character, if they like.

Chapters: 01 02 03 04

___________________________________________

May 2021

8 PM

"Welcome to the billboard music awards red carpet!" The journalist greeted the live cameras as A-list celebrities past around her in the background. "I have besides me the trio that is taking over the industry! Amara, Emerald and Starr, also known as Three Seconds. "Welcome to your first BBMAs experience ladies, you're performing tonight aren't you." The journalist continued the interview.

___________________________________________

Amara

Alot has happened in the past four years. The scholarship became a blessing to me and my boyfriend. Opportunities arose and were taken by both of us; Emerald came to visit Daniel and I in Britain and all of us were just in the right place at the right time.

Karaoke nights have never been more of a blessing to partake in.

Daniel was approached with an offer to audition for a boy group but instead they made him a soloist and placed myself and Emerald with another female to form an r&b and pop centric girl group.

___________________________________________

The performance of their single from their debut album received a standing ovation. They returned to their seats in their stage outfits as they awaited the results of the category that they are nominated in.

"And the award for billboard's top new artist goes to!!" The announcer opened the enveloped and the words that left her mouth made everything become a blur. "Three Seconds!!" The boom of sudden screams and cheers warmed the hearts of the three females who did the same as they hugged their dates and team.

Their speech was short with the usual messages of thanks to their label, team, family, friends and lovers. They were in disbelief with the award.

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Amara

"I'm bummed they didn't show." Emerald whispered to me as we watched BTS acceptance speech. I turn to her and nodded "well, we finally get to see them. Don't we?" Emerald chuckled and nodded "you damn right." To witness their performance, despite it being virtually due to the pandemic, it was an honor.

The award show came to a close and we all hit greeted the paparazzis for post-show photos and interviews

"Daniel, babe, are you alright?" I notice his silence all night due to the Weeknd beating him in the three categories they were in. "Forget that question, it's ok. We all win some and lose some. We have the AMAs, VMAs and Global, there's so many more achievements you can get in the near future. Besides, everyone knows you're the better performer."

I saw the peak of his smile and hugged him from behind. "Your performance made headlines tonight, trust me, that is way better than the awards that may be rigged to serve indust4 favorites." He turned to me and pouted "babe, you just won your first award." He kissed me and I played with his hair "yeah, it's exciting and an accomplishment. It's contradictory, I know." He laughed and removed his tie.

He approached me okce again as I began to unzip my dress; he assisted me and began kissing my shoulder as he pushed the expensive fabric from my skin. Being left in my underwear, I felt my body be lifted and laid on the bed. "Daniel, I'm still not ready. I'm sorry." He sigh and I covered my face in embarrassment, it's been four years into our relationship and we've never fully made it into home base. I've used ways to keep him pleasured but the way I always fail to submit into him the way I always imagine makes me humiliated.

"It's ok" he mumbled and I bit my lip as so many emotions ran through me. "No, it's not." He held my face and looked me I'm my eyes. "Babe, it's ok." He pecked my forehead and left to the bathroom where I heard the shower turn on.

I collapsed down onto the bed and exhaled as the urge to just fall asleep consumed me. After about five minutes, I hear Danny's voice "babe, I'm done." I nodded and pushed through tiredness to take a hot shower.