#THE CHURCH CLEARLY IS RENTED OUT LIKE

[faunandfloraas]

looking at twt and seeing a tweet talk about a girl group and the way the post was worded i was thinking these girls had committed an atrocity, cut someones heart of on the hanteo red carpet or something, like the wording was just so serious and disgusted and then I look and ? they danced in a church for a music video. I'm meant to be offended by this?

[pansysgothgf]

Thursday Tidbit Tease

I was tagged by the lovely @inell thank you so much!!

Here’s a few paragraphs from my 8b speculation fic! I’m having so much fun putting these two through the blender :)

The realtor is nice, a friend of Eddie’s mom from church. She’s sworn not to tell a soul about the little house two blocks over from his parents place, or about the mortgage loan Eddie’s applying for. He’s not sure he believes her, but whatever.

He’s going to be with his son. He can’t find it in him to care about anything else.

The appointment probably only goes as well as it does because Buck is there, asking all the questions Eddie forgets to. While Eddie was focused on Chris’ needs (close to his school, close to his grandparents, accessible, a pool in the back), Buck focused on… well.

He focused on the things Eddie’s mentioned wanting in a house.

“How’s the water pressure? Does it have a bath? Hot water helps with Eddie’s chronic pain. Oh, where’s the closest fire station?” Buck smiles at the screen, all-American charisma making Jo-Anne melt. “We’re firefighters, I want to make sure the commute isn’t too long, Eds hates driving.”

Jo-Anne giggles, moving so that her cleavage is clearly in frame. “Sorry, did you say you were a friend of Edmundo’s? You know, some of these houses have fully-furnished basement apartments, you moving here too would certainly help out with rent. It would also help with the views in the neighbourhood.”

Without his express permission, Eddie’s hand goes tight on Buck’s knee, where it had been casually resting. Casual and friendly. Just making sure they both stay in frame. Nothing crazy, really.

Buck’s breath hitches, and he nods a little. “Uh, definitely something to think about.”

Which, what? Why would Buck ever move out to El Paso? He hated the humidity in Texas when they went up for the wildfires and he loves everything about L.A.! He even loves driving in L.A., like a crazy person. Not to mention his family is here, the 118 and the Hans, why would he ever give that up?

I’m not going to tag anyone because I’m getting to this pretty late, but feel free to use this as your tag if you’d like to join! (And tag me so I can read it ☺️)

[blueberrypancakesworld]

If you’re taking headcanon requests, I have a very specific idea for Frollo that’s been living rent free in my head for awhileeeeeee.

Imagine Frollo being summoned as a ghost into the modern world by a nonbinary spirit medium or witch. Just, let this man loose his entire mind as a FAR too lovely witch is running around chatting with ghosts, and trying to calm him tf down in the process XD

Probably doesn’t help that “nonbinary witch” would probably sound like evil itself to Frollo lol

The horror of the new day

Frollo x nb!reader

warning : just some funny things and a very confused Frollo

Info : Thanks for this request @add-a-bit-of-neurospice it was an interesting idea/concept but was like I said really,really fun to write. Frollo just in our time and dies again of the ,,sins" he sees everywhere :) I hope you like it and have fun reading ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hell had been his home since he had fallen into the flames in front of Notre Dame, the stone had crushed his body and the flames had not left him as ashes, he had been in hell.

His faith was right after his soul had left his body he found himself in. The infinite inferno was burning again, an eternal flame that tormented him until he threatened to lose his mind.

Time was irrelevant and he no longer had any feeling for it except the pain of seeing the souls of his victims and enemies pass by, but he hardly paid any attention to them.

Until one day in infinite time he felt his body rise from the flames and was freed. It had to be God he was convinced as the flames around him. Around him became less and less.

The darkness enveloped him before he heard a distant voice calling out to him, saying his name. Looking around for the person, his soul coalesced into the image, his body easily visible around the ring that had suddenly appeared.

He was heavier than the flames, heavier than the pain and it held him. It held him until the darkness around him receded, his voice became clearer and when he lifted his gaze he was standing in a room. ,,What is this?" he asked, confused as to why his jellyfish had ended because when he ascended he was supposed to be in the clouds, singing and becoming an angel.

,,Oh my Lillith, it worked!" he heard the voice more clearly and saw the right person. The first thing he noticed was the pointed hat and the necklace with the pentagram. A witch someone he would have burned immediately if he still had the time.

But when he looked further at the she-devil, he saw pants instead of a dress and her hair was short. A demon. ,,Demon, why did you call me?" he asked, a hint of fear in his voice, it must be a powerful being if it could summon him with a ring. ,,Demon? Oh no, I'm a witch, a medium do you understand Frollo?" the person asked him and continued to walk around the room excitedly, collecting ingredients, clothes and books and muttering to themselves.

It was a sight that confused and unsettled him. It couldn't be his time, in his time there was no glowing sun on the ceiling, no clocks that seemed so small and thin.

And this glowing book on which his summoner was typing only confused him even more. Suddenly he felt the ring that had summoned him glow and he understood even less what was going on. ,,Okay, Frollo, listen. You are in the year 2023 and I have to ask you a few questions for a assignment," he listened to the demon and gradually realized that hundreds of years must have passed.

Hundreds of years in which he suffered that felt like the eternal time of an hourglass. The world and especially the church seemed to have changed.

The more he saw of this wonderful space, the more he realized that there was neither a cross nor a holy image of Jesus and Mary. ,,Two thousand and twenty-three... and you demon summoned me?" he asked hesitantly and stopped in front of a glass box with a sun in it and saw a snake inside.

The demon's soul animal. He turned back to the strange creature in disgust. ,,Yes, I did, to be more precise, my first summoning. How do you feel, or rather, what was it like to fall to your death like that?" The person asked again and the spirit looked down at the ring.

The world was strange to him things had changed and yet the hellfire had stopped. Talking was not a sin and if it meant staying away from the fire why not...nothing could be worse than hellfire. ,,I fell dear summoner creature, the flames had surrounded me but not caught me. It was the stone that broke my body before the fire could take me," he began to tell, walking around the room and seeing the interested look on his necromancer's face.

He saw how the summoner continued to make notes while he told his life story.

It felt good to talk again and not just think about pain. And the longer he talked, the more interested his counterpart became. Maybe he even told untruths, lies, but in order to be heard, to be right and not get caught in the fire, he would tell this witch, this demon everything.

Even after death, his justification and his guilt had not changed. But why should it? He had a listener who believed it and that was all that mattered in the here and now.

Even though he had to admit that the longer he looked around this strange room, told his story and listened to the witch, he was still interested in these new things around him. Maybe he would have to make a contract to take on this kind of witchcraft.

He even had to smile once when he managed to scare the stranger. When he showed him the picture when he died. However, this only led to the stranger turning on music or something similar on the glowing book and starting to pray wildly and say prayers.

It was very confusing and these words like cell phone, light bulb and non-binary were things he called divine and devil. But all this time he started to like the company when he sat down in the chair that was touched by the witch, giving him access.

Even if his gaze went to the suns around him, his gaze was always on his savior while Frollo strove over the ring…for a moment he was completely grateful to have been saved…maybe there was still hope…for his soul in the end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hope you enjoyed it @add-a-bit-of-neurospice

[shakesthewizard]

Imagine you're an ex-evangelical high schooler who's been out for all of one year and is living with your girlfriend's family because you got kicked out of your homophobic parents' house. This girlfriend is the one who helped you realize you're gay - she held your hand as you cut ties with your church.

As well as being gay, you're also a forgetful, impulsive kid who has a really hard time getting your mouth to agree with your brain. You have ADHD, but you aren't diagnosed and you'd probably deny the idea of it were brought up. Nonetheless, these traits have historically given you a hard time not just in school, but in terms of making and keeping friends, too.

Sophomore year, you go on a huge trip with your girlfriend, and after a lot of miscommunication, conflict, and reconciliation, she dumps you. It's on as good of terms as you could hope for; you know you'll be heartbroken for months, but it isn't a fight, and she doesn't hold anything against you. She tells you that it's because she needs a bit more stability in a partner; someone who's going to be better able to center her needs when the situation calls for it. This stings - you know you weren't the best partner on this trip. Like always, you said the wrong thing, and the stressful situations you found yourselves in exacerbated your fights. She's telling you the same thing everyone does; you don't try hard enough. You don't care.

You move on. You have a super busy summer with your best friends and they help you work through it, as best you can. Things get better, and you decide to start taking better care of yourself. You're still living with ex-gf's family, but ex-gf is out of the country getting into politics. She's trying to build a grassroots movement to help the members of her religion start divesting from their involvement with that evangelical church that raised you. It's a noble calling.

When junior year starts, you and your friends start getting bullied & harassed by this girl. There's a lot going on there, but whenever you confront her, all she does is talk about how little you care; how easy you have it; you lazy you are. All the worst versions of the things everyone always tells you, spar in your face. The nice teachers pity you, thinking of you like You're not a full person. The mean ones call you a slacker and a class clown. This girl combines the two; she snipe's at you about how easy your life must be because you've managed to trick your friends into thinking you give a shit. All this while you're in danger of being expelled, and tanking your friends' grades on your way down. All this while you attend school *solely* for their sake. All this while you're trying harder than you ever have before, and it's only barely working.

Over winter break your junior year, you decide to visit ex-gf with your friends. You feel better about things with her, and even though school and that bully are stressing you out, you think it'll be a nice time. When you get off the bus to the small town where she lives now, you're led to the center of her political movement - a megachurch.

Not an abandoned building. Not some old rundown thing they've commandeered, or a repurposed space they rent for their own ends. No; a brand new evangelical megachurch, that your ex gf had a hand in designing.

You question her about it, and she gets snippy with you. She asks what do you mean this is wrong? What do you mean she's clearly becoming the exact thing she set out trying to overthrow? This isn't a megachurch! It's just a sign that their movement is popular!

Then you meet her girlfriend. And you know something? She seems nice enough. She's a lot like you, actually - she's kind of forgetful, and impulsive. She has a hard time with words, like you. Thing is though - she's also the daughter of a famous evangelical minister. And guess who paid for this church.

Yeah, so it turns out your GF left you, citing your forgetfulness and lack of ability to demonstrate care to her satisfaction as reasons why. She then turned around and got together with someone who can be generously described as "you but rich," and then set about becoming a spokesperson for the same homophobic church she told you to become homeless running from.

Tracker is a hypocrite and a bootlicker, is what I'm saying.

[dragoneyes618]

"Perhaps presenting all these facts has the opposite effect from what we think. Perhaps we are giving people ideas.

I don't mean giving people ideas about how to murder Jews. There is no shortage of ideas like that, going back to Pharaoh's decree in the Book of Exodus about drowning Hebrew baby boys in the Nile. I mean, rather, that perhaps we are giving people ideas about our standards. Yes, everyone must learn about the Holocaust aso as not to repeat it. But this has come to mean that anything short of the Holocaust is, well, not the Holocaust. The bar is rather high.

Shooting people in a synagogue in San Diego or Pittsburgh isn't "systemic"; it's an act of a "lone wolf." And it's not the Holocaust. The same is true for arson attacks against two different Boston-area synagogues, followed by similar simultaneous attacks on Jewish institutions in Chicago a few days later, along with physical assaults on religious Jews on the streets of New York - all of which happened within a week of my visit to the Auschwitz show.

Lobbing missiles at sleeping children in Israel's Kiryat Gat, where my husband's cousins spent the week of my museum visit dragging their kids to bomb shelters, isn't an attempt to bring "Death to the Jews," no matter how frequently the people lobbing the missiles broadcast those very words; the wily Jews there figured out how to prevent their children form dying in large piles, so it is clearly no big deal.

Doxxing Jewish journalists is definitely not the Holocaust. Harassing Jewish college students is also not the Holocaust. Trolling Jews on social media is not the Holocaust either, even when it involves photoshopping them into gas chambers. (Give the trolls credit: They have definitely heard of Auschwitz.) Even hounding ancient Jewish communities out of entire countries and seizing all their assets - which happened in a dozen Muslim nations whose Jewish communities predated the Islamic conquest, countries that are now all almost entirely Judenrein - is emphatically not the Holocaust. It is quite amazing how many things are not the Holocaust.

The day of my visit to the museum, the rabbi of my synagogue attended a meeting arranged by police for local clergy, including him and seven Christian ministers and priests. The topic of the meeting was security. Even before the Pittsburgh massacre, membership dues at my synagogue included security fees. But apparently these local churches do not charge their congregants security fees, or avail themselves of government funds for this purpose.. The rabbi later told me how he sat in stunned silence as church officials discussed whether to put a lock on a church door. "A lock on the door," the rabbi said to me afterward, stupefied.

He didn't have to say what I already knew from the emails the synagogue routinely sends: that they've increased the rent-a-cops' hours, that they've done active-shooter training with the nursery school staff, that further initiatives are in place that "cannot be made public." A lock on the door," re repeated, astounded. "They just have no idea."

He is young, this rabbi - younger than me. He was realizing the same thing I realized at the Auschwitz exhibition, about the specificity of our experience. I feel the need to apologize here, to acknowledge that yes, this rabbi and I both know that many non-Jewish houses of worship in other places also require rent-a-cops, to announce that yes, we both know that other groups have been persecuted too - and this degrading need to recite these middle-school-obvious facts is itself an illustration of the problem, which is that dead Jews are only worth discussing if they are part of something bigger, something more. Some other people might go to Holocaust museums to feel sad, and then to feel proud of themselves for feeling sad. They will have learned something officially important, discovered a fancy metaphor for the limits of Western civilization. The problem is that for us, dead Jews aren't a metaphor, but rather actual people that we do not want our children to become." 

- Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present

[lafiametta]

On Anora, Class, and Misinterpreting the Cinderella Story

Anora — the story of a Brooklyn lap dancer who meets and marries the son of a Russian oligarch, only to have the dream of a new life wrenched away from her over the course of two days by hired henchmen, her husband's parents, and finally by her husband himself — is a film that is fully grounded in the notions of class. Ani's a working-class girl who marries an unimaginably rich guy, a union that cuts sharply across class lines, and most of the movie's drama comes from everyone else trying to put an end to that marriage, which they see as a ridiculous and outrageous mistake that needs to be rectified as quickly as possible.

The first act is framed as a classic Cinderella-story romance, with Ivan flying Ani on a private jet to Las Vegas (where he impulsively marries her) and buying her a fur coat and a four-carat diamond ring. She's tumbled into this wonderful new world of the obscenely rich and can't wait to live in it forever, starting with a honeymoon at Disney World, where she can literally stay in a Disney princess suite (her dream since she was a little girl). For Ani, it's unbelievable, light years away from her life of hustling for dances at the New York City club where she works and falling asleep on the subway coming home at daybreak. (She does live in a house, but from context clues, it seems likely that she inherited it from her immigrant family, as she's living there with her sister and even together they probably would be unable to afford the monthly rent. Owning a home, or even living in a family-owned home, might seem to put Ani into the middle- or lower-middle class, but based on her job and its lack of benefits she's definitely working class.)

When she first encounters Ivan, she doesn't realize how wealthy he actually is; it's only when she visits his gated mansion and walks inside (silently mouthing “What the fuck?”) that she gets a sense of it. At first, she just thinks she's hit the lottery in terms of private clients. He's young and goofy and sweet and he likes her so much that he invites her to a New Year's Eve party and then hires her to be his “horny girlfriend for the week.” (We've seen this plot before, most notably in Pretty Woman, which ends happily with declarations of love from a man in a limousine, so we're watching and maybe hoping this story will end just as well for the main character.) Once they get married in Vegas, Ani immediately abandons her old life, quitting her job at the club (“I'm just going to go chill in my mansion or whatever”) and moving in with Ivan. She's so wrapped up in the sheer fantasy of it all that she doesn't even think to question if it could come to an end.

But because this is not a Disney movie (or Pretty Woman), Ani's dream of a fairytale ending with her rich, handsome prince is about to come crashing down. Her new husband's parents have heard rumors about the marriage — the family is rich and prominent enough that a Russian tabloid runs a picture of Ivan and (an unnamed) Ani at an NBA game — and dispatch their local minder to find out the truth.

Toros and his brother Garnik both work for the Zakharovs (we actually first meet them at the New Year's Eve party when Toros is yelling at everyone to stop climbing on the couch), probably on retainer. They're solidly middle class: Toros drives an Escalade and has strong roots in his Armenian family and church community, although he's clearly a striver with aspirations to move upward, based on how he talks about working since he was sixteen. (Garnik also seems to have at least some money to throw around; when Ani says that Ivan has been spotted at HQ, he exclaims, “I fucking love that place,” indicating that he's been there as a patron. One has to wonder if he and Ani have unknowingly crossed paths before, although she would probably have remembered if she had danced for him.) The Zakharovs have a close relationship with Toros; as their local fixer and Ivan's minder, he's been doing their bidding for years and is dependent enough upon their employment that he takes Galina Zakharov's phone calls during a family christening. It's clear, though, how much Toros resents having to continually take care of Ivan's messes (“I bailed you out how many times?”) and how relieved he is that Ivan's parents are coming to take him back to Russia (“you're gone, finally”). Toros's open resentment only extends to Ivan, though; when the Zakharovs appear he's all deference, buttoning his coat and standing up straight to greet them.

The third member of the fact-finding/enforcement party is a young Russian, Igor, who we know little about, aside from the fact that he's been hired by the Armenian brothers to look tough and serve as muscle if the situation requires. He's the poorest of the central characters: his work as an enforcer is no doubt sporadic and he's got little hope of acquiring wealth. (The Brightwater condo he lives in is owned by his grandmother, as is the car he drives.) Aside from his phone and the clothes he's wearing, it's not clear that he owns much of anything. Despite the working class identity he shares with Ani, he doesn't share a sense of solidarity with her, at least not at the beginning. Like Toros and Garnik, he sees her as his bosses' problem that he's been enlisted to fix, only later seeing a humanity in her that he tries to openly acknowledge, and ultimately an admiration for the way she clings to her dream of upward mobility. Because Igor is at the bottom of the heap, socio-economically-speaking, it allows him a clear vantage point to observe the other characters and see what they really are, rather than dismissing them as disposable and unimportant. We can see, through his eyes, how Ivan's impulsive and generous acts hide how truly spoiled he is, or how Ani's brash attitude masks her fear of destitution and abandonment.

Ani's Cinderella dream is challenged over the course of the last two acts of the film, as she's abandoned by Ivan, then intimidated, called names, tied up, gagged, and bribed. Toros denigrates not just Ani's class but her occupation (“he's shamed his family by marrying somebody like you”) and threatens to have her arrested, hypothesizing that she already has a criminal record. As the four of them then search for Ivan, she clings to the hope that once she's found him, he can put all this to rights. He'll restore her place as his wife and cement her ascension upward. She holds on to it even through the introduction to his mother, who barely deigns to look at her when she explains how happy she is to be part of their family. Only with Ivan's blunt dismissal on the tarmac when she asks if they're actually divorcing (“Of course! Are you stupid?”) is she forced to acknowledge the reality that her dream is over.

And now she has to go home, back to the humdrum life she abandoned. Disney princesses fly on private jets to Vegas; working-class girls from Brighton Beach fly commercial, in a crowded coach seat next to a crying baby. She gets one last night in the mansion she thought she was going to luxuriate in forever, then Igor drops her off in a borrowed car in front a house she lives in but could never afford to own.

Anora is a drama and a comedy, but it's also a tragedy in a way. Ani's tragic flaw was in thinking, like the butterflies on her nails, that she could completely transform and fly upwards and upwards until she was somewhere (and someone) else entirely. It's not entirely her fault; raised on the American dream and Disney princess movies, it makes sense that she fell for the idea that she could move from rags to riches on the turn of a dime, as a prince came to whisk her away to a fairytale world where she could have everything she wanted. She would no longer be one of the invisible service people (like Igor, or the cleaning lady Klara), but someone whose money and power bought the work of others. The problem is that there's a reason that Cinderella is a fairytale; it's a beautiful story that could never be real for someone like Ani. (The other fascinating aspect of this misreading is that in the original Perrault/Grimm story, Cinderella was the daughter of a wealthy gentleman, who was forced to serve as a cinder girl by her step-mother. She was never poor, just a rich girl who's temporarily in reduced circumstances.)

Ani misinterprets the story, thinking it could be her life. But real life is never that easy. You work and you work, you dance for men, you clean houses, you take your boss's phone calls at a christening, and maybe you hope for something a little better. No prince is going to come and save you from your own life; it's in your own hands, like it always was.

[theoddcatlady]

The Strangest Roommate I’ve Ever Had

This took place all about three years ago. I was going to college at the time and was living with two of my friends, Phoebe and Macie, along with Macie’s boyfriend Joe. I’d been friends with Phoebe since we were kids but only recently befriended Macie within like a year of agreeing to move in together, and Joe was sort of a last minute addition.

Well, to sum it all up so we’re not here all day, Joe was a jackass. He was a lousy roommate, but he was even worse to Macie, who’s a pretty meek person and a doormat for Jackass Joe. It was the third time Joe was caught sleeping around that Macie finally snapped and broke up with Joe. He responded by taking off and leaving us scrambling for a new roommate so we didn’t end up losing our place. I think it was Macie who posted the ad on our school’s Facebook page as a last ditch resort. It didn’t matter if they smelled like ham or were up all night blasting Marilyn Manson, we just needed someone to pitch in with the bills.

The next day I answered the door to Miss Dorothy Ball.  

I could already tell she was a weirdo off the bat- she was wearing a floor length navy colored dress with long sleeves and a high neck and didn’t seemed bothered at all by it considering it was almost ninety freaking degrees out. Not a blonde curl was out of place, not a drop of sweat on her paper white skin or rosy cheeks. Her large blue-green eyes stared at me as I stared at the trunk and suitcase she had behind her.  

Her head bowed down, speaking so quietly her lips barely moved.

“I’m Dorothy. I’m here about the roommate ad?”  

I only let her in because I felt bad about how hot she had to be in that get up. When she sat across from me I noticed she even had white gloves on, she seemed to be doing all she could to hide every inch of skin she could.  

“I have the money here.” Dorothy sat down an envelope on the table. “I intend on staying a full year, minus any unpredictable happenings. I would like to stay in a room by myself, and I promise that I will be silent as a church mouse and that the rent will always be on time. Will that be fine?”  

I cleared my throat. “I’ll have to talk to everyone else.” I opened up the envelope and nearly choked on my spit as the crisp one hundred dollar bills fell into my hand. “Is this for half the year?!”

“Just the first month.” Dorothy cocked her head to the side. “I found out the cost of rent, is this too little?”

“You’re only supposed to pitch in a quarter-” I cut myself off as I realized Dorothy knew exactly what she was offering. “You’re paying for all of it?”  

“The first month at least.” Dorothy laughed quietly, her lips not even twitching. “My family is quite wealthy. I would just like to live close to the campus and this is such a nice area, I want to show my appreciation for letting me board here.”

I had a meeting with the other roommates after introducing them to Dorothy. I showed them the cash. Phoebe’s eyes filled with dollar signs as she was clearly imagining what she’d do with all the spare cash she had while Macie seemed a bit more hesitant, but we’d not had any other offers. Most people by now had a place to call home while they went to college, and someone offering to pay all of this month’s rent? You’d be an idiot to say no to that.  

Dorothy was pleased as punch to be allowed to stay here, even giving us all a hug as she thanked us again and again. Phoebe tried to bolt from the hug but Dorothy insisted on it. We did have to move things around a bit, Macie moved into my room while Dorothy took her old one, but I didn’t mind since Macie and I basically had the same sleeping schedules anyway.  

You know how I said I wouldn’t have minded if we got a roommate from hell as long as they paid the bills? Well Dorothy was basically the roommate from heaven. She kept to her promise, she was so quiet she’d sometimes scare me because I didn’t even realize she was there. Not to mention she was a neat freak- there was never a dish in the sink or a speck of dust on the shelves. I swear it was how she had fun, well, that and shopping.  

There wasn’t a week that went by that we didn’t have a bunch of packages on the front porch. All cloth or dresses, Dorothy was quite the seamstress. Her closet quite literally overflowed with dresses, all long sleeved with floor length hems. The few that didn’t have high necks she’d pair with chokers or scarves, again, she didn’t want to show any skin. Not like she minded us dressing how we did, I think Phoebe nearly cried with Dorothy presented her with a crop top she made that was hot pink and had her name on the front. She made me something too, this summer themed dress printed with lemon and lime slices. I still wear it whenever I can, and it fits perfectly. She could guess a person’s measurements just by looking at them.  

Not to say I wasn’t still a bit offput by her. Something was just not right about this perfect roommate. Any time we’d ask a question about her family or her past, she’d give a half-answer and change the subject, usually by offering to buy us dinner. Even though she did that I never saw her eat, although she enjoyed tea twice a day, once at ten and once at three, like clockwork. I never caught her in the bathroom, although I did hear the shower run late at night when we’d all gone to bed, even Phoebe who’s a night owl and potential insomniac. Whenever she talked she’d bow her head down so I couldn’t see her mouth clearly, she’d never complain about being hot or cold, hell, she never complained at all. And her face was practically frozen. She’d blink, but she had no real expressions from what I could tell- again, she’d always bow her head down so I couldn’t get a clear view of her face past the curly hair.

Again, all of this is weird, but harmless. I chalked up my willies to just Dorothy’s weirdness and did all I could to be friendly to her. I never wanted to be an asshat.

Dorothy was closest with Macie. After Joe left her Macie was pretty messed up, she cried nearly every day and Phoebe said she was afraid Macie was going to drop out and leave us too.  

That changed after Dorothy moved in. I think Dorothy sensed how sensitive Macie was and focused a lot of her energy on becoming her friend. Macie never told me what they’d do when they hung out, but Dorothy made it a habit to enter our room and just… talk with her for hours. I’d usually just excuse myself to the living room to binge Netflix and well, whatever Dorothy did worked. Macie got out of her funk, her self esteem shot way up, and she even began going on dates. All the while Dorothy was just basking in her glow, just happy that Macie was happy.  

Of course, something did happen. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten Jackass Joe from the beginning of this story. For a little more context, Macie’s old room was on the ground floor, while my room that I now shared with Macie was on the second floor.  

Waking up to hearing Dorothy scream bloody murder at around three AM was not a welcome sound.  

I jumped the stairs three at a time to rush down there, and when we threw open the door I saw Macie was hiding under her quilts while Joe was sitting in the center of the room completely flummoxed.  

“I thought it was Macie!” He tried to explain as Phoebe dragged his ass out of there. Naturally, no one was interested, even if it was Macie it’s gross as hell to just crawl into bed with your ex girlfriend who wants nothing to do with your ass anymore.

I approached the bed, Dorothy still shaking and crying. I tried to draw the blankets back but the blanket bulge flinched back. “No! Don’t take away the blankets!” She screamed.  

So I just sat by the bed and waited for her to calm down. Her crying did slow but she refused to come out.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked.

“… He almost saw me.”  

The very top of Dorothy’s head peeked out from under the blankets, I did absentmindedly note how her eyes weren’t bloodshot and her face wasn’t red and blotchy, but she was still shaking. “I know… I know if anyone sees what I hide, they will never want to come near me again. And to suddenly have a man in my bed, I… I was frightened. I am so sorry for screaming.”

“Don’t be, I think most girls would freak out with a stranger suddenly climbing into their bed,” I rested my hand on the side of the bed. “It’s okay. You’re my friend, no matter what you’re hiding.” I meant it too. Sure, she was strange, but she was nice. And I prioritize nice.  

Dorothy slipped back under her blankets, but I heard a muffled ‘thank you’ as I exited the room.  

Of course Joe wasn’t going to stop being the worst because he accidentally got in bed with the wrong girl. He began harassing Macie, saying he was ‘sorry that she felt hurt’ and he’d ‘never do it again’. A quick Facebook check revealed that he was about to get kicked out of his dad’s place for being a shithead, so it made sense he’d go back to his doormat ex to get a new place.

Cept of course, in the few months Joe was gone, Macie had grown a backbone and she was just not interested. Neither were the rest of us, Dorothy especially. The first time I heard our strange roommate swear was when I heard her call Joe a bastard over breakfast, which nearly made Phoebe choke on her Cheerios. Joe could rot in hell. Joe probably sent over one hundred texts asking Macie to kick out ‘the weird chick in your room’ so he could move back in. Macie just ignored him, blocked his number and then every social media profile he tried to reach out to her on. She kept blowing him off, and we all figured sooner or later Joe would get bored and leave us alone.  

Oh boy. Not even close.

Phoebe was out that night. I just went out to go pick up some frozen pizzas at the corner store, I was probably gone for like ten minutes. When I got back my heart sunk in my chest when I recognized Joe’s truck out front. I didn’t even enter the house to hear them arguing.

I bolted up the stairs to see Macie and Joe screaming at each other. One of Joe’s friends was there too, a guy named Derek. From what I could make out apparently Joe did find another place, but they needed one more roommate to make it work, and apparently Joe was back to harassing Macie about it. Macie’s face was bright red as she yelled at them both to get the hell out of her house, she wasn’t interested in ever being near Joe again, and if he didn’t leave she’d call the police.

That police threat seemed to really rub Joe the wrong way as he grabbed her arm and squeezed it so tight I thought he was going to break it. I tried to step in, but Derek actually pushed me away, stepping between us so I couldn’t get to my friend to help her out. My cellphone was in my pocket and I was considering just running for it to call 911 when I heard someone walking up the stairs.

I turned to see Dorothy, her head bowed so I couldn’t see her face. She was dressed in a white nightgown that reached just past her calves, I could make out what I thought was scarring on her ankles and toes as she paused at the top of the stairs for only a moment. The next moment she stormed up to Joe and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him towards the stairs, clearly intent on throwing him out herself.

“Get out of this house. Right now. And never step near Macie again.”  

Her voice was cold and grating, far from the typically soft mumbles. Joe was probably frozen in shock at first, but he reacted with violence. He shoved Dorothy with all his might, Dorothy stumbling for a moment at the top of the steps before losing her balance and falling down the stairs.

When her body collided with the steps, it sounded like someone had taken a stack of china and thrown them down to the ground.

Dorothy rolled down the rest of the steps, the discordant sound of smashing glass causing all of us to freeze in our tracks. Dorothy finally hit the bottom step with her head and stayed all too still at the foot of the stairs.  

Joe shot us all a ‘what the fuck’ look before Dorothy stirred. With the rattle of broken glass, Dorothy got up on all fours. For a nauseating moment I thought the side of her nightgown had been pierced with a piece of bone, but with a sickening grinding sound, Dorothy grabbed onto her gown and ripped it down the side,  grabbed the loose shard of white porcelain in her hand, and began the painful looking process of crawling up the steps.  

Now I could see what Dorothy had been insistent on hiding, now that her gown had been ripped to ribbons thanks to her shattering. Each of her joints was like the ball joint on a doll, a dip in the skin that now made more disturbing grinding sounds as she hauled herself up the steps. Slivers and pieces of porcelain continued to fall from her body, the biggest missing part nearly taking up her entire right side. Inside of her I could make out incredibly lifelike imitations of ribs, lungs, all cracked and breaking apart. Her right cheek was horrifically cracked, her eyelid hanging half down, unable to fully shut or open. Her chin hung loosely open, her mouth a black, gaping hole. But that still open eye was focused right on Joe, and it was full of loathing.

Macie acted first, bolting into her room and turning the lock. Derek screamed in horror and shoved me forward to act as a shield. Dorothy hauled herself up that last step and I nearly fell on top of her, barely managing to catch myself as I stepped on another piece of porcelain and sliced my foot open like butter.  

Dorothy paid me no mind as she managed to push herself to her feet, swaying as she tried to regain her balance before she began to limp over to the terrified men. Joe looked at me and I think I remember him saying ‘help me’.  

I responded by crawling into Phoebe’s room and locking the door behind me.  

They weren’t screaming for much longer.  

I hid in there for hours, clamping my hands over my ears to block out the worst of the wet ripping and tearing. I didn’t leave until I heard Phoebe enter the house, call for us, and then shriek when she saw all the blood.

And there was a lot of blood. It soaked the carpet on the second floor, with bits of flesh and muscle embedded in the fibers. But other than that and the shards of porcelain scattered about the stairs, there was no sign of Joe, Derek, or Dorothy.

We never heard from Dorothy again. An envelope containing enough money to cover a few more months of rent did appear in our mailbox, but the police couldn’t even confirm Dorothy Ball was a real person outside of her school registry. I never even told Phoebe the entirety of the story, only that Dorothy had attacked both Joe and Derek.  

I still don’t know what I saw, not really. The image of her shattered body crawling up those stairs, the hate in her still working eye as she stared at Joe will never leave even as I try to rationalize how on earth that could happen. People don’t shatter like… like that.

But I do know Dorothy was real. I know she was.  

And I’m thankful for her. And she’s still my friend. Wherever she is.

[i-hold-horrors-hand]

Two Is Better Than One, Three Is Better Than Two (Chapter 3)

The sweet and sexy epilogue.

(Submitting this chapter as a very-last-minute and slightly late part of @bisexual-horror-fan 's Multi-May 2024 event. Chapter 1 is here, Chapter 2 is here.)

It had been a year since your second time meeting up with Papa and Denise, and since then, you'd been having the time of your life.

Delicious dinners at fancy restaurants, early screenings to movies, prime tickets to musicals and concerts, the most beautiful and flattering clothes, a new apartment (and rent paid for it!) that you admittedly didn't spend too much time in, a new phone and laptop, extravagant vacations...these were just a few of the experiences and things you'd been enjoying since joining Papa and Denise as their beloved third. You'd become a kept woman, and you'd been loving every second of it.

Including now, at the beautiful Italian beach house, with an expensive drink in your hand and a sense of belonging in your heart.

You sip your drink, savouring the taste as you close your eyes and let the gentle sound of the waves carry you off for a few moments. It isn't just the expensive treats or vacations or even the (amazing) sex, that has you so happy. Those are great, to be sure, but it's more than that. It's the way Papa and Denise treat you to these things, the way they include you, the way they had welcomed you into their world.

A few months after your last "get-together", the two of them had finally fully informed you about themselves—they were Satanists, and very high up in their church's hierarchy. It had taken a while for you to get used to that, but you had. Papa and Denise has reassured you that there was no pressure whatsoever for you to convert, and that you could decide that you weren't into that and could end your relationship with them at any time.

But you hadn't. Of course you hadn't, why would you? You hadn't cared if they worshipped the Devil (especially if the Devil had been encouraging them to treat you as well as they had been). You had cared about them, as full and whole people.

And you still do. And they care about you, too. You can feel it, in everything they do with you, sexual and otherwise.

And you can feel it when they come up to join you on the balcony, one on either side of you. You don't even have to open your eyes, or hear them speak, you recognize their presence immediately.

"How's our dolcezza doing?" Papa's voice rumbles in your ear, and you sigh softly and happily as you open your eyes and turn to him.

"Io sto bene," you answer, proud of your ever-improving Italian, the various weeks you've been practising clearly paying off.

"That's good to hear," Denise hums, as she slides even closer to you, moving the strap of your sundress down to kiss at your shoulder.

"H-how are the two of you?" you ask, voice faltering a bit as you feel Denise's soft lips against your skin.

"Anche noi stiamo bene, dolcezza," Papa replies, now following Denise's lead and kissing your other shoulder.

You grip the top of the ornate railing on the balcony, letting out a soft "ah" as your two lovers work their way from your shoulders to the sides of your neck. You know where this is going, and you have no complaints whatsoever. On the contrary, you welcome it. Just like you'd welcomed everything else they'd given you this past year.

"Voi due...siete..." You take a moment to sigh yet again, and think of the word you want, your head spinning as Papa's and Denise's hands begin roaming your body over your sundress. You almost don't finish your sentence, getting lost in the anticipation and pleasure, but you do finally find the word you want and manage to get it out of your mouth, after a bit. "...fantastici."

"So are you, baby," Denise whispers in your ear, as her hand slides up your thigh, under your dress, and toys with the waistband of your panties. Papa hums in agreement, mirroring her movements.

You don't manage to get out another word before being overwhelmed with desire for the both of them, and you eagerly and immediately give in, getting lost in the love and pleasure between the three of you.

You can get used to this. In fact, you already have.

[leam1983]

Oblivion

So. Tomorrow, we're flying back home.

Seven days. A week spent with a small legion at my beck and call, bending to Walt's every whim, acceeding to Sarah's every request. One massive kitchen divided between four dining rooms, serving up everything from Americano-Mexican tentpoles to recomposed would-be Taino dishes, with a buffet where passable is the order of the day. Mornings were bland Continental breakfast affairs, but the evenings shone brightly, capstoned with the best cigars I've had in the last three years and the best damn Cappuccino in a decade.

Seven days realizing that an army is re-making my bed, giving me clean sheets every morning and fresh towels on the dot, showing extreme deference for my walker-using ass. A little cohort of maids paid Cheap Labor wages to smile, respond to everything with Es mi placer, señor, and pushed into treating USD tips in the single digits like they're Godly gifts.

You can bet that Walt was so appalled by this he starting leaving twenties. "These poor girls - cleaning up people's shit and vomit after the douchebags three doors down the hall spend the evening getting plastered on Mojitos - and not an ounce of gratitude!"

People started asking questions. Our passable Spanish led to us forming basic bonds with the staff, and turned our little bungalow in the Adults Only section into the talk of the resort. People with less manners started asking for drinks delivery and had to handle polite rebuffs, where we got the sense that the Room Service people were starting to network with the Pool Bar guys to figure out our schedule of preferred drinks.

Eventually, what had to happen happened. My feet were so swollen I couldn't put on my closed-toes shoes for the evening, as the dress code requests, but the staff didn't bat an eyelash when i wheeled in, looking like someone's favourite Math teacher, with socks and sandals. A Karen whose husband had completely overlooked the dress code was shocked.

"Why does he get to head inside dressed like this, and my husband can't?"

Yamilet, 23, born and raised in Santo Domingo and using the thankless job of the French Cuisine-oriented dining room's maître d' to pay her way through nursing school when she's not in church, gave her a Crest commercial-worthy smile.

Is un especial guest. Disculpe - see his legs. Mira?

For once in my life, I was happy to be singled out as disabled.

What really emerged from this is how gratitude really is crucial, when you're travelling. Everyone I heard who spouted variations on "having paid for the right to do whatever they wanted" received piss-poor service. Everyone who lowered their voice in a corridor, who showed basic deference and treated the staff like human beings received distinctly improved treatment. It wasn't just us - we noticed several other cultural groups in the resort, and I was actually thankful to draw a clear line between the nice Americans - and the douchebags.

In open spaces like the buffet, it's kind of impossible not to eavesdrop. If you're on vacation and you're still griping about your Democrat neighbours when you're halfway across the hemisphere from your point of origin, you're coloring your entire stay. The Trumptards who demanded service came in pissed off, stayed ornery and left irate. Anyone else, from anywhere else in the world, who politely asked, language barriers be damned, got what they asked for.

The Semester-Enders were hard to miss, too. Sixteen kids in total, barely in their twenties, who'd clearly pooled cash to rent swim-up suites together, and who turned the All-Ages section of the pool into a nightmare. There wasn't an inch of it that wasn't their private Football Toss area, and no resort-provided pool float that they just didn't claim for themselves.

It allowed for a sense of liminality to settle in. On one end of the more or less football-field-length of pool, you had pure chaos. On the other, placid waters, where the Adults Only club and our bungalow was located. I recovered the float I'd bought for myself, one of the Spring Breakers giving me a florid-faced and pleading look.

"Come on, bro!"

I gestured towards the back. "You've got seven other floats, over there, plus an inflatable mattress. I bought this one and brought it here. As it's my possession, I'd like to use it."

He chuckled meanly. "Nobody cares, man."

Christopher, 27, from Bàvàro, gave the guy a level look while climbing down from his lifeguard chair. "Everything okay, señores?"

"Me? Oh, everything's swell, Chris. It's the gentleman over there that's operating under weird delusions."

Chris nodded, his facial language obvious. Another one of those, huh? I nodded.

He smiled. No te preocupas, amigo.

The kid's response stuck with me. Nobody cares. Is this why some people work so much, hustle their way to a therapist and then book a week off to someplace where there's palapas, Afro-Cuban covers of Celine Dion classics and drinks that would make a medicated diabetes sufferer scream in abject terror? You put your ass to the grindstone and your only hope of recovery is to find a place, however theoretical, where nobody gives a shit?

Walt, Sarah and I brainstormed. We planned ahead. We rested aplenty, sure, and napped even more than we do back home - but this place energized us. We were free to create, and spent a week being the best versions of ourselves that we could possibly be.

For other people? It's apparently Adult Daycare. You get up at nine past the breakfast buffet's closure, complain that you can't get any service, throw yourself on yesterday evening's pizza, knock back cocktails starting at 11 AM and end up throwing up in the kiddie pool by 5 PM. You throw a fit because the pool boys had the gall to lift your limp ass out of the wading area before you could drown yourself while passed-out in a puddle-sized expanse of water. Because you're in your twenties, your brush with death is all but forgotten by 8 PM, and you head to the lobby's bar to knock back tequila shots with your fellow jabronis. The wee hours see you treating the public hallways like your personal hangout space, exchanging football huddle cries with equally-inebriated kids with no sense of their own mortality.

To all this should be added the resort's sense of liminality. If you forget your optimal route to your room, you'll end up in an entirely different resort. Pools look the same, everything's connected, and everyone feels transitory, obviously. It's the ersatz of a place. It's as impersonal as a hotel, except the staff are all stuck under a pall of fake-ass exoticism they can't shed. The equator line being so close means days are blisteringly hot and painfully short. By 7 PM, the sun's all but gone - and we're in May.

Nobody stays. Nobody leaves an impression. I've regaled Yamilet and Christopher with tales of La Banquise and of Schwartz' smoked meat or the bagel bakeries on St-Viateur - but I'll forget their faces just as they'll forget mine. We spent a week treating one another like culturally Latin brethren - Québécois deference having always meshed well with Cuban and Dominican confidence - but we won't remember one another in short order.

Single-serving friends, as Pahlaniuk once said.

I might as well head to the gift shop, swallow my pride and see if there's a tee-shirt on offer that reads I went to the Carribbean, and all I got for it was a lousy sunburn.

[bahbzxxx]

Before anybody gets confused…THIS IS NOT CANON IN THE SLIGHTEST.

THIS. 👏IS JUST. 👏AN EXCUSE. 👏TO SIMP FOR VENTI. 👏WHILE MAKING IT. 👏AS COMPLICATED. 👏AND DRAMATIC. 👏AND CONVOLUTED. 👏AS POSSIBLE.

In short, this is just a silly little au.

👏

I did this all in one sitting so yes thank you my grammar is atrocious

So let’s consider harbinger Venti’s situation.

Because in BarbzLANDIA, He’s canon now. Don’t @ me he moved into my silly little brain with his thousands of suitcases that he stuffs in his hat somehow and I kinda need his rent money🙄🤌💸

So consider the following:

How tf are people going to react to lord Barbatos then?

- The fatui would be petty, sis. The more mondstadt thinks they’ve been abandoned by their archon of freedom in exchange for this new wackadoodle OP harbinger, the more people will loose faith in him as their archon and not only will he lose power, but he will gain disappointment.

We Venti stans already know this poot likely Carries way more guilt and truama and depression than he lets even the traveler in on…so this is why it pleases the higher ups of the fatui and abyss to see this happen, especially since HES now the harbinger who’s ruining everything.

(Don’t you just want to spit on them and hurl sheakspearean insults at them?) (I know I would!!!!!and that’s just the start!!!)

(Why am I so mad at fanon depictions of characters I am making I will never know, but in the meantime, we tread on)

Timing? - what’s mondstadt like? What about our favorite characters? Tf they up to?

Like, it already had fatui and stuff so it would all just be blown way out of proportion. Like, imagine the fatui have been in there longer…(I think I made an imagine post a few months ago where mondstadt is suffering because Venti got *officially infected*, and because he’s the wind, the weather and much more is affected…so the fatui…they kinda just…infiltrate casually over decades, at least until they can catch the anemo archon at his lowest and have that power over him)

For the most part, at the point that I’m thinking the story would take place… fatui soldiers and the knights of favonius have basically melded into one group. Those who didn’t like the change and could leave left…but some people couldnt, for the good of Mondstadt.

The church of favonius, as time goes on, gets a lot of flack for supporting a god who clearly no longer cares or maybe even exists, in the eyes of the people who have seen it’s fall.

(It’s been rumored that, though it is rumored he is of mondstadt descent…the recent lord harbinger in residence has not stepped foot in that cathedral.-could he be ashamed of his actions…or is there something bigger behind this?)

(Maybe I’ll get to my ideas for other characters in a different post but y’all know where diluc is goin’)

(He’s going to the swimming pool. He’s gonna go swimming, and then will get a slushie. What he doesn’t finish he will give to his pet bird. His bird likes grape. He doesn’t. They will feud. He will appease the bird and give him grape. He will then get a la croix. Then he will go home and stream BNHA and act like hes todoroki, only to stop for obvious, blaringly obvious, reasons. That will be all. We tread on.)

What is the extent of Venti’s power in this? Would he have any at all?

Though he knows they do it to taunt him, he actually does.

His wishlist is simple-

1. Mondstadt is safe.

And those with power over him know that. They also know he may be more powerful than them…but he actually has class, and thinks before he acts.

So…they actually kind of trust him to be a good harbinger. They let him run mondstadt the way he see fit…he can’t just leave and give them freedom…

It Iitersll sucks cause he has to be the tyrant so that nobody else will be the tyrant and do worse things…

As long as it serves the Tsaritsa and her plans. If not…trust he will be dealt with 😥

(More on that here maybe)

Though many statues of the seven have been defunct for a while, he would still be able to gain his own power from at least one…because technically, they already have his gnosis. It just so happens that it’s still inside of him. They have him wrapped around their finger by this point…

Misc: necessary to include

Venti would be so trusted by the fatui at this point that they put him in charge of Childe. No…childe does not bump up a place. He’s still 11.

You can imagine how interesting their interactions would be.

(You can imagine how offended he is)

Diluc is the token fugitive before the traveler and posse(posse being paimon and the Windblume in question) shows up in mondstadt looking for their sibling

[jeanjauthor]

They may not have had a choice.

King County (the county containing Seattle, Washington, here in the USA) has some VERY STRICT guidelines for building new churches. Most newer church congregations find it far cheaper and easier to just rent & renovate an existing store in a strip mall, and if they get big enough, a box store like the one above.

And of course, King County isn't the only region-governing body to decide to be strict when it comes to building new churches. City ordinances across the US can also be quite restrictive. But honestly, it makes sense in the short to medium term. These buildings are not being used as stores anymore. They're just empty structures cluttering up the landscape. A lot of the bigger stores have switched heavily toward an online retail model and need less physical space. The "mini mall" construction boom of the 1990s has slowed down.

New construction is far more expensive than simply renting. With renting, you can keep your congregation going while saving up the money for that new construction. And as for churches that already have, well, established churches (the buildings)...many of them actually share their facilities with other denominations.

My mother's church, which is a bit of a sprawl of different building wings that's been added onto over the decades, has 3 different religious groups on top of her own (Methodists, the founding group). This includes Seventh Day Adventists (church on Saturday), Anglicans (holding services on Sunday at a slightly different time in the old church sanctuary while the Methodists use the new/modern one), and a Muslim community (services held on Friday in the community hall beneath the old sanctuary, where there aren't any seats set up; plenty of room for prayer mats that way).

Each one of these groups is not super-large, but at one time the Methodists had a big enough congregation to need to expand, but they still needed to conduct services, so they just kept the old sanctuary hall while building the new one more or less right next to it...and since the old building was merely small, not in bad condition, they kept it in place and started renting it out to other groups once they moved their congregation into the new hall.

For the other groups, it was far easier to just rent space in a facility that was already set up for worship services. And since my mother's church aren't jerks (they're a little conservative about some things, but they aren't bigots or sanctimonious by any means), they are perfectly fine with Islam services taking place within their facilities. It's a holy space, and both are Abrahamic religions; Islam acknowledges Christ as one of its great prophets, and that's 85% of everything right there. Plus, this decision to rent to Muslims was made back during the 9/11 era, when Muslims were being persecuted just for existing. Putting their mosque services inside of a clearly Christian church helped protect them from being attacked, and that was--and still is--A Very Good Thing To Do.

Frankly, with just that box store appearance alone to go on (I don't know what LCBC stands for), I would NOT have pegged it for a church of any kind. That could be serving as a sort of protective camouflage. It could be simply renting a building that already exists--a building that used to be a Pizza Hut or an IHOP will always look like a Pizza Hut or an IHOP, as they say. And they could be planning for the possibility of their congregation dwindling enough to the point where they might have to downsize their congregation...and don't want to try to sell a "lame duck" building that obviously looks like a church to...well, a group that isn't a church.

It's like how many new houses these days are made bland and boring in their construction, coloring, & details "so as not to hurt its resale value," as opposed to building a house meant to last for several generations in one family.

maybe it's because i was raised catholic but churches shouldn't look like furniture stores

[sberg0]

February 28, 2025: What I said at yesterday’s plenary at the Alliance’s conference on unsheltered homelessness:

Good morning! I’m Steve Berg, the Chief Policy Officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, and I’m here to welcome you to the day 2 plenary, focusing on tactics.

First, I want to say we know many people who are part of this big community are seeing their lives disrupted right now, and that we are with you, you are fantastic people.

So tactics. By “tactics,” I’m talking about concrete tools for making specific, immediate changes happen. These are tools that people working on the issue can use on a daily basis.

We start our work by setting a goal that would clearly make the world a better place, that’s based in love and an understanding that all people are essentially one, that brings people together. Like ending homelessness. We articulate a strategy, that shows the big pieces of how the goal can be achieved over time, showing that it’s possible and even likely, building know-how, making money available, developing leadership, bringing together an Alliance of people who will work with us. And then we use tactics to move closer every day to getting those pieces done.

We’ll include tactical tools to engage policymakers, to get them to see that ending homelessness is something they should take on, and that they should start by listening to you! One tool is the message that many of them are getting loud and clear: lots of people want homelessness ended. People who are homeless now, and the larger group with lived experience of homelessness are speaking out more and more. There are people like most in this room who are mission driven to care, including church leaders, people in the field, political activists. But there are others who may be unexpected: leaders in healthcare, because homelessness costs healthcare systems tremendous amounts of money; local government officials, elected or not; business owners; police, who don’t believe dealing with homelessness is their mission; and, increasingly, the “general public.”

These days, more policymakers get this part, that there’s a demand for a solution. But the more important tool to engage them is the message that there’s a proven way to do this, that’s achieved good results and that brings people together rather than driving them apart, the way so-called “solutions” based on criminalization drive people apart. Policymakers who have to run for reelection often try to avoid issues that are going to involve lots of fighting. Consensus makes them more likely to be on board. We’ve seen people who demonstrated at city hall to keep supportive housing out of the neighborhoods where the lived, and who a year after the housing was occupied had become the residents’ biggest supporters. That’s the kind of story that will get policymakers on board.

Another piece of tactics this conference talks about is tools that policymakers can use to develop the right policies, to build understanding for themselves and others about what goes into those proven solutions: Making sure sufficient modest rental housing exists, by allocating different funding streams and building public support; having rent or operating subsidies to make housing affordable to people with the lowest incomes, often through the Housing Choice Voucher program; targeting supportive services so that people can be stable in their housing, including intensive medical treatment, because it’s no surprise to us that many people with serious mental illness or addiction or cancer or heart failure end up on the streets, or that living on the streets brings on or exacerbates those conditions; and including services to help secure better income or simply help dealing with complicated bureaucracies that challenge everyone.

And a third piece of tactics we’ll talk about is tools for providers to get and keep people housed, including help making the process simpler and more respectful for people who may have faced all kinds of discrimination; and tools to get mainstream systems on board, systems with bigger budgets and expertise to provide housing and services, in a manner that aligns with our commitment to simplicity and respect

Tactics. It’s what we do every day to make good things happen.

[kumkaniudaku]

So I’m back to yap,

Again, excellent story. Idk if I can say that enough but it’s so good sis and I hope you’re proud of it.

I noticed that in so many words Kel was telling Asia, “when you find yourself, come find me.” Cause he told her TWICE to reach out see where he is while making it clear he was leaving the door open AND he told her not to forget him. Time spent apart and with other people aside, I can’t help but think these two lived in a corner of each other’s minds rent free. Especially since they were both in situations that didn’t stick (I wonder why 🌚. I’m probably overthinking it but the story over so my mind is free to roam lol).

I wonder if it was in Asia’s original plan to pull up on Kel in Chicago, like was the decision made before the flight or while she was there? Either way my sis pulled up, she said I’ll do you one better than a phone call and I loved that so much. I feel like Kel was kind of hopeful, even though he tried to play it cool when asking if she found herself, cause again he basically told her that once she does to reach out. Then when she said she’s closer to finding herself than she was before and this nigga starts smiling?!?! PLEASE lol. Again I might be lookin too deep into that but I mean…I’m allowed a lil delusion. The re-introduction??? Talk about goin after what you want, my sis ain’t come to play games. It reminded me of when Kel told her how he felt about her on their pasta date.

I loved the fact that Savannah was basically like…y’all are gonna be together, don’t ask me how I know, just know that I know lol. I know when they got back from Chicago she was beside herself with glee once Asia gave her the rundown. Then again, she probably already knew what Asia’s plans were 😂. I noticed she’s referred to as her partner in crime so they’ve clearly gotten close and I love that for them.

Also the epilogue had me dying because for a brief moment I forgot Kelvin’s dad is a man of the cloth. I was like why is she tripping over this damn dre-OH yeah I probably would be freakin out too sister. You never know with church folk.

Also I see you said we might have to check back in on them occasionally, don’t get my hopes up sister. I lowkey still wanna see how Asia had Kelvin spill coffee on himself when he saw her walk through those doors 🙃.

I’m not gon tell you I’m done…cause we both know how that goes, I’ll say I’m done for now 😂😂😂

Let’s dig in because all of this is very spot on

Kelvin was ABSOLUTELY telling Asia it didn’t have to be done if she didn’t want it to be. The door was always cracked and, yeah, they always had the other on their mind. Maybe not in the front, but even from them bringing up things they sort of knew about each other, there was definitely some tabs being kept.

Asia planned to get up with Kelvin somehow, someway. She kinda of lallygagged for a while, but Savannah gave her the perfect situation and push to speed up the process. Even coordinated how Asia would slip away at exactly the right time to see Kelvin speak. She has been and will always be their number one fan.

The epilogue was the part of this whole thing that always existed in my head and I had to work backwards to get back to it. There were a few different iterations, but yes, Pastor and First Lady Harrison had Asia SHOOK. She couldn’t risk offending them. Especially because she been doing unholy things with their baby boy 😂

As always, know you can come right on back to chat! I look forward to it lol. Thank you ❤️

[pastramimommy]

2024 Reflection 12/28/24

Well well well, we went into the year with an inkling that this one would be a doozy and boy were we right. But we were prepared? lol What on paper would seem like a terrible year felt like one of the best years I've had. I feel proud, secure, powerful and exactly where I need to be. In february, I moved to kansas city for chris and started a new job and a new life where i knew no one but him. 4 months later, right before my birthday he dumped me out of the blue over the phone. In july I moved back in with my parents with no job prospects. In August I started my doctorate program and scored an awesome job opportunity. In November I finished my first semester with a 4.0, while adjusting to a new job and moving to an amazing new home. I never really believed I was that resilient but now I do lol but I am SOOOOOO blessed to have the support that I do. and now, I get to be near my family and friends again. And I can finally start building the rest of my life with some certainty.

Physical: This is probably the best shape I've ever been in lmao my fitness goals shifted to focus more on calisthenics and pole rather than appearance. And the appearance definitely followed naturally. I genuinely look forward to exercising and was able to maintain consistency during school. Milestones achieved includes 7 pull ups, 3 dips, pistol squat, shrimp squat (kinda), left front splits, right front splints (kinda), backbend from standing, hanging L sit, hanging leg lift. I was very consistent with pole in KC but got off track with the move but will be trying to get back into it in the new year. Pole tricks achieved: outside leg hang, jade, butterfly, crucifix, ballerina.

Spiritual: I would say that my relationship with God is stronger than ever after everything that happened. I prayed basically every day and tried to let go of all the anxiety I had from our relationship. I came out of everything calmly and seeing everything so clearly. I felt at peace. So I knew this was right and all part of the plan. I really liked the church I found in KC, but extracted the lessons from it without including Jesus as the centerpiece of it all. I went to church with Maxine while I was living in Carlsbad and I enjoyed that church as well. I certainly have not accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior at this time, but I wouldn't say I have given up but also wouldn't say I have been actively trying. I will be looking for a new church in the new year and we'll see where that takes me. I was fairly consistent with my morning reflection up until the move to La Jolla, will need to solidify my morning routine to include this.

Mental: Girl why is was this the most stable I've ever felt lol it's actually crazy. Like this was the toughest year I've experienced but I feel so happy and honestly just so extremely blessed and grateful. I preemptively saw a therapist a single time in KC and she said I didn't need her. I guess we are in a good fuckin spot! As I identified as a priority last year, I focused on controlling only what I could control (goes back to giving it up to God) and truly believing that everything is happening the way its supposed to. I chose peace and really did not fall into many spirals of self doubt and lack of confidence. Even in this new job where I am sedating the patients aka doing something I always felt I was too scared to do, I am gentle with myself and remember that I can only do my best. Young Hayley would be so proud to see how the anxiety and stress has melted away despite life only getting harder lmao

Financial: I hit a financial milestone of 100,000 net worth!! woohoo! BUT i wasn't paying rent for half the year lmao I REALLY REALLY need to improve on sticking to the goddamn budget. it was challenging to really do that for the latter half of the year but now that I have an income and rent I have try harder to check my spending regularly.

Friend/family relationships: The mf cup was overflowing in KC! I was soooo happy with the friendships I'd made to the point I almost didn't want to leave! I know Jackie, Kenzie and Holly will be my forever homies and I am so certain God put them in my life intentionally. I've seen a handful of people since I've been back but I'm definitely not hanging out with people on a regular basis with school. I am nowhere close to having a squad in San Diego yet lol but I'm ending the year with a group of coworkers I genuinely enjoy and plan to hang out with outside of work in the new year. I am hoping that once I start pole I can find some community there and keep being assertive with strangers as I usually do lol I LOOOOOVE being home for family events now. I feel like my relationships with my immediate and extended family are flourishing and will only be getting better. And our family is growing with weddings and babies so there is just so much to look forward to.

Romantic relationships: This year concluded the first long term relationship that I genuinely saw a future in. I thought I was going to marry this man. But instead, I dodged a massive fuckin bullet and learned a ton about myself and what I need in a partner. I do not miss chris, if I'm being honest the only feeling I have is that I want to "win" which I recognize is super not healthy lol but i'm just being self aware. I recognize my faults in the relationship and I take everything Chris said to me very seriously and I will prioritize improving my communication skills moving forward. I know that I need someone who isn't afraid to communicate and be forthcoming. Hoping that now that I don't date below the age of 29 maybe these men will have figured that out by now. According to my 2024 wrapped presentation I will have gone on 10 first dates in the last half of the year. I am not particularly impressed by anyone yet. Jack is still a potential but I'm not gonna hold my breath. My biggest issue is that I get all excited about the thought of someone then lose interest (bc I get to know them better or the sex or god knows what). I worry that I am focused too much on the checklist (>5'11", educated, makes equivalent or more than me, yada yada) so it is more of a game rather than actually making a connection. But alas, no winners yet! I am not discouraged, but I would prefer to meet someone IRL.

Hobbies: I have accepted that many fun things in my life would take a back seat once school started. But in the first half of the year, I stayed consistent with embroidery and reading. I started baking bread in KC, but don't have a starter anymore lol this was a pretty shit year for my cooking skills bc I was either survival eating or living with my parents. Pole was definitely the star of the show this year!

Trips/fun things: I didn't really do much bc all my money and time was sucked away by the multiple moves and school starting! but i think i did pretty good considering the circumstances. Spent the holidays in CA and saw HEKS and cunts. I visited KC for med school prom. Went to Mardi Gras with cunts, definitely the best trip this year! Went to LA for Mia's debut. Gerr visited me. Went to Houston for my brother's grad (and proposal!!) and Atlanta for Ben's Brit Mitzvah. Spicy visited me in KC. Rhode Island for Cassie's wedding. HEKS and Cunts visited me in SD. Uncle david's boxing match and Roxanne's wedding. Camille visited me in SD. Concerts: galantis, barely alive, jacquees, noodz/sosupersam, lucky daye, kehlani, sabrina carpenter, svdden death, armnhmr

[chocolatedetectivehottub]

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[mathsbian]

i hope you and nonbinary jakey lose the apartment ^__^

This would make me feel bad if I hadn’t seen this coming. This is why I waited so long to try and start raising money. Because I knew I’d get anons like this. About a post I made over a year ago and never think about outside of answering these ridiculous attempts at bullying.

Since you feel entitled to harass me, I feel entitled to trauma-dump in response.

We wouldn’t just be losing the apartment. We’d be losing all of our freedom. We would have to move in either with my abusive mother or my partner’s abusive father. Their father wants us to put a deposit on a new place in his town and pay rent on our own for 6 months before he’ll allow us to move in with him, which doesn’t make any sense because the reason we can’t afford rent here is because we can’t save any of our money because the cost of living is so high and I have no income to help offset that. So it would end up being my mother.

My mom found out I was gay on her own and confronted me about it while visiting me in my own home while my then-partner was out of the country for two weeks. She waited til I was alone and brought it up by saying she would still love me even if I murdered someone. So she sees being gay as the same as taking someone’s life. She does not approve of me living with my partner out of wedlock, even though if I get married I will lose half the benefits I am entitled to if I ever get approved for disability. If I had to move in with her, I’m not even sure she would allow my partner to come with me. On top of that, she does not have any clue about my self-medication and she would not approve of that either. So I would also be losing the one thing that keeps my pain manageable.

Not to mention that she barely believes I’m sick. That she forces me to help with difficult chores even when I am having a really bad flare. That she tries to guilt-trip me into attending a homophobic church with her every week. That she still lets my father come around and visit with barely any warning, a man I only speak to a couple times a year currently, and only because she keeps inviting him to holidays.

I would literally rather be homeless than have to put up with her again. And I can’t be homeless because I have two cats that need a shelter and safety. Maybe you don’t care about me having shelter, but what did my cats ever do to you assholes?

And there’s a third person in this equation who was not part of the post I made. Our roommate will also lose the apartment if we do. You really want three people to get evicted, maybe be homeless, along with their 3 cats, all because I said something you didn’t care for on fucking tungle.hell? There’s actually christofascists and militant transphobes hiding on this site and you’re really up in arms over me saying “assuming a straight-passing couple are both cishet is a dick move from the queer community” and “our goal is to end oppression not flip it around on the Straights”?

Not that I expect you to read this. You clearly don’t care at all. But at least I feel better getting all that off my chest.