#and better off people have an easier time of getting access to government aid and programs

[death-rebirth-senshi]

Sometimes I read an article and it's like "I'm so stupid I can barely understand this"

[nothorses]

Adding my two cents to this: First off I think it'd be great if public schools were improved, as they do provide food for kids, a space away from potentially abusive parents, and a way to socialize with other children. In that regard, public schools are necessary, and I am suspicious of people who want to tear them down completely.

But on the side of homeschooling, a lot of kids have physical or mental disabilities that prevent them from school being worth it, or face such extreme bullying that removing them from the situation is the only way to solve the problem. Some of those things can be fixed (better aid for bullied students and better resources for disabled kids), but others can't to a real extent. I personally had to drop out of school multiple times, then study and go back to school, then end up dropping out again, just because my disabilities prevented me from learning at all in a public school.

But still, if those things are fixed, it'd be easier for kids to not be sucked into whatever echo chamber their parents are in.

...And on the other hand again, the government interfering too much with what happens inside the home can be abused, such as more surveillance inside the home making it easier to tell if the household is too queer or supports abortions in places that outlaw those sorts of things.

Basically, it's a complicated subject, and thanks for taking the time out of your day to talk about it.

It is complicated! And I think it requires a lot of complicated solutions; providing more options, and making them more viable, is often the path to greater accessibility. That means schools need to be made more accessible to and supportive of disabled students, and it means homeschooling needs to continue to exist, and to be better supported, so that it's a viable option as well.

The surveillance thing is a great point, and I will say that I think that comes down closer to social work/CPS. Providing support should, imo, look more like providing curriculum, funding, connections, and resources to folks who homeschool.

Someone added to another post of mine that in their country, homeschooling entails teachers physically visiting homes to teach them lessons a few times a month; that's a great option! We could also be providing workshops on how to teach or for students directly, camps and part-time learning options; online options like classes, tutoring, and study sessions; funded field trips and other opportunities public school students get access to; and whatever else could help supplement learning, social connections, and connections with local homeschooling folks to better support that learning.

Encouraging some level of participation in some community-based events can itself do a lot of good to catch and minimize abuse, and maybe there is a need for some requirements there, if only to better disseminate resources, options, and connections to kids who might need it. But like. I'm not an expert on any of this, and I'm kinda just dreaming anyway. 🤷‍♂️

[handweavers]

hey Kiran. um. not totally sure how to ask this. but i was hoping you could talk about some of your experiences with university as a disabled person of colour in Canada? bc i am those things as well (lol) and ive just about finished my first term and im thinking hard about whether or not i should continue despite the difficulty and youve spoken about some of that before. if you dont want to talk publicly i can come off anon

i'm okay with talking loosely about it publicly but if you want more precise/specific info talking privately would be better or if you want to know something that i don't mention in this answer. i also can't speak for experiences that i don't have, ie. my experience is my own and may or may not reflect yours or that of other disabled poc given the sheer diversity of people encompassed by that phrase. i'm just going to do bullet points here of stuff i think is most important off the top of my head:

- first of all, see if you qualify for the canada permanent disability student grant benefit if you aren't already receiving it. i'm familiar with OSAP but regardless of what province you're in, if you provide documentation that states you have a permanent disability to your province's student aid system and you show financial need you can receive up to $2000 per semester IN GRANTS (not loans) from the federal government as part of the canada permanent disability student benefit to help you with tuition and paying for other expenses, and even more if you do a spring/summer semester. again, it's paperwork and it's a drag, but that's a LOT of money that can make your life easier so you can focus on taking care of yourself and on your education. and again, i repeat, it's a GRANT not a loan, you don't have to pay it back.

- with that out of the way, i've found university exceptionally difficult and something i would only recommend if going to university is what is needed for the job you want to do or the field you want to be in. if you're unsure of what you want to do/what your goal is for university, or if what you want to do doesn't necessarily require a bachelor's degree, i don't think the pain is worth it. wait or do something else and then if you know for sure what you want and that you need a degree to get there, go ahead, and pace yourself. don't do a full course load, figure out what the sweet spot for you is and stick to that. my max course load is 3 classes per semester, less if i'm doing studio courses. if you have your disability status on file with your uni and with your provincial student aid system, you can take as little as 30-40% course load* (depends on the school and province) and you will still count as a full time student and reap the benefits of that.

- make sure that you have academic accommodations with your university's accessibility services, it can be a lot of work but it will save your life. having that & especially having accommodations that Require professors to give you extensions to assignments is so necessary and is the only reason i've gotten this far. the process for getting this & for getting permanent disability approved for student aid with the government various depending on your disabilities and can be exhausting and inaccessible, which is a problem in itself, but its completely necessary and something I personally would've been completely fucked without

- ive been in post secondary education for 6+ years now and i have never encountered a professor that refused to give me an extension on an assignment, including when I've submitted assignments late without mentioning it to them first, and outside of accommodations I put this largely on keeping an open and friendly communication with my profs. at the start of the semester I let them know that I have accommodations and will need extensions due to physical and mental health issues, and whenever i've had a flare up the first thing I did once I felt well enough to was to email them and let them know, and tell them that I am working on my assignments and will try my best to get them in as soon as I can. I have even submitted assignments weeks late, with an apology and amended with "I understand if this can't be marked/if it's too late, and I thank you for your patience with me regardless" and every single time they have marked my assignment without penalty. even if you have to suck up to them and apologize and do all of that shit, do it, because it'll save you. you don't need to elaborate and write your life story, just speak plainly and tell them you're having issues related to the reasons why you have accommodations and you're struggling but you're trying, and they will appreciate that. the vast majority of them want you to succeed and want to help you do that, you just have to try to meet them partway.

- if something fucked up is going on and you need help with a prof or some other kind of situation, contact your student union and ask them for help and they can either write on your behalf to wherever the complaint is best sent and follow up with it on your behalf OR point you in the right direction and offer support and resources. check if your student union has an accessibility rep and a rep for students of colour and contact them in particular, they are there to help you and they are your peers. they will also almost definitely have a food bank and can help you when it comes to your student medical insurance plan or any other concerns

- if you're on OSAP or other student aid and you need to drop a class, do it early, don't force yourself to suffer through it, because the longer you wait to drop it the higher chance you won't get a refund for the course, and if youre receiving grants that $ will be converted to loans if you don't get that refund. again, this is based on my experience with OSAP, but be aware of drop dates and plan accordingly. if something happens and you miss the drop date though, don't force yourself to suffer and stick through a course you know you cant finish. drop it before you get a 0 or failing mark on your file, because that can fuck you with the university admin side of things and get you on academic probation which can then effect your OSAP or whichever student aid service you have. based on experience I'd rather just get the $500 or however much tuition for that class cost me converted to a loan and deal with paying that back after I graduate, but of course it's entirely up to you.

[cashfactsuk]

Different Ways to Pay for College Tuition Fees

Going to college in the UK can cost a lot of money. To be ready, you should know how much college will cost and how to save money. Planning and budgeting are crucial because UK colleges are pricey.

When you know how much things will cost, you can better figure out how much money you need and make good plans. Knowing everything you might have to pay for is essential if you are a student from another country.

This can include things like rent, tuition, and other fees. You can think about getting financial aid, but even that needs to be planned for ahead of time. If they plan well, students can go to college without going broke.

Ways to Pay for College

1.    Scholarships and Grants

If you live in the UK and are looking for ways to pay for college, scholarships and grants can be a big help. UK students can get many kinds of scholarships and grants, which can help cut down on the cost of college and make it easier to pay for. Universities, organizations, and other public or private groups often give scholarships and grants.

Some of the most common types of scholarships and grants are those based on need, those based on merit, and those only for certain students or groups in the community.

It can be hard to find scholarships and grants, but college-bound students can access a lot of help. The Government website is a good place to start your search because it has a complete list of all the scholarships and grants that UK residents can get.

There are different ways to apply for scholarships and grants, depending on the type of help and who is giving it. Students must fill out forms for all applications, provide information about their education, and include documents to back up their claims.

For need-based scholarships, students must send in their tax returns. You may need to show your transcripts, scores on standardized tests, letters of recommendation, and/or essays for merit-based rewards.

Students who want to get scholarships and grants for specific student and community groups may need to give more information. Even though applying for scholarships and grants can take time, it could be worth it if you get money.

Read the rules and requirements carefully and start the application process as soon as possible.

2.    Student Loans

People in the UK can get many different kinds of student loans. There are loans for college and graduate school, as well as loans for students with bad credit in the UK. People with bad credit can go to college and get an education with these special loans.

Also, you might be eligible for an Erasmus loan if you are over 25 and living outside of your home country. If you live in the UK and want to apply for a student loan, you can go to your local Student Finance Office or complete an application online.

Your loan will be processed after you send your application, and your eligibility will be checked. Depending on your situation, you might be able to put off paying back a student loan for up to five years after you finish your course.

There are different ways to pay back, such as making monthly payments or paying the whole amount simultaneously. Also, people with bad credit may be able to make different plans. Taking out a loan is something that students should carefully consider before doing.

As a result, various options are available for covering the cost of higher education, including grants, scholarships, and student loans.

3.    Work-Study Programs

Work-study programs help college students in the UK pay for school. Students work part-time during the school year as part of work-study programs, also called student support. This funds college tuition, books, and other expenditures.

Work-study programs are beneficial since students can work part-time while in school. This helps students graduate faster. People from low-income families benefit the most from this because it gives them a chance to make money while they go to school.

Students can also learn to be responsible and manage their time by working at school.

Choose a work-study program that matches your needs if you're contemplating it. Several schools offer work-study, so check with your financial aid office first.

Regional and national shows are easily found online. You can apply online for a job that interests you. Besides contact information, job applications usually include a CV and cover letter highlighting your qualifications.

Alternative Options

Attending Community College

Community colleges are cheaper than universities. Many let you transfer credits to earn your degree. You can also save on rent, food, and other expenses.

Online Classes

Online classes might make paying for college easier. Online learning leverages the internet. You can take your time and do it at home. This can save you money on higher tuition costs and allow you to go to class when it's convenient for you.

How To Get Loans if You've Bad Credit?

If you have bad credit and want a quick and easy way to pay for your college, bad credit loans guaranteed approval from a direct lender may be a good choice. These lenders will let you borrow money even if you have bad credit, which banks and other traditional lenders won't do.

This means that even if you have had trouble getting loans from other places, you can still get a loan from one of these direct lenders. The process for getting one of these loans is pretty easy and straightforward. Most of the time, you must fill out a simple application form that asks about your finances and credit history.

The direct lender will use this to determine whether or not to grant your loan application. Most of the time, you'll know the result of your application within a few hours and can move on with your plans.

Conclusion

Going to college is one of the best things you can do with your life. It can help you grow as a person and in your career, and it can also help you save money. A well-thought-out strategy for covering the high cost of higher education is essential.

To help pay for school, research loans, grants, scholarships, and work-study programmes. Do your homework, talk to your advisors, and make sure you can afford lodging, transportation, books, and other materials.

It might also help to learn how to make a budget and manage money and find ways to make more money. By making a good plan for your money and doing what you need to do to pay for it, you'll set yourself up for success in college and beyond.

[diamondhandsmovingnyc]

How HRA-Approved Moving Companies in NYC Can Make Your Move Easier?

Are you making preparations for a move? If this is the case, you may be wondering to simplify the procedure with a low income. Consider one of the best HRA approved moving companies in NYC to simplify things. A moving company that accepts HRA in NYC can make your moving stress-free.  

Moving is not an inexpensive activity. Many things take time and money, like hiring movers and organizing your packing. Unfortunately, many people are struggling financially when the times are tough. You will understand how challenging moving can be if you and your family find themselves in a needy situation. 

Fortunately, you can get assistance and services to help you move to New York City. There have never been more organizations working to assist low-income individuals. You only need to research and learn as much as about moving assistance for families with low incomes.

What Kinds of Moving Assistance Are Available for Low-Income Families? 

Moving can be a difficult task. There are a lot of things to consider, including packing, transporting your belongings to the new residence, unpacking, and organizing everything. It's not surprising that so many people put it off as long as they can! Consider using HRA approved moving services if you want assistance making your move easier. You get the advantage of using HRA assistance to move your belongings. 

The moving assistance available to low-income families varies based on your financial and living circumstances. Some might even be able to assist you later in settling into your new life. All you have to do is learn about the program and make sure you have the proper paperwork when you apply.

HRA is one of the best government services for low-income families seeking moving assistance. The NYC government's Human Resources Administration handles financial help and social services. You would be wise to visit HRA's website to learn more about their services and how they can best assist you. They offer the following services:

Home Care Services

Child Support Services

Domestic Violence and Emergency Intervention

Food Stamps

Health Insurance Access

Cash Assistance

Job Training and Placement Services

With HRA, you'll be able to find better-paying jobs, buy supplies for your kids, and pay your bills more easily. Many families who receive HRA assistance commend them for the much-needed assistance that helped them move out of poor neighborhoods and low-income housing. HRA should be your first stop when looking for moving assistance for low-income families.

Using an HRA Assistance moving service has the following advantages:

HRA moving companies in New York can provide you with a moving checklist 

HRA moving companies in New York will pack your belongings for you 

HRA moving companies in New York will transport them to your new home 

HRA moving companies in New York will unpack and organize everything for you.

As you can see, using HRA assistance when moving has many advantages. Consider using our services if you feel overwhelmed by packing and moving all your belongings. We'll take care of everything so you can enjoy your new home!

How to Enjoy a stress-free move?

-Begin your planning early: The process will be less stressful if you begin planning sooner. Give yourself plenty of time to sort through your belongings and decide which ones will stay behind and which will go with you.

-Complete a list: Create a list of everything that needs to look after you have started planning. Monitor your progress and ensure that nothing is left behind.

-Smartly pack: When it comes time to pack, ensure all your boxes are labeled so you can see what's inside. Also, pack the most important things first so you can easily find them when you need them.

- Seek aid: As previously stated, HRA assistance can significantly simplify your move. Consider utilizing our services if you are feeling overwhelmed. Everything will be taken care of for you by us!

Conclusion

Your move will undoubtedly go much more smoothly and be less stressful by hiring one of the reputable HRA approved moving companies in NYC. You can rest assured that everything, from packing your belongings to unpacking and organizing them in your new home. Everything becomes convenient and stress-free with HRA moving assistance in NYC.

About the Author

Diamond Hands Moving & Storage is a reputable Moving Company that accepts HRA in NYC. As one of the reliable HRA-approved moving companies in NYC, they support qualified HRA candidates with free moving assistance. For HRA moving assistance, contact them at +1 (718) 689-6969!

[fandom-scatteredthoughtsonpaper]

Dark Obey Me AU Outline, Breakdown, Game Mechanic + Specifics, + Some Other Stuff

{Previous post}

Kickoff and Quick Summarization:

Leviathan won a new preliminary horror game with VR aspects from a contest to test the game out before its actual release and invited Mammon and Yuki (MC) to play. This experimental immersion becomes too realistic when Yuki's latent powers takes the experience of the game to new levels when the entire House of Lamentation is sucked into the virtualization. Yuki, now alone and confused to the rules of this blended world of reality and simulation, has to venture through the house and recover the brothers from the game's influence. The game seems a little rigged the more Yuki advanced, so is someone actually pulling strings off screen or is paranoia seeping in?

Type of AU:

Mirror Universe, Interactive AU (you can help build up the world of this event)

Potential tags:

Horror, Psychological, Bloody, Dark, Angsty, Possible Sexual Assault, Death Is Allowed, Bodily Harm

Brief (and Liable to Change) Explanation of How the Game Will Work:

-After the House of Lamentation is shifted and adapted into the game's world, the seven demon brothers are also adapted to the elements of the psychological horror genre and placed as progressively harder bosses that MC has to get through to advance the game and undo the effects of what happened.

-The brothers that MC has converted back to normal will stay on their side and aid them in rescuing the other mentally manipulated boys, some even serving as necessary requirements to further progress. They can roam around the house and their rooms can serve as a temporary safety spots, but MC has to be with them to ward off the game's influence from trying to appeal to their cardinal desires based on their sin they govern and controlling them again.

-MC can try to appeal to any brother at any time, but if they don't meet requirements the struggle will be a lot harder and the emotional toll will be more effective on the chosen brother. If MC fails to convert the brother, not only does the next attempt become tougher, but MC takes damage deemed appropriate by the game based on the sin of the brother.

-The only exception to this rule is Mammon. Mammon is basically the tutorial. He's a mandatory scripted event to teach MC how the gameplay will be, and how they'll make it further in the game.

-Each brother is equivalent as a boss. The only way to progress to the next milestone is to release the grip the game has on the brothers' minds, but it's not as simple as breaking a curse like MC can canonically do with their powers. MC has to make a connection to the altered version of the demons, and to reach that connection they have to tackle each brother's insecurities and issues. Not like resolve them entirely with a heartfelt speech, and voila, they're okay again, but really reach into their hearts and remind them that they're not what the game has turned them into, that they're more than their sins and valued individually by MC.

-Thus having the proper brother on MC's side makes that connection a lot easier when it comes to certain brothers. Once that connection has been made and the game has less control, then MC can use the pact they made in the real world as the final move to disconnect the hold the game has in the virtual world.

-Again, however, it's not as simple as a few deeply passionate words and the veils are lifted from the brothers' eyes. Certain items can be found in each bedroom that helps strengthen the pact to mean something aside from a vow between a human and a demon. Requirements are necessary for progress.

-The pacts MC has with the brothers is a key relevancy to progressing the game. Without trying to appeal positively to their insecurities/fears the game has a strong hold on their minds and the use of their pacts aren't as effective

Rundown of What I Mean:

Mammon is the first demon MC bonded with and that applies itself strongly to their connection and relationship, especially in this event. I might be biased here, and not to mention I'm trial and erroring the story with my MC, Yuki, but I believe Mammon has the strongest connection with MC because of how he feels for them, how empathetic he is, and how emotionally aware he can be.

Mammon governs greed and already easily succumbs to his wants in the real world, but as of now in the canon story, he's grown a bit away from his sin, because of his relationship with MC, like most of the boys have. He can put MC above his own desires, and that influence deals a lot with how MC saves him after he attacks them in their room.

Mammon wants to sell MC's body, bit by bit, blood, teeth, hair, organs, nails, etc., as a means to pull in some serious money in the black market. Greed completely takes over Mammon, and he has very little regard for MC's life. When MC tries to use their pact's powers on Mammon the first time not much is really done, because the connection wasn't made. However, being the tutorial, Mammon becomes less influenced quicker than the rest of his brothers. MC has to remind him he's not a total scumbag that loves only money while Mammon is choking them out. So time is of the essence, because MC is physically harmed in this reality and can die as well.

I'll have a rough draft of this scene up later to better explain the process.

So Basically:

MC has to find items or something meaningful to assist them in helping the brothers become aware while under the game's manipulation, and then making a connection to their actual selves that helps absolve the mind control before using the pacts MC has made to finalize the severance, although it's not totally gone.

How I Plan to Progress the Event (Susceptible to Change) and Suggestions That Have Been Implemented by Other People So Far:

-MC starts the event off at the Lord Demon's castle with Diavolo and Barbatos before returning to the HoL to play with Levi. Before MC leaves Barbatos gives them two coins and a cautionary warning [credit to @jinxed-rose ]

-The unstable powers of MC conflicts with the game and locks the HoL and its residents inside the virtual reality.

-The game treats the brothers as bosses and turns their worst qualities up to 11. The small glimpses of how we saw the brothers in the beginning of the game before warming up to the MC is how they're portrayed in the game. They're meaner, deadlier, and heavily warpped from their original selves.

-MC can physically be hurt and/or killed, so the more of the brothers they can rescue the easier the game will be to traverse.

-The brothers are ranked by the order of when they got a pact with MC. So the optional progression between the brothers would be Mammon, Levi, Beel, Asmo, Satan, Lucifer, and Belphie. The longer MC has been in a pact with the boys the easier it is to sway them out of their brainwashing, but it doesn't have to be in this order [credit to @felix-the-lemon-king ]

-Another option of progress with the brothers can be psychological fortitude. What I mean by that is the boys' durability to withstand breaking down from their insecurities being provoked. So Mammon's biggest fear is MC getting hurt so he's automatically the first boss and Lucifer would be among the last to confront because he's mentally strongest and that's where the issues would lie. [credit to 13ineedpills13 on AO3]

-Levi is an optional boss that can be done early or late in the game, it doesn't really matter. If MC goes for Levi first, he'll be relatively easy to return to normal, but if MC doesn't get to him until later then he'll be a lot harder to help. If MC attempts to rescue the others before Levi and succeeds the game will make him aware of this. Levi will get more and more enveloped by envy and jealousy and his insecurities will worsen, making it harder to appeal to him. [credit to @sunshine-apprentice ]

-The reason Levi is an optional boss to go after at any time is because he has a mystery that reveals itself later as the event starts ramping up and big reveal towards the end. It's not really a secret if you read the notes on prior posts, but shhh. [credit to @felix-the-lemon-king ]

-Lucifer is the assumed main person to look out for, because he is the elder, head of the house, and most powerful and sadistic. He watches from the shadows and sets up elaborate snares and ambushes to sike out and slowly breakdown MC. Beel is more frequent around Lucifer's bedroom.

Somewhat Established "Rules" of the Game:

-Each encounter with the brothers during the actual moments of fighting and struggling will be violent and dangerous. Injuries will be painful and won't magically heal after the fight is done. [credit to syvintri on AO3]

-Death is very much possible, but it's tough for the brothers to die. It's not that hard for MC though. So, perma-death is plausible, but it's evened out with the two coins MC gets from Barbatos.

-The end goal is in Levi's bedroom, but it won't be accessible until after the brothers have all been released from the grip of the video game.

-MC's room is the only actual safe room in the house, so it's basically the headquarters

-Beel is the guard that routinely patrols the hallways, but he can be lured away with food from an area for a bit of time

-Each brother's room has a way to help figure out how to un-brainwash the boys, but they are dangerous to go into

-Overcoming the boys' insecurities and sins are a key relevance in progressing the game

-Line up of the boys in order as bosses (potentially): Mammon, Asmodeus, Belphie, Beelzbub, Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan

Concerns and Questions:

There's still a lot of gaps and unfilled holes that I'm not entirely sure how to connect properly. Trying to figure out how to write the encounters between the brothers that are being manipulated and MC/the brothers rescued is going to be tricky. Making sure the boys' characterizations stay close to how they would be will be a challenge.

So my questions for you will help me figure out what people would like to see and also help me connect dots in the story and plot.

A matter to discuss, for instance, is what a comment said on AO3:

"I think them interacting in a proper manner storywise when they are brainwashed is impossible, and such a drag to read. They should only interact during battles, and after battles, as they go on and save the others."

How should I go about writing the progress of the story?

Should I write it like an actual fanfiction, all detailed and specific and going at a constant pace, or should I skip moments instead of writing every scene that could occur to stay fresh and steady-paced, or should I try to base the chapters like actual event lessons in-game where stuff happens briefly and isn't very long?

Or another comment:

"So maybe this is just me, but I think it'd actually be more horrifying if the 'game' wasn't perma-death. Especially if everyone remembered despite any sort of revives or resets and with in-game injuries actually being painful. There's a high potential for angst is all I'm saying. But I guess that lends itself better for a normal fic rather than a choose your own adventure thing"

How should I write the "fight" scenes?

Should they be brief yet detailed or meaty with the conflict as MC tries to resolve the situation before anyone gets too hurt oor would this be good moments for turmoil between the brothers to arise and brawls break out ooor... I don't know what else.

How would the angst and heavy trauma best be applied according to y'all?

What kind of angst would each brother go through as MC tries to rescue them?

Some other questions:

Is the line up of the brothers as bosses okay, or should they be reconfigured to make more sense? Should it be linked how psychologically weak to strong they are or how their sins correspond to the next?

What would they be like at their absolute worst? How far do you think they could dive into their sins if they didn't have morals?

How dangerous would the brothers be?

How would the game use each character's insecurities and fears as their driving point?

How would you like to see brothers interact with MC during the confrontation? Or with each other before/during/after?

If MC were to die what would be the best way to take them out that would really fuck up the boys and devastate the psyche? Any brother is liable to maim or hurt the MC, but which one(s) could actually kill them? Or if a brother took a hit meant for MC, who would be more inclined to step into the line of fire?

These aren't all the questions that I have knocking around in my head and stumping me, but they're the biggest ones. I would like to hear inputs from others, BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't feel inclined to answer everything that I've listed. Those are just questions that I thought of and put on this post as examples of what I'm trying to figure out.

Finishing Off:

So yeah. That's the progress I've made so far, both on my own and from suggestions and opinions from other people.

I'd love to hear what y'all have in mind or would like to suggest or a take on a matter for any scenes, interactions, or whatever. Even if it's ideas of your own that relate to something that hasn't been brought up or mentioned, feel free to comment it or send me an ask.

Something this extensive will require a lot of thought and work to be done right, so that's why I had the notion of making this an interactive AU

So, if you're interested or wanna talk about the concept, hit me up! I'm dying just to ramble about potential stuff or read viewpoints about the brothers that you want to see happen or stances for whatever.

[remsmoonlight]

— title : point of view

— word count : 3k words

— pairing : daryl dixon x reader

— summary : tomorrow is something that is never promised, less so when the dead walk the Earth. being trapped for the night when a storm pours down upon you and daryl while trapped in a decrepit house by a few walkers are you sick and tired of hiding what you feel.

— warnings : some swearing, talk of potential death ( of the reader ) , a wee bit of angst that turned into more at the end :)

note: omg another daryl oneshot i gotta chill ajksajksk, but i had like seven main bullet points i made to follow when writing this and i followed like...... two, three at the most, anyways.... enjoy? this is brought to u by ariana’s discography lmao oops it does be cute at some point tho ... also felt a bit hsm with that one line at the end ahaha but fr lemme stop talking now

      ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*   requests are open !   *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Dark and gloomy clouds swirl over your head, blending into an extremely large and angry looking ready to descend from above. You wonder to yourself just how long you have left before the loud cracks that crumble through the air to accompany the forceful winds and pouring drops of rain are finally released. Halfway through the trip back from the town that lays after miles from the prison the car used decided it preferred to lay quietly in the middle of the road, shortly after the sickly sputters from the engine you heard Daryl mutter a few curse words. You were unable to hold in your amusement, despite the fact that a lack of transport obviously leaves you in a vulnerable position, it felt like it was your luck for that to happen to you.

It’s why you stay behind following the hunter in silence.

Studying him with focused eyes you can’t help but wonder how he never realises when you’re unable to tear your gaze away from him. In the beginning when you began to develop a certain affection for him you had been glad, for it to be too embarrassing for the thoughts you had about him in your head. In spite of this, when you realised that it was much more than a crush did you wish for him to mind read, because you have no idea just how to approach him about such a sensitive topic and while he can be tender about feelings, it’s also his downfall.

“ it’ll be gettin’ dark soon, there should be some houses down there to spend the night in. “

You stop in your tracks with a curious look that bled so suddenly into your features you had no time to stop it.

“ you don’t want to carry on? I mean, we’re not far from home? “ you question him with a hint of fear coddling your words.

“ we’d be trippin’ over our feet. Let’s back it back in one piece, yeh? “

Nodding, you regain your pace. It’s been a few months since you’d been hopping from one house to the other during that harsh winter, the bare thought of having to stay in yet another frail structure sent a chilly hand drawing its claws deeply up your spine. If you never had your group, you don’t think you would have made a winter like that, barely protected from the elements and the walkers that wished to plunge their teeth cavernously into your flesh.

“ as long as we leave as soon as the sun comes up. Please. “ you plead, your words filter off into a gentle volume from your position.

Leaves crumble and buckle underneath the weight, the sound of crickets dominate your surroundings as the two of you walk in silence. You itch to start a conversation, but the fear of distracting the man and annoying withhold the words that wish to fall from your lips, even then you don’t know how to begin. What would you say? There’s not much to talk about in a world where the dead have risen, where they wish to drag the world into decomposition.

Your wandering mind is pulled from its very own depths from a noise coming from Daryl, he’d turned to catch your attention. You both set to work attempting to enter any of the abandoned houses, hoping one had been left unlocked at some point.

Of course, luck is scarce. Despite there not being a soul who occupies them, they’re still somehow locked. Mournfully, you wonder if the owners of these homes had thought the governments and armies would eventually lock everything under their control, to the point that there would be a house for them to come back to? Your heart thuds painfully in your chest to think about what happened to them, and if they’re even still surviving.

A large thud draws you back to the present, the wooden door splinters at the force Daryl puts into a large kick to its frame.

“ well, there goes the lock. “ you mutter humourously, lifting the heavy bag higher up onto your shoulders as you walk in the open door.

“ we’ll put the couch there, stop any unfriendly types that come our way. “

“ I don’t know if there’s anyone left anymore. “ you reply, dropping the bag to the floor and moving towards the couch.

Situated on the other side of it, you grip the plush handle and lift with a struggle. It’s a strain to get it through the doorway to  turn it around the corner, but eventually it happens. Daryl is joined by your presence by his side, you both push ⏤ this time it’s an easier feat with two of you on one side to dedicate your strength and weight to advance it.

As soon as you finish, a heavy crackle cuts through the air.

“ we got here just in time, huh? “

“ just about. “ he answers you, sparing a glance before moving through the lower floor ⏤ searching for anything that can be taken back to the prison.

Thunderstorms had never been your favourite thing growing up. Of course, rain was something that calmed you from the anxieties life brought, but the thunder and lightning is what you loathed. Never knowing when you were about to receive a fright from the loud rumbles and flashing lights ruined the whole experience for you.

The rustling Daryl makes is the only thing that brings you comfort in this moment, keeping you grounded and away from your thoughts. It doesn’t escape your notice that these houses feel no more than graveyards with the memories that have no use to live, instead haunting the structures with what could have been had chaos and death not taken over. You climb the stairs, hugging your sides as you refuse to touch the handrail leading up stairs.

There is a middle room with access granted without having to push open the door to gain entry. Your eyes scan the room’s interior, even with the dust and grime that bespeckle its surfaces, you can still see its beauty. Now, who does that remind you of? Your mind cheekly thinks before you banish it into the shadows of your brain, where you know it will force itself out with an immense stubbornness.

Despite the thunder booming in the distance frequently, you can’t help but admire the beauty of rain drops falling to the ground with a dainty grace only it holds. The sky continues to grow dimmer, only seeing the rain on your level and lower, no street lights flood the street to aid you in being able to see torrent from above. Jumping at another roar of sound from the storm, your heart begins to pick up its pace, so much you don’t realise Daryl joining you in the room.

“ scared? “

Turning around with such speed that leaves you surprised whiplash did not greet you, Daryl is left smirking at your reaction.

“ yeah, I hate these things. “ you respond, a bitterness coating each word heavily as you speak.

“ more than walkers? “ he questions you, as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

“ well, I suppose not that much .. “ another clap of thunder interrupts you, the rain beating harder and harder on the windows of the bedroom. “ can we talk about anything? This shit really grates on my nerves. “

“ what y’wanna talk about? “

Your mind stalls, with the previous thoughts that had been swirling in a state of disorder your draw a blank. A continuous thump downstairs interrupts your shrug, speeding down the stairs you realise a few walkers are trying to enter the property, of course their lack of intelligence fails to realise they’re throwing themselves into the walls and not the blocked doors.

“ shall we take them out? “ moving closer to the lengthy curtained window next to the door to get a better look, you can see three walkers hauling themselves mindlessly against the structure.

“ nah, the storm’ll get ‘em soon enough. “ he shakes his head softly, your mind taking note of the lack of proximity between your bodies as he repeats your action. “ no need to risk ourselves. “

“ wouldn’t be the first time you’ve risked your life. “

“ s’nothin. “ he contradicts gruffly, wiping a finger across his nose at your words. He truly doesn’t view it as that, refusing to think of it as risking his life. To Daryl, it doesn’t feel like risking everything to help the people around him, it’s not something he can find the words to explain but all he knows if there’s a chance, he would do it again and again.

“ Daryl Dixon, so humble. “ you speak warmly with a gentle smile threading itself into your features. “ you need to give yourself more credit. “

“ stop. “

“ you’re as brave as anyone in the group. I’d say braver than Rick. “ you joke, setting yourself from the entryway to the sitting room. “ although, if I had to choose you and Carol .. I’m sorry, but Carol every time! “

“ damn woman frightens me. “

Laughter light in weight dances airily between you with an elegance in its movement. For even a fraction of a second you forget that there are walkers that are itching to break through into the property, that there’s an angry storm that threatens to demolish whatever stands in its path, because right now it’s only you both here and now in this one room.

“ she’s come a long way. “ you agree, pulling a lone chocolate bar from your bag. Your favourite and you’re thanking the universe that it hasn’t spoiled yet. Turns out all these preservatives and chemicals have some use after all you note to yourself as half is offered to the man standing across from you.

“ so have ‘yuh. “ he acknowledges, taking the broken half of the candy from you.

“ I think we all have to be honest. I don’t think any one of us are the people we used to be. “

“ now who’s humble? “ Daryl asks, his tone light in relaxed merriment. He’d long since taken note of the transformation you’d gone through, he’s never seen you so strong as a person before.

“ don’t you turn this round on me, Dixon. “

The two of you fall silent, you direct your gaze to the window and the raindrops that litter the window pane’s surface. The harsh noises thundered no more, leaving a calm pitter of precipitation to fall with no interruption. From your position on the second couch, you wrap around a thin decorational blanket around your arms, leaning your cheek against the palm of your hand.

Pretending the world hasn’t gone to hell, that it’s just a normal evening where you’re admiring the scene before you. Skies that weep heavily is what the Georgian greenery has been calling out for, especially since the warmer temperatures have returned in full force. Switching your line of sight to Daryl, you feel a mellowness in the pit of your stomach as you watch him fondly. You can’t be sure if it’s the lack of distractions or eyes from your group, but you feel a miniscule spark of confidence within your confines.

“ come sit down, you can relax for a bit. “ you call, trying to convince him lightly. Your hand moves to pat the seat next to you.

“ can’t relax in this world. “ despite the disagreement in his words he does move towards your position on the plush seat.

“ it doesn’t mean we can’t make it. Otherwise we’d be burnt out, I’d hate to see that happen to you. “ You divulge as you reply to him, little inklings of hope in your tone.

“ y’don’t gotta worry ‘bout me. “

“ but I do, Daryl. “ you groan as a dull glumness contorts your features into something new. “ I mean, the lengths you go to .. you scare me to death. “

“ don’t be dumb. “ Daryl warns lowly as he shakes his head, few have shared their vulnerability with him. Perhaps only Carol, his mind can’t wrap itself around the fact that people genuinely care for him. Growing up, he’d been taught of it as a weakness. Something that should not exist, no one cared when he went missing for a short while as a child, and now having people who show him the opposite? It leaves a strange feeling to settle within his heart.

“ please, I need to tell you. I mean, I might not even be here tomorrow. “

“ nah, don’t say that. Y’will. “ he argues, he doesn’t even want to entertain the notion of not seeing you even for a day ⏤ let alone forever.

Truthfully, you’d not been particularly close. He understands it now, he pushed everyone away wherever he had the chance to. But after the downfall of the farm? You wouldn’t let up in trying to forge bonds that could rival even the strongest of metals. You had no idea, but he’d overheard you talking to Beth one day. When you said you didn’t want to be afraid of living, to have something worth dying for. That struck him deep.

“ neither you or I can guarantee that. Now, call me selfish but I can’t die with what ifs in my brain. “ you explain, you know it’s probably selfish to announce any kind of fondness for a person nowadays, because you can be ripped from their existence without any kind of announcement. But if you were to depart from the realm of the living, you’d want to have affectionate memories to experience and for them to look back on.

“ what y’sayin? “

Your eyes well up in frustration, whether it’s over the way you find the words are hiding beneath your tongue like cowards under the cloak of night or over the fact that you have begun this topic of conversation, backing yourself into a corner. There’s so much you want to say but how you should is not coming easy. Eloquence in your words is something you find yourself yearning for with all of your being should it bring you a happy ending to this discussion.

This isn’t a fairytale, there’s no happy or bad endings in real life you sorely think. There’s just reality, and the conclusions for that are neither black or white.

Fingertips grip the roots of your hair for a fleeting moment before letting go as if you’d never clutched them in exasperation at all.

Shutting your eyes so hard they hurt, you muster up the courage to speak the truth you’ve locked away in your heart, allowing it the light it has been deprived of for so long.

“ Daryl, I ⏤ “ your voice shuts off with a painful sound, sighing as if to psych yourself up. “ I feel more for you than I probably should. “

When Daryl says nothing, you open your eyes. Your entire being preparing yourself for the worse answer, this moment may hurt now but the pain will lessen. At least your soul feels lighter with the hidden information no longer chained to it as a burden, no longer will it have to be weighed down by its mass.  

“ I know it’s probably not what you want to hear, but I couldn’t keep it in any longer. “

“ who said I didn’t wanna hear? “

“ ⏤ what ? “ you question, your brows falling lower as you squint in disbelief. You wonder if your brain is forming a false memory to protect itself later on.

“ y’don’t nothin’ to do with me though. “ he hesitates, the automatic response to push away anything good that comes his way to the furthest reaches. “ nothin’ but trouble. “

A sorrowful smile full of grief clouds your features, your unshed tears threaten to fall. If only he could see himself from your point of view, he doesn’t see just how admirable of a human being he is. Yes, he has his flaws but who doesn’t? In all of humanity, you don’t think there has ever been a perfect person, but it’s how they approach their downsides that shows the peak of their humanity, that they don’t let the darkness fester in their heart, to poison their soul into becoming a shell of a kind hearted person. That shows the strength of their character.

Daryl? You feel honoured to have been a first hand witness to see him turn from a hot ball of anger to a softer, kinder soul.

“ Daryl, you really don’t see what I do.” you forsake everything, leaning forwards and laying your hands across his. Taking in the immense warmth from them. “ That? It hurts me, because you’re rather amazing. “

Saying nothing, Daryl looks down at your intertwined hands. He wants the chance that’s being offered, though the fear of being the one who poisons everything he lays his touch upon settles heavily on his shoulder. No one has come out unscarred when dealing with a member of the Dixon family, his family tree being nothing more than toxic, with weeds that wrap around the limbs of the poor fool who got involved with them, as they drag them to their lowly depths. He doesn’t know how to let go of the past and for this he continues to pay, with the high price being his happiness in the present world. No response leaves his lips, for the first time in a long time he doesn’t know what to say, while knowing what he wants to say. It’s not until he feels arms wrapped around the top of his shoulders is he brought back down to Earth, a shudder of a breath is released from him as he realises what is going on. The action is reciprocated in earnest, you’re full of gratitude that he’s accepting your comfort ⏤ knowing it could have been a gamble of a decision, a fifty fifty chance of him reacting negatively or positively. You, too, draw comfort from the position you both find yourself, clutching the other. Hope dawns on your heart, knowing Daryl is not a particularly affectionate man. This means a lot, for it’s a leap for you both.

“ thank you. “ he whispers in the night. You know that this is the start of something new.

[darlingandmreames]

Here I am once again enabling your writing and being as selfish about it as every other time because is it really enabling if it’s done out or self indulgence??? ANYWAYS— dream husbands + (not so) fake marriage:

I have almost definitely said it before but by god I will say it again: the funniest possible way to do the whole “fake marriage” trope would be like two people getting married so they can invoke the spousal privilege that lets them refuse to testify against one another in court. a couple of mobsters sweating bullets in a vegas wedding chapel so they aren’t compelled to rat on each other when the next heist inevitably goes sour

I am absolutely in love with this concept and it’s 100% A Thing now asjdsfks You’re the best enabler a local trash goblin could ever dream of ^-^ so this 100% deserves a long fic full of mutual pining and the two of them being idiots and it’s definitely going to get one because I have zero self control, but here’s a short snippet about how it all started.......

*******************************************************************************************

Arthur leaned his head back against the cinder block wall with a frustrated sigh. This was bad. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d ended up in police custody, but it was the first time he’d ended up in custody with actual decent evidence against him. Maybe even a prosecutable case. If he could get out he could maybe disappear- he’d gotten very good at that over the years- but he couldn’t make bail without accessing…less than legal funds, which would be more than enough for them to remand him. But if he couldn’t make bail, he’d be stuck in custody until court, and that would complicate things. And if this went to court, he wasn’t getting out of it. Not easily at least. He just hoped Eames had managed to get away without being caught; he knew Cobb had but he wasn’t so sure about Eames. Things would get even more complicated if they were both in custody. The sort of complicated that could get them both put away for a couple of decades if they weren’t careful.

He and Cobb hadn’t even supposed to end up in the states to begin with. Cobb was still very much a wanted man here, so it simply wasn’t an option. Canada was certainly a risk- the physical proximity and ease of extradition made Arthur nervous- but it had been a good sounding job. Easy sounding, with a good payout. It’d gone south though, both figuratively and literally, and when they’d found themselves in Chicago Arthur had scrambled for a way to get Cobb back out of the country undetected. Eames had thankfully been finishing up a job in the area and offered to help with documentation, but not before the authorities had caught wind of the situation. Cobb had thankfully managed to get out before the raid, but Arthur hadn’t quite been so lucky. The charges he’d been arrested on certainly hadn’t been the worst they could’ve been- mainly aiding and abetting, accessory, and fraud- but they weren’t great either. And unless he managed to somehow get out of this cell, he’d likely be facing time for them.

He was, quite simply, fucked.

“Come on.” The sound of the cell door being unlocked pulled Arthur from his thoughts. “You’ve made bail.”

He looked over, surprised. “I…did?”

“Yep. Your husband put it up.” The officer stared at him with a bored expression. “Now come on. Unless you’d rather stay.”

Husband? Arthur couldn’t fathom who the officer could’ve possibly been referring to, but he kept his expression neutral as he stood up and walked out of the cell into the hallway. He was certainly confused but he wasn’t an idiot; this wasn’t the time to look a gift horse in the mouth by asking questions. If it got him out of jail for the moment, he could work with it. He’d figure out the details later.

He stopped dead in his tracks as he walked into the jail lobby. Of all the people he thought he might’ve seen waiting for him, he certainly hadn’t expected it to be fucking Eames. There he was though, leaning against the lockers as casually as could be. He flashed a warm smile as he caught sight of Arthur and Arthur nodded slowly in return, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Bailing Arthur out put Eames at significant risk; Arthur knew full well he had several active warrants in the states. Unless he’d already been caught as well. But if that was the case, the most sensible thing for him to do was disappear, not get Arthur out of jail by pretending to be his fucking husband, which brought up a whole other set of questions on its own.

The officer behind the window slid him a bag filled with the belongings he’d had on him when he was arrested: wallet, keys, belt, notebook, three pens. No passport though. He frowned slightly at that; it wasn’t surprising, but it was annoying. He was going to have to use a different one to get out of the country anyways, but it would’ve been far easier if he’d had the original one as well. He sighed and collected his belongings, only half listening as the officer ran through the expectations for him while he was out on bail before walking over to where Eames was waiting by the door.

Eames leaned in and pulled Arthur into a quick hug, startling him. “Good to see you, darling. Glad I was able to get you out.”

“Right. Yes.” Arthur tried not to let his rapidly growing confusion show as Eames slipped his arm around his waist. “Good to…good to see you too.” He followed Eames out of the building, blinking in the sudden sunlight. They walked like that for several blocks, keeping up the appearance of whatever the fuck sort of cover Eames had gone with. It wasn’t until Arthur was confident that they were far enough away from the jail that they were likely only being watched from afar that he stopped, pulling away and finally letting his internal bewilderment creep into his expression. “Eames, what the fuck was that?”

“That was me getting you out of jail, darling, try to be at least a little appreciative. Though I’m sure I could return you if that’s what you’d prefer.”

Arthur stared at him. “What are you even still doing here?”

Eames grimaced, running a hand through his hair. “I got picked up too. They didn’t have quite enough to keep me in custody, but they managed to freeze most of my accounts and I’m pretty sure they have me under pretty close surveillance, so getting out of town is a tad difficult at the moment. Besides,” he shrugged, “I figured someone had to get you out of jail. And with Cobb jumping ship, that left me.”

“So you claimed to be my fucking husband?”

“Listen, I was just thinking ahead. We’re both stuck in this, at least for now, so I figured I’d get us some protection in case this got to court before we could get out of it.” He quirked an eyebrow. “They can’t make us testify against each other if we’re married. Spousal privilege and all. One of the few things you Americans do right.”

“Yes, thank you Eames, wonderful idea.” Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to wrap his mind around what Eames was telling him. He could already feel a migraine starting from the stress. This had already been an absolute fucking mess and Eames’ little ploy had just made it ten times worse. “Except for the fact that are aren’t actually married, which I’m sure will make us look great once the investigators find-”

“Yes we are.”

Arthur’s thoughts screeched to a halt and he looked up in confusion. “We’re what?”

“We’re married.”

He stared at Eames, dumbfounded. Was this what having a stroke felt like? Because that was clearly what he was having right now. “Eames, we’re not married.”

“Well, not technically, no. But I have all the necessary paperwork to argue to the contrary.” Eames shrugged. “I mean, it’s all forged of course, but as far as the US government is aware, you and I were legally married three years ago in England.” He gave Arthur an unimpressed look. “I know you don’t think highly of me, love, but you should at least give me enough credit to know I wouldn’t try pulling something like this off without the necessary paperwork backing it up.”

“Eames, we’re not married.”

“You and I know that but according to the authorities we are, so let’s try to keep it that way, yes? It’ll be better for both of us if we do.” Arthur continued to stare at Eames, trying desperately to think of something, anything, to say but drawing a blank instead. After a moment, Eames’ expression shifted to amusement. “Close your mouth, darling, or you’ll catch flies.”

Arthur snapped his mouth shut, pinching the bridge of his nose again. The beginnings of his headache came rushing back full force and he groaned. “I really hate you sometimes, you know that?”

Eames frowned. “Well that’s not a very nice way to talk to your very loving husband who just bailed you out of jail.”

“Eames, I swear to god…”

“Alright, alright, calm down, don’t have an aneurysm. Hopefully we’ll be able to get out of all of this before we really have to play that up. In the meantime, though,” Eames gave Arthur a somewhat sheepish smile, “I’m hoping you have a place here in Chicago, because I don’t and it might look a bit odd if we’re staying in separate hotels.”

Arthur sighed. “Yeah, I know a place.” It was technically one of Cobb’s apartments, but it would work well enough for them. It certainly wasn’t like Cobb was currently using it. He set off down the sidewalk. “I can’t believe you got us into this.”

“Technically it was Cobb who got us both into this lovely situation, darling, not me. I’m just trying to keep us both out of prison.”

Arthur groaned again. Christ, this was going to be a fucking mess.

[cozycryptidcorner]

The Mad Prince, Chapter 11 (sfw)

Chapter 10

“Are you sure?” You ask, gaping, and Clementine glares at you in response. You’re suddenly hyper-aware of how she has dedicated her entire life to identifying, hunting down, and killing driders, all while on the bloodied front lines of a war, so she is currently an expert on such a topic.

“Am I sure that the front line footage that some soldiers died to send back to base is somehow fabricated?” She asks, testily.

Your brain is buzzing like a thousand fireflies have crawled into your ears. “But that doesn’t make any sense, Clem.” 

“You’re absolutely correct,” she still sounds vaguely pissed, but that’s her default tone. “Which means that there’s more than meets the eye, and we now have to figure out what.”

 The keias values honesty, Elias’ words come back, unbidden, if you ask, he will answer.

 “We can’t go prodding around now, though, because that will throw a lot of weird suspicion on you.” You bite at the skin around your thumb, trying to figure out how to go about this in the most delicate way possible. 

After a moment of hard silence where you are almost too aware of how loud your breathing is, Clementine prods, “you and the prince or whatever he actually is weren’t acting too couple-y.”

Annoyance starts dripping into the hollow of your chest, and you feel a build of angry pressure beginning to rise. “He- he didn’t tell me he was engaged.” 

For the first time since her bubbly mask fell off, she shows some semblance of human emotion by almost choking on her spit. Quickly, she gets herself under control and shakes her head as though she might have expected such, then sighs.

 “I mean, and his fiance was assassinated. Elias told me she died of sudden heart failure, but like she was a drow and-”

“A drow?” She turns to you again, her eyes narrowed until they were almost slits, “as in, two legs and walking upright? Are you sure?”

“Y-yes,” the indignancy of being lied to by omission is still thrumming through your chest, “and he apparently really loved her.” 

“Obviously so, because it would have been rather illegal for him to marry outside of his species.” Clem sits back up from her lounging position, plucking a flower that grew right in front of her legs.

You don’t like all this new information being rained down upon so quickly, but you suck in your breath and try to take this one in stride. There’s a dull thudding in your head, like a distant drumbeat. “So there are race-based marriage laws?”

 “Of course, didn’t you know?”

No, you’re suddenly acutely aware of how unprepared you are. “The matchmakers didn’t make me aware of that.” You suppose it does explains a lot, like how stressed the prince is at you meeting the rest of his family, or how he doesn’t seem to want you to go out and explore on your own, and such. 

Clementine lets out a gruff sigh, you suppose from frustration at having to hold your hand like a toddler throughout a warzone. You try to not let that bother you. It’s… not really your fault, is it? You didn’t want this to happen, if you could go back to your completely shitfaced self as you were about to enter all pertinent information to Starward Matchmakers™ glowing neon booth, you would bludgeon the back of your head with a bat.

“Okay, so someone is trying to kill you,” she holds up one finger, “and we know from that assistant guy that they are very capable of doing so,” she adds another finger, “and you aren’t even in the good graces of your princely other half, assuming that drider is who he says he is.”

You swallow thickly, feeling positively ill, pressing your fingertips into the pressure points on your temples in the hopes your brain might untangle. “Clementine?”

“Yeah.”

“The Starward Matchmakers™ did match me with the prince, right? This isn’t some kind of weird mistake? Or like… or like what they were trying to do with you?”

“Do you know anyone with the budget of a large government’s military that can handle a bribe of such proportions who might think it’s funny to pull such a dangerously cosmic prank?”

 “No.” You look down at your hands as the last bit of hope that this might all be a nightmarish misunderstanding slips through your fingers.

Clementine softens, though only slightly, letting out another sigh and very awkwardly giving you a pat on the back, which is about the most she’ll ever offer in the way of sympathy. “Tough it out. Paint a pretty smile on that face of yours and maybe make out with him a little.”

 “Clementine!” You raise your voice, then look self consciously back at your guards as they assess whether or not you need their aid. “That’s not how this works.” 

“This is exactly how this works, kid, even if he’s an alien spider, he’s still a male.” She rolls her eyes. “And stop acting like a prude.” 

“Yeah, but he is,” another wave of frustration razes through your blood and right to your fingertips. “One time I kissed him, he thought it was essentially a marriage proposal.”

 Her face wrinkles into a grimace, but she seems to take in marginal good humor. “Okay, so he’s a virgin. That makes things easier, maybe just show him your ankle or something, he’d drool all over it.”

You’re going to say something snippy in response, maybe tell her that she should do the ankle-showing, but the mental image of the fucking drider prince of Lolth freezing as he stares at a bare leg and foot does have a level of absurdity to it that makes you choke your words down into a wry laugh. “I don’t know, maybe it will give him brain damage.”

“All the better to finish this war finally,” Clem stretches out her arms, “Anything else you’d like to fill me in on?”

“Heikka Nisesh, you know, the famous war criminal? He was supposed to be my first physician, but I threw a big enough fit that I ended up with a basic drow doctor.” 

She immediately tenses, her entire body going into an alert that is unique to a trained soldier. “Tell me you’re joking. Now.”

“I’m not.” 

There’s another expression in her eyes, now, one that you’re not at all familiar with. Panic, of which she’s obviously trying to settle so the guards don’t become suspicious and approach to get within hearing range. With a shuddering, tense breath, she shakes her head and tries to orient herself back into reality. With no small amount of room in her tone to be anything more than a command, she says, “know that they and I mustn’t ever meet, do you understand? We can’t cross paths, or this whole thing is going to dissolve.”

“Do you want to talk-”

“No.” She stands, glancing over at the guards. “I’d like a tour now.” 

Shakily, you agree, getting up so fast you almost faint. There’s a brief dizziness rattling around in your skull, but you manage to get everything under control enough to show her around.

Whenever you aren’t in the gardens, you have to be very, very careful of dancing around talking normally and not revealing too much. Because ‘girl talk’ is supposed to be about boy troubles and gossip, but having a whole conversation about the crown prince monarch’s shortcomings when there are an indeterminate amount of people listening and reporting back to him doesn’t hold any appeal.

So the present conversation immediately drops as you give her your very restricted-access tour, the long hallways of the floor she is on, all the while she disguises her memorization of all exits and entrances as admiration for the architecture and ornate doors. There’s an odd kind of pinch throbbing between your eyes, and you have to stop for a moment to give yourself a moment to breathe. 

“Are you alright?” For once, Clementine drops a shred of her false personality, her hand grabbing onto your arm almost tightly to hold you up if you faint.

 “I just- I think I need to sit down.” The edges of your eyes blur somewhat, the top of your brain fuzzing over like someone poured a soft drink into your skull.

 “Can you walk?” She asks, glaring at the guards when one of them steps forward, probably to carry you.

 “Yeah,” you lie, hoping that you can just will yourself to keep from passing out, “I think your room is close enough.”

When you wobble just a bit, Clementine wraps her arm around your waist and props you up with her hip, then quickly gives up the strain of one arm and trades it in to pick you up like a baby.

You protest, of course you do, but there’s little you can do to actually wriggle out of her grip. Shockingly, it’s not the first time she’s had to carry you because of an almost skull-splitting headache, though the last time it was because she side-swiped your legs out from under you and your forehead was the thing to take the brunt of the fall. She also wasn’t so nice about it, either, dragging you to the side of the room by the arm like a ragdoll to await a medic.

Now, you suppose with the guards eying you, she can’t yank your limp body back to her room, and you’d honestly rather let her carry you than one of the drow guards. Once you get inside her apartment, she almost unkindly tosses you onto the couch, mumbling something about an ice pack or blanket.

“Did you call for someone?” She asks, and it takes your brain a muddled moment to realize that she isn’t talking to you.

Quiet mumbling, all things you can’t catch. 

Almost impatiently, she yells, “are you both fucking daft? Call the assistant, what’s his face. The one with the white hair! Yes I mean the prince’s first servant, who else did you think I’m talking about?” Her words shift into a language you don’t understand as she walks over to the kitchen, but you’ve heard enough foreign swear words to know that she’s probably cussing them out of a job.

 It doesn’t take too long for Elias to arrive, or maybe it took a long time, and your brain is just so fried you didn’t notice.

“Why isn’t there any ice in the foodkeep?” Clementine’s already pounced, and you’re not sure if this is her ‘worried best friend’ character or her actual self about to dress someone down for putting one of her soldiers in danger.

“For what, exactly?” Elias sounds slightly taken aback by the show of aggression, something rattling in his hands.

“For her head, stupid, she’s almost burning up!” Again, her language dissolves into something unintelligible, though her tone gets the message across. Maybe she’s showing a bit of both sides for your sake.

 “I have some pills,” he almost sounds defensive, now, “it will help with the pressure, her head should-”

”Give me that,” Clem snaps, and you hear even more rattling as she looks over whatever he was about to give you. “What the hell are these?”

“Painkillers,” Elias takes her fury in stride, probably having dealt with much more significant threats in his day, “the best and highest dose for her human body. They were just imported from one of your human pharmaceutical companies, Bionova™, it’s what the matchmaker files suggested we get her.”

There’s another round of rattling, but then footsteps as Clementine sits herself on the couch, just in front of where your legs tug under a blanket she absentmindedly threw onto you earlier, and hands you the bottle.

Now you manage to sit up, despite the angry tightening in your skull, like each individual blood vessel in your brain is squeezing the gray matter down a size. Holding the pill bottle in one hand while scratching your arm nervously in the other, you ask Elias one more time. “You say these were imported?”

“Straight over the border,” Elias promises, “no one would want anything to happen to you.”

 I beg to differ, you think, but pop the lid open anyway. The dull thrumming in your head has you almost desperate to do anything to get yourself rid of it, so you put one of the pills on your tongue and swallow it dry. Clementine, at least, is already rummaging through her cabinets until she finds a glass to fill with water.

“The keias has been notified of her condition, and will come as soon as he is able.”

You try not to roll your eyes, to be entirely honest, even shifting your irises sends a sharp nail through your head. “Tell him not to rush on my behalf.” 

Again, Clementine sits by your side, handing a glass of water over and watches you gulp it down like a dehydrated animal. Elias, also, seems to watch you with a nervous regard in his eyes and dismisses the soldiers with nothing more than a couple of words. When the extra ears are out of the suite, he turns back over to you.

 “This doesn’t leave this room,” he starts, glaring over at Clementine, “but I want you to be aware that he can’t seem to have any weaknesses for you, which is why he isn’t rushing as quickly as I’m sure you’d like.”

Letting out a breath, the pain of the headache getting to you, you ask, “why are you telling me this?”

Elias looks at you, not with anger, with disappointment, and that’s the thing that makes you feel almost ashamed with how you have been treating the prince as of late. “So you do not feel abandoned, your grace.”

Oh, right, it’s back with your grace, Elias’ own way of giving you a super polite cold shoulder. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Also, just as a precaution, the prince will want your doctor to look over your state, but I believe that it would be pertinent to have a so-called house call instead of going down to the clinic in person.”

“Probably, yeah.” The aching throbbing between your eyes has reduced your language usage down to the basics, and it takes you a hot minute to process anything anyone else says. Clementine had been missing for a moment, but she suddenly returns with a damp cloth she places over your eyes. 

There’s a tense, but calm conversation, and as much as you’d like to try paying attention, you can only focus on the dull throbbing in the rear of your head. More talking. You curl up into a ball, the couch large enough so that your knees don’t hand off the back, and you try to dig your fingers into any pressure points of your skull in the hopes it might ease the tension.

Suddenly, a hand comes to rub the side of your arm. “Hey, princess,” Clementine whispers almost soothingly, “you’re going to wait for the doctor and spend the night here, okay?”

You mumble something in affirmation.

 The doctor comes, you hear her voice and feel her prodding touches, but you don’t feel like you’re capable of even offering a meager greeting. There’s a pinch of something in the crook of your elbow, and the feelings cease, slowly. You don’t remember the point in which you fell asleep. Only that you wake up with Clementine conked out in the chair opposite of the furniture arrangement. 

When you wake back up, it’s because your head feels like someone took an ax to your skull, it almost causes you to faint from the pain itself. All you can do is lay on the couch, arms wrapped around your head. It feels like every bone in your body is bruised or fractured, but your head takes the brunt of the pain.

Someone is talking again. You don’t have the ability to focus on them. 

You’re not sure if you can fucking survive this, but gentle hands help you sit up, and there’s yet another sharp, pinching pain in your arm. After a moment, there’s a softness washing over you, like a manifestation of light and comfort flows through your veins and eases the suffering. 

You’ve felt this way before. 

When you open your eyes, the room is washed in a kaleidoscope of colors you hadn’t noticed until now, and you’re surrounded by a bunch of people that you know, you think you know, but your brain takes its sweet time putting names to faces. “Oh. Hello.”

The big one puts a hand on your head, running it down the side of your face. You don’t think you mind so much, but the smaller one is watching him with the eyes of a predator. “How are you feeling?”

“Very fucking high.” You click your tongue against the roof of your mouth, just to make a noise.

“That’s completely normal, keias.” There’s a taller woman, her robes a pleasantly warm gray. “The drugs have overwhelmed her system, she will be more lucid in a few minutes.”

“Of course.” The big one turns to you again, and you look at his face. He’s… angular, alien, but beautiful nonetheless. You don’t think you’re afraid of him.

“What does that mean?” You ask, your lips heavy and difficult to move.

“What?” It’s the smaller one that speaks. 

“That word they just said. Keias.” You think you know what it means, but you want them to explain it to make sure. 

“It’s a royal title?” The big one stares at you, quizzically, as though trying to figure out a puzzle in front of him.

“A royal title?” You don’t think you’ve ever met actual royalty before, at least, you don’t think you have. There’s a lot you don’t remember about yourself. “Are you like a king?”

The smaller one snickers at this, then says, “babe, no. He’s a prince.”

“A prince?” You look at him again, your eyes wide. “You’re a prince?”

He doesn’t seem flattered, only oddly concerned. Turning to the female in robes, he says, “she didn’t possess memory loss when she was last dosed.”

“I gave her a different, faster-acting painkiller.” The woman taps on the screen of a datapad. “It works to block out different parts of the brain, but she is lucid enough to get on a starship, memories, or not.”

“So it’s not actually dulling the pain, it’s just telling the brain not to process it?” The smaller woman asks arms crossed over her chest. 

“Exactly, which is why it’s fast-acting and doesn’t lose effectiveness over time. The memories can be a side effect, but they should return when the drug filters out of her system.”

“You say ‘starship,’” the prince!!! observes, his many eyes narrowing slightly.

 “I did indeed, your grace.” The female is not intimidated. “I think it would be best if my patient spent some time in lower gravity conditions, which can be best produced in a starship while in space.”

 The prince stares at her for just a moment, as though he cannot believe she would suggest such a thing. “Nisesh says a drug can be produced to aid in here acclimation.”

 The female scoffs. “Nisesh believes they might become a god with enough drugs at their disposal. I mean no disrespect towards you, your grace, but sometimes the best cure is the most obvious one.”

 The prince is quiet for a long, tense moment, but the doctor doesn’t back down. It’s the smaller woman who speaks up, her voice almost laced with an underlying threat, “if that’s what’s best for her, then you need to get it done.”

 His eyes snap up, and he assesses the woman with a critical eye. Then he nods sharply, once. Turning back to the doctor, he says, “how long do you suggest she stay?”

 The doctor taps something onto her datapad. “I would have preferred she acclimate slowly, spending a longer time in orbit than she has, but since her body managed to stay together so well, I think you might find an improvement pain-wise within a day. So long as her body bounces back quickly, mind, because it might take longer for her to recover.”

 “You will join us, then, so you may monitor her condition.” It’s not a request, but an order.

 “Of course, keias,” the doctor bows at him, then steps away, tapping on the datapad.

 “I’m coming, too.” The way the smaller woman speaks leaves little room for arguments. There’s something almost… admirable, you think, about the way she stands up to the bigger one, even though he looks very capable of snapping her human body in half.

 “That is… acceptable,” the prince says.

 Without much thought, you reach over and touch the end of his hair nearest to where you sit, the strands soft and silky as you pull them closer. “Has anyone told you that you have really nice hair?”

 He stares. After a moment that consists of the woman snickering quietly, he says, “actually, yes. Yes, I have.”

 You must have blacked out again because when you wake up, you are not in Clementine’s room. In fact, you’re no longer on Lolth, because the sleek, brilliance of the space is nothing like the solid, ancient architecture that you had grown accustomed to. And just beyond the edge of the large bed you’ve been placed in is a window.

 There are no windows on Lolth, really, because there is nothing to gaze at when a society grows from the inside of their world, instead of the outside. As you sit up, you notice the echoes of a headache pulsing in the back of your skull, where the spine connects, and it feels like you had a rough fall. But when you place your feet onto the thickly threaded rug and stand, you find that you do it with some semblance of ease.

“You’re awake.”

 You almost jump out of your skin, because the prince is hiding so efficiently in the shadows of the room that you didn’t notice him until he spoke. “Y-yes.”

 A moment of awkward silence follows. You’re still wearing the same clothes as you were giving Clementine the tour- oh fuck, Clementine-

 “You were asleep for a day and a half.” His voice interrupts your hazy anxiety. “I was… concerned, but the doctor said your body was repairing itself.”

“I suppose so.” You wrinkle your forehead, realizing there is dryness choking your mouth, tongue something like sandpaper against the inside of your cheek. With little ceremony, you strip out of your outer shirt, your skin singing with no longer being suffocated by cloth, your camisole much more sheer and thin. “I need some water.”

 The prince rises to a stand, “allow me. Please.”

 You’re not sure what he means by that, but he opens one of the cabinets of what you’re now seeing is a starship cabin, then fills a glass to the brim with the tap. His movements are jerking, unfamiliar, as though he’s having his own issues with growing used to a different form of gravity. When he hands you the cup, you’re standing right by the window, staring out at the stars.

“God,” you say, after quietly thanking him, “I forgot how much I missed this view.”

 “They are beautiful,” he says, “it’s difficult to believe that they are each suns of magnificent strength from this distance. They all seem so… small. Insignificant.”

There’s a moment of quiet contemplation as you down the whole glass of water with minimal effort, then you remember what you wanted to ask him before. Looking at his reflection instead of actually making eye contact, you question, “where’s Clementine?”

 “In her own cabin, or perhaps roaming around.” He pauses, mulling something over in his head. “She is- has... character, isn’t she.”

 “You’ve got that right, believe me.” You let out a sigh, vaguely remembering her wordless glares, her face fuzzy in the more recent ones. Then, just for the purpose of watching his face flush dark, you say, “she thinks we should just fuck and make up.”

 “Is- is that how humans solve all their problems?” He asks, though you can see the question was a fight to release. There’s a tension in his shoulders when he talks about sex now, but thankfully, he is without the odd aversion he had before like he’s… like he’s trying.

 Still, the way he says it… you burst out laughing. “Oh, if sex could solve all your problems, then-” you abruptly stop yourself, realizing that this might have been a step too far outside of his comfort zone.

There’s an awkward moment of silence shared as the both of you stare out into the void, then the prince turns around and stares at you, hard, and you feel a trickle of fear thrumming up your spine. Finally, he says, “don’t. Don’t do that.”

You swallow thickly. “Don’t do what?”

“Pull away.” He stares back out to the stars, sharply, all eyes narrowing. “You show me the smallest part of yourself, and then you refuse to give me anything more. I don’t like it when you do that.”

You’re quiet for another moment, then, “well… you didn’t really approve, before.” 

“Didn’t… approve?” He echoes in the fashion of a question, glancing in your direction. “What do you mean?”

“You seemed uncomfortable when the subject of sex gets brought up.”

 “Ah.” He leans back slightly, his facial features relaxing slightly. “I see.”

“So I stopped.”

“There’s more than that, though.” He turns back to face you, his expression softer. “It was worse when that abomination was present. You would hide parts of yourself from me, especially when it was here.”

“The- oh.” You remember the Starward Matchmaker™ representative’s oppressive presence, and how you walked on eggshells around her. “Right. Yes. The company doesn’t want me to fuck anything up.” 

“A bit hypocritical of them, then,” the prince’s gaze goes back out towards the stars, “as their formula is supposedly infallible. If all parts of us are compatible with each other, then there should be no reason for you to keep some pieces of yourself hidden.”

You stop staring at his almost translucent reflection in the window and look at his face, his profile washed in the smattering of light easing in from billions of lightyears away. More to yourself than to him, you say, “I guess that’s true.”

“So you will stop trying to keep yourself from me?” He asks, firmly, looking over at you, too.

“I-” you swallow thickly, looking at the fingerprints you left on the otherwise flawless glass in your hands, “okay. Yes.”

Materlist || Ko-Fi || Patreon

[lastsonlost]

BECAUSE THE CORONAVIRUS IS JUST HURTING FEMINIST AND ONLY FEMINISTS AND ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ELSE...

..........

Enough already. When people try to be cheerful about social distancing and working from home, noting that William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton did some of their best work while England was ravaged by the plague, there is an obvious response: Neither of them had child-care responsibilities.

Shakespeare spent most of his career in London, where the theaters were, while his family lived in Stratford-upon-Avon. During the plague of 1606, the playwright was lucky to be spared from the epidemic—his landlady died at the height of the outbreak—and his wife and two adult daughters stayed safely in the Warwickshire countryside. Newton, meanwhile, never married or had children. He saw out the Great Plague of 1665–6 on his family’s estate in the east of England, and spent most of his adult life as a fellow at Cambridge University, where his meals and housekeeping were provided by the college.

For those with caring responsibilities, an infectious-disease outbreak is unlikely to give them time to write King Lear or develop a theory of optics. A pandemic magnifies all existing inequalities (even as politicians insist this is not the time to talk about anything other than the immediate crisis). Working from home in a white-collar job is easier; employees with salaries and benefits will be better protected; self-isolation is less taxing in a spacious house than a cramped apartment. But one of the most striking effects of the coronavirus will be to send many couples back to the 1950s.

Across the world, women’s independence will be a silent victim of the pandemic.

Purely as a physical illness, the coronavirus appears to affect women less severely. But in the past few days, the conversation about the pandemic has broadened: We are not just living through a public-health crisis, but an economic one. As much of normal life is suspended for three months or more, job losses are inevitable. At the same time, school closures and household isolation are moving the work of caring for children from the paid economy—nurseries, schools, babysitters—to the unpaid one. The coronavirus smashes up the bargain that so many dual-earner couples have made in the developed world: We can both work, because someone else is looking after our children. Instead, couples will have to decide which one of them takes the hit.

Many stories of arrogance are related to this pandemic. Among the most exasperating is the West’s failure to learn from history: the Ebola crisis in three African countries in 2014; Zika in 2015–6; and recent outbreaks of SARS, swine flu, and bird flu. Academics who studied these episodes found that they had deep, long-lasting effects on gender equality. “Everybody’s income was affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa,” Julia Smith, a health-policy researcher at Simon Fraser University, told The New York Times this month, but “men’s income returned to what they had made pre-outbreak faster than women’s income.” The distorting effects of an epidemic can last for years, Clare Wenham, an assistant professor of global-health policy at the London School of Economics, told me. “We also saw declining rates of childhood vaccination [during Ebola].” Later, when these children contracted preventable diseases, their mothers had to take time off work.

At an individual level, the choices of many couples over the next few months will make perfect economic sense. What do pandemic patients need? Looking after. What do self-isolating older people need? Looking after. What do children kept home from school need? Looking after. All this looking after—this unpaid caring labor—will fall more heavily on women, because of the existing structure of the workforce. “It’s not just about social norms of women performing care roles; it’s also about practicalities,” Wenham added. “Who is paid less? Who has the flexibility?”

According to the British government’s figures, 40 percent of employed women work part-time, compared with only 13 percent of men. In heterosexual relationships, women are more likely to be the lower earners, meaning their jobs are considered a lower priority when disruptions come along. And this particular disruption could last months, rather than weeks. Some women’s lifetime earnings will never recover. With the schools closed, many fathers will undoubtedly step up, but that won’t be universal.

Despite the mass entry of women into the workforce during the 20th century, the phenomenon of the “second shift” still exists. Across the world, women—including those with jobs—do more housework and have less leisure time than their male partners. Even memes about panic-buying acknowledge that household tasks such as food shopping are primarily shouldered by women. “I’m not afraid of COVID-19 but what is scary, is the lack of common sense people have,” reads one of the most popular tweets about the coronavirus crisis. “I’m scared for people who actually need to go to the store & feed their fams but Susan and Karen stocked up for 30 years.” The joke only works because “Susan” and “Karen”—stand-in names for suburban moms—are understood to be responsible for household management, rather than, say, Mike and Steve.

Look around and you can see couples already making tough decisions on how to divide up this extra unpaid labor. When I called Wenham, she was self-isolating with two small children; she and her husband were alternating between two-hour shifts of child care and paid work. That is one solution; for others, the division will run along older lines. Dual-income couples might suddenly find themselves living like their grandparents, one homemaker and one breadwinner. “My spouse is a physician in the emergency dept, and is actively treating #coronavirus patients. We just made the difficult decision for him to isolate & move into our garage apartment for the foreseeable future as he continues to treat patients,” wrote the Emory University epidemiologist Rachel Patzer, who has a three-week-old baby and two young children. “As I attempt to home school my kids (alone) with a new baby who screams if she isn’t held, I am worried about the health of my spouse and my family.”

Single parents face even harder decisions: While schools are closed, how do they juggle earning and caring? No one should be nostalgic for the “1950s ideal” of Dad returning to a freshly baked dinner and freshly washed children, when so many families were excluded from it, even then. And in Britain today, a quarter of families are headed by a single parent, more than 90 percent of whom are women. Closed schools make their life even harder.

Other lessons from the Ebola epidemic were just as stark—and similar, if perhaps smaller, effects will be seen during this crisis in the developed world. School closures affected girls’ life chances, because many dropped out of education. (A rise in teenage-pregnancy rates exacerbated this trend.) Domestic and sexual violence rose. And more women died in childbirth because resources were diverted elsewhere. “There’s a distortion of health systems, everything goes towards the outbreak,” said Wenham, who traveled to west Africa as a researcher during the Ebola crisis. “Things that aren’t priorities get canceled. That can have an effect on maternal mortality, or access to contraception.” The United States already has appalling statistics in this area compared with other rich countries, and black women there are twice as likely to die in childbirth as white women.

For Wenham, the most striking statistic from Sierra Leone, one of the countries worst affected by Ebola, was that from 2013 to 2016, during the outbreak, more women died of obstetric complications than the infectious disease itself. But these deaths, like the unnoticed caring labor on which the modern economy runs, attract less attention than the immediate problems generated by an epidemic. These deaths are taken for granted. In her book Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez notes that 29 million papers were published in more than 15,000 peer-reviewed titles around the time of the Zika and Ebola epidemics, but less than 1 percent explored the gendered impact of the outbreaks. Wenham has found no gender analysis of the coronavirus outbreak so far; she and two co-authors have stepped into the gap to research the issue.

The evidence we do have from the Ebola and Zika outbreaks should inform the current response. In both rich and poor countries, campaigners expect domestic-violence rates to rise during lockdown periods. Stress, alcohol consumption, and financial difficulties are all considered triggers for violence in the home, and the quarantine measures being imposed around the world will increase all three. The British charity Women’s Aid said in a statement that it was “concerned that social distancing and self-isolation will be used as a tool of coercive and controlling behaviour by perpetrators, and will shut down routes to safety and support.”

Researchers, including those I spoke with, are frustrated that findings like this have not made it through to policy makers, who still adopt a gender-neutral approach to pandemics. They also worry that opportunities to collect high-quality data which will be useful for the future are being missed. For example, we have little information on how viruses similar to the coronavirus affect pregnant women—hence the conflicting advice during the current crisis—or, according to Susannah Hares, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, sufficient data to build a model for when schools should reopen.

We shouldn’t make that mistake again. Grim as it is to imagine now, further epidemics are inevitable, and the temptation to argue that gender is a side issue, a distraction from the real crisis, must be resisted. What we do now will affect the lives of millions of women and girls in future outbreaks.

The coronavirus crisis will be global and long-lasting, economic as well as medical. However, it also offers an opportunity. This could be the first outbreak where gender and sex differences are recorded, and taken into account by researchers and policy makers. For too long, politicians have assumed that child care and elderly care can be “soaked up” by private citizens—mostly women—effectively providing a huge subsidy to the paid economy. This pandemic should remind us of the true scale of that distortion.

Wenham supports emergency child-care provision, economic security for small-business owners, and a financial stimulus paid directly to families. But she isn’t hopeful, because her experience suggests that governments are too short-termist and reactive. “Everything that's happened has been predicted, right?” she told me. “As a collective academic group, we knew there would be an outbreak that came out of China, that shows you how globalization spreads disease, that’s going to paralyze financial systems, and there was no pot of money ready to go, no governance plan … We knew all this, and they didn't listen. So why would they listen to something about women?”

Remember this article the next time a politician brings up the draft again...

because I remember the last reaction.

[nofacenocaseblog]

𝗗𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 #3:  NARCOPISOS Inc. /Barcelona narcopisos, a necessary evil

The 3rd episode of Dope Stories is the most in-depth investigation of the series, so much that it took me nearly 3 years to gain the trust and respect of my contacts and more importantly, to get relevant insights about the local drug market and its players to show, under a different angle than mainstream media, what’s happening behind the closed doors of the Ciutat Veilla’s narrow streets.

Playground 1 - Raval, Barcelona / 2018 / iPhone 

“Drugs are ruining our neighborhood! “,  “Narcopisos are disrupting the real estate market!” ,  “ We don’t feel safe!”… 

Those are the slogans or headlines you see in the media or written on banners hanging from people’s balconies.  

“Narcopisos are filthy and dangerous!”

But are they though?

FOREWORD

Before getting started, I wanted to write a few words about Barcelona. After living more than a decade in New York, my wife and I moved to Catalan capital for about 4 years.  After reading this article you might think that I m not particularly fond of the town and its inhabitants.  I won’t lie, we didn’t receive the warmest welcome, especially from Catalans. This said, the town and its vibe are unique and galvanizing.  Very much like Marseille (my hometown), Barcelona is an harbor city with the port/marina right in the center, meaning: lots of traffics, smuggling, immigration, corruption, drugs etc… There is always “something going on”, if you catch my drift.  Shady, nasty, funny, ugly, beautiful, vulgar,  the cast of “pirate-like” characters gravitating around the city center is fascinating.

Occupied - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / Nikon 3200

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been drawn toward the forbidden,  the danger, the illicit, the hidden, the bad...  To my eyes, “ugly” has always been more interesting than “beautiful”.  Barcelona is not a dangerous city but you need to keep your guard up: pick pockets roaming the subway,  gypsies asking for money on La Rambla (the city’s most touristic avenue) while releasing your back pocket from your wallet, junkies selling stolen goods or begging for change for their next fix #nextfixandchill , black people selling fake airmax on the Barcelonetta marina, drunken street fights in the early hours of the morning... Tragicomic scenes are unravelling before your eyes in an surreal backdrop: Gaudi’s most beautiful “psychedelic” buildings (Sagrafa Familia, casa pedrera, Palau Guell...) in a jungle of gothic buildings ending on a fisherman village overseeing a beautiful beachfront promenade ending with the native “star’chitect” Bofill’s famous W... 

Poolside - Barcelonetta, Barcelona / 2018 / iPhone

Ok, enough with the touristic tour, time to get real!

Stairway to Hell - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Embark on a descend to the heroin inferno that became Raval.  From the fields of Afghanistan to the bloodstreams of Spain...

La Ruta [Spanish for “the route”]

19,414 Pakistanis live in Barcelona, 6,600 of them are established in the neighborhood: El Raval (1) meaning more than 30% of the total community.  El Raval has always been my favorite barrio in town.  With 47% of immigrants (2) , the mosaic of faces, cultures and shops you encounter is dazzling .  Going back to the Pakistani population, I used the word “established” for a specific reason: they actually own many of the businesses in Raval: barbershop, cheap bars and restaurants, wholesale shops, import/export businesses, money transfer services (Western Union, Moneygram), food and grocery shops... I’m not accusing here the Pakistani business owners of backing the drug traffic but they basically created a web of small businesses in a tight net community with their own language, making it hard for the authorities to see through this social fabric potentially sheltering illegal activities. 

Why the Pakistani population is subject to speculation and doubt from the local authorities?  The answer is simple: Afghanistan.  Afghanistan  is by far the biggest producer of opium in the world. According to the US military, 90% of the world's heroin is made from opium grown in Afghanistan. It makes up 95% of the market in Europe (3).  The country has been the leader in opium poppy production since 2001.  Based on the 2014 report from the UNODC (United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime), Afghanistan not only grow opium but also process heroin in several laboratory as well as morphine (easier to produce from raw opium by adding calcium oxide and ammonium chloride).  From Afghanistan, several routes are used to smuggle their prime commodities: the Balkan route has been the primary route but things are changing and the Southern route has become more and more used.  Afghanistan share 2,400km of border with Pakistan and over 50% of illicit afghan opiates are trafficked through Pakistan which enjoys a a strategic location making it a perfect dispatch zone with readily accessible by land, sea (Gwadar and Karachi seaport) and air ways .  

The same UNODC report also indicates that the majority (37%) of the heroin seized in Pakistan was en-route for Europe..

*** Read and/or download the full report here ***

By the way, let’s not forget that Barcelona is also one of the Camorra’s stronghold.  And with Russians and Albanian mafias also present on the territory, Spain -where no powerful local crime syndicate operates and laws on prostitution and gambling are “blurred” to say the least-  has become one of organize crime’s favorite playgrounds for money laundering, drug smuggling, human trafficking, gambling and prostitution... Nothing really happens here without their “green light”, but that’s another story (5)

Back to our Southern route, once the product reaches Barcelona, it becomes very hard to pin point. Narcotics coming through the Balkan route also ends up in Barcelona but in different “retailers”’ hands:  Romanian family-based clans, based mostly in Besos (a run-down project in the heart of Poblenou) and  occupying one single narcopisos in Raval (they have moved 3 times over the 4-year period of my “investigation”) but known to have the purest and most processed Caballo sold in town. 

El Caballo [Spanish for “the horse”, street name of heroin ]

[WARNING]  Most of the photographs of this post are uncensored, quite graphic and… of poor quality…. my bad, I took them.  But I had circumstances: hidden cellphone, no flash, illegal activities going on, indoor, with very little to no light…  Shots are not the best (no pun intended) but you’ll step right into the infamous narcopisos you’ve heard of or read about. And not once they’ve been searched and trashed by the police like you’ve seen in the press but while they are in full operation. Raw, those images might be quite shocking to some of the readers, but take the emotion out of he equation and you’ll come to realized that, for lack a better choice, narcopisos are a necessary evil.   My intention here is not to start a polemic nor come out as a provocateur but to shed light on a real issue, still happening, involving real people, slowly dying, failed by a syste unable -or unwilling- to help them.

Gears - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

El Raval

1989,  US superstar Keith Harring is in Barcelona for his exhibition on La Rambla.  After speaking with an old friend of him from New York living here for awhile, he decided to paint a mural, his way to to show his love for and connection with the town. The next day, Harring chose the wall in Plaça de Salvador Segui in Raval.  He was warned that the area was one of the most dangerous areas in town. Back then, in the 80’s the Spanish government had the genius idea to decriminalize the use, but not the supply, of hard drugs and did not implement any proper treatments to sustain this measure...  Spaniards have ignored the issue and it sparked a heroin addiction epidemic that saw HIV rates soar (2a).The artist was attracted to the neighborhood and decided it would offer the perfect canvas for his message about the dangers of drugs and AIDS. At first it was supposed to be a temporary mural but in the end, up to this day, you can still enjoy Harring’s mural behind the MACBA museum. Below is a photograph I took of what became now hot-spot for skateboarder and cool bars

Tricks - Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / Nikon 3200

Beside its bad reputation, Raval has always been a magnet for artists and “cool kids”, misfits and outcasts but more recently the new kid on the block is named gentrification… in other word: Fun is over.   Well… not quite yet.  In Barcelona, everything moves slowly, gentrification included. The result is a mix of fancy hotels, art galleries, designer boutiques... mixed with prostitutes and their lovely clientele, dealers, junkies, businessmen, families of tourists wandering the streets… a fascinating mix of characters with theatrical scenes playing before your eyes: hustlers trying to rip off tourists, white collars finding themselves buying bad cocaine from a kid in a narrow, sketchy alley… the show is in the street, but not only. 

The Narrows - Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / Nikon 3200

What businesses, in Barcelona, are open 24/7, have no vacancy, a steady stream of customers and a product that sells itself? The answer: Narcopisos Inc.

The phenomenon of the Narcopisos emerged in 2016 (a year after I moved to Barcelona) following Spain’s property crash.  Foreclosed or unsold apartments, owned by banks and investment funds were left emptied, abandoned, in a country in full housing crisis...  It wasn’t long before the vacant spaces started being squatted: some by respectable families, in need of a place to live, some by drug dealers using them as selling point and shooting gallery.  A place where you can get a cheap fix in a relatively clean room.

Ritual - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Helped - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Thanks to my various contacts, I had access to different types of narcopisos, but from crack to dope houses, most of them were operating the same way: - a cctv video surveillance in place at the street level or someone looking out for the cops. - a room with junkies to confuse police upon arrival and make it look like they are actually squatting the place - 1 to 3 dealers serving customers one a the time. - An exit back door (if available) in case the police knocks on the front door. - One or two rooms for users. - Hourly cleaning of the premises to make the place look “decent” and “squatted” in case of a bust - Little quantity of drugs at the time, no more than 10 grams of each. - Open 24/7 - Re-up every hour or so - Single use paraphernalia available to the users - In some cases, Narcan at hand (medicine used to reverse the effect of an OD).

Cleaning Session - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

My connections in the Pakistani community took time to build but  strengthen throughout the years to reached a level of trust where we came to split the bread at several occasions… no seriously, we actually got invited in their Halal “canteen” in Raval where only Pakistanis could enjoy their local cuisine, a unique experience… They also gave me access to two of their stash houses: located in legit apartments, in proper buildings, on the outskirt of Raval, close to Sant-Antoni, less prone to police check.  No users there, only wholesalers, dispatching heroin to “representatives” of each narcopisos at below retail-price: between 20 and 40 euros the gram depending on the quantity purchased. 

Going back to the narcopisos, some were run by junkies (where the product was often cut from the bash they were getting from the stash houses), some by pakistani or afghan immigrants, with decent quality product, some by Catalan families, living there for decades under stabilized rent and with their own connection and product of fluctuant quality.  Last but not least, one narcopiso was occupied by the Romanian clan mentioned earlier.  Below are some photos of one of their spot at 22 Carrer d’en Roig, later busted and walled by the Mossos d’esquadra (Catalan police)

Romanian at work - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

Boss - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

If narcopisos was selling both crack and heroin, two rooms were at the disposal of users, one for smoking their bottles or pipes and the other room to shoot up or smoke heroin on tiny pieces of foil.

Sterile hospital-like garbage disposal were available for discarding the used paraphernalia.

Bloodstream Hunt - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

#NextFixandChill - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Everything is provided to avoid the spread of disease and the use of the drug in plain sight in the street therefore reduce public disorder.

Not that dealers became humanitarian all of a sudden, but kicking customers with their (illegal) purchase out in the street expose them to being ratted on or worst, having an overdose in plain sight attracting the police and paramedics... either way, it’s not good for business so narcopisos’ “managers” rather keep their clientele indoor until they’re done using and good to do.

Now, there is another type of business in Barcelona dealing with drug users and addiction: it’s called Centre de Dispensació de Metadona - Centre d'Atenció Primària Casc Antic (the methadone clinic in short....). 

* They’re not open 24/7 but rather in the morning only * It can take up to 2 weeks to see a doctor in order to enroll in a Methadone Maintenance Treatment -MMT (true story...when a single day can be the last one for a heroin addict living in the street) * Last but not least, since the doctors and nurses’ work schedule is way more important tthan their patients’ care, some centers give up 3 to 4 days worth of supply of methadone at once to heroin users so the health workers can have their days and weekends off. The result of this amazing system: the methadone is sold in the street by users so they can buy their heroin and/or in certain case, the methadone is saved up (for rainy days) and the patient keeps using heroin instead.  Yes, the patient: let’s not forget that those “filthy junkies” actually are patients (even if they’re hardly seen as such in those centers),  suffering from a disease called addiction, or substance abuse disorder if you prefer the american way of calling it, and in need of medical care but what can I say... old habits die hard (both way...). 

Patients taking methadone to treat opioid dependance must receive the medication under the supervision of a practitioner. After a period of stability (based on progress and proven, consistent compliance with the medication dosage) and only then, patients may be allowed to take methadone at home between program visits... but not in Barcelona.

Methadone substitution as a treatment of opioid addiction does not function as much to curb addiction as to redirect it and maintain dependency on legal channels. Methadone has been designed that way, as a lifetime treatment whereas alternative palliatives such as Buprenorphine are not even considered by doctors when those therapies would be more efficient in certain cases: with users who do not shoot the drug for example, or with users wishing to quiet and get sober... but let's be honest here, sobriety has never been the objective of those methadone programs.  The real goal of this public service is not to cure addiction, but to make sure junkies don’t use, steal, rob and/or commit act of violence in the streets to feed their habits

The patient here is not the users but the society.   Those centers aren’t trying to help the user quit his habit, but to make sure the society doesn’t suffer from it.  Good or bad, Narcopisos are curbing down the spread of diseases, cleaning up the streets from users as they offering temporary shelter to their customers and operate around the clock..  It seems to me that their function is almost... complementary if not necessary.

So before eradicating narcopisos from the face of Raval, let’s pause and look at the alternative: junkies buying and using drugs in the streets of the city center, in the worst sanitary condition possible with no regard for the residents around.

Mañana

So what’s next? Keeping those illegal activities going on? Certainly not.

But before jumping the gun and closing it all at once, better get ready for the alternative because drug addiction will not disappear with the narcopisos. In my last article, I speak about users stigmatization and how society still struggles to see addiction as a disease and not a will power issue, turning the blind eye to a sheer amount of studies and discoveries explaining how heroin addiction, over time, modify the pathway of your brain frontal lobe and affect your decisional power, making it hard -to not say impossible- to say “no”. 

Don’t take me wrong.  It would be naïve to think all users roaming the streets are here trying to quit and become their better self. Most of them have no intention to do so. I’m not here to judge nor take side.  But in order to find a solution to the narcopiso situation, I would like to introduce Barcelona to his neighbor: Portugal.

Portugal had one of the worst heroin epidemic in Europe back in the 90′s and after the failed many “US war on drug”-type of approaches. They finally shift approach and started treated drug addicts as patients who needed help, not as criminals” says Goulao, the architect of Portugal drug policy.  After the decriminalization and treatments, they planned to open “supervised drug consumption facilities” Naina Bajekal says in her 2018 article in the Time “where drug users can consume drugs in safer conditions with the assistance of trained staff. Such facilities have been running in Europe since 1986, when the first was opened in Berne, Switzerland.”(5)

The result? Evidence (6) shows these these type of sites save lives, reduce public disorder, and curb the spread of diseases.

Does that sound familiar? Yes, that's right, the first of the two businesses we spoke about: Narcopisos Inc.

Purgatory - Carrer d’en Roig 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

For No Face No Case: Dope Stories chapter 4, we’re going to Italy.  Don’t worry, it won’t be another mafia-related article explaining how the N’Drangheta and Camorra became the most powerful crime syndicates in the world, you can watch that on TV.  Called “Il Racconto dei Racconti”  (Tales of Tales in english), the article will keep it real, street style: short stories from North to South: Torino, Milano, Genoa, Roma, Napoli... Stay tuned for some dope stories on how drugs are sold, used and abused in the Renaissance country 

References (1) https://www.barcelona-metropolitan.com/featuresx/report-barcelona-pakistani-community/ (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Raval (3) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47861444 (4)https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/12/07/inenglish/1544171107_204329.html (5) https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/ (6) https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decriminalization/

[autoaddickt]

Auto mobiles  And Motor-Sports;                           The Formula One :

The Introduction of Cars:

Do you like cars? Cars are the four wheeled auto mobiles which enable us the facility of travelling from one place to another in a faster manner than the old days. As you all know during old days, people took a lot more time to travel from one place to another. You know why it happened. It is because of the lack of developed technology for an easier, much faster and efficient transportation of people and goods. As human beings improved their views and shaped up their technological innovations, they discovered the wheels which is as you all know in the shape of a circle. Gradually they invented Cars, the four wheeled vehicles. Cars came into the global use during the 20th century. More specifically, Cars came into use during the year 1886 when Carl Benz introduced the first four wheeled vehicle. The car which was introduced by Carl Benz was the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Cars became widely available in the early 20th century. But most of the cars during that time were not accessible for the public due to their ingenuity and unawareness. The first cars accessible to the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the US, where they replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts, but took much longer to be accepted in Western Europe and other parts of the world. Gradually cars became common on the streets. And this demand for cars gave the auto mobile manufacturers new challenge to bring some kind of new elements into their cars. As you all know, now a days cars have many facilities like AC, Multimedia system, parking sensors and so on.. Cars even have autonomous systems using artificial intelligence in which the car drives by itself using AI.

The Introduction Of Motor Sports:

As the usual sports events motor sports is the sports event using motor vehicles that is cars and bikes. In the event of car racing the competitors race from one starting point to a finishing point. The winner of the game is the ones with the lowest time taken to finish the race. In the case of four wheeled motor sports, the item is globally governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The history of motor sport is from 1894 when a French newspaper organised a race from Paris to Rouen and back, starting city to city racing. In 1900, the Gordon Bennett Cup was established. But gradually the closed circuit racing transformed to greater times and racing in public roads were banned.

Aspendale Racecourse in Australia in 1906 was the first dedicated motor racing track in the world. Thereafter more and more racing events became popular and different types of racing Grand Prix and championships came into being.

Different Types Of Racing sports:

Racing sports are of many types. And each types of racing are just as better as each other and are celebrated grandly by the racing manias (including me). Each racing events pumps dopamine and adrenaline to the nerves of racing hearted people, as their super heroes showcase their talent on the racing track. These racing events are thoroughly enjoyed by both the competitors and audience.

Different types of Racing Events are:

The Formula Racing:

The Formula One

The Formula E

Indy Car Series 

The Dakar Rally

There are many other racing series like stock car, sports car, touring car and off road or Rally racing. Now Here we discuss about the formula one.

The Formula One or F1

As you all Know the first and the most popular racing sport is the Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international auto racing for single-seater racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The series is owned by Liberty Media, an American mass media company controlled by its founder and chairman John C. Malone, through its wholly owned subsidiary, the Formula One Group. The World Drivers' Championship, which became the FIA Formula One World Championship in 1981, has been one of the premier forms of racing around the world since its inaugural season in 1950.The word "formula" in the name refers to the set of rules to which all participants' cars must conform in order to participate in the game. A Formula One season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix. The word Grand Prix is the native of France which means ‘great or grand prices’.These GP races take place on the closed F1 circuits  all over the world. The cars used in the race are the fastest regulated road-course racing cars in the world, owing to very high cornering speeds achieved through the generation of large amounts of aerodynamic downforce. But in the year 2017 the cars underwent major changes,

allowing wider front and rear wings, and wider tyres resulting in peak cornering forces and top speeds of up to approximately 350km/h (215mph).  As of 2019 the hybrid engines are limited in performance to a maximum of 15,000 rpm; the cars are very dependent on electronics and aerodynamics, suspension and tyres. Traction control and other driving aids have been banned since 2008. You should never think that arranging and managing this mega grand event is cheap, With the annual cost of running a mid-tier team—designing, building, and maintaining cars, pay, transport—being US$120 million, its financial and political battles are widely reported. Its high profile and popularity have created a major merchandising environment, which has resulted in large investments from sponsors. On 23 January 2017 Liberty Media confirmed the completion of the acquisition of Delta Topco, the company that controls Formula One, from private-equity firm CVC Capital Partners for $8 billion, and the coordinators and other workers including everyone who contribute their part including the audience who gets to the gallery to support their star plays an important part in the success of the game.

Point system in F1

Coming to the point system in the race F1 there are separate points for the constructors (the companies who make cars for their own drivers) and the drivers of companies in which they race for. The rules for getting specific points is that A driver must finish within the top ten to receive a point for setting the fastest lap of the race. In the event that the driver who set the fastest lap finishes outside of the top ten then the point for fastest lap will not be awarded for that race.

The point table is given below:

          1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th FL*

25  18   15  12   10  8    6    4    2    1      1

(*FL means Fastest Lap)

       The current table top of this season 2020 is Lewis Hamilton with 205 points and he is racing for Mercedes Benz, the German automotive company.

The Drivers point table* is given below:

The constructors point table* is given here:

(*the values of the points may change by the next race)

And here I conclude my article and hope You enjoyed the ride to it.

          ❖★❖★ Drive safe! Ride Happy! Dare 2 Dream!! ❖★❖★

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

There has long been conflict in the United States over who gets to vote and how. In the years since Barack Obama’s election as president, those voting debates have become increasingly partisan, with Republican elected officials often pushing measures like requiring photo IDs that make it harder for people to vote, and Democratic officials advancing provisions like same-day registration that make it easier to vote.

That long-running conflict over voting has reached a new, more critical phase for two reasons. First, the outbreak of COVID-19 means that people might be risking their health if they opt to vote in person. Secondly, Donald Trump, unlike previous presidents, regularly breaks with democratic norms and values and is now openly suggesting that he might manipulate the electoral system to help him win a second term.

“Trump aides exploring executive actions to curb voting by mail,” was the headline of an article in Politico last weekend (that was a news article, not an opinion piece). Politico’s reporting found that the White House was considering using executive actions to insert itself into the election process, which is usually run by states, including finding ways to make it harder for people to vote by mail.

I think it’s totally appropriate for people to, well, freak out about the potential undermining of the electoral process by Trump and his allies. That said, there is now a flurry of lawsuits, judicial rulings, decisions by election officials at the local and state levels, and claims of voter fraud and voter suppression that can be a bit of minefield to wade through. It’s a lot and it can get confusing.

So to better understand what’s a really big deal versus something that might be problematic but perhaps not as important, we broke out the potential ways that Trump and the GOP could limit voting or undermine the electoral process into five general tactics. These tactics are roughly ordered from least to most alarming. This is not any kind of formal legal guide, although we consulted with some experts for this piece, and some of those experts have law degrees. This analysis also includes some details of the Democrats’ approach to voting rights issues. But we opted to focus on the Republicans because their approach is more controversial than the Democratic one (which is largely to make it easier to vote) and because perhaps the most important figure in the current voting wars is the Republican president.

Here are the tactics:

1. Opposing changes to make it easier to vote amid COVID-19

A lot of the litigation around voting this year pits groups allied with liberal-leaning parts of the electorate, like the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and lawyers affiliated with the Democratic Party, against officials in charge of administering elections (secretaries of state, for example). In these cases, the litigants are trying to get judges to change or invalidate existing laws and force officials to make it easier for Americans to vote and have their vote counted.1

The litigants often invoke the pandemic in demanding these changes, but they are changes in the voting process that these litigants would likely prefer outside of the COVID-19 context, too. For example, the LDF and the Southern Poverty Law Center are trying to get struck down a requirement in Alabama that voters include a copy of their photo ID with their application for an absentee ballot. Getting a copy of your photo ID does potentially increase your chances of getting COVID-19, their brief argues. But the LDF opposed provisions requiring people to present photo IDs as part of the voting process well before the coronavirus pandemic.

Marc Elias, a leading Democratic election attorney, is filing lawsuits in more than two dozen states (including basically every key swing state), to enforce his “four pillars” for mail-in voting in the 2020 election:

The government prepays the postage for mail-in ballots.

Ballots postmarked before or on Election Day are counted (as opposed to counting only ballots received by Election Day).2

Signature requirements for mail-in ballots are administered in a voter-friendly way. (Elias suggests requiring election officials across the country to contact voters before their ballots are ruled invalid because the signature on the ballot does not match the signature election officials have on file.)

Individuals or groups are allowed to collect the ballots of people and turn them in (to ease voting for people who might not have easy access to mail services).

Liberal-leaning lawyers like Elias are losing some of these cases in court (or at least not getting all the accommodations that they want), with Republicans — including the Trump campaign — filing briefs opposing changes that might make it easier for Americans to vote and have their vote counted. It’s not ideal that Republicans are taking this tact, as the right to vote is so important. And the GOP often uses false or misleading rhetoric to oppose measures making voting easier, such as dubbing efforts by groups to collect and turn in mail-in ballots “ballot harvesting” and suggesting, without evidence, that the process will lead to widespread voter fraud.

That said, we cast this tactic as the least problematic one Republicans are employing because there are instances of Republicans opposing new steps to make voting easier, rather than creating new barriers to voting. Also, even most blue states don’t currently have all four of Elias’s pillars in place. Only seven states (California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington) got “A” ratings for their vote-by-mail systems in a recent Brookings Institute report.

2. Seeking to invalidate laws that make it easier to vote amid COVID-19

During the pandemic, some states, particularly those run by Democrats, are taking affirmative steps to make it much easier to vote. For example, California and Nevada are planning to send mail-in ballots to all the registered voters in their states. Election officials in Pennsylvania have set up boxes for people to drop off their absentee ballots, as opposed to requiring all voters to send them through the mail.

The Trump campaign is filing lawsuits to stop the moves in Nevada, Pennsylvania and other states. The Republican National Committee (which is tightly aligned with the Trump campaign) is involved in litigation in 17 states, again including virtually every battleground state, to enforce its voting agenda, which includes:

Requiring ballots to be received by Election Day.

Keeping current photo ID and signature laws in place.

Opposing people or groups being able to turn in mail-in ballots of other voters.

Opposing newly enacted plans to allow basically all voters in a given state to vote by mail.

You can see why this is more problematic in terms of democratic values than the previous category: Local and state officials are taking affirmative steps to make it easier for Americans to vote and have their vote counted amid a pandemic and the sitting president’s campaign is trying to reverse those decisions.

For this category, the actions of the five justices on the U.S. Supreme Court appointed by Republican presidents are likely to be particularly important. In all four of the most recent Supreme Court decisions on voting rights issues, the court’s conservative majority rejected attempts by liberal litigants to get existing law changed to make it easier to vote amid COVID-19 (the first category we listed above). Those rulings have infuriated liberals, but I can’t say that I’m surprised by them — Chief Justice John Roberts regularly votes both to uphold existing legal precedents and to show deference to the judgements of local officials and other branches of government in ways that sometimes align with the more liberal justices and other times with the court’s conservatives. So it would be more surprising (and alarming) if Roberts and the high court struck down new laws, like those in California, making it easier to vote.

3. Advancing new practices and provisions that make it harder to vote

This tactic refers to moves like rolling back the number of early voting days in a state or making it harder for students to vote. These are all strategies that Republicans have employed pre-COVID-19. Republicans aren’t rolling out a lot of new provisions to make it harder to vote in 2020 because they already passed a lot of them from 2011 to 2018, and they couldn’t pass a lot of them in 2019 and 2020. (Democrats made a lot of gains at the state level in 2018, and it would have been controversial to adopt such measures after the virus outbreak.)

But Republicans are trying two new strategies, with liberals seeking to get each struck down by courts. First, in Florida specifically, Republicans are complicating the process for ex-felons who have served their sentences to regain their voting rights, despite a 2018 ballot initiative, supported by 65 percent of Florida voters, that was intended to do just that. And in states around the country, GOP officials are planning to send an unusually large number of people to individual voting locations as “poll watchers.” Poll watchers have been used by both parties. But the rhetoric about voter fraud from Fox News and Trump in particular creates the potential for GOP poll watchers to show up at voting places specifically to look for voters they might view as both illegitimate and liberal-leaning (people of color and people around age 18 in particular) and push for the officials running those polling locations to more closely scrutinize those voters.

I view this category as particularly problematic, in terms of democratic values, because it raises the specter of people facing increased difficulty voting in large part because they are perceived to likely to oppose Republican candidates. (The ex-felons who would be newly eligible to vote in Florida are disproportionately Black.)

4. Anti-democratic rhetoric

What I’m talking about here is largely rhetoric that has no direct impact, but has the potential to undermine confidence in the election system. Think about Trump’s comments about potentially changing the day of the election or the unfounded suggestions by the president, Attorney General William Barr and other conservatives that mail-in voting will lead to fraud.

How this tactic affects the election depends on two factors. First, do other members of the Republican Party, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, echo Trump’s rhetoric, thereby creating a situation where one of the country’s two major political parties is questioning the electoral system? And second, do GOP elected officials start acting on this rhetoric, such as trying to roll back existing vote-by-mail programs or not counting ballots received after Election Day in states where it is legal to count them?

In other words, this kind of rhetoric presents two potential risks, undermining the public’s confidence in the legitimacy of the election and — if the rhetoric leads to action — literally compromising the legitimacy of the election.

5. Fundamental changes to the electoral process

Speaking of actually compromising the election … The recent changes at the U.S. Postal Service that are slowing down mail delivery across the country are arguably the biggest threat to the American election system in 2020. If mail delivery continues to be slowed down, that creates two very important potential problems. First, in states where ballots must be received by officials before Election Day (33, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures), a slowed-down mail system could disenfranchise thousands and perhaps even millions of people. Secondly, a slower system creates the potential for a ton of ballots to arrive either just before, on or after Election Day, meaning that the counting of votes might stretch on for days or weeks and Americans wouldn’t know the winner of the presidential election for a long time. That’s not ideal in any circumstances, but particularly with a president like Trump who can’t be expected to wait for election results before trying to declare himself the winner.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a longtime GOP donor who has given more than $2 million over the last few years to Trump’s campaign and other Republican causes, says the changes he has made since taking his post in June are intended to reduce the USPS’s spending and make it more cost-efficient. I don’t have any proof he is lying, but it’s also doubtful that DeJoy would be candid about it if his real goal was complicating vote-by-mail systems and helping Trump win. Either way, it’s a strange decision to overhaul the mailing system in a way that appears to be making it harder to send things through USPS quickly when the U.S. will be relying on the Postal Service more than ever before as part of the electoral process.

And if Trump followed through on changing the day of the election (which he cannot do on his own) or limiting vote by mail, those changes would go into this category as well.

It’s worth thinking about these categories both in terms of the horse race and in terms of broader questions of democratic norms and values. The first three are problematic in terms of democratic norms and values because Republicans seem to be intentionally making it harder for people to vote. And if this race gets tighter, those moves could prove decisive. If we reach the later stages of the campaign and polls still show Biden with a clear lead nationally and in most swing states, it’s less likely that these tactics would literally swing the election. (Then again, we haven’t really faced a situation like this before.)

On the other hand, the last two categories are huge, both in terms of democratic values and electoral repercussions. If people’s mail-in ballots aren’t received until way after Election Day, and Trump and his allies are falsely suggesting that mail-in ballots are somewhat fraudulent anyway, that undermines the election results and creates the potential for Trump to try to remain in office even if Biden is the rightful victor.

[gugopuro]

Vilnius, the City of Saints

https://es.ivisa.com/lithuania-etias

Lithuania is among the Baltic nations. It shares its boundary with neighbouring countries including Poland, Finland, Russia, Norway, Sweden and Germany. Because of this, the people is quite large and the terminology is also widespread. Regardless of this, Vilnius is among the least preferred tourist destinations in Lithuania. Despite this, the local administration was working hard to improve the situation and create the processing of Lithuanian visa easier for vacationers.

To begin with, Vilnius has a rather poor international airport that only handles small aircraft. Travellers Who Would like to travel to Vilnius Should fly to Tallinn, Klaipeda or even Sukhumvit Airlines. That's why it's better to book your flight weeks beforehand. For those who want a inexpensive flight to Vilnius, the ideal time to do this would be throughout the off-season - from October to March. If you aren't that concerned about getting a visa and only wish to see Vilnius, then you might have the ability to have a visa on arrival.

Finding a visa on arrival is not the only alternative available for people travelling to Vilnius. There's another alternative available known as the Vilnius Visa Waiver. This is a special visa that allows you to remain in Vilnius even if you do not have a visa. To acquire a Vilnius visa waiver, then you'll need to make an application for an EU citizenship through the Vilnius European Centre. By doing so, you can benefit from many advantages like free public transport, simpler handling of money and more opportunities to get the job done.

The Vilnius visa waiver to the EU citizens is also beneficial for other tourists visiting Vilnius. By way of example, tourists from the uk, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and other EU member states can apply for this. Once you are approved, you can remain in Vilnius for the period specified by the Lithuanian government. As a consequence, you will not have to depart the country if you plan to stay longer.

In addition to this, tourists from the uk, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and other EU member states may also apply to your schengen etias application fee waiver. The Vilnius visa waiver is available for three months or more if desired. The Schengen visa generally requires you to remain in the nation for an entire year. But in case you've got an EU citizenship, then you can stay in Vilnius for up to a year if you meet specific requirements.

To discover more regarding the availability of this Lithuanian schengen visa waiver and application form, you can contact Vilnius International Airport's tourism and cultural section. They are usually quite knowledgeable about lodging, shopping, sightseeing, foreign currency exchange, medical aid and other choices for vacationers traveling to Vilnius. The city of Vilnius is also home to many award-winning museums and historical sites, making it a popular destination for cultural travelers. You may find restaurants and pubs that offer entertainment and food which are designed to satisfy international standards. The access to a Lithuanian resort or Vilnius apartment during your stay might be the ideal method that you appreciate your stay in Vilnius.

[himikochan]

SJW Handbook and Advice - CHICAGO-CENTRIC

Hello everyone I’ve been compiling info for protesters and non-protesters for Chicago and I thought I’d share it here. It’s copy and pasted from a few different posts but it’s somewhat comprehensive and draws on a lot of ideas I’ve seen circulating. Not all of this info is Chicago-specific, but I do talk about local laws in Chicago and bail funds in Chicago. 

.

SAFETY AND GOOD CONDUCT AT A PROTEST

-Tear gas: the agent in tear gas that's painful, lachrymator, binds to water molecules. It's so effective because it gets into your throat/lungs/eyes and also binds to the moisture on your skin. If you suspect tear gas might be used at a protest [which honestly you should just guess now], you should try to make sure as much of your body is covered as possible- wear long sleeves and pants and try to cover your hair. If possible, have gloves and goggles or sunglasses handy. When you are exposed to tear gas, try to get a wet cloth against your face ASAP- the moisture on the cloth will bind to the lachrymator and prevent it from getting inside of you. Pour water on a bandana or mask and try to keep it as close to your body as possible. Walk away from the cloud of gas ASAP- and before you go inside your home, try to stuff your clothes into a bag [wash them in 4-5 days when the lachrymator isn't as reactive anymore]. Take a shower as soon as possible and try to wash your hair 2-3 times- some people have told me that you should take a cold shower. If you are directly exposed to lachrymator and it gets in your eyes/mouth/nose, rinse with milk or a water/baking soda solution ASAP. Lachrymator is a very unstable molecule and either of those is pretty effective at neutralizing it.

-IF you're in a position to try and take care of a tear gas canister [if you've come prepared with a traffic cone, water, a mask, and goggles- or you're reckless as shit] cover it with a traffic cone. That will trap the fumes. Then pour as much water as you can into the traffic cone, hopefully it will put out the fuse inside the canister. PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN ATTEMPTING TO DO THIS- and do some more research on how to do it properly. I have not personally had a chance to use this tactic.

-The cops may have vans with IMSI catchers and/or cell phone jammers: IMSI catchers gather information about you and cell phone jammers prevent you from being able to use your phone. Carry a watch, make an exit plan with a vehicle/public transit OUTSIDE of the area where the protest is happening, and sharpie the phone number of an emergency contact on your body. There may come a time where you want to shut off your phone- even if you don't get detained, knowing there is a friendly phone number you can access will make you feel better. Be careful about taking pictures of fellow protesters’ faces- the police are using pictures on social media to target protesters after the fact. UPDATE: I just saw another post about IMSI catchers/stingray stuff. They suggest leaving your phone at home because turning your phone off is a break in your normal patterns and can be used in a prosecution. They suggest using a burner phone- this might be the way to go if you live in a city where IMSI stuff is confirmed. SECOND UPDATE: Imperfect protection measures STILL DO SOME GOOD. There are plenty of reasons you can be in a position where you need your cell phone on you and turning off your location services and/or putting on airplane mode for a time may still do you some good!!! IMSI catchers rely upon being the strongest signal in an area [cells automatically connect to whatever seems to be the strongest signal carrier]. From what I understand IMSI catchers have a limited range and basically a max capacity of how many phones they can support while still being the strongest signal in a given area. So for large protests, they'd need to deploy a lot of trucks with IMSI catchers to collect lots of data about crowds. IN MY PERSONAL PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE, which is not universal and may be out dated information, the Chicago police tend to use cell phone jammers [which prevent you from getting a signal at all]. This way they can try to stop protesters from calling/texting each other- make an out strategy with the people accompanying you about where to rendezvous if you're separated. Here is a little information regarding IMSI catcher use in Illinois."The law permits law enforcement agencies to use CSS devices only to locate, track the location of, or identify a communications device—in other words, they cannot configure them to capture the content of any communications. [...] Is CPD abiding by state law rules? It is impossible to say without any record-keeping or audits. CPD has not responded to our most recent FOIA request for information about any new policies, procedures, or records on its use of this technology, so we can only assume that it has not developed any."

-That being said: many capabilities of your phone rely upon knowing where you are to work. So IMSI catchers aren't the only thing you need to worry about.

-If you're able, bring water and some first aid supplies [such as gauze, tape, antibacterial cream, saline solutions, gloves, wipes etc] for fellow protesters [and maybe snacks]. Even at past tepid protests, I've seen fellow protesters fall into glass or hurt themselves trying to climb into higher ground just to see. If you don't know how to administer first aid for things like lacerations, ASK FOR HELP. Many protests have people trained to help and we're all in this together. You might want to read this thread on gunshot wounds, it's better to loosely know what you're supposed to do, just in case. Learn to apply a tourniquet- hint, it’s not just putting a belt around someone’s leg.  The snacks are to keep everyone’s spirits up and remind us that we’re in this TOGETHER.

-Running is easier with a backpack than a messenger bag, wear comfortable shoes, and have something to write with. The mood might strike you to change your sign a bit, 

-If you’re protesting in an area that isn’t close to where you live, try and reach out to someone that lives in the area. You may need to get out quickly and no way to get home and need a safe house- in Chicago, the mayor instituted a curfew from 9pm-6am at 9:04 tonight after the city had blocked every bridge and shut down public transit. Protesters are now basically locked into our downtown area with no way to get home and the police are allowed to detain anyone outdoors.

-Check in with other protesters. Do your best to maintain social distancing, but try to make sure that your fellow protesters are not lagging behind due to injury or something else. Solidarity is the goal above all else.

.

Lori Lightfoot has kept the curfew in place and Chicagoans are expected off the streets between 9pm-6am until further notice unless they have an "essential job". Public transit has been stopped altogether in many areas- so if you have to go out, book enough time for you to walk there and back.

Here are some important reminders of your rights- if your are arrested, stopped in you car, and what to do with your phone. PLEASE READ THEM FOR YOUR SAFETY. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

IF YOU ARE STOPPED:

-In Chicago, the police are permitted to ask your name and address and other questions (to determine if you are involved in a past/present crime). I believe you only NEED to give them your name, regardless of how many questions they ask you.

-You should refresh yourself on how to properly invoke your right to remain silent. Remember to ask “Am I under arrest/being detained?” If they say yes, you HAVE to say “I’m invoking my right to a publicly provided lawyer, and my right to remain silent.” SAY EXACTLY THAT- variations of that phrase are NOT always effective and the cops will use any opportunity they can to undermine your rights and not give you a lawyer. YOU MUST STAY SILENT- otherwise you’re technically waiving your right to remain silent and MUST EXPLICITLY re-invoke your right when you’re done talking for it to apply. 

IF YOU ARE STOPPED FOR QUESTIONING:

-Police may “pat-down” your clothing if they suspect a concealed weapon. The ACLU says do not physically resist, but make it clear that you don’t consent to any further search.

IF YOU ARE STOPPED IN YOUR CAR:

-Upon request, show them your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance. In certain cases, your car can be searched without a warrant as long as the police have probable cause. To protect yourself later, you should make it clear that you do not consent to a search. It is not lawful for police to arrest you simply for refusing to consent to a search.

ON THE TOPIC OF UNLOCKING YOUR PHONE:

I haven't found any hard and fast rules about whether or not you have to unlock your phone if you are held by the police. A Vox article from February 2020 says "If your phone is protected by a passcode or biometric unlocking features, there’s a chance cops can’t gain access to your personal data. But that’s not guaranteed. [...] But if your phone is locked with a passcode and law enforcement can’t hack into it, the Fifth Amendment may be your friend. Essentially, the Fifth Amendment says you can’t be compelled to give self-incriminating testimony. [...] Testimony, in this case, is defined as revealing the contents of your own mind. Therefore, civil rights advocates say, the government can’t force you to tell them your phone’s password." But this is still being played out in the courts- there's tons of pending cases and no real precedence for this on either side.

Freedom.press in an April 2020 article says "If you are arrested or taken into police custody, you should verbally state that you do not consent to a search of your devices. A law enforcement agency is only permitted to conduct a warrantless search of your device if a compelling case for an emergency can be made." There's a lot of potentially useful information in their article, which I will link in the comments.

REMEMBER- cops are easily protected most of the time for infringing on our rights regarding being searched if it could be considered "reasonably" legal for them to do so [even if it isn't]. Saying "I want a lawyer, dog" does not invoke your right to an attorney, being silent does not invoke your right to remain silent, if you do not verbally refuse to be searched your silence is taken as consent to be searched. The limited dissemination of information on the legality of searching a phone could protect them if they coerced/forced you to unlocking your phone.

.

If you are in Chicago and see a post/event about protesting today or tomorrow [June 1st].  DO RIGHT BY YOURSELF AND MAKE SURE IT'S A REAL PROTEST.

I've heard that some VERY suspicious people are putting together a BLM protest in Chicago tomorrow. These people are NOT experienced organizers, NOT affiliated with BLM Chicago, and NOT known to anyone in the Chicago organizing/protesting communities.

We KNOW that a lot of the rioting and looting in other cities were begun and propagated by the police and white supremacist groups [not by protesters or ordinary citizens]. We do not know if these people are cops, white supremacists, or just irresponsible folx, but it could very well be a trap to escalate violence, incarcerate allies, and justify the Mayor granting more restrictions on the city. 

The source I saw was for the purpose of organizing medics to deal with the inevitable fall out, but protect yourself and your fellow protestors by not going to this sham event.

.

Hello everyone- protesting not your cup of tea? That's okay! Protesting is the showiest part of being an active citizen and activist, but it's by no means the most important part.

Below, I'll be posting links for people that need your money AND non-monetary ways you can help.

-If you know people protesting in your area, offer them a place to clean up afterwards and possibly crash if public transit is closed off. If you can safely offer them a shower and a place to change clothes- that can make a huge difference. It could help them evade being targeted by the police on the way home, buy them time to get home without being part of a crowd, and they may need a place to wash off residual tear gas or pepper spray [or the blood of a comrade]

-If there are protests in your area and you have extra supplies [water, pre-packaged snacks, materials for signs, gloves, first aid kits, masks, etc], you can hand them off to a protester OR leave them in a place they'll find them with a note.

-Be wary showing the faces of protesters on your social media or having them saved online. Be mindful about who you're sharing details of a protest or protesters with and try to do your best about sharing accurate information about donations. One of the bail funds in another city recently had someone set up a fake venmo account under the name of the bail fund and many people donated to it, believing they were helping bail people out.

-Your friends with small businesses may want help or need supplies boarding up their windows- most protesters are avoiding small businesses when things turn sour [and in fact, most looting and rioting appears to trace back to undercover cops and white supremacists right now] but it's still a good idea to close up shop if you can. See if anyone needs help securing their business. .-Make fliers about properly administering first aid, basic rights regarding being detained/questioned/arrested, and phone numbers of local communal bail funds. 

-Many people who were on the fence about BLM, police brutality, and protesting are beginning to see the truth of it all now that the pandemic has forced us to confront racial/ethnic and class inequality. We have more allies than we did before- make sure to give them the toolkit necessary to enacting change. 

Protesters need funds in so many places right now: 

-Chicago Communal Bail https://chicagobond.org/

-ACLU Illinoishttps://www.aclu-il.org/en/donate

-BLM Chicago https://www.blacklivesmatterchicago.com/donate/

-The Family of George Floyd https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

-Minnesota Freedom Fund https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/

-ACLU Minnesota https://www.aclu-mn.org/en/donate

-The Bail Project https://bailproject.org/

[where2next]

Hiking the Salkantay Trail to Machu Picchu

The Salkantay Trail is a popular alternative to the Inca Trail to reach Machu Picchu.  It is roughly a 37 mile long trail which takes about 4 days to arrive at the famous ruins. This trail takes you through the rugged beauty of Peru from the snow capped mountains down through the rainforest below. However, those who want to follow in the footsteps of this ancient path should read on to ensure you are prepared for the challenges and that you don’t miss out on some of the greatest experiences this hike has to offer.

Why choose the Salkantay?

For budget backpackers, there is no better option than the Salkantay to get to Machu Picchu.  While the Inca trail is the most famous, it is restricted due to high demand. Not only do you need a permit, but it must be obtained several months in advance and having a guide is required.  For the Salkantay, there are no permits required and no fees to use the trail. It is free to set up tents along the trail though if you wish, there are several houses along the way that will let you camp in their yards for a small fee. These places also offer food! You have much more freedom on the Salkantay to choose your own pace, stop at different spots along the way as you wish, and even take slightly different routes depending on your preferences. Perhaps the most important consideration for the Salkantay is that it is raw beauty like you haven’t seen before. You will be able to admire the marvel of the icy “Savage Mountain” and just a day later admire the wild flowers of the rainforest. 

Recommended Equipment

You can check out our recommendations on how to pack for a mutli-day hike.

The Trail

The trail itself is well marked and easy to follow.  There are a couple of points where you can choose different paths to go down, but either mapping your route beforehand or talking to other travelers should get you going in the right direction.  This trail also has several small villages and houses along it, making it easy to make pit stops for food or to camp for the night. All of the locals that we met along the way were extremely friendly people and they made delicious food for cheap. There are also several streams and waterfalls along the trail where you can refill your water bottles. Just make sure you always fill up where the water is running and make sure you have some sort of water treatment system like Aquatabs or a LifeStraw.

Things to remember if you hurt yourself on the trail

A hike is not without risks or challenges, but they are no reason to be discouraged. Our group happened to run into a scenario where one of our members twisted an ankle halfway through the hike, effectively making us progress slower than expected. From the small village of Chaullay (below) we managed to secure travel for our friend to capac nan; a coffee farm and our next destination. Throughout this whole process we trusted the Peruvian locals with the responsibility of our friend and they were more than hospitable, even providing first aid and refreshments! So don’t be afraid to befriend some locals while you are here!

Spots of Interest

Humantay Lagoon

Toward the start of the trip, just above all of the camps lies an offshoot of the trail that leads to the Humantay Lagoon. This is a small lake fed by the mountain runoff and is a beautiful spot for pictures. However, the trail up to it is quite steep and is longer than it looks. For our crew, this small hike was the litmus test for who was going to be affected by the altitude, as this is above 11,000 ft elevation. More on dealing with elevation later on.

Coffee Farms

While hiking the Salkantay, we noticed that several of the locals had huge piles of white beans drying out on tarps beside the trail. It wasn’t until our last full day of hiking that we realized these were coffee beans as they are plentiful in the area. During one of our stops, the owner of the property where we set up our tents also worked on a coffee farm.  He invited us to the farm when we got up the next morning, which was on our way up the trail. He showed us their entire process from harvesting the beans from the fruit to grinding the beans to brewing the coffee. We even scored some coffee liqueur at the end. This was a wonderful experience and also a small glimpse into the local lifestyle.

Hot Springs

There had been a silver lining to our friend who was injured earlier in the hike. We had to split up the group which resulted in two entirely different experiences. The first group continued on to Llactapata, a steep mountain, and the second group took a ride to the Aguas Termales de Cocalmayo hot springs in Santa Teresa. You can make a guess as to which group had the injured person in it. The hot springs were unlike anything else we had experienced on the trip. There were natural flowing waters, canopy tops, paved floors, it's as if we arrived at a tropical hideaway. (Photos above courtesy of google as we were too relaxed to lift a finger.)

Llactapata

After a high energy morning hike which brought us up and over another mountain, we arrived at Llactapata. This place has one of the most breathtaking views in the world. Situated in a clearing on the side of a mountain, it gives you a vantage point to see both green and snow capped peaks from miles around, a waterfall below, and with a good eye and a clear day, you can spot the ruins of Machu Picchu in the distance for the first time. Pictures do not do it justice, but it was a great morale booster for our group and a wonderful spot to stop and rest in the middle of the day.  Llactapata is also known for its own ruins which you can explore at your leisure or even camp at.

Things to Plan Head

As with any adventure, a little preparation will go a long way in making sure you have the best experience possible with minimal inconvenience.  Here are a few things to do ahead of time so that your Salkantay hike is the best it can be.

Purchase Machu Picchu Tickets - You need to purchase tickets ahead of time in order to get access to the famous ruins of Machu Picchu. These can go fast so you will need to do this part several months beforehand.  You can choose just exploring the ruins, the ruins and hiking Machu Picchu mountain, or the ruins and Hiking Huayana Picchu mountain (the one that is in all of the pictures). I found the cheapest way to get these tickets when booking as individuals and not a tour group, is directly from the government website. This website is quite dated and in Spanish, so we will soon be posting a step-by-step guide of how to book your tickets.  Make sure you give yourself at least 5 days between arriving in Cusco and going up Machu Picchu. You do not want to miss your day at the ruins because you didn’t get through the trail quickly enough!

Route & amount of distance per day - Make sure to plan out your exact route along the Salkantay. This can be done along the way, but is much easier to do before you are on the trail without cell service. There are several maps that can be printed off (we don’t spend money on tourist maps!) and many of them have recommendations of stopping points for each day to keep you on track and make the most of your experience.

Your fitness - Hiking the Salkantay is not an easy feat.  Our group consisted of experienced hikers and it was certainly challenging for each of us. You are hiking for roughly 9 hours a day several days in a row all while carrying a 30lb pack. This will test your body. Do practice hikes around your local area in the months leading up to the trip. Preferably with a pack to get used to the extra weight.

Get ready for the altitude - Altitude sickness sucks. In our group, half of us were affected by altitude sickness and half were not. It really varies and there is no way to guarantee that it will not affect you. In fact, with the highest point of the pass at 15,000 ft, it will likely affect you in some way.  The best thing you can do is try to acclimatize slowly. Cusco sits just over 11,000 ft and is usually the starting point for people doing the Salkantay Trail. If you can, give yourself a few days in Cusco before you start hiking. It is a beautiful little city to explore and it will give you some time to get used to the thin air before you start doing strenuous activities.  There are also medications that can be purchased or prescribed to help avert these affects. Finally, there is mate de coca, or coca tea, which is sold all around the area. For generations, the coca leaves have been used to ward off the effects of altitude sickness and they are still used today. I can personally vouch for this one, as I was hit hard by altitude sickness my first day on the trail. However, each morning I would have my coca tea, then would chew on the leaves as we started our hike for the day and it really did wonders for me.

Test your equipment - So you have made sure you have everything you need for this hike. But how do you know it will hold up during your adventure? You need to test your equipment before taking it on such a journey. 

1. Tent - Take out your tent and make sure it is waterproof. We used a sealer for the seams of our tent as well as Kiwi’s waterproof spray for the tent overall. We then tested it using a water hose to simulate a steady rain and the inside stayed perfectly dry. Also, remember to have a tarp underneath your tent. Getting wet from underneath is just as bad! 

2. Pack - You should also test out your hiking pack to not only make sure it has good comfort and utility, but most packs also have rain covers that should be tested beforehand. The same thing goes for rain jackets and water repellent hiking pants. 

3. Boots - Your boots are probably your most important equipment. You need to make sure they are form fitting. Too small will give you excess blisters and pain, too large let your feet slide around and greatly increase your chance of twisting an ankle. You also need to make sure your boots are broken in. While buying brand new boots for a hike sounds exciting, it is a quick way to destroy your feet. You need boots that have already formed to your foot shape and that are still comfortable and reliable after several wears.

Main things to remember on the trail

Rise with the sun - get up as soon as there is some light so that you can break down camp and get ready to hike. This way you make sure you have the most amount of daylight possible for hiking. Believe me when I tell you that it is vastly more difficult to hike in the dark even with good headlamps. There is a higher likelihood of straying off trail and getting lost. Get up early and this won’t be a concern.

Slow and steady - Like the proverbial tortoise, slow and steady really does win this race. Since you started first thing in the morning, relax and don’t push yourself too hard. Remember, the purpose is to enjoy your hike and take in the beauty around you. Keep a nice, steady pace and the miles will melt away. Keeping this pace will also help protect you from injury. Every single injury I have seen during a hike has come from a fatigued hiker who was trying to push their bodies too much. Make sure to take breaks when needed and drink plenty of water.

Drinking water - For multiple day hikes like the Salkantay, you need water and lots of it. However water is heavy. You can’t carry all that you need with you, so you will need to fill up along the way. The most important things to remember are not to get your water from stagnant pools and to treat the water. The Salkantay has a lot of waterfalls and rivers so finding a source of running water will not be hard. You could also ask to get water from the locals, but there is no guarantee that is any safer than getting it from the streams.

Hidroelectrica

The hike through the Salkantay eventually brings you to Hidroelectrica. This is really a train stop turned small village. Here people can continue to make the trek to Aguas Calientes at the base of Machu Picchu, or they can opt to take the train the rest of the way.  The train is pricey, however, and this is only a half day hike from Aguas Calientes. Besides, you want to be able to say you HIKED all the way to Machu Picchu! We decided to stop in Hidroelectrica for lunch, then trekked the rest of the way. We also knew we would only be at Augas Calientes/Machu Picchu for one day so we decided to leave our hiking packs with the owner of the restaurant where we had lunch and opted to take our day packs the rest of the way. The nice thing about the rest of the hike is that even though it’s about 12km it is almost completely FLAT. That combined with having almost no weight to carry meant a much faster hike.

Where to stay in Aguas Calientes

The town at the base of Machu Picchu is remote and picturesque.  However, because this is such a highly trafficked tourist destination, the town has prices to match. As you hike into Aguas Calientes, you come in from the downhill side. The very first hotels you come across are large and ornate, rivaling the fancy hotels of large cities. Here is where you will see the older tourists. Here is where you will be received with a welcome in English. And here is where you will spend several hundreds of dollars per night.  However, the farther up the hill you go, or if you go to the buildings behind the main street, the hotels and hostels get significantly cheaper.  You may need to brush up on your Spanish a little, but we were able to negotiate a deal for our crew for less than 1 tenth the cost of the hotels at the bottom. Especially after 4 days of hiking and camping, a clean bed and a hot shower was more than enough for us!

When you are at Machu Picchu

The entire trip has built to this moment. You climb the switchbacks to the top of the mountain and there you are...in front of the gates amidst a sea of people with no ruins in sight.  There are 3 things that I recommend you do first

Go to the bathroom - This will be your last chance until you come out of the site and it’s actually quite difficult to get back in once you come out. Get it done now and then enjoy Machu Picchu for as long as you can.

Get a Spanish speaking tour guide - This is one area where we splurged. To get the knowledge of someone who truly knows the site was well worth it. We were able to learn a lot of the history of this famous site with our guide and once the tour was done, we still had time to explore for ourselves. She also helped us get through the gate quicker and showed us some of the best spots to take pictures. Also, if you get a Spanish speaking guide, it is cheaper than getting an English speaking guide. Our guide actually spoke both which worked out great for us because she gave us a tour in English but at the lower price!

Get in line - It takes a little while to get through the gates and into the site. Make sure you are ready so you can get right in and enjoy your time at Machu Picchu. Your guide can help expedite this process.

Once you are inside, get as many pictures as you want, explore the ruins, watch the llamas, and marvel at the architecture built into this mountain.  One thing that I loved about Machu Picchu is that while it is quite touristic, each group has a set time slot.  It gives you plenty of time to explore while also giving you enough space to truly enjoy it and to get beautiful pictures without people constantly blocking your way.  On your way out of the site, remember to stop by the stand where they have the special Machu Picchu stamp for your passport! It is a wonderful memento to have.