#and moving to a new city while waiting for the scholarship and aid to drop

[missingthetouch]

The more I’m on here the more I want to buy pretty new lingerie and sex toys to play with, but I’m too broke to do anything over than take screenshots and dream 🥺

[that-thing-that-feeling]

Yeah I agree I think it makes a lot more sense for Jonathan to take the first job(s) he can get in his new town, than wait to find the perfect photography job. I don’t know a lot about photography in the 80s, but I’d imagine there wasn’t a lot of part-time work available for amateurs that was profitable enough to make a partial living off of. Photography is and always has been Jonathan’s biggest passion, and main character trait in the eyes of the audience, so it’s pretty much the one aspect of his character that the Duffers will never forget about. I’m sure the series will end with him finding success in the photography world, but keep in mind that he’s only 18 and his primary motivation has always been taking care of his family before taking care of himself and his own desires. Plus his family just moved and added an extra mouth to feed, so they’ll need some extra money now more than ever, even if they did get a settlement from Hopper’s death as I suspect.

Also, while I agree that it would be great if Jonathan got to go to his dream school, I think we at least need to try to stay realistic. Not that I think he couldn’t get in, but NYU has always been one of the most expensive non-Ivy League schools in the country, especially for out-of-staters. And even if Jonathan managed to earn a hefty scholarship, we have to consider whether Jonathan would even still want to go. NYU was Jonathan’s dream school, but that was before all the upside down stuff and the move happened. I don’t really see him being okay with going to school in a city that’s an expensive 5 and a half hour flight away from his family. I think it would be much more likely for him to change his mind and decide to go to a more affordable California art school closer to home.

As for the Byers’ financial situation, I definitely agree that the Duffers seem to have forgotten how to, or just decided not to, bring it up in the show in a compelling and empathetic way. They did a good enough job talking about it in season 1, but they’ve kinda dropped the ball since. And I somewhat understand; financial struggles don’t necessarily fit in with the whole “weren’t the 80s wonderful!” tone they’re going for, and with all the new characters and plot lines I imagine it’d be difficult to find the time to talk about it. But still I do wish they could’ve talked about it more, especially in season 3, when the new mall was threatening to put Joyce’s place of work out of business, and when Nancy got Jonathan fired from a job he needed to help pay the bills (also I wish the writers hadn’t made Jonathan take all the blame for “not believing in Nancy #girlpower” when that literally wasn’t even what they were fighting about- Jonathan was upset that Nancy put her need to follow a story above him and his family’s need to bring in enough money to support themselves.) However, since the Byers will have a whole separate storyline on their own this next season, I imagine their financial situation will get talked about plenty.

I think the show cares too much about memes and corporate sponsorship and has sold out on following some of its grittier/quieter/more character- based plot lines as it had in s1 and the Byers financial situation has gotten lost in all that, so I wonder if they care to bring it back in s4 even though it would make sense to do so. They also just seem to have so many diff plot lines and new characters for s4 but I really wish they’d bring back that smaller scale writing and scenes again. Imo It’s what grounded s1. Re: NYU idk what financial aid was like in the 80s, and could see him going somewhere closer to home wherever that is by the end of s4 and also still working maybe a photography job or something else to pay for college, but I do feel like eventually Jonathan would be doing something with photography and his dreams and things if not, say, for all of s5, but it would be suggested by the end of the show. but if there wasn’t some conflict/struggle along the way I don’t think it would be as interesting to watch; and it’s one of the reasons I think the Byers move is a good plotline.

[rkshinwon-blog]

SO I’M LATE ... whoops ! packing has put me into a permanent hibernation so excuse the delay, but i’m here now to introduce you to both myself and my first rookies baby, ahh ! my name is jada, i use she / her pronouns, and ... my favorite animal is a sloth ?? this is my child, mister ko shinwon, the farmer boy who’s moved to the city to pursue his dreams & is living a double life ! i’ll be trying to keep things short, so let’s just get right to it ! i don’t have a plots page yet ( would you believe it, my app was sent in a week ago, my mind ... ) but you can check out his profile and background ! but i’ll let his story do the talking, so please scroll down for some trivia and like this for me to flutter into your ims for some plotting ! ( i’ll have a twitter soon ! ) but let’s get into it !

i’m warning you now some of this is copied from his bio i apologize sksks

country boy!!! he spent his whole childhood & high school years there, and while his heart is attached to the memories there, he moved out the second he could because he loves the city!

but at the same time, being in the city for so long he really misses home but...can’t go back for reasons we’ll explain later !

has a single mom, their dad took off soon after he started learning parenting = responsibilities and shinwon became basically the head of the family ! he still has a lot of unresolved anger at his dad which can sometimes be misdirected at others, but other than that it made him a much more nurturing person.

eldest son - and god, he is their family gem ! she always just knew it’d be shinwon who took them out of poverty & provided a better life & he only really ever kept up because he wanted them to be proud!.

so his mom has been rooting for him to be one of the golden 3 careers - a lawyer, a doctor, engineer ! he honestly just chose doctor because he liked how he looked in a lab coat and ran with it !  so his whole high school life was just him preparing for his future.

the thing is, though, he’s always wanted to write much more!! it’s his passion and he honestly wishes he could just do that.

was very studious in high school - more to please his family than anything - and got into snu ! financial aid / scholarships were really the only things that made it happen, but then he moved to seoul freshman year !! his mom was literally ... so ecstatic and had a whole sending away party for him in the neighborhood, furthering the pressure !

buuut sike ! just recently after his 2nd year, he dropped out because the pressure was overbearing & he realized he was desperately chasing a dream that didn’t even belong to him. student loans he didn’t need were stacking up & he began to realize more and more that he really hated the medical field !

but the catch ?? his mom doesn’t have a clue ! he dropped out quietly out of fear & thought he’d tell her right away, but the more time passed the less he was compelled to be honest & he just wanted to hide the truth ! 

so now, he’s pursuing his real dream - to be a rapper, however that looks for him. being an idol is still a bit of a far fetched dream, but he really just wants him to do anything that allows him to be on stage ! he loves making people smile & charisma is practically his superpower, so that’s why he loves it !!

buuut money is important, & now he’s had to move out of the school dorms & has to make a living since his dream hasn’t really took off yet ! so he works as a waiter at this high-end restaurant in seoul !

honestly it’s barely a step above minimum wage, but he gets by ! how ? the power of charisma ! while he waits to use his skills for the stage, he uses the smiles, jokes, and looks for waiting tables to get as many tips as possible !!

he’s one of the customer favorites at his job and gets on his coworker’s NERVES because he just doesn’t shut up about everyone liking him !

alsooo works at an internet cafe ! he just recently took up the job bc he needs the extra cash, and it doesn’t require much commitment on his part !

his mom is always calling him for updates, asking to see him, and it really breaks his heart. he can’t fathom breaking her heart with the news and doesn’t want to face her because it’s making her upset ! he knows it’s straining their relationship but he just can’t do it right now ! but we shall see where that leads later on !

ok so he’s kind of got two sides going on -  the real him, and the extra him lmao ! it’s not like he has multiple personalities or anything, but the extra him tends to be shown more on the outside bc honestly it’s kind of a shield to hide his feelings & all that ! the truth is that shinwon is almost always stressing about literally everything but doesn’t want that to be known, so on the outside he’s super chill about everything and always cracking jokes !

he may come off a little cocky / goofy sometimes, but he is seriously one of the most loyal people ever ! if he’s close to you will give his foot, kidney, anything you need from him ! 

he’s also deathly afraid of dogs & cats but like ... we’re gonna hope that goes away bc i want him to have a pet sksks .... but for now it’s a no !! he will scream !!

honestly he just wants to live a life doing what he loves, and make his family proud in the process. is that pheasible ? probably not ! but he just wants to live his best life instead of living 2 okay

but ... yeah !! i think that’s it, i don’t want to overload you guys but please plot with my baby !! i love you all !!

[the-colony-roleplay]

Juliana Casiano | Forty;  Elite

House: Calyset Status: Uninfected Elite Specification: Lab Researcher and Science Teacher Alignment: New Wave Reformist

History

Juliana and her brother were complete opposites. He was skipping school, partying, and getting in fights while Juliana was studying, sleeping, or organizing one of her many extra curricular activities. In most houses Juliana would have been the golden child, the source of her parent’s pride, but in her household it was her brother. In her parents’ eyes he was the one living life to the fullest and the one that would eventually take over the family business. It wasn’t until he started being extremely irresponsible with the family’s delicate inventory, that their parents realized he had a problem. Growing up, Juliana didn’t really understand why there always seemed to be hushed voices around her parents restaurant and why there was a room she wasn’t allowed in but delivery drivers were allowed to come and go  as they pleased. Soon, she became aware that the reason for those things was that her parents were one of the largest distributors of illegal drugs in Queens. Learning this about her parents only made Juliana commit to her studies more as she desperately wanted to be different than her parents and knew someone like her brother was bound to get wrapped up in it all. Looking back, she wished she hadn’t left her brother to deal with it: their parents, the business, the drugs, and eventually his addiction. But at time, Juliana couldn’t predict the consequences of her actions and was simply doing what she thought was best.

Juliana’s intense commitment to her academics and clubs initially paid off well as she graduated valedictorian of her private Catholic school and was heavily awarded scholarships to NYU. In the summer before going to college, Juliana decided to work at her parent’s restaurant to pay for the few things her scholarships wouldn’t cover. There she met a young man who worked with the more illegal side of things. At first she had no interest in someone as irresponsible as him but as June turned into July, Juliana realized that she missed out on being carefree. All through school, she only cared about making good grades and having the perfect college application, never caring about parties or drugs or boys. When Rodrigo, the young man, asked if she wanted to go to a Fourth of July fireworks show with him she refused to think about the possible consequences and agreed to go. As they made love underneath the fireworks, for the first time in her life she let the worries melt away. However, her new carefree attitude was short lived when her pregnancy test turned out positive a week before she is supposed to move into the NYU dorms. To Juliana’s surprise, Rodrigo really seemed to step up to the plate. He bought an apartment for them both and fully furnished the nursery, promising to take care of both Juliana and their baby together. And of course, she fell for it.

Rodrigo went back to the life of crime and drugs and Juliana quickly failed out of online school as juggling motherhood and grades good enough to uphold her scholarships was more than she could handle. However, it wasn’t all bad, Juliana loved her son, Christopher, more than anything in the world. It wasn’t until Rodrigo got sent to prison that she realized that both of them were not setting very good examples for their son. With Christopher being in elementary school, Juliana got a job as a teachers assistant and went back to college.

She managed to get her PhD in Chemistry and start her job working as a pharmaceutical scientist for a private company called Asclepius Pharmaceuticals where she created new compounds and medicines to help treat diseases. One of those diseases happened to be one that Juliana’s brother suffered from and many other people around the world suffered from. While technology had taken off and treatment of autoimmune diseases such as HIV and AIDS was so far progressed that it was barely a problem, the disease of addiction was still rampant with stigma, leaving very little progress on the medical sides of things. Juliana had seen her brother fight for his sobriety time after time and was determined to find a cure. In 2156, Juliana found a cure for addiction with a simple injection that needed to be administered once a year. Her employers were ecstatic but knew it needed to go through years of trials before it could be released to the public. Juliana was too excitable to wait for her cure to go through trials before she helped her loved one and decided to administer her brother the injection. Within days, he no longer craved drugs or alcohol of any kind and did not experience any withdrawals. Unfortunately, the world went up in flames the next year along with Juliana’s cure to addiction.

New York City was one of the many cities along the coast that faced flooding. When debris fell from the sky and struck the Chrysler building, everyone assumed it was a terrorist attack. The whole city never forgot the terror that their ancestors faced with the attack on the World Trade Center. Juliana who had just arrived at work, frantically tried to get ahold of Christopher as the city shook with impact and parts of buildings dropped from the sky. As soon as the power went out, Juliana knew she was going to have a hard time finding any of her loved ones. She ran out onto the streets and tried to make her way to her son’s apartment but was confronted by water up to her hips. Juliana along with many others were swept away by the current only stopping when being slammed up against a heavy object. After ten minutes of weaning in and out of consciousness, getting thrown around the currents, Juliana was pulled from the water by a Good Samaritan. She had nine broken ribs and shattered her wrist. Juliana didn’t completely come to until about a week later when she woke up in some kind of temporary infirmary. She later learned she was at some kind of mass emergency shelter at the Yankee Stadium. When she awoke, she had a hard time moving and breathing but was able to ask about her son and her brother. Somehow, someway, they were alive and safe.

The three of them stayed together, living at the temporary shelter at the Yankee Stadium. In the beginning, rescue teams would find four to six survivors a day but as the weeks went on that number significantly decreased. There was no more government, only those who were fit for leadership. After about six months of living in the Stadium and an entire month of no successful rescues, Leadership decided it was time to move to a more stable shelter. Everyone was informed that they would be moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where everyone would get a proper bed instead of a cot. Juliana was very optimistic about the move since Christopher was beginning to suffer from migraines which she assumed was from lack of sleep.

Juliana Today

When they first arrived at the colony, everything was great. However, Christopher’s migraines only progressed and her brother started to suffer extreme withdrawals from her injections. Juliana offered to help the colony create pain medication for those who were suffering, as long as they provided her with the supplies. The colony was happy to oblige and Juliana began to work for them, helping people with all illnesses including her son and her brother. Juliana’s brother suddenly died within weeks of showing withdrawal symptoms. She became riddled with guilt and threw herself into her work. Juliana was terrified her son’s fate would be the same but then all of a sudden he was fine. No more migraines, no more shaky skin. He was back to the same 17 year old boy he was before the headaches started. One day Christopher was training with some guys, when one of them accidentally hit him too hard. Christopher had always been a bit of a hot head but what happened next  was unexplainable. The boy felt rage rise within him and then suddenly the metal structure in the training grounds became undone and pierced the boy who had hit him right through the chest. Juliana was pulled out of work and questioned by the leaders of the colony. No one had ever seen that happen before. There had been rumors of people developing particular abilities but nothing anyone actually believed, at least until then. Christopher was subjected to weeks of all kinds of testing and Juliana wasn’t allowed to visit him, as they believed him to be deadly. She only got to see him through a one sided window in which she observed the effects of her treatments. She worked tirelessly to try to find a cure or a treatment, anything to subside his abilities, but she found nothing. Juliana knew they were never going to stop testing him, he had become their lab rat and she had become a weapon. So she faked his death to release him into the wasteland, where he would at least have a chance at life.

Over the next few years she worked with the leaders of what formed into the first official colony and the NWRF. She became close to them and did their doings because she knew one day she would use it against them. When the NWRF asked her if she would like to go to Colony 22 to be a lab researcher and be someone they could trust during their overthrow, she agreed, insisting that the move could be good for her and her grief. Of course, she was hesitant on the fact that she would have to move away from her son in the wastelands. They had no contact since before that day but she had always hoped he would find his way back to her. Ultimately, Juliana knew the only safe way she would ever get to see her son again was if she took down the NWRF and freed the infected from their oppression.

Juliana has now been at Colony 22 for over a year. She is the star example of an uninfected reformist lab researcher who they take very much pride in, all while she is secretly working to overthrow them. Juliana is still riddled with guilt and anger and oftentimes finds it consuming her from the inside-out. Some days she finds even the smallest things intolerable, but others she finds herself frolicking in the lie that she has built. The woman is in a constant moral tug-of-war that she is quickly growing tired of. She is just hoping something comes to a head soon in the rebellion and will do anything to push that along.

If Juliana is not working or training or sleeping, you can usually find her in the chapel silently praying for her son’s safety in the wastelands or in the pub with a glass of red wine after working all day. Although Juliana appears to the public to be a disciplined and polite woman, behind close doors Juliana has a fire within her that only few get to see.

CLOSED

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: Constance Woodson Worked Hard All Her Life. How Did She End Up Homeless During a Pandemic?

A few days after her 60th birthday, Constance Woodson took in the early-June sun on a bench in New York City’s Madison Square Park. Masked, except when she sipped her coffee, she reflected on her luck. The good news was that, in the midst of a pandemic, she had secured a job, as a contact tracer. She could do it from her home, with a company-issued laptop and headset. The bad news was that her current home was a room in a hotel–provided by New York City’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS)–where, she was informed, laptops were not permitted and wi-fi was not provided. Woodson had finally found a job that might get her out of her long struggle with homelessness, but she couldn’t do it, because she was homeless.

The DHS caseworkers at the Best Western Bowery Hanbee eventually told her she could bring in the laptop. But there was still the wi-fi issue, and then Woodson would have to figure out how to do a sensitive task with a roommate who liked to watch Disney cartoons day and night with the blinds drawn, and without chairs or lamps. They had been removed, she was told, because the hotel was being sold. “The system is not designed to move you forward,” she says. “I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, but it’s been heartbreak after heartbreak.”

At last count, in 2019, more than 560,000 Americans were homeless, and 16.5% of them–about 92,000 people–were in New York State. New York City has the highest number of homeless people of any metropolitan area in the U.S., although Washington, D.C., has the highest per capita, and because of New York City’s extensive shelter system, Los Angeles has far more people living on the streets. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 40% of homeless people are African American, like Woodson.

Homelessness has recently been getting worse, with a 3% increase in the number of homeless people just in the past year. But, says Nan Roman, head of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “there’s never been anything like this.” One Columbia University analysis of unemployment figures suggested that by the end of 2020, homelessness would increase by 40%. In July, about 44.5 million Americans told the Household Pulse Survey takers at the Census Bureau that they either hadn’t made last month’s mortgage or rent payment on time or doubted they could make the next one. Unless Congress acts, the moratorium on evicting people from most federally subsidized housing will run out at the end of July. “Starting on July 25, 2020, landlords must give 30-day notice before pursuing eviction for nonpayment between March 27, 2020, and July 24, 2020,” says a HUD official. The Aspen Institute estimates that by October, 1 in 5 American renters could face eviction.

The world they will encounter is, to be generous, not very compassionate. Even before the pandemic, Woodson was kept at such distance and treated with such suspicion that she often felt as if she were contagious. In the COVID era, life for unsheltered people has gotten even more desperate. John Sheehan, director of ecumenical outreach services for Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, who has been working among the homeless community for 40 years and who has known Woodson since 2018, says it’s not just that people have nowhere to go, no bathrooms to use, and fewer places to sleep, it’s that even the few dollars they used to get from passersby have dried up with the lack of foot traffic. “They’ve lost all the connections to the community,” says Sheehan. “I met one of my regular clients, and he said he hadn’t eaten for three days.”

Kholood Eid for TIMEWoodson holds a yoga warrior pose in Central Park on July 16

People end up with nowhere to live for myriad reasons, but there is one constant: it’s much easier to lose a home than to get a new one. Eight years ago, when her mother died after a three-year illness, Woodson discovered the family owed so much money on the home the two of them had lived in with Woodson’s daughter, Joelle, that the bank was repossessing it. Since then, her opportunities for stable housing have flattened like a slowly leaking tire. The experience has upended not only her sense of security but also her self-image. “I do not recognize this person that I have become,” says Woodson, who says at one point she briefly considered suicide. “I keep trying to figure out how I got here, what I did wrong.”

Woodson’s story is not full of dramatic mistakes. She recalls her childhood as middle-class; her father was a musician, and her mom worked in HR at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. It was, she says, “domestically turbulent”; her parents divorced when she was young, and her mother got the house. Woodson has worked most of her life, including seven years in health care administration and 13 as a manicurist at a high-end spa. In 2008, she got a degree in organizational leadership and development from Rockhurst University. With the aid of scholarships, she and her ex-husband put Joelle through Kansas City’s prestigious Pembroke Hill School, and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in New York.

But the foreclosure revealed how precarious her situation really was. By many estimates, homeownership is the most reliable wealth-building vehicle the American economic factory has ever produced. Home equity allows people to get money when they need it, which delivers them from many financial perils. It can also help them to accrue and pass along wealth. Paying off a home, however, requires not only a certain level of income but a reliable one. Otherwise, people can end up worse off than they started. Labor Department figures show that in April, on the heels of the economic shutdown, fewer than half of all African Americans were employed, the lowest rate in four decades.

In the first quarter of 2020, 74% of white people owned their homes, whereas only 44% of Black people did. This is due in part to discriminatory practices over the years that have limited Black people’s access to homes in certain areas and to mortgages, especially those at attractive interest rates. This disparity in ownership is one of the reasons that, in 2016, the median Black household wealth was $13,024 while the median white house-hold had $149,703. The loss of a home, moreover, doesn’t affect just one generation. When RPI closed its dorms for the summer, Joelle took low-paying employment as a camp counselor just to ensure a roof over her head. “What freaks me out is the fragility of everything,” Joelle says. “There’s a very thin line between having a roof and not having a roof.”

As the few jobs following the spa’s closure dried up, Woodson did what most people do when they have to move out and don’t have much money: she moved around from city to city, staying with friends or family, bartering her car for rent, dipping into her savings and petsitting. By 2016, Kansas City no longer felt like home, so she decided to join her daughter in New York. She bought a one-way ticket east, and arrived on the day Joelle graduated.

While she looked for work, Woodson bunked in with Joelle and her three roommates, but she was never able to pay much rent, and after about a year, the situation grew tense. Joelle, 26, paid for so many Airbnbs that she too began to get into financial difficulty. She still gives her mother as much money as she can spare, but she can’t afford a place for them both on her salary. “I worry about my mother every single day,” says Joelle, who works for a communications and marketing agency. “There’s a limit to what you can actually do. You hope there’s some other system that can pick up what you can’t, but there’s actually not.”

Woodson is resourceful, funny and plucky. Sheehan says she’s always advising other participants in his programs on where to find meals or a bed. She’s a client advocate at the Coalition for the Homeless. She gets SNAP food benefits ($194 a month) and keeps her Medicaid up to date, but has never been on welfare. But on March 20, when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo imposed the stay-at-home order, none of that was enough.

First, a church-run shelter Woodson used most Sundays to get a decent sleep (and where I occasionally volunteer) closed. Then the drop-in center where she sometimes scored a chair for the night halved its intake. One of her daughter’s roommates had been in contact with someone who had the virus, so Woodson couldn’t go there. The now deserted streets became an even less safe place for a woman on her own to sleep. Many of the soup kitchens closed, as they figured out how to feed people safely. Woodson, who had always resisted entering a city-run shelter, believing she was better off on her own, finally applied for a place. “I thought, I’m resilient, I’ve been through so much,” she says. “I can just do this for a few months, until I get a job.”

The DHS has helped countless people get off the streets, but Woodson found it to be illsuited to assist someone like her. Those who are the most vulnerable–physically disabled, mentally ill, addicted or formerly incarcerated–have particular programs to assist them with a place to live. Woodson is none of those things. She falls to the bottom of the list for those who need help. “They did a lot of blood tests and psych evaluations,” she says. “They looked at me, and I could tell they didn’t know what to do with me.”

At first, she was assigned to the 200-bed Casa de Cariño in the Bronx, which had just become the first shelter to have a reported case of COVID-19. (The DHS says that as of July 16, it has found 1,358 people living in shelters or on the street with COVID-19; 1,189 of them have recovered, and 103 of them have died.) Terrified, she called Joelle, who called an old friend. He had an apartment in Brooklyn that was waiting for renters who had changed their minds when the virus hit. He let Woodson stay there while it was empty.

Having a place to go to, to cook, to stay allowed Woodson to recall what it was like to be regarded as just a person walking down the street instead of a “street person.” She was not an outcast, not a problem. “It is so much better than I thought,” she said after a few weeks there. “I’m in a neighborhood. There are all sorts of people wandering around. I’m just one of them.”

By the time the landlord needed his apartment, most New York City shelter residents had been moved to hotels. The Best Western seemed clean and safe, but having tasted autonomy, Woodson found the restrictions arbitrary and cruel. The staff were overwhelmed, and she could never get in to see her case manager. She says she even got to envying her room-mate, “perfectly content watching her cartoons and stocking up on snacks.”

Just as she began to sink into despair, a family from one of the churches she went to offered her their apartment; they had moved with their five kids to Texas for the summer. All she now needed was the equipment for her new job, but having no permanent address slowed the delivery, and a month passed before she was actually working. The family’s lease is up at the end of July. As of press time, Woodson was not sure where she would go.

Perhaps if Woodson has made any mistake, it is this: She hoped for too much. She hoped for more than America was prepared to offer a Black woman who has had some run-of-the-mill setbacks. She will not settle for cartoons and free snacks. Woodson doesn’t want to be on welfare, doesn’t want to be in the shelter system, doesn’t want to just pick up jobs here and there. She wants meaningful work, independence and stability. She wants to be the one who can offer her daughter a place to stay during the pandemic.

Shopping for food at her local corner store in the Bronx, she can’t find healthy options. She wants to ask the people there: “Why do you feel like this is what we should settle for?” But she doesn’t. She just takes the long walk to Whole Foods and buys a little less. And she wants a place of her own. “I’m done with the shelter system,” Woodson says. “My plan is never to return.”

When she feels down, Woodson has two antidotes: yoga and the preacher T.D. Jakes, whom she listens to most mornings. “T.D. Jakes talks about mountains,” she says. “You can’t go around them. You have to go over them. My mom made the decision to get a reverse mortgage, and I can’t get around it.” Recently she was listening to a sermon about the beggars at the gates of Jerusalem. “I feel like that’s me,” she says. “I can see the gates, but I can’t quite get through them.”

Despite it all, Woodson retains her positive outlook. She can’t help but notice the kinds of problems she’s been wrestling with for years have emerged in other people’s lives during the pandemic. Suddenly everyone has to play by more rules; everyone is regarded with a little more suspicion; lots of people have limited access to public bathrooms. Suddenly there are many stories of men and women who face great uncertainty, worry about rent, have to think about whether there will be food that day. “People are worried about losing their houses. I know what that feels like,” she says. “It’s not, ‘Look what I’ve gone through. Welcome to my world.’ It’s that I haven’t felt so much like the outsider or the freak. I feel like now, finally, we’re all in this together–and maybe we can have a conversation.”

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[kyohiba]

Xue Yang’s 420 Punishing Reincarnations AU. Final Modern Setting

but hmmmmmm I Wonder,

in that final one,

yeeting patriarch how did they all come to meet

in another one of his reincarnation he gets pimples every week

LMAO SORRY

mmMMMMM good question

we said they meet a-qing last

ssyifpfff🌙 do we wanna be cheesy lmao

8h 8 hours ago yes, since shes a lot younger than them

as long the Angst Lives On,

the beginning of their meeting needs some angst

yeeting patriarch either song lan or xue yang meeting xiao xingchen, the beginning of their relationships...

OH MAYBE XUE YANG NEEDS HELP FOR WHATEVER REASON N XXC FINDS HIM, LIKE MAYBE HE FALLS N HURTS HIMSELF N XXC PUTS A BAND AID ON OR SOME SHIT

ssyifpfff🌙 as an allusion to when they meet in yi city uwu

8h 8 hours ago ssyifpfff🌙 so tht its familiar n xue yang gets the de javus

8h 8 hours ago OMG. PARALLELS

yeeting patriarch HELL YEA PLEASE

n then he can meet song lan while going to buy groceries idk

ssyifpfff🌙 maybe they fite for the last bag of avocados

8h 8 hours ago yeeting patriarch what about xxc and song lan were childhood friends and had a fight and suddenly young song lan had to move out and never got to apologize to xxc but then years later he moved back and found xxc again

ssyifpfff🌙 as long as no one loses any eyes

8h 8 hours ago NO LOSING EYES

yeeting patriarch EVERYONE HAS THEIR EYES AND EYESIGHT

ssyifpfff🌙 NO HEAVY ANGST IN THIS HOUSE FOR THIS LIFETIME

8h 8 hours ago like. first xxc meets xue yang

who got hurt... uhh... how he couldve gotten hurt...

yeeting patriarch lmao he was skating and while doing a Sick Move TM he mf fell down and got wrecked

YES PLS LMAO

A SICK MOVE

ssyifpfff🌙 he got an arm cramp while dabbing

8h 8 hours ago innocent xxc was passing by at the time, saw everything and went to help xue yang. because his golden pure heart lives on

yeeting patriarch HE DABBED WHILE DOING THOSE SKATE FLIPS AND FELL DOWN ON HIS FACE

ssyifpfff🌙 HE BROKE HIS NECK HITTING THT WHOA

8h 8 hours ago yeeting patriarch as xxc helped him, xue yang experiences the Doki

xxc takes him to his apartment to take care of his wounds

and after this incident, xue yang shows up a lot around xxc's place

yeeting patriarch (hes got a bit of a bad situation at home, hes always outside like a stray cat)

ssyifpfff🌙 hes like "should i take u to a hospital?" n xue yang i slike NO GO AWAY "then let me at least bandage u, my apartment is close by" xue yangs gay ass: oh worm?

8h 8 hours ago yeeting patriarch YES

N THEY SLOWLY BECOME CASUAL FREIDNS THEN ..... SOMETHIN ELSE

ssyifpfff🌙 WE GOTTA GET THT DOMESTIC BLISS

8h 8 hours ago yeeting patriarch BUT IT'S SLOW BURN

mayb xue yang is a runaway n is in need of a roomie

ssyifpfff🌙 YES SLOW BURN OBV

8h 8 hours ago remember: this time he gotta earn for xxc's affections

yes! xue yang its ur turn to cook

yeeting patriarch xxc is a bit wary of him for some reason although he helped and helps him out. his good heart cannot ignore it

ssyifpfff🌙 them going to buy groceries n xue yang being a Pro at bargaining for lower prices

8h 8 hours ago yeeting patriarch ever so slowly, xiao xingchen at first really starts feeling he got himself to take care of a stray cat

like............ this happened in yi city tbh, xue yang did manage to make xxc laugh like no one else :(

ssyifpfff🌙 im sad now

8h 8 hours ago yeeting patriarch PARALLELS... KEEP THEM COMING

ssyifpfff🌙 XXC HAS TO SEE XUE YANG HAS A GOOD HEART EVEN IF HE LOOKS LIKE A DELINQUENT

8h 8 hours ago yeeting patriarch at some point though,

xue yang gets 100% kicked out his home

he has nowhere else to go

truth to be told, boi got no close friends

it's a rainy night

and xiao xingchen is coming home after uni (what is he studying)

in front of his place, in the rain, is xue yang

yeeting patriarch when he realizes xingchen came, xue yang looks up and tries to grin at xxc but he only manages a half smile

BABEYYY

HE SAID NO ANGST FOR HIM IN THIS LIFETIME ASDFGRFGVS

ssyifpfff🌙 i WANT xxc to be studyin at cheff school but i think med school would fit him better

8h 8 hours ago yeeting patriarch MED SCHOOL FOR SURE

ssyifpfff🌙 n it would make sense as to why he has bandages n is good at putting thm on

8h 8 hours ago Y E S

xue yang currently a drop out for financial problems due his situation at home

we really ain't giving it easy for xue yang even in the reincarnation it should be finally Ok for him

yeeting patriarch Understandable

ssyifpfff🌙 we had to do it to him

8h 8 hours ago yeeting patriarch at the sight of xue yang in the rain looking Miserable TM, xingchen's heart aches

at this point they been getting close, xue yang casually COINDICENTALLY going to the same skating place over n over even tho its actually not tht big or tht good for skating

ssyifpfff🌙 god we rly made him a skater boi

8h 8 hours ago ssyifpfff🌙 see ya later boi

8h 8 hours ago i cannot see it now

skater boi xue yang confirmed

anyway

xingchen let's xue yang stay over as xue yang kinda explains the situation

he promises he will find himself a place and wont get in the way

yeeting patriarch but... yknow how it is when the Living Together situation happens

in reality xue yang is Super smart, like genious smart like ash lynx smart, n xxc prob notices n encourages him to pursue a studyin path

xxc is a nerd in all his lifetimes

ssyifpfff🌙 tht way xue yang could get a scholarship n help

8h 8 hours ago yeeting patriarch OH NOOOOO GOT SLAPPED BY A THOUGHT THAT ENDED ME kinda nicely

ssyifpfff🌙 SLAP M

8h 8 hours ago as xingchen let's xue yang stay over, he gets xue yang a place to sleep in his living room. it's the only available place, his apartment isn't big. and in the morning, when xingchen wakes up, he finds xue yang sleeping kinda curled up like a cat, sleeping occupying a small place

yeeting patriarch also xue yang being Genius 💯 xingchen noticing it and encouraging him 💯💯💯

OH BABEY SAIDFGDSKFJBGS

a tiny stray cat

ssyifpfff🌙 its such a cheesy metaphor in fics BUT I LOVE ITTT

7h 7 hours ago as time goes by,

they grow closer

yeeting patriarch xue yang starts even helping xingchen with his studies although this isnt an area he likes nor has much interest

yeeting patriarch they go on growing close

xingchen starts paying more attention to some things about xue yang. that he carries a sadness within him

masked by his delinquent attitude

xingchen starts lowering his walls

yeeting patriarch (at this point xue yang is already deep in love but yknow tsun boy)

tsun boy skater boy

asdfka, xue yang going to xxcs campus n waiting around for his classes to end

"no i just like the sandwiches from the cafeteria here" "but ur broke" "IM HERE TO SMELL THEM"

ssyifpfff🌙 n xxc buys him the dam sandwich n they sit to eat together T0T

7h 7 hours ago hoes trying to approach xue yang as he waits for xingchen, since xue yang is Good Looking. But he... hisses at other people

hes only... non feral around xingchen

what would xue yang study tho 🤔

yeeting patriarch before he had to drop out and then when he managed to go back

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm well he did do all tht w the sticks on wen ning and song lan, maybe... neuroscience

or maybe he goes feral n studies art idk

ssyifpfff🌙 he would be good at anything really

7h 7 hours ago he does look like an art hoe somehow

and Yup. boi could do Anything

let's settle this later

yeeting patriarch as for now...

the domestic bliss continues

before they realize, they're searching for a bit bigger apartment. with at the least two rooms

(No Homo phase)

two bedrooms*

they manage to find one, share the living costs

domestic bliss lives on

THEN, ONE DAY...

at xingchen's uni

yeeting patriarch a new student arrives

yeeting patriarch 😏

he moved back to the city

xingchen and song lan immediately recognized each other

yeeting patriarch with some tension

ssyifpfff🌙 (no homo phase) LMAO

7h 7 hours ago yeeting patriarch xue yang, the bastard cat, goes wait for xingchen at his uni. grinning showing his fangs and all. unaware

xue yang sees xingchen's silhouette and approaches

then he noticed song lan

hes hit by some unknown feeling. similar the one he had when he first meet xingchen

he, clever bastard, notices the tension in the sir between the two hotties

yeeting patriarch hides close by, as xxc and sl didnt notice when he was approaching

hes a bit far and cant hear well their convo but picks a few words here and there

yeeting patriarch "it's been so long", "wanted to see you again", "i am sorry"

and hes there like "uuuuh am i bein cucked" but deep down he gets a feeling too

he prob feels he wants to go meet thm but shouldnt

thru their rship he prob feels a lot of guilt, specially seein thm together, n the worst part is tht he cant understand Why he feels tht guilt

he might think he should be around xxc if he has finally found some1, like he doenst wanna be in the way

all the while bein a chaotic bastard w sl ofc

ssyifpfff🌙 n song lan actually finds him fun to be around heh

7h 7 hours ago THE CONFLICTED FEELINGS... the feelings the doesnt understand...

chaotic ass xy starts Bottling Up it all

hes been getting Messy

as he sees xxc and sl getting closer and closer, getting along better and better

he feels he should Leave them. that unsettling mysterious guilty feeling is there all the time

yeeting patriarch although he enjoys being with the two so much

yeeting patriarch one day xy reaches his limit. his mind, his heart are a mess. hes always been on the emotionally constipated side, but now it was different and overwhelming

he was growing a bit distant the past few weeks. both xxc and sl noticed although xy tried to mask it, grinning around, as always

yeeting patriarch but his gaze would give him in sometimes

one day, as xxc comes home, he is greeted by silence. a dark and cold apartment. by that hour, xy was already at home. worry grew in xxc's heart

he called for xy, but no answers came

yeeting patriarch ANNND it's almost 02:30 am i need sleep Badly

yeeting patriarch meme ya Later. dream of this au. hmu with new thoughts. nyeehaw

ssyifpfff🌙 ASSADK XUE YANG dam u u done it again.

7h 7 hours ago ssyifpfff🌙 he didint even leave a note, but xxc knows him too well n finds him fast n asks wtf is up (not like tht obv) n xue yang cant explain properly but he basically confesses tht hes grateful for xxc opening his home to basically a stranger but he understands him n song lan crealry missed each other n he shouldnt get in the way

7h 7 hours ago ssyifpfff🌙 n xxc is like "but song lan n i,,,, we both love u so much"

7h 7 hours ago n song lan comes by (xxc called him so he could help w finding the cat) n hes like "heh u ran away bc ur jealous?" "IM NOT u idiot im leaving the way open for ur dumb ass" "n what about ur way? is it open too?" (IDK WHY im imagining song lan as a suave guy whn in reality hes prob rly dense n awkwards too but let me dream)

ssyifpfff🌙 xue yang is pikachu stunned.jpg

7h 7 hours ago yeeting patriarch I HAD TO READ THOSE BEFORE DREAMLAND i will reply properly when i Rise

ssyifpfff🌙 have a good dream nyari may the xue chara dev visit u in ur sleep

7h 6 hours ago yeeting patriarch IVE RISEN

SUAVE GUY SONG LAN IS HONESTLY TO LIVE FOR xy is a tsun, xxc kinda slow so somebody in this house gotta do the work

BUT IMAGINE

after he says that and xue yang goes pikachu_agape.jpg

xingchen on the side blushes furiously

yeeting patriarch then after a "..." 3 secs, song lan becomes a blushy mess

yeeting patriarch xxc, tenderly, grabs one of xy hands and tells him "let's go home"

xy feels like a bit part of that heavy feeling has been lifted from him as xxc holds into his hand and sl gazes softly at him. THEN, A RARE MOMENT HAPPENS... chaotic disaster xy, doesnt give his fangy grin, but a small smile

yeeting patriarch the three of them go to their home

after this, as some time goes by, before they realize, song lan has moved in with them. they bought a bigger bed

(No Homo phase kicked into outer space)

Song lan n xy just constantly embarrassing themselves n each other fskdhdjd

3h 3 hours ago now we gotta reach the a-qing point of the au

xxc gets a thirdhand embarrassment with them sometimes

i really, really like to think xue yang's sleeping habits are a bit like a cats

even the "more docile and cuddly when sleeping" part

SINCE WE MADE HIM SHORTER ON THIS, and i think both xxc and sl are 185cm... oh the bliss

yeeting patriarch AND OF COURSE HIS SWEET TOTH REMAINS

HES THE TINY ONE

IN A 3 PPL RSHIP WHOSE THE LITTLE SPOON??? IDK HOW BUT ITS HIM

ssyifpfff🌙 he’s the lettuce of the sandwich

3h 3 hours ago yeeting patriarch "are u a big or little spoon, xue yang?" xy: im a KNIFE xxc & sl, at the same time: hes the little spoon

ssyifpfff🌙 ASFGJSHFIUFM

3h 3 hours ago yeeting patriarch OMGGHSJKSKSK HOL P

ssyifpfff🌙 “I am a dagger under ur pillow” “ok”

3h 3 hours ago yeeting patriarch xxc keeping candies with him to give xy :')

ssyifpfff🌙 OFC

3h 3 hours ago xy says fuck it in this au and becomes a Baker

yeeting patriarch sl... what is he

ssyifpfff🌙 OOOH SO HE CAN MAKE DESSERTS!!!! YAS

3h 3 hours ago yeeting patriarch architect would be cool

Or designer engineer

ssyifpfff🌙 Or a VET

3h 3 hours ago OMG A VET

yeeting patriarch YES

ssyifpfff🌙 N he constantly compares xy w the kittens he attends

3h 3 hours ago YESSSSSSSSS

yeeting patriarch WE GOT IT, WE GOT IT ALL

“Today there was a black cat tht wouldn’t let me pick it up, reminded me of u” the next day “today there was a kitten tht wouldn t stop licking my hand, reminded me of u”

ssyifpfff🌙 “Today the cat bit me, reminded me of u”

3h 3 hours ago xxc - doctor sl - vet

SUIT THEM SO WELL

and baker xy... a pleasant surprise

he makes the best sweet stuff but hes a disaster cooking savory food. sweets only man

also T0T in the future when they get a-qing,

xy uses his baker ways to approach her

yeeting patriarch yknow like he did back then with the candies but this time... not devilishly

[newstfionline]

2017 was a terrible year to be a refugee. But at a massive camp, I saw hope.

By Kevin Sieff, Washington Post, December 28, 2017

DADAAB REFUGEE CAMP, Kenya--From above, the airstrip is an exclamation mark of asphalt, the only paved thing for miles, surrounded by an endless plain of lava-red sand.

When you descend, the shapes distinguish themselves. There is a pink bus parked on the edge of the airstrip. There are dozens of refugees with bags at their ankles, staring through the barbed wire at the plane that will take them from this 26-year-old camp. It’s the only place many have ever known.

Where they going? There are two possibilities. Either they have given up on refugee life--where every year there is less food, less shelter, less everything--and they are returning to Somalia. Or the miraculous has happened and they are on their way to the United States.

I’ve been visiting Dadaab, one of the world’s largest refu­gee camps, for the past three years. I’ve come to think of this strip of asphalt as the capital of the camp, the departure point for its luckiest and unluckiest residents, their lives overlapping one last time.

I can’t tell where the refugees are going until I ask them. Sometimes the answer is Omaha. Sometimes it is Mogadishu. Once a man held up his resettlement papers to show me where he was going. “Iowa,” the paper said, and he smiled in the 100-degree heat, sweating under his new winter jacket.

A few years ago, there were more plane trips to the United States than to Somalia. Now it’s the other way around. The resettlement of Somali refugees in the United States has almost ceased entirely. The Kenyan government is threatening to shutter the camp. Thousands are returning to a failed state, 50 miles away, that has been destroyed by nearly three decades of civil war.

So much of life in Dadaab is waiting for your trip to the airstrip, hoping your family will wind up on a flight to the United States and not the one to Somalia. There’s almost nothing you can do to determine whether that happens. “God decides,” Somalis say. But the camp is not a place of resignation--certainly not this year.

It was a year of Googling “Donald Trump” and texting the United Nations refugee office here and asking anyone who might know anything about the newest U.S. travel ban. Nowhere in the world was there a larger concentration of people who were affected by the White House’s decision to suspend refugee admissions--at first globally, then from 11 “high-risk,” mostly Muslim countries. In February, Dadaab had 14,500 people who were already in the pipeline for resettlement.

It was a year of looking for alternatives to the United States. I followed a 20-year-old girl as she competed for an impossibly competitive Canadian scholarship. There were whispers of Australian and Swedish and British solutions, most of which never materialized. There were Somalis joining the thousands of migrants crossing the Mediterranean. There were Somalis hiding in Nairobi.

It was a year of journalists, like me, asking permission to enter huts and tents the size of our laundry rooms, where families of seven slept in the dirt, treating us with far more generosity than we deserved.

“Would you like anything to eat?” I was asked over and over by people whose food rations have been slashed by the United Nations, which has struggled to cope with too many global crises. I once saw a man picking up grains of rice that had been dropped during an aid distribution.

What I wanted to know was how it felt to live in a hut at the end of the earth, while all of your escape routes narrowed; how people explained to their children what the world outside the camp looked like; how they bore such bad luck with such grace. What I asked was whether I could have a few minutes of their time.

Often, the refugees asked how I could help them--to do something for their children, improve their family shelter, ensure their trip was in the good plane, not the bad one.

Foreign correspondents have a ready answer for such questions--that we can’t directly assist the people we’re writing about, that hopefully our stories will effect some larger, systemic change.

But here’s a sad truth: The refugees of Dadaab are given less food now than when I started writing about them. The 5-year-old girl with cancer whom I wrote about--who is in need of medical treatment in the United States--is still blocked from traveling there, because of national security concerns.

The United Nations is still offering cash assistance to refugees who return to Somalia under a “voluntary repatriation” plan, even after some of the returnees were killed.

Sometimes I met refugees who were part of the first wave of arrivals here, reaching Dadaab just as Somalia’s civil war was beginning in the early 1990s. I asked them to describe the camp before it became a camp.

“There was nothing,” one man said.

“We made huts from the branches we found.”

“Some of the children died of mysterious illnesses.”

Now Dadaab has its own markets with clothes from China and watermelon from Somalia and camels from central Kenya. But tree branches are still propping up plastic sheets. There is a ban on “permanent structures” because, after all, refugee camps are meant to be temporary fixes.

How different is Dadaab in 1991 from northern Uganda in 2017--a place flooded with more than a million South Sudanese refugees after intense fighting across the border? How different are the needs of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Turkey from the Somalis who converged here? One of the reasons I kept returning to the camp was because it held lessons so clearly applicable elsewhere--and almost always ignored. In 1993, long-term refugee situations typically lasted about eight years. Now, that number is up to 26 years. Dadaab is our future, inaction materialized.

I spent a lot of time this year with refugees who were glued to cellphones, their Facebook feeds providing windows into worlds they had never seen.

A man asked me, “Is it true Sean Spicer will resign?”

A girl told me, “My favorite American singer is Taylor Swift.”

When I returned to Nairobi, I texted with some of the refugees.

“What did you do this weekend?” one woman asked me.

“I took my dog to the park,” I said, which made me hate myself a little.

“I am inside my small room,” she said.

Each time I landed in Dadaab this year, I met a man named Mohammed Rashid for coffee in a market stall run by refugees. He was a small man with a huge smile who rode his bicycle around the camp, a plastic flower sticking out from the handlebars.

The air in the stall was almost always hotter than the coffee.

“How’s your family in Florida?” he always asked me.

He was 34. It was his 25th year in the camp. It was the year his third child was born. It was the year his hut was demolished in a flash flood. It was the year--another year--in which he waited for the State Department to pick his name from the resettlement list.

The day after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the White House’s travel ban to take effect, he posted on Facebook, “Refugees you have still big hope.” Mohammed had almost no reason to be optimistic, especially this year, and sometimes I worried that he was setting himself up for a huge letdown.

Whenever I saw a crowd of refugees at the airstrip, I looked for Mohammed. He wanted to go to Seattle or New York, but every city sounded pretty great to him.

One time, over coffee, I asked him whether he really thought this was the best time to move a family of Somali refugees to the United States. He read the news as much as I did. He knew about the attacks on Muslims and the hostility toward refugees. He followed President Trump on Twitter.

He looked at me like I was crazy, like a man who flew back to Nairobi and took his dog to a park, like someone who believed that Dadaab could be improved simply by writing about it.

“Bro,” he said. “It’s still the greatest country in the world.”