#anyone else get really into learning about banned media and shit as a kid or nah

[lollytea]

what (human) social media do you think the hexaquad uses/is on. Because personally I think Luz is weird and bi enough that she would use tumblr and completely commit to the goncharov bit

Luz absolutely uses tumblr as her primary socmed and she has an intimate relationship with the nature of its insanity. She's the one the others ask when they stumble across an utterly incomprehensible meme and Luz will be like "Okay so basically the origin of eeby deeby is--"

She has two blogs. One for art and one for reblogs/fandom/shitposting. She used to have a twitter but she deleted it some time during the Thanks to Them montage because she was dealing with too much bullshit to tolerate the cesspool. She has an Instagram that she uses exclusively for posting art.

Oh and ao3. How could I forget ao3?

I feel like Amity is completely uninterested in human social media. Out of all the kids, she's the only one who didn't really find a specific hobby/interest during her time in gravesfield. She's already got a pensta and she likes how it's tailored for witch society. She'd have no interest in Instagram or twitter or shit like that. BUT she would absolutely go apeshit once she discovers the Good Witch Azura fandom in the Human Realm. (Literally NOBODY back home even knew what those books were.) She doesn't understand the memes and shitposts or general culture but Amity would absolutely have a fandom specific tumblr. She mostly just reblogs from Luz. An ao3 too of course <3

Willow used pensta for general teen reasons like selfies and socializing with her friends before she came to Gravesfield but now that she's developed an interest in photography? Oh that girl's account is gonna get such a glo up. She'd have an Instagram too. She actually becomes pretty popular on both accounts. Not ✨️Influencer✨️ status but she's gained quite a following of humans and witches alike.

I like to imagine that she also has a Pinterest. Idk she strikes me as somebody who'd enjoy collecting aesthetic pics and making boards. For the same reason she also has a tumblr that's mostly aesthetic with the occasional feral little reblog like this thrown in

Gus is a tiktok kid!!! Gus is SUCH a tiktok kid!!! I could also see him having a YouTube channel where he posts deranged little vlogs (in this universe Gus13 does not exist or its after it happened and only adds more fuel to the fire.) A twitch too maybe?? I could see him streaming. Basically I just think Gus would be drawn to all the video-focused social media.

I think he'd have a twitter too where he tweets his insane little thoughts and it actually blows up in popularity because people think it's a parody account.

Also....he would read Wikipedia religiously and eventually get banned from making his own edits.

Ok ok ok ok I think it would be so funny if Hunter got his penstagram account back in ASIAS, got so excited about finally having a regular teen experience but after a year or so once he's become well acquainted with pensta culture he's like "Well. This sucks."

So basically

Back when Hunter got a scroll, he followed Willow and that was that. He never followed anyone else. He has never posted anything. He can't even be convinced to follow any more of his friends. Not even Gus. He has notifications on for when Willow posts. He pops in to like them and then he fucks off again. People have forgotten that Hunter even has an account.

But when it comes to human socmed OHHHHH....

I want to say he has a devianart. But I'm not sure because I'm pretty sure that devianart is a husk of its former self. So he probably just has a tumblr. Hunter has not yet learned that you can make seperate blogs for all your different interests so his blog is a cluttered mess of his whole autistic self Cosmic Frontier brainrot, wolves, anime, the occasional embroidery pics that Willow tags him in.

Also he would be on neopets.

BONUS CHARACTERS:

Camila is on Facebook and Instagram. Also after the events of the series she gradually begins to rediscover the Cosmic Frontier message boards she used to frequent back when Manny was still alive. They brought back memories of her grief for the longest time but she's beginning to once again embrace her love for the series. She's even reconnected with some old online friends <3

Vee would have all the Normal Human Teenage Girl Social Media. She mostly uses twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. She also stays active on Facebook just to like her mom's posts.

Mattholomule would use reddit. Don't disagree with me I'm right.

[lady-lazagna]

Legendary Blader Phone Headcanons

The Boyz™ got me thinking of how the legendary bladers communicate long distances because they are such Non-People that there's just no way most of them are capable of communicating like regular humans. So here are some headcanons to enjoy:

Gingka: Knows how to call people. That is it. If he tries to text, every sentence is sent in a separate message (and there WILL be multiple sentences) and he always has to incorporate his fifteen favourite emojis in there somewhere. If he tries to use a social media account, he posts a blurry picture of himself or Pegasus every single day with a caption similar to "HELLO🚀✨ how are you guys😉?🤣🦄🤺 BLADERS FOR LIFE‼🤼‍♂️🙋‍♂️🏃‍♂️💪"

Kenta: Sensible Phone User™. Prefers to call instead of text, cause he's just that kind of guy. Can't legally have any social media since he's only twelve (and actually cares about the law), so he screenshots memes to send to people off of google images. All the memes he likes are at least five years old. Would probably love Facebook.

Kyoya: The only time you will ever receive a text from Kyoya is when he sends you a time and a place to battle. Do not ask questions, he will not respond. Do not ask him to hang out, he will not respond. Do not tell him you've been in an accident, he will not respond. Only got a social media account to cyber bully anyone who comments on his boyfriend(s) pictures. If you accidentally get him in the background of your TikTok, your beloved home will be mysteriously wiped off the face off the earth by a tornado.

Ryuga: Every single time Ryuga has a phone in his hand- whether it be a gift to him or someone else's- he crushes it immediately. No words, no expression, it will be destroyed. Kenta and Gingka both learned this the hard way, losing either their own phones or the valuable money they spent buying one for him. Wanna get a message out to him? Burn his name into the forest floor. Otherwise, only fate can decide when you two will speak again.

Chris: The embodiment of "kids these days always on they damn phone." Hours and hours of mindless scrolling. Horrible back issues. Occasionally he will let out a light nose exhale in response to something. DO NOT LET HIM ON REDDIT or he will read AITA posts until he inevitably starves to death.

Yuki: Though he loves science and all that crap, he's not super into technology outside of Beyblade stuff, so he only uses his phone out of necessity to call and text people- and to keep up with all the latest space news. Was forced to be the one who had to teach Dynamis how phones work after King and Masamune were banned from the job. The only time he ever went on social media, he immediately got into an argument with a troll and had to be pulled away from his phone to get him to give up on it.

King: A social media fiend. Made one tweet that popped off and now thinks he's hot shit. Co-runner of the official Dungeon Gym TikTok account, which is primarily dedicated to pranking Coach Steel. He and Masamune like to teach the socially unaware about random memes (usually the most annoying ones). The two were banned from Dynamis' temple for yelling "FORTNITE CHUG JUG" and dumping blue sludge on his robes, and for teaching Tithi the word "poggers."

Dynamis: Absolute grandpa. Old fuck. It's not that he doesn't like receiving messages from his dear friends, but do they really need to add those obnoxious little pictures along with them? And at this ungodly hour of the night? Was given a touchscreen by King and Masamune, who preceded to overload his brain with deep-fried memes and Fortnite gameplay videos. Was almost driven insane until Yuki intervened. Eventually, he ditches the touchscreen and gets a rotary phone to make it physically impossible for anyone to text him.

Tithi: Is only allowed to have an iPad, and has to use Dynamis' rotary phone to call people. A sucker for Cocomelon. Can't download any games that aren't free because Dynamis doesn't believe in capitalism. Won't stop saying poggers guys why won't he stop-

Aguma: He will send you a message via falcon messenger. Phones and social media are a mind-melting waste of valuable time that should be spent training, and the fact that Wang Hu Zhong has a successful TikTok account only proves that point further >:(

Rago: Is dead.

Might do a second part with the other, less important people in life.

[helenarlett-rex]

you’re a fucking freak for defending gross porn based on kids media just because “in america we have a little thing called freedom of artistic expression” shut the fuck up nobody is saying it’s illegal they’re saying it’s gross and fucking weird to do it. when will you freaks learn that protecting children is more important than your fucking weird kinks.

*Laughs* Fucking freak he says… Gross and fucking weird he says… While talking to author, Helen Arlet… You’ve obviously never read any of my books. You don’t even know what gross and weird is...

Also I love how your response to my factual statement about the fact that these things are protected was just, “shut the fuck up”. Oh man, you really put me in my place with that one. How will I ever respond to that?

This will probably be the last time I respond to one of these so I'll try to be thorough. I know what I am about to say may be hard to grasp, because it has to do with people's rights as well as with personal responsibility, and you seem to be the sort who thinks rights only apply to you and responsibility only applies to others, but try to follow me if you can… 

This has nothing to do with some kink regardless of how "gross and fucking weird" you think it is. I don’t know what gives you the right to decide what’s gross and weird... Most asexuals probably think whatever you are into is gross and weird. Where as I on the other hand think your tastes are pretty weak sauce... That's not the point though. The issue here is censorship.

For starters, it's not just America that has protections for artistic freedom. America was just the one example I used because it was the easiest for me to explain off the top of my head, but lots of countries have them. I already stated that before but you obviously weren't paying attention. Just like you weren't paying attention when I told you about internet safety precautions and said that it's not my responsibility, or anyone else's, to keep your kid from getting into porn. That's your responsibility. If you want to let your little crotch goblin have free run of the internet without restriction or supervision that's on you. It's not my fault if your kid finds porn anymore than it is if he ends up in a chat room with a bunch of pedophiles asking him to send pictures and tell them what his address is. 

The internet is not a safe place and if you are going to let your children be on it you should have safety precautions installed and be monitoring them regardless if cartoon porn exists or not. I mean, do you honestly think that the only way kids are going to get into porn is on accident by searching for a cartoon character? Trust me, if you give a kid a way to get into porn, they are going to get into it the moment you aren't looking. I can't even tell you how young I was the first time I figured out how to get access to porn. And I didn't even have internet back then… You keep talking about how important it is to protect children but your answer to actually doing that is the equivalent of telling a man he can't have a steak because a baby can't chew it… while you let the baby play with steak knives… 

That's why I stood up in defense of this issue. Because there is already a solution to it but you keep ignoring it in favor of a different one that doesn't work and makes no sense. You sit there and say that no one is saying it's illegal, but your argument is that it should be. So let's say we give you what you want. Cartoon porn is no longer allowed. There are still a million other things on the internet that kids shouldn't find that they are going to find. What's the answer to that? Do we ban EVERYTHING we don't want children to see? Do we censor the internet to the point where it's useless just to make sure irresponsible parents who won't take simple precautions don't have to worry about what their kids are going to find? And who gets to decide what is okay for kids and what isn't? I'm not saying porn is okay for kids. It isn't. But we are talking about more than just porn now.

We have people who come into the library I work at all the time and steal any book they can find that has anything to do with LGBT topics so those books won't be in the library anymore. They do this just so their children won't see anything LGBT. I even got an email the other morning from a woman telling me that she will never come back because we have LGBT materials and she doesn't want her child's "innocence" corrupted. As a transgender woman this kind of censorship is especially harmful to me because not only does it mean I have a hard time finding access to library materials relevant to me, but no one else can either and now I have to live in a community where people are growing up intolerant of me because all they know about me is what their bigoted parents are telling them. I can’t even go out in public without disguising myself as a man because I’m afraid I might get shot. This is what censorship for the sake of the children has led to.

Again, I don’t think children should have access to materials intended strictly for adults… but as long as those materials aren’t illegal I think adults SHOULD have access to them, whatever they are, regardless if it’s something I personally get or not. I won’t support censorship in any form because once we open that Pandora’s box of censoring one thing, it just leads down the slippery slope of censoring other things that some people might actually need. And I especially won’t support it when the only reason for it is because “children might find it” when again, as I already said, there are already ways in place to prevent them from finding it. It’s not my fault if you won’t use the things we’ve put in place to handle that.

But let’s be honest with ourselves here… You aren’t actually “worried about the children”. If that’s what you were worried about you’d be advocating for a lot more than just the removal of cartoon porn from the internet. And you wouldn’t be shitting on porn filters and safe searches either. “The children” is just a crutch you’re using to make yourself sound more self righteous when the real problem is that you don’t want these things to exist because you think they are “gross and fucking weird” am I right? What happened…? Did you accidentally stumble onto some My Little Pony smut and that picture of that bright pink, cartoon horse made you feel funny down in your pants and threatened your manliness? Well don’t worry… I won’t tell anyone…

[thepaininurneck]

so not to literally get on my Tumblr for no reason and vent some but I saw a TikTok today talking about how Tumblr affected them/treated their eating disorder so I wanted to add my two cents for any of you remaining pro-anas or whatever you’re fucking calling yourselves now that tumblr banned your stupid tag or whatever, I haven’t checked since I was 14 and I won’t be changin that.

I started restricting my eating when I was 14. I’ve never been as bad about it as some people and I quickly learned to avoid pro-ana content ( to the point of avoiding Tumblr entirely for a while ), but I still avoided food where I could and it caused a lot of fights with my parents. But I’ve always been a small kid, so when I stopped putting on weight, it wasn’t obvious. The only time anyone would notice something was when I was trying to eat a meal around them.

I wasn’t active, either. I was homeschooled and, after moving twice, I wasn’t in any sports or groups ( like Girl Scouts or whatever ), so I could stay home and do nothing. I didn’t need energy - I just stayed in bed all day and ate when I was forced to. I stayed at around 90 pounds from ages 14-16, with no changes to my lifestyle until early 2019. I think I was 5’5 when I started restricting my food, and I’m currently 5’8 and a big bag of bones.

The first thing I want to say is this: it’s not pretty. My body is boney and angular in a way that’s reminiscent of horror, you can count every rib and every plate of my spine with your eyes. I can stick a finger under my collarbone, and if I suck in a little, I can get my hand under my hipbones. I feel ugly and like I can’t be graceful: I wear baggy clothes constantly and if I wear revealing clothes they can’t show my arms, or my back, or I feel gross. My legs were a huge insecurity for me for years too, and up until I made some huge changes recently, I had a fairly big thigh gap and my knees were as bony as the rest of me. It’s not pretty. There is nothing gorgeous or attractive about being this underweight, and not only does it make me despise my physical appearance more, the effects it has on my health are bad too.

I had blood work done in November 2019 that showed I have low iron, b12, and d. I am constantly tired in a way that makes my bones ache, and I get dizzy and have to sit down a lot just from walking or leaning over a little bit. I feel sick, physically, and on bad days even my teeth ache. I’m always insatiably hungry but I can’t stomach much food and only certain textures are okay for me now. Thankfully I never started calorie counting, but portioning was an issue for me and I’m trying to use that to my advantage. It’s hard. I always feel like I can’t sleep enough, I get sick quickly if I do too much physical activity for too long, if I eat too much, if I think about food too much.....etc.

I started doing aerial silks in July 2019 thanks to a video Markiplier had posted a while prior. At first it went great - my first few lessons made me so sore I couldn’t notice what else was going on. It was doing these once weekly, one-hour lessons where I was spending at most 20 minutes on the apparatus that was making me faint and dizzy and sick and horribly tired in a way that felt wrong. I also developed lactose intolerance during this time, something that showed up completely randomly, but for all I know it could be because of how I was restricting myself. But that’s why I went and got the blood work, and a few months later in March 2020, I started really trying to gain weight again.

Let me tell you - I am miserable. I have been working since March to correct my eating habits and to gain weight and the last time I checked, I had gotten up to 107.5. I can, in a good mood, eat a plate of certain foods. Sometimes I’ll even manage three meals a day, an on really good days I can do a little extra. None of this feels like enough and I feel worthless because of it. In my class I am the tallest and the thinnest, and because of my awkwardly bony joints and thin upper body, I lack grace and beauty and look like a Halloween skeleton on a pole. I feel miserable, and cramps, and tired, and I often make myself sick pushing myself to try and be just a little prettier on the silks or to just try that drop one more time. Three days ago, I puked after a rough session at Open Aerial. I’ve spent the days since sleeping and can remember eating two meals max. Writing this down, my head hurts and I’ve forced down some food, but I’m tired of seeing posts in fucking 2020 glorifying eating disorders in any way - even seeing jokes, or comments made about not eating dinner, make my stomach clench and it reminds me of the four years I’ve wasted because of this shit. I can’t do what I love like this - aerial is too physically demanding for what I’m capable of, and what about long term? What about my girlfriend, my aspirations? They’re all incredibly out of reach because of this. Because I can’t stomach a full meal and if someone’s mean to me I won’t eat for three days.

My eating disorder has not been diagnosed professionally. I have considered seeking hospitalization but mine has never been life threatening. I have gone days without food, I’ve watched my portions and I’m miserable now. I feel disgusting and my body can’t hold its own heat. But there’s a million people who are worse than I am, and there’s a few that have lost their lives because of it. And for all all of us - recovering or not - seeing this shit glorified on social media is a slap to the face. It’s a disappointment to see the community even still exists, and a failure on the part of whoever owns Tumblr to not outright fucking ban it ( like it should’ve been in the beginning, before a whole generation of small teens found it.) and I hope that by explaining that I feel like my body is failing, my mental health has never been worse, and even my fucking teeth are suffering, I can get through to at least one idiot on this website and get it through their head that you will not be beautiful if you stop eating or even restrict yourself in a significant manner. You aren’t guaranteed to drop any fat, fat that you need on your body - it’ll stay. Your teeth will fall out, you’ll be fainting daily, but all that weight you’re trying to drop? It’ll stay. Depriving yourself and ruining yourself is not going to make you pretty.

I can continue on, I think. I’m really upset and I don’t think any of this stupidly long ramble makes sense, but here’s my last words for anyone considering doing this shit. Imagine the ugliest, worst version of yourself. Now amplify it - that’s how you’ll feel. You’ll feel nothing short of worthless.

And for anyone reading this in recovery, or having made it past that, I’m proud of you. It’s so hard to force myself to eat even one plate a day, much less trying to keep up with the exercise I force myself through, and the mental hoops you have to jump through to get past this mentality. It takes a lot of strength and resolve that I’m just now realizing is a learned skill. I hope you continue down the path of recovery and health and happiness.

[ask-anyone-from-the-tick]

I’m gonna make a master post of all the ways Amazon Prime has proven they never watched The Tick and WANTED it to fail via shitty promotion.

Let me preface this by saying the CEO in charge of Prime Video who greenlit The Tick and was supportive of it was fired before Season 2 was even greenlit. The new CEO then cancelled every developing pilot and show that first guy had greenlit, so everyone was worried he’d cancel the Tick back then but he didn’t. He let season 2 happen. Season 2 got way better reviews than season 1, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I don’t  think this new guy even watched it or has any stake in it. He only wants his own shows to do well.

So let’s look at this Amazon Fire ad that cross promotes The Tick season 1 first because it’s  been plaguing me for years.

1) You’re cross promoting a show, but you’re making it look like women hate it on sight SO BADLY that the’re willing to leap off the couch rather than sit and give it a chance.

2) The only selling point her friend gives is that the actor completely covered in foam padding is attractive, British, and wearing tight clothes– which are again covered in foam padding and his character doesn’t have his British accent so how is that a selling point.

3) They’re not even watching the show, they’re watching an ad.

4) The show has amazing writing, and is hella funny and silly, which is not acknowledged. You know nothing about the show from this ad.

5) No one in it’s whole 2 seasons you allowed it, has sex, but you’re selling it on it’s sex appeal?

6) This came out in 2017 but in hindsight I don’t think a single network exec bothered to watch this show, so of course they had no idea how to sell it. It got AMAZING reviews for season2 and they cancelled it right away because they didn’t know wtf they had. So sad #SaveTheTick

Again, that was an old ad, but it does show how Amazon is completely incompetent at promoting this show. Back when the show was just a pilot and they were developing the first season, Amazon held a contest called #TICKSAVEMYCITY Now I don’t want to assume they rigged it or something, but I can only find about 3 entries to this contest, which are the top 3 finalists. All 3 of them sound like they know how to talk in front of a camera. Like they have background in stage performance or commercial acting in some way. You judge for yourself.

Contestant 1 Contestant 2 Contestant 3

Here’s the video of the winner getting help for his charity case and I can’t for the life of me figure out what website he claims he found out about the contest on... TONKLE DOT COM?? Wtf is that... I just...? Tongle? Ok I looked in the description and it’s “ Tongal “ 

Have you ever in your life heard of  Tongal.com ? It sounds interesting in theory, a website for people who create stuff-- why is that where the massive website AMAZON DOT COM choses to advertise? It boasts 160,000 users. That’s not even a half million. This was a cool idea. I like the cute Tick hats for all the kids but if you haven’t noticed yet, the font they chose for this show is SO FUCKING BORING. White shirts with boring black font. This has been a problem with the marketing team since the show’s inception that never really went away. Even signs at comic con used this shitty visual it looks like it is just basic instructions not a show advertisement. Still it’s nice to know somewhere in Charlotte, North Carolina there is a refugee center with giant Tick antennas painted on the wall for some cancelled streaming show on Amazon Prime.

EMBRACE YOUR DESTINY NC REFUGEES! TICK HAS EMBRACED HIS, THAT HE IS DOOMED TO BE CANCELLED BY AMAZON’S SHITTY MARKETING TEAM! 

They tried to not even have a panel for the upcoming season 2 at comic con, then they tried to squeeze one in to a tiny room before allowing a larger one last minute. It was becoming obvious that they were setting up season 2 for failure. The Dangerboat Experience at comic con promoting season 1, was the biggest and best booth at comic con that year [2017 I believe]. Season 2 comes around and suddenly nothing. 

They only seemed to promote season 2 at conventions and a few of the largest cities in the USA, and no where else. As a result, even though season 2 got a 100% critic rating, which is fucking unheard of, and a 97% audience score, which is also rare, it's possible the show didn't get as many eyeballs this season as it should have-- because no one knew season 2 had dropped! 

The star of the show took to the internet asking if anyone would like to interview him-- because Amazon did not send him out to do press in promotion of season 2. He had to do it on his own time and on his own dime. Because he gives a shit about the show doing well. In fact most of the show’s actors have been very vocal about caring about this show and worrying over it.

And then Amazon cancelled it, without giving any explanation. I assume the excuse is that not enough people saw it or are talking about it-- which is by design. They did the bare minimum in getting the word out, because they never watched the show and didn’t care that it was critically acclaimed or well liked. The cancellation had to be announced through Tick’s creator on twitter, because Amazon certainly isn't going to tell you about it. And thankfully, there's a chance to #SaveTheTick , he is allowed the opportunity to bring the show to another network. Fantastic- but it needs fan support. Who wants a show no one is talking about? Why was no one talking about it? THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW SEASON 2 DROPPED LET ALONE THAT IT WAS CANCELED RIGHT AFTER because no Amazon promotion.

So again the actors saved the day by running to reddit, podcasts, twitter, instagram, even 4Chan of all places just to let people know how they can help #SaveTheTick and it's working [I can’t specify what I know but I hear good things], suddenly there's a huge influx of fans tweeting about it. Because the show is ACTUALLY GOOD. And if you just promote it a little, people will watch it and realize that it's worth saving. The actor who plays Frank of the Pyramid Gang, in particular had a big hand in this influx of eyeballs. He campaigns for the show day and night across every platform he can, I believe he even made the subreddit about the cancellation and how to help save the show. He even joined our fan Discord and I kinda coached him through how to post on 4Chan  when he suddenly jumped on there, until about 2am when the board banned him because he was technically advertising. [Oops, lesson learned]  

  We have tweets from celebrities and verious Twitter blue checkmark holders including Mark Hamill, Misha Collins, even Guillermo Del Toro  showing the support this show and asking people to #SaveTheTick . So now we’re all tweeting day and night for at least another week or so to show that we do care, there is a lot of us, and we will follow this show to whatever channel will accept it.

There is even a fan created petition directed at Netflix to pick up the show, as I’m typing this it’s at 4,709+ signatures but it’s climbing all the time. https://www.change.org/p/netflix-save-the-tick

I just hope enough people give it a chance that it looks good enough to be picked up by somebody. And I hope whatever network that is is accessible enough that it will continue to have eyeballs on it for more seasons to come.

*~**~*~ Now it’s the fan’s turn to promote the show. Word of mouth, social media, please do whatever you can, WE ARE HELPING I promise! ~**~*~*

[bondsmagii]

here’s the rest of those questions because I can’t resist a challenge

1: Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora?

I don’t actually use any of them... used to use Spotify until it betrayed me by capping me at 10hrs of music a month. like bitch I listen to 10hrs in a day lmao. at the time I couldn’t even afford the small monthly charge so I stopped using it and now my petty ass won’t give them a penny.

2: is your room messy or clean?

clean but cluttered. there’s nothing gross like trash or used plates, but there’s a lot of random stacks of paper, books, notes, etc. it’s alright at the moment seems there’s been a recent tidy, but usually it’s very cluttered.

3: what color are your eyes?

green! I also have heterochromia, so there’s a thin ring of brown around both irises, and a small slice of brown in one eye.

5: what is your relationship status? 

dating @karlacton​ and have been since 2015!

7: what color hair do you have?

it’s black, which is pretty cool. emo me loved it.

8: what kind of car do you drive? color?

I drive a renault and it’s silver!

9: where do you shop?

like.. for what? groceries? clothes? books? because aside from “tesco” I couldn’t tell you, it’s usually all online. if I’m splashing out on books I’ll go to Waterstone’s.

11: favorite social media account

I hate them all. release me.

12: what size bed do you have?

a queen, I think? or a double? I don’t even know if there’s a difference.

13: any siblings?

one older brother, deceased.

15: favorite snapchat filter?

I don’t have snapchat.

16: favourite makeup brand(s)

I don’t know shit about makeup.

17: how many times a week do you shower?

it sounds bad because it averages out to three or four times a week, but when you remember that my days are frequently 36-48hrs long, it averages out to about every other day.

18: favorite tv show?

I don’t own a TV or keep up with much shows, but I do binge-watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

19: shoe size?

uk size 7.

21: sandals or sneakers?

sneakers. fuck sandals.

22: do you go to the gym?

lmao

23: describe your dream date

good food, scary movies, urbexing, driving around to good music, more good food. an equal balance of opportunity to talk and opportunity to see if the silence is comfortable.

24: how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment?

I don’t carry cash. or a wallet, for that matter.

25: what color socks are you wearing?

black.

27: do you have a job? what do you do?

I do, but I can’t go into specific details. it’s to do with computers and security.

28: how many friends do you have?

I got no fucking clue my dude. depending on the definition of friend, anywhere between 2 to 15 or so.

29: what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

you’d probably have to ask somebody else if I’m honest, I don’t have a good grasp of what’s actually bad or not lol. there’s stuff I might consider bad for a while, but then I get over it and stop seeing it as such a big deal. there’s some stuff that might count from a legal standpoint, in terms of like I don’t know, how seriously it would be taken, but I’m not sure of the statute of limitations on it so fuck if I’m mentioning it.

32: 3 favorite girl names?

saoirse, vesper, oksana

35: who is your celebrity crush?

bitch colin firth

37: do you read a lot? what’s your favorite book?

I read a hell of a lot, usually between 2-4 books at the same time. as for favourites I have way too many, so if you wan recs keep an eye on my reading list and see what I’m screaming about.

38: money or brains?

brains. if you play your cards right, brains can get money.

39: do you have a nickname? what is it?

people who know me in other places call me Rat, either because I like the animal or because of the hacker from The Core; people who know me from the SCP Foundation call me Konny or Kon, after the character.

41: top 10 favorite songs

right now: 

Space Oddity by David Bowie

Never Quite Free by The Mountain Goats

We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel

The Longest Time by Billy Joel

Brothers on a Hotel Bed by Death Cab For Cutie

Blame by Bastille

Tomorrow Will Be Kinder by The Secret Sisters

Nothing to Remember by Neko Case

All Alright by fun.

The Spine Song by Cake Bake Betty

this changes like, daily, by the way.

42: do you take any medications daily?

nope.

43: what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc)

normal? bit dry in some places at the moment though, but it always is at this time of the year -- the cold air coming down from the mountains will blast freeze anyone’s skin.

44: what is your biggest fear? 

the current rise in fascism erupting into another world war or holocaust.

45: how many kids do you want?

ideally I would have wanted two or three, but life circumstances have made it so it’s best I don’t have children, unfortunately.

47: what type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc) 

the place in scotland is a three-bedroom flat which is quite large. the place in london is a two-bedroom flat which is slightly smaller but still big for that area of london.

48: who is your role model?

writing-wise, john le carré and stephen king. life-wise, kim philby for the scamming and productivity, and lord byron for the scandal.

49: what was the last compliment you received?

I can’t even remember. probably something to do with my writing, as I’ve been sharing that with some people recently.

51: how old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real?

santa is real my good bitch

52: what is your dream car? 

literally no idea.

53: opinion on smoking?

I smoke occasionally and don’t care if people choose to or not, however I support the smoking ban in public areas and I will be an asshole and cough loudly if you blow it directly in my face.

54: do you go to college? 

graduated.

55: what is your dream job?

anything fast-paced, high-risk, and that requires me to constantly keep learning and improving myself to keep up.

58: do you have freckles? 

some in the summer, across my nose and cheeks.

60: how many pictures do you have on your phone? 

a couple of hundred.

61: have you ever peed in the woods? 

absolutely. it’s a necessity when homeless/on road trips.

62: do you still watch cartoons? 

nope.

63: do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s or McDonalds?

never been to Wendy’s so McDonalds by default. love me some McNuggets.

65: what do you wear to bed? 

sweatpants, an old t-shirt, and a hoodie. it’s the mountains, I need to wrap up.

66: have you ever won a spelling bee?

nah, we don’t have them here but I did come top of my class during spelling tests all through primary school.

67: what are your hobbies?

reading, writing, photography, urban exploring, paranormal research, soviet history, researching espionage, meteorology, a whole load of things.

70: what was the last concert you saw? 

florence and the machine probably.

71: tea or coffee?

both depending on my mood, though I go through stages of drinking one more than the other. right now I drink more coffee than tea.

72: Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?

never been to Dunkin Donuts, so Starbucks.

73: do you want to get married?

one day, hopefully.

74: what is your crush’s first and last initial?

CF, take a wild guess lmao

75: are you going to change your last name when you get married?

acton and I have discussed if we ever get married, finding a cool name we both like to change our last names to. so maybe.

76: what color looks best on you? 

green.

77: do you miss anyone right now? 

not really, to be honest. I don’t miss people often. I might have moments of oh, I wish they were still in my life, but it’s never a constant thing, thankfully. it sounds like it would be a drag.

78: do you sleep with your door open or closed?

closed right now, we need all the heat conservation we can get.

79: do you believe in ghosts?

hell yeah I do. had lots of experiences too!

81: last person you called

my boss?

82: favorite ice cream flavor? 

mint choc chip.

83: regular oreos or golden oreos? 

regular.

84: chocolate or rainbow sprinkles? 

both.

86: what is your phone background?

lmao it’s a picture of julian assange because I live to annoy him.

87: are you outgoing or shy?

I’m very outgoing. a lot of people think I’m shy but actually I just go through stages of being really anti-social.

89: do you like your neighbors? 

I have no major issues with them but they’re a weird bunch. the downstairs neighbour I’m pretty sure is a ghost, and the neighbours across the way are so strange. they do DIY in the dead of night and several of them just sit in their cars at 3am with the lights on, staring at nothing. odd.

90: do you wash your face? at night? in the morning?

when I shower, or if I have something on it. I don’t have a routine.

91: have you ever been high? 

yes.

92: have you ever been drunk? 

way too many times.

95: summer or winter? 

aesthetically? winter. in terms of not feeling suicidal all the time? summer.

96: day or night? 

night. I’m a night hoe.

99: what is your zodiac sign

aquarius, watch out. 

100: who was the last person you cried in front of? 

no one bitch... I don’t cry

[entropic-introspection]

The thing that makes me really wary about anti-shippers is how much of the rhetoric is couched in terms of ‘morality’

They don’t say it like that, but. Well. Coming from a Roman Catholic background, that’s how a lot of it reads. “You can’t do this because it is bad/wrong.” “If you think about this you are bad and must fix yourself.” Which. Ok. That’s kind of a gross simplification of how a lot of stuff is explained, from racism to sexism to like, pineapple on pizza joking discourse. But there’s this specific component that I can’t put my finger on that comes up, this sort of nudging that keeps happening that it’s your fault that these things are being written, it’s your fault if you read them even if you didn’t know better.

It’s a lot of very, mm, pushy ideology that you cannot do these things, can’t interact with them in any shape or form, or you are bad and wrong. I see where the appeal is in that, because some of these things you think “Why do I even need to tell people this? Shouldn’t they know that it’s bad? They must be consciously choosing to be bad!” For me, that’s incest. It’s my squick, I can’t read it, could barely get through the third arc of Revolutionary Girl Utena even though the show never portrayed it as remotely healthy or acceptable. I don’t understand why people ship it, ever.

But it’s not my business, is it? Since I don’t read incest fics, I don’t know how the authors are handling it. I’ve read trash ships though, nasty abusive relationships. And most of the time? The authors acknowledge that it isn’t a nice ship, don’t write the narration to praise the abuse, are often up to talk to readers about abuse. The major exceptions to this rule are writers who have hundreds of wips and roleplays and other shit going on with that ship, and in those, it’s nasty and bad and sad, so they write something happy to make themselves feel better. And they post it, because it’s their writing and other people like the ship and their writing and guess what, even abusive relationships have happy moments.

The other major exception? Kids. Youngin’s. People who haven’t learned how to unpack all the shit they’ve picked up from the media and family and school, who are trying to explore these new feelings and ideas. And let me tell you, when you come at me immediately with “You cannot ship this because it’s BAD”, my 16 year old self? My baby lesbian self, dipping her toe into feminism, into agnosticism, surrounded by hardcore Christians whose already been reassured that I’m going to hell for some relatively innocent questions? She’s ready to kick back, jerk away, tell you fuck off, because that’s the shit she’s heard her entire life and she knows it’s wrong because if God made her like this then she’s got to be ok, right?

I’m 24 now, and I still have that response, moderated by the knowledge that you’re probably coming from a good place. You want to protect other people, want to make fandom safe. I’m telling you right now, the absolute best way to encourage that? Is to allow for open discussion. I was goddamn desperate for queer media, so I was reading some awful bad shit. *coughJunjouRomanticacough* And when I interacted with different internet communities? Yeah, some people romanticized those ships, loved them for being so bad, but everywhere, there were people quietly reminding you that yes, that was rape. This is not acceptable behavior. People who posted guidelines from places like Planned Parenthood on what abusive relationships are like. People who were friendly, and patient, and actually willing to put in the effort to talk to dumbass kids and adults(!) who didn’t know better. If they did know better? There were long, well-thought out essays on why they’re interested in the ship (as in relationship, not the sense of ‘I believe this pairing should be canon). There were talks on what would make it work as a healthy relationship. There were people, who had been hurt in similar ways, being able to choose to expose themselves to that hurt again, through another character, and unpack that trauma through a distance, through the lens of fiction.

Not people who judged from afar, put a blanket ban on anything to do with the “bad things”, and told us never to talk to anyone who ever did that. You’re treating this like it’s a problem of law, almost, that you have to get enough people to ‘vote’ in your favor so that no one else can do these things, but this is a social issue. You have to approach it with compassion, with the knowledge that each case will be different and probably need a one-on-one approach. You can have large scale campaigns to educate, but goddamn please, do not try blanket banning shit because all I can think of is a very scared 16 year old who never heard that gay was something that might be ok except in that awful, dirty, wrong fanfiction.

[mordecai-put-your-phone-away]

My School Survival Guide

Alright, so, my high school years are coming to a close and I may as well post some bullet points on here to help you not only through school, but to become a decent person.

Stay off of social media like Instagram or Snapchat. It will make you feel like shit. This is kind of an unpopular opinion because social media is great for communicating with others, but other times, it isn’t, especially when you are the lonely kid with not a lot of friends watching everybody party and have a good time doing something that you weren’t invited to. If you know what’s good for you, stay off of it as much as possible. Please trust me on this one. It will take a lot of pressure off of you.

Stay away from vaping, drugs, and alcohol as long as you can. It does nothing to help your problems. As a matter of fact, it makes your problems 10 times harder to deal with. See, this is how these things work: it fucks up your head so everything is all happy and laughy and shit except when you’re done, you end up more depressed than before. So what do you do? You start doing it more and more up until the point where you start doing it in the bathroom at school during your frees. Please for the love of god do not end up like my friend who became a pothead and wound up getting suspended from school for five days and got banned from going to senior prom and potentially her school of choice because of it.

Find a healthy way to deal with your problems. This is an addition to the last bullet point, if you want to find a healthy way to deal with your problems, go outside, read a book, draw, or get some exercise. If worst comes to worst, talk to a therapist about your problems so they can determine if you need anti-depressants. Anti-depressants are a safe and legal way to deal with depression and I know from experience that it works. You don’t need alcohol or weed to deal with your problems. All you need is to get through it and if necessary, be medicated.

Do not become a “savage”. You will be disliked by anybody with manners. A lot of kids nowadays (especially the girls from what I’ve seen) find it funny or cute to be mean and nasty to each other and to people who are just trying to be nice to them. Pettiness isn’t funny or cute once it starts happening to you. Just overall, don’t be a bitch.

Be courteous to other people around you and not just yourself. See somebody drop their books right in front of you? Help them pick them up. Hold the door open for people. If somebody looks sad, ask them what’s wrong and listen to them. Treat people the way you want to be treated. A relationship isn’t a one-way street. It’s two ways.

If a girl looks pretty, tell her. This one is what really got me to know the people I talk to now. Girls have the lowest self-esteem out of anyone because society pushes them to have completely unrealistic standards of beauty and lots of girls feel like they’re ugly and undesirable. So, if you see a girl wearing something pretty like a dress or a romper or her hair looks nice, grow a pair and tell her, even if you don’t know the girl. It will make her day and she will feel more confident in herself. Seriously, girls want to be told they’re pretty. Once you do this, their entire face just lights up in joy.

Say “good morning” and “thank you” to the bus driver. Seriously, they don’t get paid enough for having to deal with the amount of bullshit they put up with on a day-to-day basis, especially with the younger kids. A simple “thank you” would let the bus driver know that their service is appreciated by the people they serve.

Popularity is pointless. No really, it is. From what I’ve seen, it’s made up of the most wealthy, conventionally-attractive, athletic kids who all try to kiss up to each other and have little to no personality, as in you would not be able to hold an intelligent conversation with them for more than three seconds. Do not be the person begging for crumbs of acceptance like I did. It will destroy you in the end once they start turning on you. All those senior superlatives? Yeah, all popularity contest. Don’t worry, it means nothing. It doesn’t help you get a job or go to college. A big fat resume and/or a college degree does.

Drama is toxic. If the drama doesn’t involve you, stay away from it. It does nothing but hurt you and put you down. Stuff like who said what to who and everything else like that won’t matter once you put on your cap and gown at graduation.

Do not put anything in writing that you do not want getting back to you. I learned this the hard way. You never know who is screenshotting your text conversations or who is showing who what you said about someone. If you want to talk shit about someone (which I highly recommend you don’t), do it in person when nobody else but you and Person B are there.

Experiment with yourself. Don’t be afraid to dabble with different ideas, looks, and behaviors. It’s normal to have phases. I’ve dabbled with many different ideas such as being trans to my anime phase to my now Ariana-Grande-loving ass. If you find a you that you like, be that you and work hard to be that you. If that “you” is mean, however, please do not play with that idea, trash it immediately. Just be aware that it takes awhile to finally develop yourself, and don’t be afraid if you don’t know who you are as a person as most people really don’t. However, don’t be that person who trashes other people who have figured out who they are as a person because it makes you look insecure as fuck.

Making out in the hallways is gross. No seriously, like I don’t care if you’re straight, gay, or whatever it’s fucking gross and nobody wants to see that while going to class. Please for the love of god get a room.

High school relationships typically don’t last. Just know this before you finally set your heart on “the one”. People go their separate ways after graduation and they grow up. You start over with another group of people. If you know somebody who still has their high school sweetheart as their spouse, that’s great. Just know that it only happens to a very small part of the population.

Don’t be one of those loud ass boys who start screaming shit in the hallway. It’s not funny it’s really fucking annoying.

Skipping class is more than just “I don’t feel like going to class”. It says to the teacher “You know what, even though you probably work your ass off all day and barely get paid anything for your work, I’m just gonna skip your class because you’re boring as shit.” I don’t care whether you like the teacher or not, just so you know, your parents’ tax dollars are paying these teacher’s salaries. If you’re not gonna do it for the teacher, do it for your parents who have to spend their hard-earned money for you to get an education.

Try getting to know a person you haven’t met before. Cliques usually develop in middle school and high school, but if you see somebody outside of your clique that you would like to meet, don’t be afraid to try to get to know them. Like Star Butterfly says, sometimes strangers are just friends you haven’t met. I know that it’s normal human instinct to judge people, but just try to ignore that instinct and try getting to know the person. If they have people talking shit about them, try getting to know the person first before going off of somebody else’s judgement. One person might say that they are the biggest bitch in the world when really they are the kindest person you’ve ever met in your life.

Strive to get good grades in school. Why do I even have to say this, it should be common sense by now. Even if you don’t get the best grades, apply yourself the best you can. Don’t spend your time on here protesting the school system. Yes, there are a lot of flaws with it, but for now, just deal with it and get through it all. What will matter are those grades and they will determine what school you go to and how you’ll be spending the rest of your life.

So um yeah, that’s pretty much it. Let me know what you think of this list!

[sarahsfeministthoughts]

Week Thirteen: April 15th: The Human Wave: Immigration Stories

I was an accident. I wasn’t suposed to be here. Screams and sobs of sorrow filled the delivery room... as my mother had disobeyed the unspeakable rules… my mother had destructed her perfect white porcelain lineage… my daddy was brown.

My father, Jose, immigrated to New York City from Peru in 1969, at just 5 years old. He didn’t know the language but he knew Kung Fu. He had a severe obsession with martial arts legend Bruce Lee and committed his life to becoming just like him. He grew up in the projects of the Bronx and fought on the street every day, gaining a name for himself, taking down gangs and defending those who needed help. He was able to work his way up to eventually getting himself his own school and becoming a “Sifu” - the master. One day, my mom, Ingrid walked into his Kung Fu School…

I was born 9 months later.

The color of my skin being so light cushioned the fall a little…and once my eyes opened and were so big and blue, my mother’s family embraced me. They believed I didn’t do anything wrong… and if they shaped me right, banned me from learning Spanish or embracing any parts of my Latina identity… they believed I could be saved, pass as fully white and live a prosperous, privileged life, eventually marrying a rich white boy to solve and close the chapter on the inconvenience of my ingeneity.

My mother’s family provided us with a huge townhouse in the West Village upon my birth. They then filled our home with endless servants of color that were actually paid to be spies to report back on my father. Though he could not speak Spanish to me within such a controlled and monitored household, I began to learn about my Latina culture in other ways. My dad was “machismo” and he practiced that in different ways.

Firstly, the whole first floor of our house became my dads new Kung Fu school so I witnessed blood and violence every day and became very used to it. This was the frankest expression of his masculinility. The house always had atleast 10 men in it in workout clothes beating the shit out of eachother. This was taken further as all the media he forced me to consume was Chinese Kung Fu movies with eye balls being ripped out and heads flying across the room. I certainly wasn’t watching any teletubbies.

He felt the need to exercise control over me. This especially impacted my self expression as a girl. My “girlness” was curtailed by him and he would rip any skirt or dress that Gigi, my grandmother would gift me. He forced me to wear clothes of his choosing - picked from the boys section - big jeans and big tshirts with thermals underneath (even in the summer) out of a hyper fear of me being sexualized by men. To him, he was protecting me. He also would brush my teeth for me, telling me that I wouldn’t do it properly myself and practiced any way he could within the house to exert dominance that he couldn’t in the outside world.

I understood the sharp contrast between the social class and privilege differences between my mother and father at a very young age simply by the lifestyles. When visiting my fathers family, I would share a bed with 6 cousins. When visiting my mothers family, a chauffer would pick me up, maids would iron my church clothes, wake me with strawberry milkshakes and chefs would spoil me with whatever I desired. I was scolded at the dinner tables for not having proper table etiquette… however I had learned from my dad to just pick up a whole chicken and start tearing into it with no need of silverware.

My mother’s family didn’t understand his behavior and saw him as the biggest threat to my wellbeing and development. Therefore, my mother’s family worked hard to destroy the connection I had to my father. They did this in many ways.

Firstly, they tried to force me to associate the help (all persons of color) as “less then” as I’d watch them be pushed around, ordered and abused. I watched as they exercised their power over the help and I suppose they had intended for me to glamorize or romanticize how “powerful” they were.

Secondly, they gave me access to resources where I could access “superior exclusive knowledge” and paid for me to go to the most prestigous and expensive whitewashed academies where there were never more than 3 students of color and all of them were identified by their dependency on food stamps or the details of their scholarship. They were applauded for their brilliance, as if they were magnificent exceptions to their kind… and I quickly understood the truth was there were just not equal opportunities being given to them for them to even get to a level and equal playing field.

And probably most importantly, they endlessly attempted to assure me it was necesary for me to break any relations with my brown father and made sure I learned the word “golddigger”.

I was 5 years old when police sirens shattered me out of my sleep and 4 big men broke into my room with guns and dragged me out. I didn’t even cry, and later it was revealed to me that that was a concerning sign to them but I guess I was just so used to the chaos. I saw my daddy being ushered towards a cop car with handcuffs, held by multiple men. I locked eyes with him. He was humiliated. They had demasculated my father. They cradled me and they pushed and shoved him, smashing his face against the vehicle. I was 5 years old but I realized then and there that in this world, his life did not matter… but mine did. I had a voice… but he never would.

“Does your daddy ever touch you?”

What is a 5 year old suposed to say to that?

My mom was able to get him out eventually and the sexual assault against a minor charges were dropped… but our story was nowhere from over. Within two months, he was arrested again for “kidnapping” me. I understood that due to the color of his skin, my father was deemed as inevitably guilty of something. My father’s skin color made him a criminal… and my skin color made me his pure, fragile, victim.

I saw this even when I’d walk the streets with him hand in hand… the dirty looks I would recieve. I was being shown that by choosing to stand by my father, I was choosing the “losing” side. It would be easier to gallavant off with my mothers family and comfortably explore their manchines across the world. However, I loved my father and I could not let go of him. I was ready to reap the consequences of this.

My mother was hit first - they cut her money supply that she was dependent on and kicked us out of our townhouse, forcing us to struggle to find a rental within such short notice. We had come home to everything we owned outside of our townhouse. I began to associate my mother’s family with evil.

My mom turned to alcohol in her sadness and had great difficulty adjusting to such a simpler life. Desperate for money, my mom did as was as asked and my father was kicked out. I couldn’t help thinking how society had won.

She entered a new relationship immediately… He was (and is) an extremely dangerous alcoholic with a really bad temper. His name is Willy. He was actually one of my dad’s Kung Fu students.

He was (and is) extremely abusive and banged on my door every night to try to get in. I had to move my dressers in front to try to protect myself.

He encouraged my mothers alcoholism and they my mother began to abuse me as he abused her and I was the only one that she had the power to hurt. Child services visited almost every day as I’d come to school with bruises across my body. I never told on her. I just wanted to get through. Atleast once a month, she’d take it too far. I’d find her collapsed in her room with bottles scattted around her body, like flowers at a funeral. I took her to the hospital each time and they would say the same thing: “You’re going to kill yourself and leave your daughter all alone in this world.” She didn’t care. She loved alcohol more. She loved Willy more.

I was not safe within the confinements of school either. There, it was my gender that I began to learn about and experience how that made me a target.

My Math teacher requested my phone number and then used that to excessively attempt to facetime me and serenade me with emoji filled messages. He convinced me to join him alone in the school on weekends for extra help. When I went foward with my truth, I was shamed and told, “He’s such a nice guy!” and accused of lying and put on academic prohbation. This showed me that a white man could get away with anything and as a girl in relation to that, my word meant nothing.

My English teacher promised me A’s in exchange for my silence on his expressions of affection towards me. His flash went off when taking photos of me during a midterm.

Maybe, most impressively, the principal of my school developed a crush on me which caused him to impede upon my learning due to his need of constantly seeing me. A secretary would stick her head into every classroom door I was in and I would sink into my seat, knowing. “The principal needs to see you, Sarah.” I began whispering: “Do I have to…” When I would then sit across from him, he would pry about my daddy issues and offer me comfort I had never asked for. He would rub my back and play with my hair and I’d hold my breath and try to take my mind elsewhere.

When I was 14 years old, I was asked out by one of the only black kids in my school. Scholarship kid. I became super dependent on him because I had no one else. He learned about my family dynamic. He understood my vulnerabilities. He began to abuse me too. He told me he would kill me if I left him, and then he told me that I couldn’t tell anyone because he was black. And the sad part is I actually understood what he meant.

When I turned 18, I gained access to financial privilege - trust funds. I escaped. I moved out the same day. I was able to gain self power by drowning withself within my studies - allowing intersectional feminism to lead me and rescue me and allow me to understand how the personal is political and build the strength to stand up for myself. I now have a restraining order against my ex boyfriend and my mothers boyfriend as she still hasn’t been able to find her own strength to leave. I’m trying to work on personal relationships with both my mother and my father.

It saddens me everyday the realization that most kids in situations like me are trapped. My financial privilege saved me. This is a unique experience and it makes it that I have to do whatever I can to help those not as fortunate as me. No one should be stuck. I know what it feels like.

Overall, my identity is complex. I am biracial, yet I pass as white. I am a woman and that makes me unsafe in this world. I also have grown up experiencing two opposite socio economic classes and lifestyles. I have survived childhood abuse. I then survived domestic violence.

These markers of my identity make it impossible for me to choose to tune out and be ignorant to the injustices in our world. I believe that it is because of this that there is no better place for me than being a Global Studies major.

Everything is personal to me.

To me being a citizen in this world means doing my part to break every silence I’m expected to keep, no matter how hard it may be, because it cannot be underestimated how much this could help someone else.

I see so clearly all the interconnections of oppression and struggle as I have myself lived it. Therefore, to me, to be a true citizen of the globe is to embrace all these pieces that made me who I am and using them as fuel to be an advocate and pioneer for the change I want to see to better our world.

I will continue to share my authentic experiences and making sure that I use the that I have for good. I could have turned away, blinding myself from my Peruvian roots and taking the easier way -- I was shown directly the luxuries and peace I would experience if I was to fully seperate from my Latina and identify as white… but I chose not to. I chose to tune in and there is no going back now.

[aplaceforthesoul]

( 16 ) hello! I'm in a bit of an issue. I live in a very problematic home, and I'm pretty sure what's happening to me is? abusive. The main factor that has haunted my entire life is that I'm not allowed to have any privacy. I wasn't even allowed to have a door that locked until I turned 16, and before then they were just curtains that could easily be opened at anytime. I'm often told that if I lock it even /once/, I'll lose my door and won't even get a curtain this time. 🐞 [1/3 ]

I was also brought up on "fear teachings", being told that everyone online wants me dead and will "kill and rape" me if I even /talk/ to them. My parents have no trust in me, and don't let me out of their sight for any reason. I'm supposed to be learning how to drive, but my parents won't let me because I'll be alone and out of their sight. I rarely ever do anything wrong, and now when I do, I feel so paranoid and sick to the point of vomitting because they'll overreact and go insane. I can't even explore my sexual side because I'm so scared they'll somehow find out and go off. They'll constantly shame me and tell everyone about my secrets if they ever find out, and it makes me want to vomit if I even think about it. I just want to be a normal kid but they won't let me. It's really funny, because the things I have to hide is just regular kid shit to others. Do you have any advice for this situation? I'm banned from social media too. thanks !

that’s awful ): 

is it at all possible for you to talk to your parents about this? if so -- then find time to chat when they’re not too busy, start off by asking if you can talk to them about something, and go from there. gently let them know how stressed out and negative you feel at the moment -- even though you and I both know that it’s a direct result of their actions, saying that right now might not be helpful. if the end goal is to achieve some freedom and independence, we don’t want your parents to get too defensive or angry, yah feel? you could try saying that you know they love you and want you to be safe but it feels like they don’t trust you, use that as an opening to talk about encouraging them to trust you by allowing more independence, see how the conversation flows.

talking to them about this might feel pointless or scary, but I do think it’s worth a try? talking to them shows a level of maturity, it shows your parents that you want to come to a compromise, you want to be honest and not do anything behind their backs! hopefully they can see this and appreciate you talking to them, it may make them more agreeable and likely to meet you half way. 

if talking to your parents directly just is not an option, is there anyone else you can chat to about this? other family members like an aunty or uncle, grandma or grandpa that you could talk to, or a teacher at school that you trust? a next door neighbour, your local pastor? what your parents are doing isn’t ok at all, being at home sounds so negative and toxic for you at the moment, it’s not a healthy environment to be spending time in. if you’re able to talk to another trusted adult about what’s going on, they may be able to step in and talk to your parents on your behalf and come to an agreement that way instead. 

if none of that is an option right now? the best you can do is try to look after yourself as much as you can, practice lots (and lots!!) of self care. take extra time to have a long hot bath, pamper yourself sometimes by painting your nails or doing a face mask etc, create music playlists that are calming for you, maybe start practising yoga by looking up some youtube tutorials? spend time outside and out of the house when you can, draw / read / dance / play an instrument / write, whatever you find calming and relaxing for you. good luck friend, let us know how things go

- tash

[njawaidofficial]

Alex Rodriguez on Rebooting His Image: "You Have to Own Your Shit"

http://styleveryday.com/2017/08/03/alex-rodriguez-on-rebooting-his-image-you-have-to-own-your-shit/

Alex Rodriguez on Rebooting His Image: "You Have to Own Your Shit"

He made $500 million playing baseball then became a scandal-plagued Yankees pariah. Now, Rodriguez is on ABC, CNBC and Fox Sports, rebooting himself as more than a jock turned broadcaster (and J.Lo’s beau), and he may have the secret to a successful second act: “You have to own your shit.”

Alex Rodriguez raises an arm to keep an errant basketball from hitting a reporter. We are seated courtside in plastic chairs at the gym at Wayside Baptist Church — a complex of low-slung white stucco buildings in Kendall, Florida, a suburb southwest of Miami, near where Rodriguez grew up. It is a Thursday in July, and Rodriguez wears dark-wash jeans and a navy polo shirt with a small white A-Rod Corp logo — an abstraction of the erstwhile Yankee slugger’s signature arching swing — on his left breast.

Today he is filming a pilot for CNBC called Back in the Game, a concept that has Rodriguez mentoring down-and-out former athletes. The first episode features Joe Smith Jr., a 1995 NBA No. 1 draft pick whose peripatetic career included an unfortunate salary-cap scam with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Rodriguez will enlist Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank to help Smith realize his ambition to start a youth basketball academy. We are at Wayside’s youth camp so producers can film Smith interacting with the kids. Most of the roughly 100 youth present don’t know Smith, but they of course know Rodriguez, one of the most famous (and, to many, infamous) athletes of his generation, so they’re asking for autographs and selfies.

It’s nearly exactly a year since Rodriguez played his last game at Yankee Stadium after a record-making, scandal-plagued major league career that began in 1994, when he was 18. “It’s night and day how content and happy and proud I am,” he says. “You being here, that would have never happened before.”

Rodriguez, contemplating his dramatic rehabilitation — from pariah to pundit, a credible TV star with a Hollywood girlfriend — continues: “It starts with being accountable. When people can see that you’re genuine, that’s when they pay attention. You have to own your shit.”

I ask whether he ever thinks about the arc of his career from superstar to outcast, and he shoots me a look that says, “Every second of every day!” Then he grabs my notebook and pen. Turning it sideways, he jots down five dates: 1994, 2000, 2004, 2014, 2017. (Curiously, 2009, when he won his only World Series, is not included.) He draws a jagged line under the numbers; 2000 (he hit 41 homers and had 132 RBIs, powering Seattle to the ALCS against the Yankees) and 2004 (his first season with the Yankees) are high points. When he gets to 2014 (when he sat out the season during the longest suspension in baseball history for using performance-enhancing drugs), he drags the pen to the bottom of the page then brings it back up to 2017. No doubt: 2014 was rock bottom. “There were nights in Miami when I was close to tapping out,” he admits.

•••

Once the sport’s biggest outcast, in two years Rodriguez has managed to recast himself as a trusty TV presence and MLB ambassador. (Eight days earlier, during All-Star Game weekend in Miami, he opened a refurbished field at the Miami-Dade Boys & Girls Club with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who in 2013 led the investigation that resulted in Rodriguez’s suspension.)

It is a rebirth that few — least of all Rodriguez, 42 — would have thought possible a few years ago. He had made more money than anyone in baseball (nearly $500 million), dated famous women (Madonna), been caught taking banned substances (twice), repeatedly lied about it on TV and the radio, faced an investigation that turned up a cast of seedy characters and endured a public fall, a painful exile.

Now, he’s not out of place in the congenial confines of daytime and late night (guest hosting Live With Kelly Ripa; playing Egg Russian Roulette with Jimmy Fallon) and soon makes his debut as an ABC News contributor. (Rodriguez is viewed as an asset by ABC execs for his relationships with C-suite luminaries like Warren Buffet and Starwood Capital Group chairman Barry Bernlicht, whom he counts as mentors. The network hopes he’ll leverage access and conduct a different type of interview than a traditional correspondent.) He has carved out a reputation as a savvy businessman. He’s in the throes of a made-for-social media relationship with Jennifer Lopez, someone whose star wattage equals his own. He’s entering the reality TV circuit, but not on vacuous unscripted shows. The CNBC program matches his mission to help athletes prepare for life after the huge checks stop coming. And he’ll get to display his CEO persona as a “guest shark” on the upcoming season of ABC’s Shark Tank. “He was far more entrepreneurial than I expected,” notes the show’s Mark Cuban.

But it’s his role as an analyst on Fox Sports — which began as a guest stint during the 2015 postseason and where he has teamed with Kevin Burkhardt, Frank Thomas and fellow stigmatized hit machine Pete Rose — that arguably has done the most to repair his image as baseball’s biggest sinner.

“He goes on TV, and he’s really good,” says Bill Simmons, an avowed Red Sox loyalist and no fan of A-Rod as a player, who in 2009 wrote a column for ESPN positing that Rodriguez united the Yankees clubhouse because he was the one guy they all loved to hate. “We’ve seen this with all kinds of athletes; they can reinvent the legacy of their career just by being on TV. It just doesn’t feel like he has the baggage of some of the stuff that he did. You look at [Barry] Bonds, [Roger] Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire; these guys are synonymous with steroids. A-Rod is the only one who has come out of the abyss.”

If any baseball fans didn’t already know that Rodriguez possesses a savant-like knowledge of and reverence for the game, they learn that after watching him as an analyst. “When he was playing and I would see him, all he ever wanted to do is talk about the great players of the past,” says Rose. “He loves the history of the game. He would love to ask me about Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. I used to play against those guys all the time.”

For a journalist, this manifests in a stream of questions. At our first meeting, Rodriguez asks me to describe my workouts, where I come from, with whom else I have talked about him (and what they said), how this interview is going to go down. “I’m a reporter at heart,” he laughs.

But what has surprised many observers (and detractors) is how he plays well with others. “Having done studio shows, a lot of success or failure comes through how well you can sell everybody else and how well they sell you,” says Simmons. “And he’s good at selling the other people, which I would not have expected. Because you would have thought A-Rod would just be like, ‘Oh, I’m in it for myself. It’s not my job to make Pete Rose look better.’ But he’s actually good at selling them. The man’s full of surprises.”

Rodriguez brings the same relentless work ethic he exhibited during his career to his new job; his prep includes dozens of phone calls — to players, managers, trainers, other broadcasters, even the batboy. (“Clubhouse kids and batboys give you the greatest information in the world,” he says.) People joke on set that Rose has zero notes and Rodriguez shows up with a stack of them.

“A lot of people come in who think TV is easy, and they want to show up 20 minutes before the red light is on and wing it,” says John Entz, president of production at Fox Sports. “Alex prepares hours before, he watches the tape afterward, he wants to be critiqued, he wants to hear what was good, what could be worked on.”

Earlier this year, Fox signed him to a multiyear deal as a full-time analyst. But he wasn’t looking for a broadcast job when the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs in 2015, partly because he didn’t think he’d be good at it. It’s a running theme in Rodriguez’s life: his inferiority complex. It’s his Achilles’ heel — and what drives him.

“He needed reinforcement that he was the best,” says Rose. “Some players just want be told every day how good they are. I mean, Alex was so good, I don’t even think he understood how good he was. He always needed that little pat on the back to substantiate that.”

The effort seems to be paying off. Says Entz: “One of the comments we heard most frequently, either from people who didn’t like the Yankees or Alex, was along the lines of, ‘Man, I turned on the show, I really didn’t want to like Alex, but he was so good. I can’t help but like him.’ “

Further validation came in May when Fox’s World Series coverage won an Emmy. Adds Entz, “He’s changed a lot of people’s minds.”

Adds Rodriguez, referring to Entz: “He took a lot of shit. The people who took a chance on me early on when everybody was running the other way, those are the people who I go to war for.”

In February 2015, Rodriguez knew it was time to wave the white flag and get to work on a new incarnation of himself: owner of his own mess, charitable do-gooder, fan favorite. He was due at spring training; he released a letter of apology to fans. True to quirky form, it was handwritten. It was a complete reversal of his grievance-filled statement from a year earlier when he vowed to take his fight with baseball to federal court.

“When the thing that you love more than anything in the world is taken away from you, even if you did it to yourself, you really have to take a look at who you are and what you’re doing,” says Suzyn Waldman, the longtime Yankees play-by-play announcer. “When they took baseball away from him, something changed.”

His year of banishment was spent “turning the lens inward,” he says. He saw a psychoanalyst, he kept a journal, and he spent a lot of time with his daughters, Natasha, 12, and Ella, 9, who live nearby in Florida with their mother, Cynthia. (She and Rodriguez divorced in 2008 after five years of marriage; their split was tabloid fodder, courtesy of his then-liaison with Madonna. But they remain close, and Rodriguez mentions more than once how important it is for them to effectively co-parent.)

Never having gone to college is a source of great insecurity for Rodriguez, so during his time off, he took classes — at Columbia (value investing) and the University of Miami (marketing). He got advice from such friends as Jim Sharp, a septuagenarian lawyer who has represented polls (George W. Bush) and players (Rodriguez’s friend Andy Pettitte) and told him to give up the fight and take his punishment, and erstwhile CNN anchor Jessica Yellin (whom he met through a friend), who advised him that reporters are human beings not Schadenfreude-seeking destroyers of lives. “She told me, ‘Lean in to the media; they are people just like you; they have a job, just like you; connect with them, be yourself.’ “

He spent a lot of time apologizing — to his family, teammates, league execs. I ask Manfred if it seems surreal to be opening ballparks with Rodriguez after being on the opposite side of the trench. “When you come up in the side of the business that I did, where you have conflict with people, you learn to move on,” reasons Manfred. “It doesn’t seem surreal to me. I’m not a grudge-holder. It feels perfectly natural to me.”

Key to the reinvention narrative was that A-Rod returned to some approximation of his one-time MVP form when he rejoined the Yankees, not so easy for a “broken-down 40-year-old” who had weathered two hip surgeries and two knee surgeries. Many predicted (or hoped) that he would not make the starting lineup. By September, he had tied Hank Aaron’s record for the most 30-homer seasons of all time.

“It’s probably too soon for me to say this, but maybe in 10 years I’ll be able to say that the ‘ ’14 sabbatical’ was one of the best things that happened in my life,” he says. When I ask if he doesn’t believe that already, he adds, “I’ll say this: That year off I just had to fucking change and stop being a jerk.”

•••

Rodriguez’s work ethic was instilled by his mother, Lourdes Rodriguez, who worked as a secretary, taking a night job waiting tables after his father left the family when Alex was 10. As a child, he delighted in counting her tip money and was impressed when, at the end of the week, her tip pouch could have as much as $60 in it. “I would feel like the richest family in the neighborhood. And it left a mark on me.”

He was recruited out of high school by the University of Miami but signed a three-year, $1.3 million contract with the Seattle Mariners with a $1 million signing bonus. “I knew my mother was tired,” he says. “My responsibility was to sign that contract.”

Among the first things he did was buy his mom a house and a car. “We were constantly moving from apartment to apartment because they were always raising the rent,” he says of his childhood. “It always felt like it was the first of the month. And I remember praying to God to slow down time for my mother.”

Today, A-Rod Corp, the holding company he started 15 years ago, includes a Miami-based real estate and construction firm, Newport Property; fitness centers in Mexico; and a real estate investment and management firm, Monument, that owns 8,500 apartments and manages 13,000 in 12 states, mostly in the Southeast and Midwest.

Buffett has been a mentor for years — ever since Rodriguez placed an unsolicited call in 2001 upon learning that one of Buffett’s companies insured his early 2000s contract with the Texas Rangers. “I called the office and said, ‘Hey, I just want to say thank you.’ “

Buffett called back, and meetings with the Oracle of Omaha soon became a part of Rodriguez’s off-season routine. “We would sit there and go through all my businesses; he would give me all this advice. Then we would have dinner at his favorite steakhouse. At the end, I would have to eat one of those big ice cream sundaes.”

These days, when Rodriquez isn’t on the road for Fox Sports, his time is spent hopscotching among L.A., Miami and New York, where he and Lopez had their first official outing together in May when they appeared on the red carpet at Anna Wintour’s Met Gala. “There was a great deal of paparazzi,” he says. “They were telling me to get the hell out of the way so they could get a good shot of Jennifer.” He’s reluctant to say much about their relationship; they binge-watch TV together is as far as he’ll go. When I ask who asked whom out, he deflects: “You’ll have to ask her that.”

Their social media feeds are populated with pictures and videos of each other and their children. Lopez, 48, has 9-year-old twins with ex-husband Marc Anthony. “We both appreciate where we are in our lives,” he says. “We appreciate being parents, and we’re so similar; we’re both kind of workaholics.” (During one of our interviews, Lopez FaceTimes Rodriguez. “Oh look,” he says, turning his iPhone toward me, “Say hi.”)

He still watches baseball obsessively and often has the East, West and Central time zone games on simultaneously. “My girls are like, ‘Dad, this is too much. Where is the Disney Channel?’ “

He’s wistful about his distance from the game. “I miss my four at-bats every day. I miss the fans, the clubhouse, the boys. But I don’t miss the travel. I don’t miss waking up in pain every day.”

•••

The six-paneled TV in the screening room of Rodriguez’s Coral Gables home beams a huge visage of O.J. Simpson. It is July 20, the day of Simpson’s parole hearing. And the TV is tuned to ESPN, one of nearly a dozen networks carrying the hearing live. It’s jarring watching the fallen superstar in prison-issue clothes while in Rodriguez’s 11,000-square-foot, art-filled home. (Warhol and Basquiat hang on the walls; a Sarah Lucas sculpture featuring a white porcelain toilet is mounted in the entryway.) Rodriguez emerges wearing a black Tom Ford jacket and white cotton shirt. “Turn that O.J. stuff off,” he says to an assistant. “We’ve had enough of O.J.”

In the next room, the production crew from Back in the Game will shoot Rodriguez and Smith discussing the plan for Smith’s youth basketball academy. There is a dry-erase board on an easel; Rodriguez’s housekeeper spreads a freshly ironed white tablecloth on a folding table. “We want to tell the world who Joe Smith is,” explains Rodriguez.

Rodriguez has spent 22 years trying to tell the world who he is. If he has been misinterpreted, maligned (unfairly or not), vilified, perhaps it’s because he didn’t really know himself. “When I came back [after the suspension], I wanted to be a different person.”

And his legacy in the pantheon of America’s pastime? “I think that is to be determined,” he says. “But I left it all on the field. My best two years happened at 19 and as a broken-down 40-year-old. I hadn’t played in basically two years, two hip surgeries, two knee surgeries, scandal. And if you think about that arc, that tells you a hell of a story, right? The mistakes I’ve made are loud and clear. But one thing I am proud of is, I did not let those mistakes define who I am. I kept getting up.”

This story first appeared in the Aug. 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.