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puttingherinhistory · 3 years ago

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“Covid has unleashed the most severe setback to women’s liberation in my lifetime. While watching this happen, I have started to think we are witnessing an outbreak of disaster patriarchy.

Naomi Klein was the first to identify “disaster capitalism”, when capitalists use a disaster to impose measures they couldn’t possibly get away with in normal times, generating more profit for themselves. Disaster patriarchy is a parallel and complementary process, where men exploit a crisis to reassert control and dominance, and rapidly erase hard-earned women’s rights. (The term “racialized disaster patriarchy” was used by Rachel E Luft in writing about an intersectional model for understanding disaster 10 years after Hurricane Katrina.) All over the world, patriarchy has taken full advantage of the virus to reclaim power – on the one hand, escalating the danger and violence to women, and on the other, stepping in as their supposed controller and protector.

I have spent months interviewing activists and grassroots leaders around the world, from Kenya to France to India, to find out how this process is affecting them, and how they are fighting back. In very different contexts, five key factors come up again and again. In disaster patriarchy, women lose their safety, their economic power, their autonomy, their education, and they are pushed on to the frontlines, unprotected, to be sacrificed.

Part of me hesitates to use the word “patriarchy”, because some people feel confused by it, and others feel it’s archaic. I have tried to imagine a newer, more contemporary phrase for it, but I have watched how we keep changing language, updating and modernising our descriptions in an attempt to meet the horror of the moment. I think, for example, of all the names we have given to the act of women being beaten by their partner. First, it was battery, then domestic violence, then intimate partner violence, and most recently intimate terrorism. We are forever doing the painstaking work of refining and illuminating, rather than insisting the patriarchs work harder to deepen their understanding of a system that is eviscerating the planet. So, I’m sticking with the word.

In this devastating time of Covid we have seen an explosion of violence towards women, whether they are cisgender or gender-diverse. Intimate terrorism in lockdown has turned the home into a kind of torture chamber for millions of women. We have seen the spread of revenge porn as lockdown has pushed the world online; such digital sexual abuse is now central to domestic violence as intimate partners threaten to share sexually explicit images without victims’ consent.

The conditions of lockdown – confinement, economic insecurity, fear of illness, excess of alcohol – were a perfect storm for abuse. It is hard to determine what is more disturbing: the fact that in 2021 thousands of men still feel willing and entitled to control, torture and beat their wives, girlfriends and children, or that no government appears to have thought about this in their planning for lockdown.

In Peru, hundreds of women and girls have gone missing since lockdown was imposed, and are feared dead. According to official figures reported by Al Jazeera, 606 girls and 309 women went missing between 16 March and 30 June last year. Worldwide, the closure of schools has increased the likelihood of various forms of violence. The US Rape Abuse and Incest National Network says its helpline for survivors of sexual assault has never been in such demand in its 26-year history, as children are locked in with abusers with no ability to alert their teachers or friends. In Italy, calls to the national anti-violence toll-free number increased by 73% between 1 March and 16 April 2020, according to the activist Luisa Rizzitelli. In Mexico, emergency call handlers received the highest number of calls in the country’s history, and the number of women who sought domestic violence shelters quadrupled.

To add outrage to outrage, many governments reduced funding for these shelters at the exact moment they were most needed. This seems to be true throughout Europe. In the UK, providers told Human Rights Watch that the Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated a lack of access to services for migrant and Black, Asian and minority ethnic women. The organisations working with these communities say that persistent inequality leads to additional difficulties in accessing services such as education, healthcare and disaster relief remotely.

In the US, more than 5 million women’s jobs were lost between the start of the pandemic and November 2020. Because much of women’s work requires physical contact with the public – restaurants, stores, childcare, healthcare settings – theirs were some of the first to go. Those who were able to keep their jobs were often frontline workers whose positions have put them in great danger; some 77% of hospital workers and 74% percent of school staff are women. Even then, the lack of childcare options left many women unable to return to their jobs. Having children does not have this effect for men. The rate of unemployment for Black and Latina women was higher before the virus, and now it is even worse.

The situation is more severe for women in other parts of the world. Shabnam Hashmi, a leading women’s activist from India, tells me that by April 2020 a staggering 39.5% of women there had lost their jobs. “Work from home is very taxing on women as their personal space has disappeared, and workload increased threefold,” Hashmi says. In Italy, existing inequalities have been amplified by the health emergency. Rizzitelli points out that women already face lower employment, poorer salaries and more precarious contracts, and are rarely employed in “safe” corporate roles; they have been the first to suffer the effects of the crisis. “Pre-existing economic, social, racial and gender inequalities have been accentuated, and all of this risks having longer-term consequences than the virus itself,” Rizzitelli says.

When women are put under greater financial pressure, their rights rapidly erode. With the economic crisis created by Covid, sex- and labour-trafficking are again on the rise. Young women who struggle to pay their rent are being preyed on by landlords, in a process known as “sextortion”.

I don’t think we can overstate the level of exhaustion, anxiety and fear that women are suffering from taking care of families, with no break or time for themselves. It’s a subtle form of madness. As women take care of the sick, the needy and the dying, who takes care of them? Colani Hlatjwako, an activist leader from the Kingdom of Eswatini, sums it up: “Social norms that put a heavy caregiving burden on women and girls remain likely to make their physical and mental health suffer.” These structures also impede access to education, damage livelihoods, and strip away sources of support.

Unesco estimates that upward of 11 million girls may not return to school once the Covid pandemic subsides. The Malala Fund estimates an even bigger number: 20 million. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, from UN Women, says her organisation has been fighting for girls’ education since the Beijing UN women’s summit in 1995. “Girls make up the majority of the schoolchildren who are not going back,” she says. “We had been making progress – not perfect, but we were keeping them at school for longer. And now, to have these girls just dropping out in one year, is quite devastating.”

Of all these setbacks, this will be the most significant. When girls are educated, they know their rights, and what to demand. They have the possibility of getting jobs and taking care of their families. When they can’t access education, they become a financial strain to their families and are often forced into early marriages.

This has particular implications for female genital mutilation (FGM). Often, fathers will accept not subjecting their daughters to this process because their daughters can become breadwinners through being educated. If there is no education, then the traditional practices resume, so that daughters can be sold for dowries. As Agnes Pareyio, chairwoman of the Kenyan Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Board, tells me: “Covid closed our schools and brought our girls back home. No one knew what was going on in the houses. We know that if you educate a girl, FGM will not happen. And now, sadly the reverse is true.”

In the early months of the pandemic, I had a front-row seat to the situation of nurses in the US, most of whom are women. I worked with National Nurses United, the biggest and most radical nurses’ union, and interviewed many nurses working on the frontline. I watched as for months they worked gruelling 12-hour shifts filled with agonising choices and trauma, acting as midwives to death. On their short lunch breaks, they had to protest over their own lack of personal protective equipment, which put them in even greater danger. In the same way that no one thought what it would mean to lock women and children in houses with abusers, no one thought what it would be like to send nurses into an extremely contagious pandemic without proper PPE. In some US hospitals, nurses were wearing garbage bags instead of gowns, and reusing single-use masks many times. They were being forced to stay on the job even if they had fevers.

The treatment of nurses who were risking their lives to save ours was a shocking kind of violence and disrespect. But there are many other areas of work where women have been left unprotected, from the warehouse workers who are packing and shipping our goods, to women who work in poultry and meat plants who are crammed together in dangerous proximity and forced to stay on the job even when they are sick. One of the more stunning developments has been with “tipped” restaurant workers in the US, already allowed to be paid the shockingly low wage of $2.13 (£1.50) an hour, which has remained the same for the past 22 years. Not only has work declined, tips have also declined greatly for those women, and now a new degradation called “maskular harassment” has emerged, where male customers insist waitresses take off their masks so they can determine if and how much to tip them based on their looks.

Women farm workers in the US have seen their protections diminished while no one was looking. Mily Treviño-Sauceda, executive director of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, tells me how pressures have increased on campesinas, or female farm workers: “There have been more incidents of pesticides poisonings, sexual abuse and heat stress issues, and there is less monitoring from governmental agencies or law enforcement due to Covid-19.”

Covid has revealed the fact that we live with two incompatible ideas when it comes to women. The first is that women are essential to every aspect of life and our survival as a species. The second is that women can easily be violated, sacrificed and erased. This is the duality that patriarchy has slashed into the fabric of existence, and that Covid has laid bare. If we are to continue as a species, this contradiction needs to be healed and made whole.

To be clear, the problem is not the lockdowns, but what the lockdowns, and the pandemic that required them, have made clear. Covid has revealed that patriarchy is alive and well; that it will reassert itself in times of crisis because it has never been truly deconstructed, and like an untreated virus it will return with a vengeance when the conditions are ripe.

The truth is that unless the culture changes, unless patriarchy is dismantled, we will forever be spinning our wheels. Coming out of Covid, we need to be bold, daring, outrageous and to imagine a more radical way of existing on the Earth. We need to continue to build and spread activist movements. We need progressive grassroots women and women of colour in positions of power. We need a global initiative on the scale of a Marshall Plan or larger, to deconstruct and exorcise patriarchy – which is the root of so many other forms of oppression, from imperialism to racism, from transphobia to the denigration of the Earth.

There would first be a public acknowledgment, and education, about the nature of patriarchy and an understanding that it is driving us to our end. There would be ongoing education, public forums and processes studying how patriarchy leads to various forms of oppression. Art would help expunge trauma, grief, aggression, sorrow and anger in the culture and help heal and make people whole. We would understand that a culture that has diabolical amnesia and refuses to address its past can only repeat its misfortunes and abuses. Community and religious centres would help members deal with trauma. We would study the high arts of listening and empathy. Reparations and apologies would be done in public forums and in private meetings. Learning the art of apology would be as important as prayer.

The feminist author Gerda Lerner wrote in 1986: “The system of patriarchy in a historic construct has a beginning and it will have an end. Its time seems to have nearly run its course. It no longer serves the needs of men and women, and its intractable linkage to militarism, hierarchy and racism has threatened the very existence of life on Earth.”

As powerful as patriarchy is, it’s just a story. As the post-pandemic era unfolds, can we imagine another system, one that is not based on hierarchy, violence, domination, colonialisation and occupation? Do we see the connection between the devaluing, harming and oppression of all women and the destruction of the Earth itself? What if we lived as if we were kin? What if we treated each person as sacred and essential to the unfolding story of humanity?

What if rather than exploiting, dominating and hurting women and girls during a crisis, we designed a world that valued them, educated them, paid them, listened to them, cared for them and centred them?“

#women #coronavirus #life and style #world news #inequality #Covid 19 #COVID-19 #feminism #womanism #gender inequality #gender equality #corona virus

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traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors · 3 years ago

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-TW: Physical and emotional abuse done by mother and Stepfather, abandonment/absence of biological father, mental illness, suicidal ideation, domestic violence

-Seeking advice and reassurance-(This is mostly a way for me to ask if she's just really good at gaslighting or if I'm overreacting)

My mother is usually the one considered kind and loving by my entire family, but she has very high expectations for me since she wasn't ever able to do anything she wanted with her life after getting pregnant with me. A long time ago, when she found out my dad was cheating she confronted him and he got violent. She told me that she ended up stabbing him in the eye and fleeing to my grandparents house with me. While living there, I was left alone frequently all day or left with people unfit to care for a child while my mother was at work. She would sometimes just not come back untill the next day, and when she did return, it wasn't pleasant. After we moved out of there, my mom started dating my Stepfather, and while he loved me, he wasn't good at parenting at all either. When he was frustrated or angry he'd yell, and when I did something 'wrong' he'd punish my physically (He'd get angry at me for talking too much, struggling with school work, not watching the road while he drives, stuff like that.) I remember complaining about tooth pain so much, that he grabbed an old wrench, forced me down, and pulled the tooth untill it was out all while my mom watched begging me silently to just stop struggling so it'd be over with. He'd also force feed me if I couldn't eat all he made, drive recklessly to scare me, and force me under hot water before hitting me with a belt or switch so that it'd hurt more. When I told my mom about this stuff, she said that since that was how he was raised, I should be thankful that it's not any worse that it was already. Even though she defended his actions, they still fought a lot (physically and verbally) and since he had a lot of health issues it usually ended as a one sided battle. Soon, he died from a heart attack which put my mother into a depressive episode for a few years. I was expected to preform well in school, while she would ignore me in favor of work or social media; sometimes yelling and pushing me around when I asked her to go to the grocery store or to make food. When covid struck soon after my stepfathers death, she got even worse. She had to quit the job she's had for years and find a better paying one. It lated from 12pm-1am and I was always going to sleep crying or hungry because there just wasn't enough time for anything. We fought every night, and she would always attack my self confidence, poking at things I disliked about myself. A few times things got physical, but I was too afraid to do anything back except for run. My grades dropped significantly, and my mother started threatening to share my private school information with her new boyfriend. One day, when she and him confronted me about it, I accidentally reacted badly to a sudden movement out of fear, (I said this "if you hit me, I'll record it bitch") and she grabbed me by the hair and just kept hitting me on the head, face, neck, wherever she could reach continuously yelling at me to apologize. After that I had to write 200 lines about how I would never disrespect her again. A few months later, I tell my teacher what's been happening and he calls CPS. Every social worker that came by just made things progressively worse, so I started lying just to get out of the situation. I didn't have my own room or bed so I had to stay right there with her no matter what happened during the day. I just want to know if it's okay for me to feel deep resentment for my everyone involved? As I stated before, my stepdad had diabetes and actually ended up as an amputee eventually so feel like I should've been able to protect myself.

(Also, I already submitted an ask like this but I couldn't find it so I'm submitting it again. Sorry if that's not what I'm supposed to do.)

Hey anon,

You are definitely not overreacting. All of what you're describing is abusive and absolutely not okay. You deserve so, so much better.

You do not need to be thankful that the abuse you're enduring isn't worse. That is a manipulative idea used to try and control you. You deserve safety, respect, kindness, and care.

Your feelings are valid. You are completely justified in feeling resentment. There are so many adults who have failed you. You deserve better. You are a wonderful, worthy, important person. None of this abusive treatment you're experiencing is your fault, nor is it justified.

I hope you're safe now.

- Misa

#mod misa #trauma talks #tw child abuse #tw abuse #tw physical violence #tw physical abuse #tw emotional abuse #tw neglect #tw child neglect #cps mention

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thesaltyoncologist · 4 years ago

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Trigger warning: suicide

This NEJM Perspective piece addresses an incredibly important problem during medical training. If you’re in medicine, take a minute to read this. And if you’re struggling yourself with mental health, especially during training, PLEASE feel free to reach out to me personally. We want to help. You are not alone in this. Click the keep reading link to view the article in its entirety.

My Intern - R.E. Leiter

Bobby hasn’t come in yet today,” one of my chief residents told me. “He isn’t picking up his phone or answering his pager. Could you go and check on him?”

I was in my final year of my internal medicine residency and was on a 6-week rotation as the assistant chief resident. In this role, I organized educational sessions for the residents and medical students and helped with administrative tasks. Most important, I learned how to support other residents and respond to their needs, which is what much of my job as chief resident would entail the next year.

Bobby was an intern in our program, and he and I had worked on a team together in early July. Bobby became my intern, and I was his senior resident. It was a role I cherished, and I tried to teach him all I could about caring for multiple sick patients simultaneously and navigating the systems, personalities, and politics of a large Manhattan hospital. We stayed late as we struggled to place an ultrasound-guided IV into the arm of a patient whose veins were shot from years of dialysis. Perched side by side on a windowsill, we nearly missed morning rounds as we listened to a dying patient recount his journey from India to the United States. By the end of our long, busy month together, I was proud of the doctor Bobby had already become.

Bobby lived in a building across the street from the hospital. New York prices being what they are, most teaching hospitals provide their residents with subsidized housing in the neighborhood. It’s a strange, almost dormlike environment, with residents working and living together in close quarters.

It was a cloudless yet cool August day when one of the other chief residents and I stepped out the side door of the hospital. When Bobby didn’t answer our knock, we explained the situation to the building’s staff and they sent a maintenance worker back up with us. We soon discovered the incomprehensible reality: Bobby had jumped out his window. The usual din of the Manhattan street below was eerily quiet. Cecil’s Internal Medicine lay open on his tiny kitchen table, the pages gently flapping in the breeze from the open window.

Somehow, we ended up in the emergency department and witnessed a compassionate but ultimately hopeless resuscitation attempt. While our program director broke the news to the other residents, we returned to the apartment and gave our statements to the police.

The sudden death of a colleague would shake any workplace; in a medical training program where the boundary between the personal and the professional blurred into near nonexistence, its effect was seismic. When Bobby died, we asked the same questions of ourselves that others do when a close friend dies by suicide: What could we have done to prevent it? What had we missed? But we also had a different set of questions: Had something happened to our colleague in the hospital the night before he died? We knew he had been on a particularly brutal rotation. Had he made a mistake? Our uncertainty precipitated the fear that we could be next.

A few days after Bobby died, my program director, one of the chiefs, and I flew to his small, Midwestern hometown to represent the residency program at his visitation. As I gave my condolences to Bobby’s sister, she enveloped me in an unexpected hug. “Bobby told me you were the perfect resident; he wanted to be just like you.” Though she meant it as high praise, her comment left me rattled. I couldn’t escape thoughts that my expectations were too high or that I should have picked up on something wrong while I was working so closely with him.

Residency leaves little time for self-reflection, though, and even less time for personal grief. The wards were as full as ever, and our patients and their families needed care. Because there was no one to replace us, we went back to work and processed the loss as well as we could. In the days and weeks that followed Bobby’s death, the program directors, chief residents, and I worked to rearrange staffing, but the hospital’s needs limited the changes we could make. Even when we did have flexibility, we nonetheless made scheduling mistakes as we tried to triage which residents and teams required the most support. We could all adapt to one or two residents taking time off for family, health, or personal reasons, but managing our collective trauma was entirely different, and our blind spots added to everyone’s emotional and physical exhaustion.

I threw myself deeper and deeper into my job, hoping that working to heal my patients’ suffering would shield me from my own. I kept my head down on my way into the hospital each morning, lest I catch a glimpse of Bobby’s window. Predictably, this strategy was unsustainable. Evaluating a new patient in the ED, I found myself in the same corner where I had watched my colleagues work on Bobby. I couldn’t muster the wherewithal to inhabit my role as a physician while also containing my terrifying memories. After rounds, I sobbed in my chief resident’s office. I saw Bobby’s death as a sign of my failure. I had failed as a resident. I had failed as a teacher. Bobby was my intern and I had failed him. I was terrified of working with another intern, let alone of serving as a chief to nearly 150 of them, many of whom would struggle with their own mental illness.

Each year, approximately 300 physicians in the United States die by suicide.1 Medical students and residents are particularly at risk, facing new professional responsibilities with the highest possible stakes, deep uncertainty about their own abilities, constant sleep deprivation, and isolation from family and friends. When I had a few seconds in residency to scroll through my social media feeds, I would see pictures of a world from which I felt completely removed. On Saturday nights, other people my age discovered new bands and ate at trendy new restaurants; I fought with the electronic medical record to input orders for laxatives and stood in line to perform chest compressions on a dying mother of two young children. These stressors form a dangerous and potentially toxic mix, particularly for trainees with preexisting or emerging mental illness.

Thankfully, I received the psychiatric services I so desperately needed. I still have a scar, but it’s well healed. I wonder, though, how many residents in our program remained isolated in their suffering. Bobby wasn’t only my intern; he was our colleague and friend. In the aftermath of his death, how many of us should have been working at all?

Six years after he died, I no longer worry about having failed Bobby. But I do think the system of medical training failed him and continues to fail every trainee it puts in harm’s way. Although there will be no easy solutions to this crisis, we cannot accept the status quo. We are losing too many young physicians to suicide for the current system to remain morally defensible. Seeking to improve the lives of others shouldn’t cost our trainees their own.

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, a prevention hotline can help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24 hours per day at 800-273-8255. During a crisis, people who are hard of hearing can call 800-799-4889.

Disclosure forms provided by the author are available at NEJM.org.

The intern’s name has been changed to protect the family’s privacy.

This article was published on March 13, 2021, at NEJM.org.

#medblr #nursblr #medical school #fellowship #residency #life outside the hospital #please let me know if this is behind a paywall and I’ll find a way to post it #mental health #suicide

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fandom-blackhole · 4 years ago

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I love that you established that Paz and Din are practically a family because now our au can work in many ways!

Like social worker!reader x kindergarten teacher!Din with cameos of chef!unclePaz and vice versa.

So we need to connect Boba with the boys in our set up. My head is kinda empty in this deparrment. Boba financially supporting Din's school perhaps?

So as I was lurking at your earlier asks now we can have social worker!reader x mob Boba babysitting Grogu for Din??

Also your expansion on Paz's being eco friendly and all about educating younglings!

He is w o k e king we don't deserve but we all need.

Random thot, Paz of course is a sweetheart but he still represents BDE. He is not about any macho shenanigans so picture this:

You and Paz on lazy Saturday evening, drinking matcha made by our chef, obviously, spilling the tea about his workers. He is throwing a shade left and right sassy king (of course no ill will because he is a teddy) and all of that while you both are using those cute, korean face masks. Can we agree that he is a skincare king?? Like after leaving the army, he taught himself that practicing self-love is really important! Also back to Boba, he doesn't really talk with you about his ''work''. I know communication is the key, but maybe he thinks you are too innocent and selfless doing all that social work, that even though, as you mentioned, he has morals, he won't talk with you about what he'd done to that afwul person from the rival family. Another thing for Boba, he is filthy rich but he does not flaunt his money? Like, of course, he gets you the best of the best gifts just because but deep down he is a simple man.(Jango didn't come from the wealth, he was a self-made man and taught his son the importance of hardworking). He'd rather spend his evening with you, watching the sunset in his penthouse (okay we need to keep this kind of boujee for him) than going to any fancy parties.

Sorry, my writing is all over the place but I feel so pumped up. I love creating this universe with you! - 🐣

God don't be sorry because I can and will jump around as well! I love this little world we are making too and im just super excited...

Ok ok, thinking about how to tie Boba into all of this, what if because he donates so much, Boba is also like an elected official like on the school board for the city?

That way he has a tie to Din, and as for Paz, Boba supports and donates to Paz's eco friendly organization he's started to help clean up the city

And Boba just kind of take both boys under his wing a bit because they both remind him of himself a little

Because Boba is like an big brother to the boys, when Din is super busy he does occasionally ask Boba to watch Grogu

Which always results in a disaster, because Boba always teaches him things he shouldn't, like naughty words, rude gestures, and how to hurt someone

Now as for his money, Boba doesn't flaunt it, but he also uses the money, he isn't just going to let it set there

So he has a nice house(s) in, and out, of the city, he has nice cars with great paint jobs, and as you said spoils you with nice gifts

He also always has the nicest tailored suits, and beautiful watches and tie clips, but his cuff links were his fathers and he wears them all the time and refuses to get new ones

You don't spend much money, wanting to keep it safe for emergencies, so you kind of off handedly comment about something and it shows up at your house, with a note that just says, "for you princess. -B"

Boba very much does like to keep you in the dark about his work, not only for plausible deniablity with law enforcement, but also because it is refreshing to have someone so 'innocent' and untouched in his life

Ok so PAZ, our boy, (first off I LOVE matcha, and I am like the only person that orders it at our local coffee shop, the barista has even told me that lmao)

So he is so into self care, once he left the military he dove into self care because it helps his spirits and it was something he could enjoy while he was away

He always buys the absolute cheesiest masks he can find, and he always looks silly with them half covering his beard (because he has one and I will fight people who say he doesn't)

Also also, so Paz is super economical so what IF he lives in a tiny home?!?!? Like they are better for the environment because they are smaller, and he doesn't use as much energy, though he also has solar panels at his house, and he showers with rain water

God just imagine him, a huge giant, living in a tiny house

He likes how small it it because it means more room for his garden and handful of animals

He owns a clutch of chickens, a goat (he makes his own goat cheese and goat milk soap), and he has a small pond with geese and ducks

(Send me THOTS!!!!!)

#🐣 anon #modern au #babysitting saga #din djarin x reader #din x reader #boba fett x reader #boba x reader #paz vizsla x reader #paz x reader

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malikmata · 3 years ago

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Notes from a Brown Boy - Kansas Diaries

*Author’s Note: Some people’s names have been changed to protect their identities

The rain was the first thing to greet me when I landed in Wichita. Overhead the gray clouds loomed, shadowing the farmland that yawned in the distance. Distance. At first glance, the city seemed like one long stretch of prairies and cracked parking lots, occasionally punctuated by billboards of grinning injury lawyers and lit up restaurant road signs.

If you spend enough time here amid the crumbling old buildings, watching the weeds sway in the vacant lots, you’ll feel the slow, inevitable creep of dread or something like it.

It’s easy to feel lonely here.

But, if you’re receptive enough, you’ll run into many friendly folks. Sometimes too friendly.

For example: During my first week, I went to Freddy’s, a local fast food chain, and ordered a crispy chicken sandwich with fries. The cashier, a young woman with glasses and short blonde hair, suddenly started confessing her fear that her 8-year old chihuahua wouldn’t live a long life.

“I still think of him as a teenager,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “He’s a chihuahua. They live long lives.”

Out here, in the most middle-of-the-road cities, you sometimes get a chance to show an act of passing kindness. While waiting in line at one of the hip, new cafes downtown, a place called Milkfloat, a tall elderly gentleman recommended which coffee and pastry to get.

“My wife says this place has the best cold brew in town.” Afterwards, grabbing his pastry and coffee, he wished me a good day. Most folks here always do and you better hope it comes true. Because here, like elsewhere, a day is filled with ordinary heartbreaks.

I will simply call her “Tita.” She works as a tailor at a department store, the only tailor working there, hemming and tapering racks full of suit pants under fluorescent lights. The nature of the job requires exact measurements and a keen eye for detail. She works hard, often skips lunch, and comes home dead tired. Her husband is recovering from 4 broken ribs after a car repair job went awry. Nothing can be done but wait until he gets better.

They live in a languid suburb on Wichita’s east side, a street with few sidewalks but plenty of lawn.

And noise. Plenty of noise. The neighborhood sits next to a car dealership. The skies overhead rumble continuously with airplanes and thunderstorms. Dogs bark at anyone who gets too close. A pickup truck blasts a corny country song as the cicadas and frogs belt out their lonely mating calls. Occasionally, a child’s laughter rises above it all.

Gossip is one of the great pastimes in towns like these. Even if you shut yourself up in your home, stories trickle in.

The neighbor across the street shot himself in the head.

The elderly couple that used to live next door got committed to a nursing home.

A fellow around the corner is on his third attempt to grow weed.

A college student starves himself morning to night so that he can save money for college.

Down the street, a kid lifts weights and punches the heavy bag hanging on his front porch.

Here, dumb luck seems, more so than in the big cities, the providence of God.

A man told me he got a job installing new carpets at a friend’s house. He was in desperate need of money, having sent most of it to his mother back home, who proceeded to gamble it away. When he ripped out the old carpet, he found a bundle of $10,000 dollars just lying there. His co-worker said, “We should split it.”

“No, no, we can’t take it.” the man said. He gave the money to his friend.

Sometime later, he went to the casino and couldn’t stop winning jackpot after jackpot. He brought home close to $16,000 in one night.

“So, if you do something good,” he told me, “God will remember that.”

Many people have come to live and die here, all of them wrapped up in the melancholic churning of faded ambitions and familial obligations.

Some people here have found something that returns them to the placidity they once felt in their youth. Sometimes that’s enough to keep them going.

For example:

I met Phil Uhlik, the namesake of the music store on E Douglas. He heard me playing an old Martin acoustic in one of the rooms. He shuffled in slightly hunched over, wearing a blue paisley shirt and brown shorts. He looked at the sunburst guitar in my hands and said, “It’s got a little beauty mark there.” He pointed to a small nick just above the sound hole. “All girls have beauty marks.” He pointed to his cheeks and smiled.

Uhlik started this music store 51 years ago and enjoys every moment of it.

“When you go to work for Boeing, that’s work,” he said. “But this, it doesn’t feel like work.” He motioned to the instruments all around him.

“How’d you get started?” I asked.

“I started off playing one of these,” he said, taking one of the accordions off a nearby shelf. As he strapped it on, all the years seemed to disappear. With a big crooked-teeth grin, he breathed life into the old accordion, his hands dancing up and down the keys. The smile never left his face as we bid farewell to each other.

I wish everyone in this world were as lucky as Phil.

I’m always seeking indie bookstores when I travel. Eighth Day Books provides much needed shelter from the summer heat. The shop was built 33 years ago and used to be located about half a mile east, in Clifton Square Village. About 17 years ago they moved to their current location, a 1920 Dutch-style colonial house on the corner of E Douglas and N Erie. Its blue trimmed windows peek through the foliage of neighboring trees.

When you walk in, you’ll see shelves of books on Christianity and Theological studies, most notably in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. I’ve never seen a bookshop with a section dedicated to Iconography.

Wichita, despite its size, feels like a small place. And with that cramped spaciousness, you’re likely to run into someone you may remember or who may remember you. Here I ran into my girlfriend’s 8th grade English teacher. A bald, bespectacled man with a gentle demeanor. After a bit of catching up, he said to us with a smile, “I hope all your dreams come true.”

The short story writer, Raymond Carver, once wrote: “Dreams… are what you wake up from.”

Wichita is a land that hypnotizes you; it makes you dream, dream of something beyond the miles of strip malls and airplane factories, beyond the shocks of wheat and windswept plains, beyond the doldrums and ennui. But it also shakes you awake, reminds you that you’re in it, that you better stop dreaming.

I’m not the religious sort anymore, having survived the regime laid down by my Catholic parents. But there is something enthralling, maybe even inspirational, when I look at the rows of beautifully painted portraits of saints and martyrs. Such solemn faces surrounded by golden halos. According to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, such paintings transcend art; they’re supposed to be windows through which you can glimpse the divine. They remind me of my grandparents with their judging eyes and moral seriousness.

My book haul for the day:

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

The Diary of Anne Frank

Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries by Marina Tsvetaeva

Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector

In that last book, I found this lovely little passage:

…”in the Revolution, as always, the weight of everyday life falls on women: previously--in sheaves, now in sacks. Everyday life is a sack with holes. And you carry it anyway.”

From Earthly Signs, P. 40

According to the 2019 United States census bureau, 15.9% of Wichita's population lives below the poverty line. That’s higher than the state average, which hovers around 11.4%. That’s not the lowest nor is it the highest in the country. As befitting its location, Kansas is right in the middle.

The minimum wage in Kansas is still $7.25 despite efforts to increase it to $15. When Covid-19 hit, city and service workers bore the brunt of the impact. You can keep all your empty slogans like “We Love Our Frontline Workers.” Congratulate me all you want for my hard work but where’s my pay?

When you see that business here has returned to normal--people freely walking around without masks, no longer socially distancing--it still feels all too strange; we spent an entire year under lockdown. There’s still a pandemic by the way.

Loved ones fell ill, died alone, hooked up to ventilators in closed off hospital rooms. I believe every interaction now carries the weight of all those deaths. My family, like so many others, didn’t escape unscathed from the pandemic. My grandpa, Amang, caught Covid. Since he was an elderly citizen (and suffering from emphysema to boot), he was among those considered most at risk. We all feared the worst. Somehow he survived. The doctors called him a “trailblazer.”

Now, with businesses back to 100% capacity, I’m afraid that, just like the 1918 Flu epidemic, the past will fade like a nightmare upon waking. But it was so much more than that; it was an avoidable tragedy.

If you want to know what this pandemic has done to people and their livelihoods, is still doing to them, take a ride through downtown.

Things were already going bad before Covid hit. Back in 2004, the writer Thomas Frank wrote,

“There were so many closed shops in Wichita… that you could drive for blocks without ever leaving their empty parking lots, running parallel to the city streets past the shut-down sporting goods stores and toy stores and farm implement stores.”

What’s the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, P. 75

What led to all this blight? Frank attributes the decline to:

“the conservatives’ beloved free market capitalism, a system that, at its most unrestrained, has little use for smalltown merchants or the agricultural system that supported the small towns in the first place.”

-P. 79

The same story happens in a lot of places. A megacorporation keeps eating everything around it and leaves nothing else at the table.

The people are left hurting, a pit in their stomachs, and some asshole somewhere profits off of it.

While at the DMV, I overheard this:

“You have a good day now,” the security guard said.

“I’ll try my best,” a woman said.

My girlfriend heard them too and laughed.

“You really do have to try your best in order to have a good day here.”

At some point, we hit the town with a couple friends: Monica, and her boyfriend Will. Both are musicians trying to carve out their niche in a place that, on the surface, seems apathetic to creative pursuits.

It’s impossible to not be captured by their energy. As soon as we walk into their house, Monica, with her dark blonde hair draped over her shoulders, reached in for a hug. Will, a tall and bearded fellow with a bear-like presence, also went in for the hug.

“Ready to experience some Wichita nightlife?” Monica asked.

What is the nightlife here like? A group of high school punks wanted to fight us over a couple movie theater seats. Bored kids play rounds of “Chinese Fire Drill” at stop lights. I heard a nazi biker gang rolled into town at some point during my stay. Regular things like that.

At a low-key bar downtown called Luckys, I met a guy named Cory. He told me how he met a 15 year old kid loitering here, looking lost and forlorn.

“I don’t know what kind of advice I can give you but I’ll do the best I can,” Cory said.

This is the spirit I’ve often come across during my stay: A sort of slightly intrusive compassion. For a cynical Californian like me, the behavior seems a little strange, maybe even a little annoying. But I’ve come to appreciate the candor of it.

“Guaranteed we’ll know half the people here,” Will said.

Right away, he shook hands with the bartender—a high school friend of his—and asked him how his band was doing. Afterwards, we sat down and talked. Talking, after a year of pandemic lockdown, has become a lost art to me. But a little alcohol loosened the lips and suddenly I talked as though I’d known these people my whole life.

Will sipped his whisky on the rocks and told me:

“If everything in this world is meant to break down eventually, then any act of creation becomes an act of defiance.”

It may sound naive but to me, it’s true. I think about the words of the writer, John Berger:

Compassion defies the laws of necessity. To forget yourself and identify with a stranger has a power that defies the supposed natural order of things.

--The Shape of a Pocket, P. 179

Making art has to be, in some way, a compassion act, because it involves letting the environment and the people you meet speak for themselves, allowing a collaboration.

“When a painting is lifeless it is the result of the painter not having the nerve to get close enough for a collaboration to start… Every authentic painting demonstrates a collaboration.”

--The Shape of a Pocket, P. 16

You need to open yourself up, feel what someone is saying behind their words, and hopefully, feel what they feel.

Art, like Compassion, is defiant.

Among the 4 or so Asian markets here, you can find all the ingredients you need to cook up something good. During my first week, I stopped at a place called Grace Market. Like a lot of small Asian markets, it’s family run. A father from Taiwan. A mother from Korea. The son usually helps out when he can. Today (June 23), On this warm Wednesday morning, the son is manning the cash register.

“You’re from California? I’m from there too,” he said.

“Where at?” I asked.

“Sacramento. How about you? So Cal?”

“Nah, Bay Area.”

“Funny. That’s where my parents met.”

“Small world.”

On a different day, we met the father, a jovial man who never fails to say hi when you walk in. He came here over a couple decades ago from California, doing work for the US Army in Garden City. Once his service was over, he decided to stay in Kansas.

“I think you know why,” he said.

More and more young folks these days are leaving California. The high cost of living is presumably what’s driving this exodus. I told him I was also thinking of leaving the Golden State, as much as I love the place.

“Well, a town like this has a lot of potential if you want to save money,” he said. “If I tried to start this business in California, I don’t think I could’ve done it.”

The summer heat can, with the suddenness of a lightning flash, give way to thunderous storms. Speaking as someone from California, whose home has gone through excruciating periods of drought and wildfire, these nightly downpours are a startling yet relaxing sight.

The distant boom of thunder in the distance reminds you of how much of our lives depend on the weather, how small we are in comparison, how we are never separate from the goings-on of nature. The rain doesn’t come down lightly here. At night, it smacks and drums against the window pane with all the force of an animal trying to get inside.

But I don’t find myself frightened by it so much as awed by the combined power of wind and rain colliding against our rickety old house.

Kansas lies in the Great Plains, where layers of cool and warm air often combine into a low-level jet stream. Unimpeded by any natural obstacles on the wide flat plains, the wind roars across the expanse. Thunder growls over the prairie. And lightning flashes on the horizon in a fearsome red tinge.

The storm rages throughout the night, the only source of light in an ocean-sized plain.

“In general, the gods of the Wichita are spoken of as "dreams," and they are divided into four groups: Dreams-that-are-Above (Itskasanakatadiwaha), or, as the Skidi would say, the heavenly gods; and (2) Dreams-down-Here (Howwitsnetskasade), which, according to the Skidi terminology, are the earthly gods. The latter "dreams" in turn are divided into two groups: Dreams-living-in-Water (Itska-sanidwaha), and the Dreams-closest-to-Man (Tedetskasade)”

From The Mythology of the Wichita, P. 33

If you go downtown, you’ll see a sculpture called “The Keeper of the Plains.”

It’s almost 9 o’ clock when I get there, so large crowds have gathered to watch the ring of fire lit around its perimeter.

The statue was designed by indigenous artist and craftsman, Blackbear Bosin. Born in Cyril, Oklahoma, but living much of his adult life in Wichita, Kansas, Bosin was of Comanche and Kiowa descent and almost entirely self-taught as an artist.

When you come upon the Keeper of the Plains, standing tall on the fork of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers, you can’t help but feel a mix of admiration and sadness. It’s a striking statue, especially when set against the beautiful orange and lavender hues of the setting sun. But monuments like these end up reminding you of the Wichita peoples who were killed, displaced, driven from their land, and left to die in reservations, forgotten. The tribes that once lived here along the southern plains still show traces of their culture but now, you’ll see it mostly as a memory in a museum or as art hanging on the walls of a library.

I learned from a video by the Wichita Eagle that the last speaker of the Wichita language, Doris Jean Lamar, died back in 2016. It must be indescribably lonely to be the last speaker of a language. There is no one to have a conversation with, no one to whom you can confess your hopes or your regrets. But in the video, Lamar, even knowing that she is the last speaker, expresses hope that future generations will know what the language sounded like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ScPkN_xGRI

Is forgiveness even possible when injustices are still committed today against native peoples everywhere?

Not enough can be said about the skies here, which seem at times so brilliantly marbled with peach and lavender colors that you begin to walk with your head perpetually craned upwards.

It’s this aspect, the overwhelming sense of the sublime, that will probably stay with me long after I’ve left Kansas.

I think again about the nature of dreams. It isn’t such a sin to dream about things, about things that haven’t happened yet, and about things that have happened. To quit dreaming seems too cynical, like admitting from the outset that everything is screwed, that you should stop trying.

During my stay here, I’ve met many people who aren’t so irony poisoned yet, people who are achingly sincere and kind. They haven’t stopped trying. There isn’t much room for cynicism here. I appreciate that a lot.

Farewell to you, Kansas, you and your clumps of cumulus and vast fields of cows and grass. I’ll see you again.

Check out Will’s music! It’s gloomy, melancholy, and LOUD!: https://teamtremolo.bandcamp.com/album/intruder

#diary #photoblog #photo diary #midwest #kansas #travel diaries

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musicfeedsmysoul12 · 5 years ago

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Soulmate Change

Soulmate marks can change if something happens that's big enough to make them do so.

Like say... telling your soulmate to jump off a roof.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Soulmates are the way of things. You have a mark that shows an important part of who your soulmate would be. These marks would glow to your soulmate upon first seeing them (and knowing what they were.)

Bakugou Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku are soulmates. Izuku was born with a mushroom cloud in orange on his right shoulder while Katsuki had a green fist on his lower back.

The boys were best friends instantly. They did everything together.

“Gonna be hewoes!” They would cheer. Soulmate heroes were fairly common. They made the best teams.

Katsuki’s quirk came in, explosions on his palms and they waited to see what Izuku’s would be. Something about his hands they assumed.

But there was nothing.

Quirkless they diagnosed him as.

At first, it didn’t seem to affect them.

Then Katsuki began telling him to stop being stupid. He couldn’t be a hero. He was weak. He wasn’t going to be a good one.

The bullying came next. Being shoved around or the occasional burst on fire on his skin.

Izuku put up with it though. A part of him believed in soulmates fiercely. He wanted to believe his soulmate would be his friend again. That they would face the world together.

And then…

“Take a swan dive off the roof.” It echoed. It echoed in his mind and screamed in his soul throughout the day. He kept hearing it as he fought a villain, as All Might praised him. As he was handed a quirk. As he spotted the green vase on All Might’s lower arm and convinced him to come to see his house. As his mom dropped a pan and All Might gasped at seeing the hairbrush on his mom’s neck. Later the brush would make sense. In a way.

But his mind focused on those words.

Swan dive off the roof.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to rage.

Instead, he made a choice.

One thing about Marks was that they could change. It wasn’t that common. Maybe eight cases or so a year? Or more but eight would make the news. Izuku had only ever known that his teacher’s mark had changed.

But they could. When something happened that shattered the soulmates’ trust and belief. When something happened that made them unable to accept their soulmate anymore.

Some of the cases to make the news had the soulmate of a villain testifying against them, and it would always focus on the devastation of the villain as they saw the mark had changed.

Take a swan dive off the roof.

Izuku goes to sleep with a mushroom cloud and wakes up with a blue engine on his arm.

“Izuku…” breathes his mom upon seeing it. All Might- Toshinori- looks confused as he sits there, having spent the night on the couch. “What happened?”

“... he told me to take a swan dive off the roof and pray I had a Quirk in the next life.” Something smashes and Toshinori stiffens while his mother looks broken.

It’s simple to change it. The people look confused at him changing it until they figure out they met young.

“It’s why we say people should separate the kids if they’re soulmates,” the social worker who is documenting their case tells them. “Kids change as they grow up. Teens to but I’ve found teens tend to be a bit more stable in their souls at age sixteen and on.”

“So it’s more common then we know?” Asks Izuku.

“For kids? I’ve seen about twenty in my six years change because they were kids.” Explains the woman. “We need to know what happened though kid.”

“He told me to take a swan dive off the roof and hope I got a Quirk in my next life.” The woman freezes.

“... well fuck that kid then.” She looks angry and Izuku feels a bit of gratitude to this woman, for taking his side.

He doesn’t have to bare his mark he’s told. He’s underage.

So he doesn’t. He keeps long sleeves and works out. He cleans a beach and learns history from Toshinori who is over all the time and eventually moves in, hand in hand with his mom.

He doesn’t think about his mark.

-0-

Bakugou Katsuki has known his soulmate since they were children.

He wants him as far away from heroes as possible.

It’s easy to discourage him. Make himself scary. Be a bully. Torment him.

It hurts to do so. It kills him inside.

But he wants his soulmate safe.

(And a small part laughs in joy at the sight of him on his knees. Crying. His soulmate shouldn’t look down on him and he does and he hates it.)

His mom finds out though, after the slime attack.

“You told him to jump off a roof you brat?!?” She screams and he shouts back, explaining himself.

It doesn’t help it.

“You stay the fuck away from Izuku Katsuki.” She tells him and closes the door behind her. He glares but decides to listen.

The slime attack should have put Izuku off. It should have. His scolding should have done the rest.

He’ll be safe.

(“You didn’t tell him?”

“No. He deserves to find out the hard way.” It’s cruel. Mitsuki knows this.

But she does it anyway. Her son hurt his soulmate enough for the mark to change. Her son told him to kill himself.

She knows the school praised Katsuki, put him on a pedestal. He had the strongest quirk in school after all. They let things slide. And maybe she did to.

But words and actions have consequences. It was time he learned that.)

-0-

He gains One for All a week before the exam and it hurts when he breaks his arm but it’s enough for them to know he needs to figure out how to hold it back. He analyzes and analyzes, figuring out where to focus it and how.

He breaks his finger the day before the exam but it’s enough.

He’s a late bloomer they tell the doctor. Toshinori speaks up and says he has a strength quirk to, one that hurt him pretty bad because his body wasn’t ready and suggests that why his took so long.

They let them think what they want. Hisashi has left Inko for his soulmate before she’d known she was pregnant. He hadn’t sent her anything, and she didn’t want it anyway.

Toshinori claims to be All Might’s secretary in his own agency, and they can say they had met after Hisashi had walked out, that he’d been early. That Inko hadn’t been sure, that Toshinori hadn’t seen the brush on her neck and she hadn’t seen the vase.

Both put on brilliant blushes at the look and Izuku gags because that’s not an image he wants in his head, thanks.

But it’s enough that they ignore it when they put it down and soon he’s sitting in an auditorium, trying to ignore… trying to ignore the blonde next to him.

He’s quiet and doesn’t mutter, not wanting Katsuki’s attention. He wants to focus on himself and what’s going on first.

It’s later though. At the entrance to the fake city, he sees it. The boy who’d stood up during Present Mic’s speech.

He has engines in his legs.

He tries not to puke.

Instead, he focuses on doing well. He’s not the best. He holds back, knowing his quirk is to much for him.

At least he holds back until the zero pointer. He can’t let someone get hurt. He doesn’t care it’s a test and there might be safeguards.

It’s a robot. And there is always a possibility of malfunction.

He throws himself at the robot and smashes it. He breaks his arm, his legs. He doesn’t care.

He falls and is saved.

He’s barely aware of his sleeves missing, of the engine shown on his arm.

He’s barely aware of someone seeing it.

He’s barely aware of a choked gasp, and people whispering at the engine.

But he knows it happened.

-0-

Iida Tenya isn’t sure what to think. He stares at the boy on the ground with the engine on his arm and thinks, it explains the fist.

He wants to focus, his mind is going a million miles an hour as he thinks things through.

But his mind keeps going back to the engine. He boy is taken to the infirmary to sleep off his healing and Tenya decides to wait for him.

A green-haired woman and a skeleton thin man are there. The man is in an ill-fitting suit and the woman looks worried and stressed.

She sees him and her eyes frown, taking him in before she sees his legs.

A look is on her face then and the man stares at him too.

“Toshi-“

“Go see Izuku,” he says. “I’ll talk to him.” The woman nods and the man walks to Tenya who hesitates. “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you. You’re an Iida aren’t you?”

“Ah! Yes sir!” Tenya says nervously. “You know my family?”

“I’m All Might’s secretary.” The man explains and oh that is… wow. “So, you’re Izuku’s soulmate.”

“Ah… yes. If that is the boy who broke his arm.” Tenya looks at this man, who must be his soulmate’s father, and is quietly utterly terrified.

“... it’s not private so I’ll tell you but Izuku’s mark Changed to the engine.” The man says and Tenya feels his heart stop.

What? His… that…

“I… how…”

“That is private but know that Izuku might not be ready to date anyone right now.” The man tells him.

“Ah! I do not wish to date currently sir! I simply wish to get to know my soulmate!” Tenya shakes his head and he puts all his thoughts away while the man studies him a bit more. He nods.

“I see. Tell you what-“ he hands him a business card. “That’s my number. Call me later and I’ll give your number to Izuku. He can decide. It might be easier not to be face to face for a while.”

Tenya agrees. He also needs to think about this.

His mark has never changed. His soulmate’s has.

It's a bit of a bitter thought.

-0-

Izuku texts his soulmate a week after the exams. When the whispers surround him and he just wants to die.

My school sucks. Is all he texts.

Perchance why? Is texted back.

Everyone thought I was Quirkless forever but it turns out my Quirk needed a certain amount of power to activate. But anyway Quirkless means bullies.

The answer back was horrified but it did compel them to speak more and more. Eventually, it became phone calls and long chats.

The real test was three months after the exam when they met up with their families.

Izuku might have fanboyed. A little.

… a lot.

But they took it in stride.

Tensei found it cute and teased his brother’s soulmate gently as the boy blushed and stuttered. He backed off when Tenya shot him a look, standing in front of his little soulmate a bit.

Time goes by after that and then one day, visiting and sitting on a pier of a beach, Izuku speaks.

“My old soulmate told me to take a swan dive off the roof and pray for a quirk.” Tenya drops his orange juice and turns, eyes wide, to stare at Izuku. “It’s why the mark changed. It’s why it’s taken me so long…”

“I won’t leave you,” Tenya tells him. “I won’t do that, I swear. I would…”

“I know.” Izuku smiles at him. “I know. But… I’m not ready for anything but friends.”

“Me either,” Tenya admits. “I’d like more but I wish to wait as well.” He reaches out though, taking Izuku’s hand and the green-haired boy squeezes it. They smile at each other again.

It’s just right for them.

When they go to UA, they go together, getting in early. That’s when they see Katsuki. He’s there early too, sitting in a desk and smirking. Izuku freezes. Tenya’s fists clench. But they keep their distance.

(Katsuki wants to demand what Izuku is thinking being here. Why isn’t he talking to him? Why isn’t he going near him? Why? Why? Why?)

When it’s testing time… that’s when it happens. Izuku uses his Quirk and grins- he hadn’t hurt himself- and Katsuki snaps.

“What the fuck DEKU?!” He roars, charging at him, ignoring the flinch Izuku gives. He’s caught by their teacher but he doesn’t care. “You fucking liar! I’m your damn soulmate and you haven’t said shit-“

“No, you’re not,” Izuku speaks. And then he rolls up his sleeve and…

It’s gone.

The mushroom cloud.

It’s gone.

Katsuki freezes, eyes wide.

“Wha… no it couldn’t… it couldn’t change…” he breathes. Izuku looks at him and he looks terrified, but his eyes glance to someone behind them (that’s an engine, his soulmate found another that fast?) before he straightens his shoulders.

“Why wouldn’t it? How long have you tormented me? Bullied me? Said cruel shit to me? Why wouldn’t it change when you stopped being the Kaachan I knew as a child?” Izuku asks and his words feel like bullets.

“... you were Quirkless. I wanted to protect you, make myself scary so you wouldn’t…” Katsuki breathes (but it’s not the full truth and he knows it like Izuku knows it by the way his mouth slants).

“Actions and words have consequences,” Izuku tells him before he walks away to grab onto a different hand.

The teacher lets him go and Katsuki stands there. His body is shaking.

What…

What had he done?

#bnha #soulmate au #iideku #fanfic

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flydotnet · 4 years ago

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Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled. I don’t have any request left, so feel free to send in suggestions for this card!).

Just so you know how bad I tried to make this be (and failed), I was watching Run with the Wind's infamous 20th episode.

Wassup BTHB crowd, it's ya boi Fly, back at it with a new hit piece. I'm glad to be taking part in this challenge, because it"s always fun to match characters/pairings to some tasty prompts and go wild with them. This one is fairly simple vecause it's a warm-up round and I didn't have that much to say (rip my insp, I'll never be able to match that level of pain), but it's always so fun to write Tsunami and Tachimukai being bros. I feel like we just don't have enough of them as platonic bros. We need more of that and I guess I'll be providing.

It's also only my second time writing in Tsunami's POV, I'm realizing (the first being a crack fic I posted earlier this week). It's a shame, really, because he's really cool to write, and coming up with all sorts of things about his siblings is a ton of fun. I hope to be able to shove some more of that into my card because I need to feed myself.

Also, yeah, I know: "gee Fly, you're writing about the abandonment issues you've slapped onto Tachimukai again?". Yes, yes I am. I've got no excuse, I just find that shit interesting to write. It be like that sometimes.

---------

Feverish Reflections

Summary: Tsunami struggles to break a fever in the middle of the night.

Fandom: Inazuma Eleven (OG continuity/college AU)

Wordcount: 3K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

------

Truth be told, Tsunami is used to taking care of people. How couldn’t he? He’s the oldest of six, of course he’s learnt to take care of an oopsie or two. He’s helped his parents with sick brothers and hurt sisters countless times before, when he still lived in Okinawa. He’s still giving advice to his younger siblings whenever they text him the wacky hijinks they got into and their consequences to this day, so you can bet he knows what he’s doing when he sees someone is in trouble, no matter what people may think.

He’s been in situations where he’s saved some close calls. A teammate twisted an ankle? He’d be the first on the move upon realizing. Norika got a concussion after someone on the team accidentally shot a little too strongly and she got it in the face? He knew what to do because Etsuko was a wild child, even wilder than him actually, and had done that to herself once. Being the eldest (or damn near so) in so many of his social circles along the years helped him become like that; a fact he’s prided himself in a little.

Tonight is… a bit of an exception to that rule, though.

There’s actually one thing he’s never been familiar with, and it’s fever spikes. Illnesses didn’t hit his family had enough for that case to ever rise up and, even during the few training camps or school trips he’s been on, the worst it’d get would just prompt the teachers to intervene while he’d be trying to keep someone in check. Usually, he’d have brushed it off as the sort of things that he’d be a bit careful about would it happen to him or, if it was about others, to make sure to get someone qualified to deal with it alongside him.

It’d have been all fine, would have it been any other day. He’d just make sure the sick person wouldn’t try to struggle against help or just help around as someone else would take care of what he didn’t know. Sure, he did have the occasion to side-eye some of their deeds; but saying he managed to see much before being kicked out of a bedroom or taken away from a scene by a doctor or a nurse would be a overplaying his competence and knowledge on this.

The thing is, right now, he’s on his own trying to deal with whatever his roommate let himself get possessed by.

It’s not even that he hadn’t seen it coming. He may not have, before university, gotten the occasion to know Tachimukai that much, especially since they had both changed since their golden middle school days (they were fifteen and thirteen – you can’t blame then for having at least been through some things in five years); but until now, despite what had happened during their high school years, he was pretty sure he had a firm grasp on his roommate’s personality and habits. Living with someone for a couple months does that to you.

He had seen coming, to some extent, the very thing he’s facing right now. If there’s one thing that’s always been clear about Tachimukai, it’s how much of a hard worker he is, even to the point of self-destruction at times. He’s the kind of guy who only half-listens to you when you tell him that he’s getting tired and should probably get some rest just because he hasn’t finished what he’s doing. He’s also the kind to be dumb enough not to sleep a cold off because he’s got that work shift he’s got to take and that assignment he needs to give back and that book he needs to read and write a report about for whatever class whose name he couldn’t even remember – that kind of guy.

That kind of guy who, right now, is scaring the shit out of him.

It didn’t need to get to this point, but it did, because that’s just how things are in his life: stuff happens and he’s got to deal with it, even if he doesn’t like it. He can wish all he wants he could’ve stopped his best friend from literally burning himself out and getting sent to bed jail, but that won’t break his fever and that sure won’t make the night go by any faster to sulk in both of their guilts. He’ll just do what a good big brother does and scold him once he’s conscious enough to know what he’s being told without it entering from one side, getting garbled, and leaving by the other.

Actually, what scares him the most about their current situation is that Tachimukai is barely coherent… that is, when he’s even trying to speak. Most of the time Tsunami attempts to start a conversation so he’s sure he’s not having a comatose roommate on his hands, a situation to which he really has no solution except calling an ambulance and praying, all he gets in return are some unfinished sentences and words he can’t even understand – if they’re words to begin with and not just a mishmash of syllables strung together by the loosest thread in town. It gives him that sensation that he’s losing someone to the claws of something he doesn’t know.

He could be calling for an ambulance or for any sort of help (he believes Nosaka – who’s got some medical knowledge since that’s his major and all – lives only three or four buildings away and could at least give him a tip or two, he’d say), but that’d mean he’d have to leave the room and, well… He may be awake in the middle of the night and hunched over a bed like his mother would be when either of his siblings was sick and he’d try to get a sneak-peek of what was happening to them, it still doesn’t mean he’s willing to abandon this for some semblance of comfort.

Or, at least, he can’t leave the room for longer than a minute or two. He’s wanted to grab his phone that he left charging in his room for a little while, but that’d mean having to leave, and that’s… really not something he wants to do. Not when he’s seen what Tachimukai can somehow pull even when he’s sicker than a dog and afflicted with temperatures only heaters should be allowed to reach. Not when he’s… been the elder brother of five.

Tsunami has seen some of the worst things happen to his siblings. Tetsunosuke has always been sickly and would often fall to the latest strain of the flu circulating at school, then spreading it to their other siblings while himself getting put through misery by the virus. Shinjuko would hallucinate the spirits of the dead and hear voices that weren’t there. Yoko would pull away from their own parents, clawing her way out, scratching herself away from their embrace because she was suffocating and scared the spirits of her nightmares would strangle her.

It’s all coming back to him now. The sand-pale skin, the laboured breathing, the half-closed foggy eyes – it’s all here. He’s seen them all on his siblings’ desperate faces, reflected in his father’s glasses, reflected by the mirror as little Jousuke tried to get a look at what was happening while, unlike them, he’d never waver, never fall sick. He managed to forget it all until now; but now, he’s helplessly watching his own best friend go through the same incarnated nightmare. It’s a horrifying display of what humans can get through and… he wishes it on nobody, not even on his worst enemy.

He can’t get that damn fever to break. He’s been refreshing the cloth on his friend’s forehead continuously, making sure it’s as cold as possible without seeming like it’d cause frostbite (he’s gotten it before – he’d rather avoid it as much as he can, thank you), but it doesn’t do anything: the symptoms don’t weaken and he wonders when the spike is going to finally end, if it’s going to end. He’d usually try to be more optimistic than that, but he’s in very unfamiliar territories and the flashbacks from his childhood keep coming back when he tries to shove them away and focus on what’s at hand.

He knows he won’t be able to reduce it with just some cold water: he needs to get the medicine in the bathroom. Sure, it doesn’t seem like Tachimukai is conscious enough to even drink water, but just having the medicine will make him feel a little safer. Plus, he’d like to grab his phone so he can call someone in case things get extra bad (though, honestly, he doesn’t know who he’d call considering it’s like three in the morning and he hasn’t been hearing any party nearby), and he’d rather have medicine on hand for other things. Maybe give himself a pillow so the chair is more comfortable…

As soon as he gets up, however, something grabs his shirt and tries to pull him back down and into his seat. He looks back down to see the slightly horrifying vision of a hazed, cloudy-eyed boy who suddenly looks far younger than he usually does, as if slipping back into his past self, clearly in pain but trying to say something nonetheless. A wave of cold sweat goes down his back from the vision alone… but it does mean his friend may now be the right amount of conscious to know what he’s doing or where he even is.

But that’s when Tachimukai says the first understandable thing he’s said since their hell of a night began and it’s one whose tone Tsunami doesn’t like much. It’s said in a weak, raspy tone that’s so unfamiliar to his ears, slow and almost detached, with syllables that have trouble forming because the poor guy must be dehydrated beyond what both of them can imagine at the moment; but what he can’t doubt is that it’s a cry of despair.

“Please…” He sucks a hitched breath in, eyes wet and tears pouring from them. “Please don’t leave me…”

Jousuke knows that tone, that expression, that feeling he gets overwhelmed with. Ryuunosuke’s face flashes before his eyes for a moment before he’s sitting back down, hands cupping his friend’s shoulders, watching unfocused irises desperately try to adjust. Even through his hair, he can sense the fever raging under the skin. He doesn’t mind the gross sweatiness of a sick person’s hair, especially when he finally has the hope to communicate. It feels like it’s been days.

“Tachimukai, can you understand me?!” He shouldn’t be yelling, but it’s stronger than him.

“Why’re you l’vin…?”

That accent is… Is that Fukuoka dialect? He’s not sure if he’s ever heard Tachimukai speak in it. He may have kept a lot of his Okinawan accent himself, but his friend? He’s spoken like a Tokyoite as far as he’s known. It’s such a weird thing to hear him relapse into a dialect. He can’t remember that happening even five years ago. He has a vague memory of hearing it at his graduation ceremony, though.

“I’m just gonna fetch some things. I ain’t leaving you like that.”

The grip on his shirt loosens a little as the fog in his friend’s eyes disappears a little, not letting up entirely, but clearing just enough to finally look like he’s back to some extent of reason. It’s his one chance, he’d say.

“You mind if I just go grab my phone and some medicine for you? I promise I’ll be back in seconds.”

“A-ah, no, go for it, I…”

“I’m also bringing you a glass of water, dude. You sound like you’ve just gone through the desert.”

He holds his promise and runs outside the bedroom into his, almost dropping his phone as he grabs it from his nightstand, then rushing to the bathroom to get a box of medicine that looks like it could be useful in their current situation and, finally, get a full bottle of water and a glass. He must have run it all in less than twenty seconds considering he’s somehow a bit out of breath from the ordeal; but it’s fine. It’ll be all fine.

When he comes back, nothing has changed much, aside from his friend’s eyes who have finally cleared from most of the smog. The latter is sitting up, breathing still heavy and shuddering under its own weight, skin tone still pale with red splotches on the cheeks; but man, he seems conscious, and that’s more than enough for now. After what he’s just been through (he checks on his phone: he was there for at least a very long half an hour), he can’t ask for much else than some sort of relief.

Tsunami sits back down on the chair, pours his friend a glass of water and hands it to him.

“You must have a throat drier than the desert, so here you go, pal.”

As if starving for anything to drink (which he probably is, let’s be real here), Tachimukai anxiously takes it, hands trembling. Yeah, he may look less like he’s dying; he’s still not looking good by any means.

“I’ve also got you some fever reducers in case this happens again because, man, you scared the crap out of me.” Tsunami pours a second glass and hands his flatmate a pill. “Let’s spare us the trouble, okay?”

“Sorry for the trouble. I didn’t think it’d… get this bad.”

Okay, second good sign: the Fukuoka dialect has gone away too. He’d have usually not minded it, but if it mostly appears when Tachimukai is hotter than a furnace and hallucinating whatever he was seeing earlier, he’d rather not see it come back for a while – or ever, actually.

“Don’t stress it. I’m pretty sure you didn’t ask to be in that state.” Actually… ��Just don’t get yourself that sick, next time. That’s all.”

“…You should go back to bed, Tsunami. I’ll be fine.

Too bad he doesn’t feel like he can go back to sleep, not when it was interrupted by this fiasco.

“That’s bold of you to say when you were the one begging me to stay, Tachi.”

His friend stares back at him, at first confused, then anxiously. He looks down almost right afterwards, hair hiding most of his face.

“…I said that?”

“You don’t remember?” Well, come to think of it… “Ain’t really a surprise, actually. You looked like you had seen death.”

“N-no, I don’t remember much… All I can guess is that I’ve caused you some problems.”

“Do you just… get that sort of fevers often?”

Tachi (the new nickname flows better on his tongue, Tsunami must admit) takes a little while to reply, as if thinking his answer through.

“It’s been a while since the last one, I think? They only happen when I’ve been tired for long periods of times. I should be fine by tomorrow.”

“You’re sure?”

A little smile. What he wouldn’t do for that little one to stay on…

“The fact you’ve helped me makes me sure, yes.”

“I suppose that’s a good sign, then! Still, can I ask you something real quick, Tachi? I’m sure you want to sleep and all, but… There’s something that’s been on my mind.”

“What’d that be?”

“For a while, you only said incoherent things, but at some point, you clearly asked me not to leave you. You seemed desperate, so…” His voice trails. “…Tachimukai? Is there something wrong?”

His friend has shrivelled on himself, almost like a hurt animal. He doesn’t like it a single bit, but… there’s no use in rushing, as much as his instincts want him to jump ahead and fix the uneasiness that’s settling in.

“I think I’m… so scared to be left alone again at times like that, that my fever started to speak for me. It must’ve felt weird for you to hear me say such a childish thing all of a sudden, but…”

“But what? It’s not childish to ask for someone to stay by your side while you’re having a terrible time. Hell, you’ve not seen yourself while you were in that state, but I’d have never left you alone for more than a couple seconds.”

“But—”

“What makes you think that asking for company is a bad thing, Tachi?”

“…I’d assume the fact I was left on my own for so long that I started to think I was automatically a burden. It hasn’t left yet. I just… expressed it when I’d have usually kept it to myself. Again, sorry for all the trouble, I’m not easy to deal with when I’m that sick and—”

“If you apologize one more time, I swear I’ll knock you out so you get some sleep, dude.”

Tachi recoils back, but chuckles right afterwards.

“Dude, you’re sick. It’s time you think about yourself and realize I don’t mind helping you out. I’ve never minded, in fact, ever since we were in Raimon.”

The smile he gives him is a genuine one and, even if it’s a little pained and very much tired, it’s still the highlight of his night.

“I suppose that’s true… I should’ve known you of all people wouldn’t leave me, Tsunami.”

“That’s more like it! Now get some sleep. I…” A yawn escapes from his mouth, almost unhinging his jaw in the process (that may be dramatizing it, but it’s not that far from it). “I need my beauty sleep too. If you need help, text me, ’kay? G’dnight.”

“Works for me. Goodnight, Tsunami.”

Before he can truly leave, though, Jousuke feels one last pull on his shirt.

“Oh, and… thank you for sticking with me. Really.”

Time to give his best (tired) teethy grin.

“I could tell you the same, you know!” He ruffles his friend’s hair with his hand. “See you later.”

On that, Tsunami finally leaves, heart lighter than in the evening, holding onto his phone like a necessary timeline even as he goes bad to bed.

#bad things happen bingo #inazuma eleven #tsunami jousuke #tachimukai yuuki #please don't leave me #it's so awkward to do this challenge on main #like some people ought not to know i'm a freak #anyway #welcome to #bthb #my writing #also hi inazuma fandom how you doin

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dropintomanga · 4 years ago

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Behind the Blog - 20 Years in the Making

5 years ago, I wrote “Behind the Blog - 15 Years in the Making.” It was a post detailing how I was diagnosed with clinical depression in 2000 and the experiences that led to me starting this blog.

Now it’s 5 years later and I want to look back at that post a bit. I’m also going to discuss further insights about my past that I remembered and recent thoughts learned over time.

In my recent post about Komi Can’t Communicate, I mentioned my parents being worried about me having a possible communication disorder at the age of 2 and their decision to put me through special education classes. I joke that my life was doomed from the start even though it turned out I was alright. My father recently told me that when I was in pre-kindergaren, he was stalked by two men who wanted to rob him. After going on a school trip, I was dropped off by the special education class at a certain spot and my father went to pick me up. Once he did, he realized he was being followed while taking me home. Thankfully, he went inside a store with a security guard at the front door and nothing happened.

I’m really glad that nothing bad happened in front of my eyes. I don’t know how I would have processed it all. My parents have told me stories of how bad New York City was back in the 1970s’-1980s’. They have been robbed several times when they first moved to America. Before I was born, my mother was pregnant and was chased by three men who wanted to rape her. She got away, but fell down to the ground while escaping. My mother had a miscarriage as a result. The funny thing is that a few months later, she was pregnant with me.

It’s so freaking surreal to me whenever I think about that. I would not be here if it weren’t for that incident.

I also think back to that time in 2001 when I decided to be hospitalized. I told a college guidance counselor back in 2000 that I was hearing voices. That was a big reason why I stayed at the hospital. In hindsight, I was faking it. I think I just wanted attention and did it in a way that hurt everyone around me. I never heard voices at all. A thing that people with mental illness sometimes like to do is to dramatize things to get the attention of those around them. While it’s important to address their concerns, caregivers aren’t gods. They’re human beings with boundaries. Caregivers are placed with unfair expectations on handling mental illness in their loved ones. Now that I look back at the situation, I wished someone was there to shut me up in a compassionate way.

Speaking of college, there was one guidance counselor who I spoke with before I dropped out that said something that resonated with me. She said, “You know, I can see you being famous one day.” I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I didn’t pay much attention. After starting the blog, I went back to that college to attend an anime convention there and hoped to speak with that counselor again. I wanted to thank her because at the time, I felt that she was right in some way as I was going up the ranks in the manga blogging community. Unfortunately, she wasn’t working there anymore.

It’s funny because I’m not interested in chasing fame much anymore. I’m content with where I’m at.

I now want to think back to this passage I wrote in the 15-year post.

“But I’ve gone on to stay in good shape and I’m healthier than almost all of my relatives. I think it’s because deep down, I really wanted to live despite those dark desires. That or those good habits provided some physiological relief. I don’t think I’ll ever try to commit suicide. I’m too much of a coward for that. I’ve only just started to “live” a normal life honestly.

I was reading Noragami Volume 7 and it highlighted an important note about the main character, Yato. He is afraid of being forgotten. I think almost all depressed individuals have some fear of that. We want to be validated and we want people to let us know that they care. I also remember Great Teacher Onizuka Volume 17, where one of my favorite characters, Urumi Kanzaki, was going to commit suicide despite all pleas by her teacher, Onizuka, to stop doing so.

He went to great lengths to save Urumi and she realized how much he cared about her well-being. Do I want someone to sacrifice their own lives to save me? I don’t know, but I feel that I want to know that even in the darkest of moments, someone would come and physically stop me from going down a path where I never come back. In Noragami Volume 7, there was a moment where Yato saved a suicidal student and told him to never kill himself in front of him. I want to be the person to stop someone from ending their life.

It’s funny, right? I have thoughts about dying several times throughout my life, but I don’t want anyone to end their lives in front of me or other people. Maybe it’s because I don’t want them to understand how I felt. No one should. The thoughts I have can be warped and frightening to many.”

Here’s the sad thing - I considered suicide a year later after this post. I felt someone wanted me to go away for good. Someone did save me though. And then stuff happened that led me to question relationships (which thankfully got a lot better as the years went on).

But after it was said and done, starting around 2017, I began to stop hating myself. I still have doubts from time to time and I realize that it’s okay to think about them. The world still treats people with mental illness and mental health problems like crap, so I decided to be more forward in learning how to best fight that kind of discrimination. I practiced self-compassion over self-esteem. That was the start of limiting my social media presence in an attempt to not feel pressured by external validation. This year, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I also stopped attending therapy with mutual agreement from my social worker and psychiatrist. I felt like I can finally start to manage things on my own.

It took 20 years to reach that point and I have felt some shame that I’m not at the level of my peers that are the same age as me. I’m getting close to 40, but feel like a 30 year old. I try not to compare too much with other people because honestly, they probably have gone through tough times as much as I have. Maybe not to the extent of a mental illness, but certainly stuff that makes them question life.

Compared to how I was 5 years ago, I’m more reflective and compassionate. I’ve embraced all parts of my humanity. While people believe I’m a good person, I know I can be capable of hurting people in terrible ways in times of duress. I don’t have this highly inflated positive view of myself. In a way, that’s kept me grounded. I dislike it when people say that they’ll never be this way or feel that way. The blunt truth is that life will test you in so many ways and you’re going to make mistakes (sometimes horrible ones) whether you like it or not. Admitting that you’re wrong about certain things is something I wish more people were receptive to doing. Humility is truly a mind healer when cultivated properly.

I’ll end this with some lines from the video game NieR: Automata. I finally played it this year and the game left such a grand impression on me. I loved its emphasis on trying to find meaning even when everything about the world is questionable. NieR: Automata reminded me why and so many fans LOVE Japanese pop culture media. The game gets very depressing, but I found out that the game’s creator, Yoko Taro, received messages from fans who wanted to kill themselves, saying that NieR: Automata gave them hope to live. In the true ending and without giving out heavy spoilers, one character poses a question to another about the cycle of trauma happening again for a certain group of characters that went through so much due to story events, the responding character said this,

“I cannot deny the possibility. However, the possibility of a different future also exists. A future is not given to you. It is something you must take for yourself.”

I now feel that I got some strength to take a future for myself and hopefully people I care about. I finally understand what it means to take care of myself compared to 5 years ago. My “manga series” may end one day, but I’m glad to spend a good part of it writing here. I look forward to exploring myself further on this blog, thanks to you all.

#life #depression #mental health #manga #fandom #Japanese pop culture

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theliberaltony · 4 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

America is a little matryoshka doll of panic right now; pop open each layer to reveal a new, worrying scenario. For months the country was focused on reopening the economy, which had its own complicated set of problems. But only recently has a broader swath of America tuned into the mess nestled inside it, one that parents have been sitting with for months: what to do with the kids.

There has been no federal plan to help American parents with child care, and they continue to wonder whether schools will really open their doors come the new school year. That lack of action is in direct contrast to other crises that have struck America recently. After the financial crash of 2008, there was a bailout and a stimulus plan. After the protests against police over the last few months, officials in cities and states responded with promises of better actions in the future but also, immediate policy implementation: New York state repealed a law that had shielded police personnel files, while the Minneapolis City Council voted to begin a process that could eventually lead to the dissolution of the city police as it’s now known.

But on child care and school, a specific, urgent response has been missing, or at least one that acknowledges our new reality. President Trump threatened to withhold federal funding for education if schools didn’t open back up, counter to schools’ insistence they need more money to provide a safe education amid the pandemic. While the CARES Act, an omnibus COVID-19 relief bill signed into law in late March, gave extra stimulus funding to families with children, schools and child care businesses so they could remain afloat, a Democratic-backed bill to give a $50 billion bailout of the child care industry has gotten little attention. Teachers around the country have voiced doubt that necessary safety measures for in-school teaching will be sufficient, and Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the country’s largest school systems, has decided not to reopen classrooms when schools go back in session in August. Some worry that while distance learning is safer, socially different children and those without stable internet connections or computers — who are already at the margins in normal times — will fall irrevocably behind.

There is no cohesive solution to America’s child care problem. But the relative inattention to this crisis, one that’s so foundational to a functioning society, the economy and family units across the country, is revealing. It shows that for all the changes that have happened in American life — more female elected officials, a MeToo movement and a workforce that is around 47 percent female — our power dynamics remain fundamentally skewed. We are failing to collectively understand what our most critical and pressing problems actually are.

“Care in general has always been seen as a sideline issue,” Vicki Shabo of the left-leaning think tank New America said. “A nice-to-have and not something that’s necessary, and not something that’s central for adults to be productive in the economy.” Of course, now we’re seeing how much of a misunderstanding that is. In a country where most men and women work even when they have children, having child care is inextricably linked to economic productivity — and not having it often hurts women most. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2015 found that in households with children under 6, women spent an hour a day doing child care, compared to the 25 minutes of care provided by men. It’s easy to extrapolate this trend for pandemic times: American women will bear the brunt of the school and child care crisis.

Yet, child care in particular hasn’t often found itself at the forefront of political debate. Experts and activists I talked to for this story all used the same framing to talk about why: an American narrative that child care problems are individuals’ problems, not society’s.

“If you think about child care traditionally before the pandemic, you probably didn’t think about it too much before you had kids,” Melissa Boteach, vice president of income security and child care at the National Women’s Law Center, said. “Then you have kids, you’re in the most stressful and resource-strapped part of your life: You’re operating on three hours of sleep a night, you’re financially squeezed, because at the very time you’re taking off of work, you have diapers and wipes and formula and whatever else. You’re in this total daze of early motherhood. That’s probably not the time when you say, ‘You know what, I’m going to call my member of Congress.’ You’re feeling it like a personal issue.”

Child care isn’t necessarily seen as a macroeconomic issue or a driver of labor force participation or GDP, Shabo said. And because of that, she said, it often takes a backseat to economic issues like wages when lobbying efforts happen. This is not to say that child care issues don’t get attention — in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, which featured several female candidates, child care plans took a more front and center role in the campaign than they had in the past. One leading candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, co-authored a 2004 book, “The Two-Income Trap,” which was about the ways the rising incomes of households with two full-time employed adults belied the heavy costs of essentials like child care. Warren thought child care costs were among the reasons the American middle class was in an economic crisis.

“Our workplaces were built for white men,” said Danielle Atkinson, the founder and director of Mothering Justice, a Detroit-area advocacy group for working families. The fact that parents are left to fend for themselves from birth to kindergarten and then during the after-school, pre-dinner hours, is an American tradition that seems to assume a readily available, at-home caregiver. (Atkinson pointed out the inextricable role black women have played in American child care; enslaved women often took care of white children.) The nuclear family with a stay-at-home parent (usually a mother) is an ideal that persists, or at the very least lingers in American life: only 18 percent of Americans in a 2018 Pew Research Survey thought it was ideal for both parents to work full time.

“This conversation about school is really a conversation about work,” Atkinson said. “The conversation about returning to school is not based on health. It’s about returning those workers to working and not looking after their children, so those children have to be somewhere.” Essential workers in particular are being forced to make difficult choices about their children’s care — many essential-worker jobs are lower wage — and many child care providers are in strapped situations. The work of child care providers, Atkinson said, is often undervalued — their median annual wage in 2017 was a little more than $22,000 annually, which is just above the federal government’s poverty line for a family of three — and as Boteach pointed out, those workers could continue to risk greater infection rates as schools and work open back up. She highlighted the plan put forth by Senate Democrats, the Child Care Is Essential Act — which would provide a bailout to the suffering industry and additional money for those providers to buy personal protective equipment — and cited an estimate that the U.S. child care industry would need a $9.6 billion injection monthly to survive the pandemic.

It’s more likely the next governmental nod to parents and their school-age children will come in the next iteration of the omnibus coronavirus relief package. Congressional Democrats have proposed $350 billion in funds for schools and universities to purchase PPE and clean their facilities. Republicans agree about more funds, though it’s not clear what their proposed number is — some have argued that since many schools will be operating on a partly virtual basis, less federal funding is needed.

The moral tussling that many parents have been doing — go back to work and risk potential COVID-19 infection at day care or school — will likely continue to be subjected to partisan politics. Trump and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have been the loudest voices in recent days about sending children back to school at all costs, much to the chagrin of teachers, many of whom feel ill-prepared for the safety precautions necessary for in-person pandemic teaching. Ultimately, though, it is parents who are forced to make a choice. Atkinson, a mother of six, told me she would be keeping her children home in the fall.

For those who focus on child care, the pandemic has perversely presented an opportunity to advance the cause of greater access to guaranteed services. “This pandemic has created greater alignment of experience, potentially, between white middle class folks who saw this as an individual issue that they were struggling with and outraged by but hadn’t really taken action on and the longtime, long-standing lived experience of lower wage folks and people of color who have struggled for decades with the unaffordability of child care and the lack of care options to meet their work schedules,” Shabo said.

Atkinson said she also hoped the individualism narrative would be shattered by the current crisis. “We want to lift the veil away and help women, especially white women, know that you’ve been lied to. You were sold a bunch of lies: ‘if you just work harder, if you just slay sexism, you’ll be OK.’ But really, it’s a tool to divide,” she said.

The pandemic has shattered norms and paradigms ever since it arrived in the U.S. — our expectations of child care is no exception. What some politicians and activists had long sought to do to no avail — place working parents and their child care crisis on the center stage of American politics — the virus has done in a matter of months.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Clare Malone

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jckelly · 5 years ago

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para; “where have you been?”

aka a very long explanation as to where demon child has been and some of his backstory. for the record: he’s been off school for a month.

[TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR MENTIONS OF DEATH, DRUGS, AB*SE, AND NEGLECT.]

Weather. There was one thing America did right, not that Jack would admit it. It was late April, the months tapping on the door of Spring at this point, but naturally England had taken no notice. The sky was as bleak as his mood, with dense clouds suffocating the sun and a light drizzle of rain landing on the shoulders of those outside.

It was a painfully small number of people to get wet, to be honest. Barely five mourners stood over the graveside: himself, Claire and George, the latest social worker, and the vicar. (Barely, because did the vicar count, considering it was his job? Perhaps now wasn’t quite the time to be pedantic.) Jack tugged down the sleeves of the too-large black sweater George had lent him. He’d said no to getting a suit, fuck knows his mum would have taken the piss out of him dressed smart, but even beyond that: it felt fundamentally wrong for him to accept help from them for anything related to her. She would have hated that. He hated it enough as it was. Still, he’d let Claire talk him out of wearing a shirt with a skull on it - “Jack, that’s macabre”- and thrown on the ill fitting clothes she’d handed him, the ones she’d clearly brought with him in mind anyway. Compromises could be made.

The look she’d given him when he’d emerged from his room with the clothes on had screamed call me your mother. He’d considered it. They’d been kind enough, when they first met him, given him all the you’re thirteen, we get it, you don’t have to call me mum if you don’t want to. But who bothered taking in a kid if they didn’t want to be recognised as a parent? He knew he could do it, if he really wanted. And Claire would probably cry happy tears and give him one of those hugs where he felt like he was about to be strangled to death, and George would join in and be so proud of him, and all of that crap. But the word would still get stuck in Jack’s throat every time he said it. It felt wrong to be calling someone else mum when his real mum was about to rapidly become worm food.

“We are gathered here today….” Jack wasn’t even listening to whatever shit the priest was spouting. He’d have a few changes to make, if he were the one saying it. We are gathered here today because a junkie got her last fucking fix and what do you know, it went and killed her. Aren’t we lucky we dragged her dumbass kid out before he overdosed too! Harsh words didn’t make him feel any better, unsurprisingly, but in his opinion words did fuck all to make anyone feel better, ever. They were just a way for people to feel better about themselves, feel like good people. He’d had enough comforting words to last a fucking lifetime.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” The priest finished his monologue and nodded, and Jack dumped a handful of soil onto the coffin. Particles stuck to his hand, and he wiped them on George’s smart black jumper, watching just to see if he could get a reaction out of him. His adopted father’s eye twitched, but he said nothing. Jack wondered how much he could get away with right now. George was usually easy to wind up: he hated mess. He hated Jack’s hair, always wanting to take him to a proper barber, get it done all smart so he’d look like a carbon copy of him. He hated Jack’s style, too - do your top button up! You look like a Mick Jagger tribute act! On particularly tense days, Jack played it up, wearing the tightest jeans he could squeeze himself into and drawing messy black lines around his eyes, just to piss him off further. Claire never let him get too mad, though. He’s expressing himself, she would say. Bullshit. All Jack was expressing was his desire to see how far he could go. How long before George would hit him? How long before he gave up on him? Everyone had a limit. Jack had learned that early on, as evidenced by the remains of his teacher in the casket being lowered to the ground.

“Do you want to go get some food?” Claire asked, as they exited the graveyard. “You haven’t eaten all day, you need energy-“

“I’d rather just go to bed,” Jack mumbled by way of response.

“It’s eleven am, Jack. You have to eat sometime.”

“I didn’t sleep well.”

Claire sighed, and Jack could feel a rant coming on. She was prone to speeches, he’d had at least three since they touched down at the airport, usually revolving around the same themes. It’s okay to have emotions, Jack; it’s okay to be sad, Jack; we’re here for you, Jack. He always had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. She meant well, but fuck was it cliché.

“It’s understandable that you’re upset,” she began. “But you need to take care of yourself.”

“Save it.” He snapped. Where the sudden anger had come from, he didn’t know, but he was unable to pull it back in. “You’re not my real mother.”

The words became tinged with regret almost as soon as he’d let them out, but there was no going back. Jack sighed, and turned, heading off in the direction of the car. He didn’t know if Claire and George would follow, but he doubted they’d have a go at him this time. He got a free pass for being an asshole on account of the whole dead mother thing. Maybe he should start taking advantage of that in other situations.

Had he been this bitter when they’d met him? He’d been a skinny thirteen year old (few things had changed) and came with a warning from the social worker. Troubled was the word they’d used. Jack preferred difficult. He’d ran away three times in the first month of being fostered, and those were only the successful times. Claire had refused to put a lock on his door, though. She believed in freedom, she’d told him. And compromises. But the compromises never involved letting him go see his mom.

Why would you want to go see her? A trainee social worker had accidentally asked him one time. It was a fair question, to be honest; he hadn’t even minded. He’d been in and out of custody from the moment he was born. She’d be clean for a bit, take care of him, go back to the drugs, and neglect him again and he’d get taken back into foster care. When she lost custody and rights of visitation for the final time on Jack’s eleventh birthday, the children’s home staff had congratulated him. But they didn’t understand. She was his mum. It didn’t matter to him. She cared about him. She knew he preferred Oasis over The Beatles, and that his favourite colour was yellow, and that he could read better if she typed the words white on black instead of black on white. She never hit him as hard as they claimed she did. And he knew, unequivocally, that if he abandoned her she would die.

“We’re moving to America.” The words had come as a surprise, rather than a shock. He knew Claire was from a rich family on the Upper East Side of New York, he figured a trip might come after the adoption went through, even if he hadn’t anticipated a full on move. But it made sense. He’d left for a week after his fifteenth birthday, without a word; when the police had knocked on the door of his mother’s house he’d been fucking scared out of his mind. Claire and George had been scared, he knew that. They’d made him do drugs tests, all of that crap, enrol in outpatient therapy when those tests came back with weak positives. “We got your papers sorted, and we found you a good school.” They’d made it sound like such a treat, but all Jack could feel was a sinking feeling in his chest.

Two years later and here he was, watching out of the car window as they moved progressively further away from his mother’s grave. Would an I told you so be too inappropriate?

#this is so excessively long wow #self para

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urdbell18 · 5 years ago

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A Seed Hidden in the Heart Chapter 17: The One Where the Fight Begins

AN: So a few things that I would like to point out:

1) I don't know how the courts or the law works. It's great that some of you guys know how it does but I'm using this for plot only, the whole thing is completely fictional.

2) Towards the end we learn more about Mary and I try to portray it the best way possible but if any of you guys are upset in any way shape or form I'm sorry. I'm not good with the heavy stuff, I'm more fluff but I'm trying.

Thanks and enjoy!

PS: THIS is chapter 17. I didn’t know that I accidentally labeled chapter 16 as chapter 17. Sorry!

With Mr. Webster in her corner Zelda turned all of her attention to her graduating seniors. Around Christmas break she contacted an old professor of hers that was still in the area and he set it up so that her senior classes, her French 3, Russian, Italian, and Chinese, could take a college exam that her students could use towards credits earned at whatever school they choose to go to. Because the test was so intense Zelda decided to use it as their final. A majority of the test would be online but the oral report had to be done in person, Zelda graded them on the rubric that the professor sent her. She recorded and sent those to the professor for a second opinion just to cover all of her bases. Convincing Mr. Hawthorne was harder than necessary. He denied her request twice until he got a letter from her professor that allowing the students to take the test didn’t cost anything. After that Mr. Hawthorne jumped at the chance for her students to take the test. He cleared out the computer lab for an entire day so that her students could take the test. Much to the carnage of Shirley.

Apparently, Hawthorne bumped Shirley out of the computer lab so that Zelda’s students could take the exams. It wasn’t just Shirley, Mr. Thomas was also bumped and they were only bumped because they were covering for another teacher. Unlike Mr. Thomas Shirley made a big stink about it. She raised a fuss with Mr. Hawthorne but he refused to change his mind. That was probably why when Zelda brought down her sixth period Chinese class that Shirley was already there having students set up on computers with a smirk that clearly showed she knew what she was doing. Zelda didn’t even try to deal with Shirley personally, she called Hawthorne so he could deal with her. Shirley’s students, who could read the room, sat in the library so that Zelda could have her students start on their exams. As she closed the door so that her students had complete silence she saw Shirley glaring at her. She just smiled and turned her attention back to her students, they lost enough time as it is.

The day the seniors graduated meant a day off for Zelda. It was a day that she would lie in bed for a bit with Mary before enjoying breakfast with her family and then relaxing the day away with her daughter and Mary. That is how she would spend the day if she didn’t have to attend court.

Thanks to Mr. Webster he prevented Faustus for scheduling a hearing on a day that she couldn’t attend. Though she hated having to lose the day off she was grateful that she could give the issue her complete focus. She deliberately didn’t tell anyone, especially Mary, where she was really going when she left the house right after breakfast. She told her lie and kissed Vida and Mary goodbye. Mary looked at her with narrow eyes but didn’t say anything, she let her go with a soft ‘bye’. Mr. Webster was waiting for her when she arrived at the courthouse and she followed him to whatever courtroom her case was being heard. Faustus and his attorney were already there. When she entered Faustus’ gaze followed her all the way to the free table just left of the gate. Zelda ignored him, she kept her head high and face forward to the empty judge’s bench.

“All rise for the honorable Judge Methuselah.” A bailiffs voice boomed in the virtually empty courtroom but they all shuffled to their feet. An elderly man in judges robes came in with a file tucked under his arm. When he sat down everyone but Mr. Webster and Faustus’ attorney took their seats.

“Mr. Morningstar.” Faustus attorney nodded in acknowledgement. He was a clean shaven young looking man with brown curly hair that was just long enough to not be called unruly. “Your client is suing Ms. Spellman for the custody of her daughter.”

“That is correct your honor.”

“Why does your client feel the need to now obtain custody over the child?”

“Mr. Blackwood has become increasingly concerned over the welfare of his daughter.”

“What concerns?”

“The child’s living situation and the company that Ms. Spellman keeps.”

“What do you have to say about this Mr. Webster?” Mr. Webster straighten his jacket, fastening a button that had come undone.

“Complete fabrication. Ms. Spellman has every right to remain in the house with her family. And the ‘company’ that Mr. Morningstar is referring to is irrelevant to the matter at hand. What we should be focusing on is, is Ms. Spellman an incompetent parent and that answer is no.”

“It should be the courts concern when the ‘company’ that Ms. Spellman keeps is another woman.”

“Mr. Morningstar last I checked this was the twentieth century not the 1800’s. Dating another woman isn’t a crime and seeing as Ms. Spellman and your client are no longer in a relationship, if you can call what they had a relationship, she is in every right to be seeing someone else, male or female.”

“The woman in question is mentally unstable. I have documented proof that Mary Wardwell has had a long history of mental illness and had even be hospitalized.”

“That is a complete violation of Ms. Wardwell’s privacy and the court shouldn’t even entertain this possibly illegally obtained information!”

“Enough!” Judge Methuselah banged his gavel for good measure. The courtroom went silent minus the last dull echoes of the gavel. “It appears to me that this matter requires more looking into. I’m ordering a social worker visit Ms. Spellman’s house hold in two weeks. After they file their report we will continue. Until then we are adjourned.” Judge Methuselah banged his gavel one last time before standing from his seat and leaving. Zelda remained in her seat her brain trying to work out what just happened. Was it a good or bad thing that a social worker was visiting her home? And all those things about Mary… were they true or made up by Faustus’ attorney? Faustus and his attorney walked by her table, Faustus glared at her but she didn’t acknowledge it.

__________________

According to Mr. Webster a social worker visiting her house was no big deal. She was a competent parent with nothing to hide. The social worker would see that and would report in her favor, Plus, he would get a copy of the report so Morningstar couldn’t twist the facts. There was, however, one fact he had to look into. Mary. Zelda wanted to talk to Mary first, Mr. Webster agreed that was best and to call or email him when Mary was ready to speak to him,

Mary and Vida were in the living room, sitting on the couch while Vida read a book to Mary. Vida was stuck on a word and Mary helped her out when Zelda approached them. She sat on the arm of the couch and wrapped on arm around Mary’s shoulder.

“You’re back.”

“Mommy!” Vida tossed her book to the side and scrambled onto Mary’s lap to get close to Zelda. Mary winced a little but didn’t seem to mind.

“Vida.” Vida looked at Mary from where her head rested on Zelda’s legs. “I need to talk to you mom for a minute.” Vida huffed but nodded. She left saying she was going to work on the puzzle in the parlor. Mary scooted over to create space for Zelda. Zelda slid off the arm to the free space, draping her legs over Mary’s lap. “So how’d it go?”

“I knew you didn’t believe me.”

“Of course I didn’t. Is it over?”

“No. Faustus’ attorney managed to convince the judge enough to have a social worker visit us. Mr. Webster said it wasn’t nothing to be concerned about. However…” Zelda bit her lip. She was almost hesitant to ask Mary.

“However… what?”

“Faustus’ attorney said something… about you.”

“What that I’m immoral for corrupting you into my world of debauchery?”

“Not exactly. He implied that you were mentally unstable.” Mary’s eyes grew dark but the light that flickered there meant that she was thinking about something.

“This attorney… his name wouldn’t be Lucifer Morningstar would it?”

“It would.” Mary nodded and took a deep breath. They fell silent for a while, Zelda not wanting to push Mary.

“One thing that we have in common is crappy mothers. My mother was apart of this church community, I think they were Mormons I can’t be sure after all this time, and would drag me to church with her all of the time. I hated it, always did, and when she realized that I wasn’t like her, devoted to the church and wanted to learn more, things that she called ‘sinful’ and ‘immoral’ she washed her hands of me. From there I had to fend for myself but she didn’t kick me out, she wanted to allude that she was still a loving mother even though we rarely spoke to each other. When I turned sixteen she pushed for me to find one of the male members to ‘court’ so that we could marry. I was having none of it, even though the boy that was interested in me was nice. I liked Adam but I couldn’t marry him, it wouldn’t be fair to him if I did. I knew for a while that something was off about me but I didn’t know what. Much like you I ran away after I graduated high school but I just ran away to the college that I didn’t tell anyone that I applied to. That’s where I met Lucifer. I still felt off but I was attracted to him enough to start a relationship.

At first everything was fine but when the next year started he became possessive. It started with changing my courses without my consent and moving my stuff into his apartment. He limited where I could and couldn’t go, not that I listened. I still attended debates and parties that interested me. At one of those debates we discussed human sexuality and that’s where I learned what was off about me. To this day I don’t know if I would call myself bisexual or lesbiean but I don’t deny my attractions which to me is more important than the label. I stupidly thought that I could share this piece of me with him. When I told him that there was a possibility that I like women he locked me in a bedroom and when I natural screamed and fought to be let out he called authorities and somehow convinced them that I had a mental disease that was left unchecked and I was a potential danger to myself and others. That gave me a one way ticket to a mental hospital. It took them a whole week of me refusing medication that I didn’t need and talking to doctor after doctor that I didn’t belong there. At that point I was done with him, he betrayed me in a way that I couldn’t ignore. I called the school and said I wanted a transfer and they helped me move to another college. I left straight there not that it did any good. He found me but I refused to be intimidated by him even as he took the same classes as I did. I left after I graduated and didn’t apply for any jobs until I arrived here in Greendale. That was the last time I saw him and I hoped to never see him again.” Zelda nodded and at some point she took Mary’s hand. She was in awe that even though they were so different they shared an almost identical past.

“I’m sorry.”

“What for? You didn’t ask for him to be a bastard.”

“I know that. I’m sorry for not asking. I realized that there is so much about you that I don’t know and I hate that this crappy situation is making you reveal this part of you when your not ready.”

“To be honest I wasn’t going to tell you. If I did have a mental illness I would have told you but since it was forced onto me I didn’t think it worthy of sharing. If there is anything that you want to know about me all you have to do is ask.” Zelda smiled and nodded. Using her free hand she cupped Mary’s cheek and brought her closer to her.

“I love you.” Zelda’s breath felt hot against Mary’s lips before she claimed them. The kiss was short and soft, Mary was smirking afterwords. “When you are ready, you need to tell Mr. Webster this.”

“I understand. Do you know when the social worker is going to come?”

“No. I’ll have to tell Hilda about it so she can keep an eye out.”

“Good. I want to be there when they came and I want to be there with you at your next court appointment.”

“Are you sure? This isn’t your problem to deal with.”

“Yes it is. Moving into this house means I’m apart of this family and Vida is family. I understand that you want to appear independent and no one here is going to deny that but there is a difference between being independent and being alone and I can tell you one thing Zelda Spellman you are not alone.” Zelda opened her mouth but closed it. She didn’t have a counterpoint to challenge what Mary said.

“You’re right. I guess since I’m so used to things that I forget.” Mary just smirked and kissed Zelda. Before it could go any further Vida came in to say she was hungry for lunch. Her hands were over her eyes, she said it was to block her from seeing something yucky. Mary gave Zelda a playful smirk before scooping Vida up and blowing raspberries all over her tiny body. When Vida cried uncle Zelda took her from Mary and they went into the kitchen for lunch.

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tuulikkink · 5 years ago

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PORTAL - the art expo

Stress... Anxiety... Rush... These were the things I was feeling while trying to draw my piece for the exhibition. My brain felt like a empty plastic bag filled with slime, and it was impossible trying to catch a thread from one thought or another. Portal... What comes to my mind? A room of a teenager? A song that takes you away from where you are? Yes. Something like this. I also tried a little bit more direct approach and sketched a mushroom gatherer, who finds an ancient portal. I really liked the sketch, but the idea seemed... shallow. It needed more work, and I struggled to settle on an idea. I was also getting feedback from my teachers, that my ideas are superficial and there’s no feeling in them. I had to agree, which only annoyed me more. But I had learnt to take in constructive feedback over the summer, so now I was able to let it fuel me.

Now that we had found a venue, the curation team needed to do some shopping... There were many things that needed to be decided, one vital one being how we would hang the work.

On one Tuesday, I was the only person present from my team. I could hear my ears ringing as I realised that I would be the one speaking for the whole team...! I felt pressure building in my head... I can do this, I told myself. Just breath. Confidence. Thank god we have the most amazing person as a lecturer on this module, and she was very supportive. I told everyone, that the size would have to be changed from A4 to A3, as the exhibition space was so large. I took notes on things that still needed to be done, and sent updates to our curation chat. C promised to start looking for frames and other ways to hang the work, and R and H said they’d search for decorations for the space. We had gotten the permission to use tables and sofas from the Jacob’s market, so we didn’t need to worry about those. People from our class were also able to bring in cameras and speakers, so those could be considered done too. I talked about budget from our university, and my lecturer promised to look into it, and help with covering the printing costs. This was amazing news, and I felt elated. She also mentioned, that one person from each group should attend a vinyl cutting workshop held by our university, and naturally since I was the only curation team member there, I put my name down. We would be able to have a smaller exhibition, kind of as a tribute I guess, in the space outside of the classrooms. This would give attention to our actual exhibition happening elsewhere, and it would also bring the artists visibility within our university. Me and a few other people from my class took some measurements of the space, and designed what could go where, and what would need to be moved.

The following week was busy. The location team was buying food and drinks for the opening night, and the curation team was finding decorations and mounting equipment. Then came troubles... I tried contacting the man from the Jacob’s market, but he didn’t reply to any of my emails. I had sent a few, and it had been a few days so I was getting desperate, but thanks to my amazing teammates, we were able to reach then by phone and we settled everything. Then... We had the first big fight. This was regarding the food and drink side of the exhibition, as this girl I have told about before was unhappy with the food and drink arrangements the people who were assigned to it had done. In my opinion, they had done alright, but there had definitely been conversations, that I hadn’t heard of. I didn’t really had anything to say to this except that the bossy girl has to learn to let other people to take responsibility, and she has to learn to let other people decide. I found it unfair she took their job and they were left with nothing to do. Well, on the drawing side, I had made some progress. I wasn’t happy I had done this again: I have a tendency to not listen to others and I’m too stubborn when it comes to certain things. As I wrote in the last post, I was struggling to find a good idea. Well, now I had found it, and it was completely different than what I was going for before, but because I was running out of time I just went with it without even telling about the idea to my lecturers. I know this is a very stupid way to work, but I felt too much stress from being so behind with the drawing process, that it felt like the fastest way forward. I had also learnt to trust myself slightly more during the summer, so I convinced myself, that this was the right way to go.

She is a girl, and when she puts on the headphones, the music takes her to another world. She’s here, but isn’t. This is my portal.

Beside this, I had prepared some prints to be sold at the exhibition opening night. This was a way to make some extra cash, and I love stalls; meeting people, seeing them buy my art, seeing how it connects us in some unexplained way when it makes them feel something... I didn’t want to turn down the opportunity.

It was also time to send the exhibition pieces to print in a few days, and a huge load was lifted from my shoulders, when my amazing lecturers told us that they would take care of that for us. I was so happy, as I still had quite a bit to do with the exhibition piece itself.

The next few days passed in a blur: sending my finished piece for printing, coming up with a name for it, designing placards to go by the artwork for the exhibition, cleaning the exhibition space,... There was so much. I had gotten ill a few days before this all, so I honestly pushed through these events with the power of paracetamol. I don’t have many feelings about it all, because I worked like a robot, from task to another, as quickly as I could with as little rest as possible. There was also problems with promoting, or actually, the lack of it. There wasn’t much publicity and the social media handles were quiet. It was only a few days before the opening night, so we needed more action. Everyone in the class posted the event on Facebook; this way we were hoping to gain more publicity to it. The problem with me is that all of my family and friends live in other countries, so me sharing the event wasn’t much help... But at work, I tried to talk about it with as many people as possible; it was a free event in the end, and if they didn’t have anything to do, they could come see it! It was now two nights to the opening night, and the curation team started prepping the space. This included cleaning the venue, arranging sofas, chairs and tables, decorating the space and testing the mounting technique. I had been shown magnets on ebay by one of my lecturers, and he suggested we could use the magnets and small nails to hang the work. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but when the magnets arrives, they were way too weak to hang the A3 artwork. So, a few of us quickly ran to the nearest artstore and brought plenty of masking tape, which is very strong, but leaves no marks on the walls after peeling it off. This, we tested too. Just in case, because the owner had told us not to damage the walls.

In just two days, everything was ready for the exhibition to open the doors. My fever was running high, and I felt weak and sick, but the pride from having out together something this amazing overrode the nasty feelings. The prints had arrived the previous day, and together with the whole curation team we had hanged them on the walls; colour coded. It was all ready for people to see. It was ours for the weekend; that’s what the old man had told me when I had paid for renting the venue for three days. His friendly smile still made me feel, like this was our space. For three days.

And so came the opening night... And when you looked through my portal with Artvive app, the silence would turn into music and transport you into another universe...

It was over. So much work had gone into just three days of exhibiting art, but it had all been worth it. The experience taught me, how important it is to establish clear roles and a schedule for everyone, and most important thing of all is to be patient, talk to one another and learn to listen. This also showed me, that I still need lots of practise on my time management skills... Working for eight hours straight to finish animating my piece made me shed tears, and the fever didn’t help anything. I think I might have even gotten ill from all the stress I was feeling trying to get everything done and hold it all together. I also had gotten better in communicating what need to be done, if one compares me to the person I was in the summer. The work placements had made me grow thicker skin, and I could better put a border between me as a person and myself, and me as an illustrator and as a worker. All in all, I loved being a part of the Portal exhibition class, and I felt so proud of us all as a class, but also the curation team; we had all done amazing job, and even though I was left on my own a few times, I could still count on my team to have my back. They had done most of the shopping, and I had gathered information and made lists of the things that needed to be taken care of, so it all worked out together. I couldn’t have asked for better team members.

This is the end. That was Portal. Thank you for taking your time to read, and if you will, message me if there’s something you were left puzzled about, or jus tto leave any comments on my writing. Lots of love, Likki

#university #art exhibition #art #artist #illustration

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ibraddersday-blog · 5 years ago

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20 years so far.

Hi, my name is Bradley Day. Never received a middle name, guess my parents were too lazy. It is currently 12:53pm as I write this on Friday 16th August of 2019, and to be honest I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm about to explain what I have experienced over the past 20 years frankly because, I know 2 people my age who are like me, the rest are so uptight about who they think they are on their online personas and social media reputations. so I want to find more like me.

in this post im giving you real, the embarrassing, humiliating, funny but stupid truth about my life. seems like thats the only thing that you can't really find anymore... honesty.

I was born in basildon hospital in Essex on the 10th of November 1998, my mother is Heidi Day, my father being James Day (actual name is Jimmy but we stick to James) I have a older sister called Rebecca Day. apparently I was born with a skin condition were I didn't get enough vitamins which means I was born yellow, a little English asian baby as you will. had to be sat next to a window to get natural vitamins from the sun. but that was all cleared up as a baby and I dont remember it so not important.

as far as I remember we were a happy family, I was a little shit for my parents but hey I didn't ask to be born. I've never said this but im very thankful for my parents, as a family we went through a few hardships and money never came easy, and no matter what my mum and dad always went out to work and make an honest living to keep a roof over my head and food on the table, people say thats a luxury and may berate us saying thats not hard, but the hard truth is, if you had to worry about where your next meal came from as a kid, your parents didn't work hard enough, and ill be dammed if I let my kids starve a day just because I go lazy for a day.

but out of this happy hardworking family it all changed when I was 4-5, my mum and dad divorced, my dad left and it was me, mum and becky in one house, my dad always tried his best to make it work for him and us. we got by it was just a couple who fell out of love, it's always bummed me out but thats life, move on.

Thats when I met Lindsey who is now a second mother to me, I made her life hell for a lot of years and so did my sister, Linds if you ever read this im sorry, im sorry for never being the kid you wanted because you couldn't have children and wanted to take on me and becky so you could feel loved as a mother, im sorry I tested your patience every chance I got, im sorry you felt you had to buy me a brand to xbox when the disk tray on mine broke (but thank you cose it was an awesome thing to do) but for most of all, im sorry for never having the guts to admit to you in person how much you really mean to me or impacted my life, you gave me chance after chance at your work and im sorry for letting you down. now for what im thankful for. thank you for kicking me up the ass to do my homework, thank you for putting plasters all over me when I've hurt myself doing something else stupid, thank you for coming with me to the hospital when I got run over just down the road and following matt down countless alleys, thank you for letting my friends come over whenever they wanted as a place to hang out and chill and chat, thank you for not telling mum that there was a grinder in my room when I went back to living at mums, but for most of all, thank you being full of advice, thank you for the honesty you poses wether it hurt or not you were always honest with me, I hope one day I can repay you for all the things you have done for me over the 15\16 years of knowing you, I love you very much.

school... ugh, primary okay, secondary Jesus Christ what a shit show, now im not stupid but im not smart, education is not my path Im a natural worker and always have been, don’t do suits and smiles I do hi viz clothing and “oh fuck you slag’ spent the better part of it arguing with teachers and trying to be someone im not just to fit in. I had my fair share of bullying but you take it like a man and thats it but back then I thought my world had been crushed, ridiculous I know, kids if you’re being bullied now it may not seem it but it really dont fucking matter, its school thats how it is if you dont like learn from home. now I got pretty bad at one point and made a video and put it online, about how im being bullied and how pissed and upset it Made me and so on, well the school found out and I was forced to remove it, should of just told them too fuck off but it was just hassle that I couldn't be arsed with. year 11 soon flies around and boom left with nothing... great, now college level 1 sport how fucking normal right. well sussed level 1 dropped level 2.

now work. for the next 2 years I dosed about and went through 8 jobs... yes thats right fucking eight until one came by and that is TGIS at lakeside retail park, now it was a shit job but it taught me a lot, it taught me team work, pace, the importance of showing up for shifts, how vital I am as a cog in that machine, it taught me how punctuality means everything, I mean I got employee of the month in my first month working there for god sake I pushed hard and getting a reward like that it really hit home, as I never really got anything like that before, I got home and cried in bed as I was so happy for that for once in my life someones recognised me for me and how hard I work, it still gets to me writing this, it means a lot to someone like me. I've since left there for a better job and found one at a container shipping company driving cranes, and I gotta say I think this Is the place I’ll make a career out of, its great pay, get great hours and there are some great guys there who I've grown to become friends with. after countless let downs in my life I’m happy to say I've found somewhere I belong and love. the people I wanna say thank you for are Lex A and Jack R, I love you boys you really pulled me through at TGIS, even though we argued a lot I still value you two a lot.

now for my life outside of work. I have a few friends being Michael, jack, James and josh. these are the people who are like me, hard working and are making a name for themselves with the help of no-one else. we have all faced great hardships in life and really push to get what we want. but with my friends that want is wanting to get a shitty old RWD and drift it into walls for a laugh, it is pretty funny to be honest. honestly I can say these boys are like family to me they mean more to me than they know and id be there for them in a second if they need me. jack is my longest friend though, we've been friends for 15 years, we met in year 1 in primary school and never stopped since, I would go Into details but its now 1:30am and im tired.

relationships... I can't do them. dont get me wrong I love the idea of them and would love to be in one but I simply can't do it, I can't deal with other peoples shit as well as my own as I've always dealt with mine on my own not needing someone else, and girls are weird about that shit, all emotional and shit, grow up and move on life is tough if you dont like it theres many ways out, I dont do sorrow or sympathy. but marriage scares me, it freaks me out im not even kidding, the idea of being forced by law to be in a relationship with someone and if the love dies they can take all your shit fucking scares me! who wouldn't be frightened by that! maybe one day ill get over it and take a leap of faith with someone I love but why knows ay.

and for now right this very second. im happy with who I am, I have nice car, a good job, im single but happily, its easier and less stressful, the key to happiness is a stress free life after all. yeah I may be bit tubby and not in great shape, but im happy with myself and who I see in the mirror, because I know im going to be okay, ill work through my problems that happen in my life, and in the end ill know ill always be okay.

to whoever is reading this. just know life is easy, the key to happiness is being okay with who you are. yeah theres always improvements that could be made, but if you got a roof over your head, working water and food on the table, you’re doing pretty good in life. just picture life as an English country lane, for the most part its gonna be rocky and bumpy with loads of big potholes but theres always the parts where the road is smooth and freshly done, just gotta keep hanging on to those moments before your turning is up on to the straight and narrow bud, keep pushing and working hard boys and girls, like I was always told “stop being a pussy and get what you want”

probably be my only ever post here so yeah, maybe someone will read it, who knows!

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i-swear-im-not-crazy-well-maybe · 6 years ago

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When I found out I could see things others couldn't.

I was in year 9 in high school. I was getting severely bullied and I was severely depressed. I didn't know I was depressed. I knew nothing about mental illness or depression. I was getting in fights with bullies and abusing teachers physically and verbally. I was getting suspended weekly until the school had enough and kicked me out. I went to a new school and was getting bullied so bad I stopped going. I was home for months until my previous school agreed to have me back on a strict behaviour contract I had to follow for the rest of the year. I got through the year just. The next year, year 10 and 15 years old. I was off the behaviour contract and I started the behaviours that got me kicked out again. I was having suicidal thoughts and I didn't know why. One day I was in the school gym when I saw a white scruffy dog running around. The dog came up to me and I started patting it. My classmates just looked at me and said "what are you doing"? And I said "patting this dog" and they said "what dog"? And they walked away laughing. It was then I realised I could see things others couldn't. Then came a man in black with a gun and a blacked out face named Alvin. He would follow me everywhere, still to this day he sits on my bed and I can feel him there. He scares me and I can't sleep. One day at school in sport class, I wasn't allowed to participate because of past behaviour. I was sitting on the oval with classmates when I got up and said I'm going to jump off the school roof and kill myself. I got up and walked off the oval and climbed the stairs and got onto the roof. One of my classmates followed me and tried to talk me down and got the co-ordinator to ring the deputy principal. The deputy principal came and tried talking me down and soon left to go get the school psych. The time the school psych came I already got down and she said she had to follow me everywhere because of what just happened. I went to the gym to get my back pack and was taken to the school psychs office where I sat crying for a bit. Then was taken to the deputy principals office where they called my parents and was told to take me to hospital. That afternoon my parents took me to the children's hospital where I was assessed by the psych team and was told I had to be admitted but there was no bed on the psych ward so I was sent home and they said they'll ring when there's a bed. We went home and I remember crying my eyes out. 2 days later the hospital rang and said to come in as they had a bed. It was school holidays time. I went to the ward at the children's hospital and was shown around. I didn't want to stay. I never even heard of psych wards and knew nothing about mental health and was scared. I was begging my parents not to leave me but they had too. They left and I started crying my eyes out. The nurses were lovely and there was only a few other patients on the ward at the time and I was the only girl. I soon was making friends with the patients. Because it was school holidays we didn't have to go to the hospital school and got to do activities instead. We went to the movies, bowling, the museum and more. I was there for nearly 2 weeks. My psychiatrist at CAMHS (child adolescent mental health services) put me on anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. I became allergic to many of the anti-psychotics. The only one I could tolerate was quetiapine (seroquel) I was seeing a social worker there and had CBT. When I got back to school after hospital. There was a meeting and it was agreed I'd have an education support teacher with me everywhere to keep me safe. Every class, recess and lunch they were with me by my side. My illness became worse and I couldn't cope with full days at school so I only went half days. Then it came to I couldn't go in classes so I was placed in a small dark room to do my school work alone with my ed support teacher. I started self harming and bringing razors to school and getting in trouble with the school psych. I had to see the school psych every morning before class. I was hospitalized 3 more times at the children's hospital. And I only got to the end of year 11 where the decision was made that I would not be going on to year 12 as I was hardly at school and my mental health was too severe. They couldn't control my saftey. I would chase the man in black out the school gates and jump in front of traffic. Once the school psych had to restrain me in a basket hold to protect me. I had no friends, I was seeing things and started hearing voices. When I wasn't at school I was at home in bed sleeping my depression away. I enjoyed nothing and I was going downhill fast. At age 18 I was transferred to the adult mental health services where I currently am still now.

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