#public transit is almost non-existent in this town

[sanjaylodh]

There has been an awakening process

There has been an awakening process in humans since centuries.

Our new awakening today is a part of that.

Where is our new civilization pointing today?

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Cradle_of_civilization

A cradle of civilization is a location and a culture where civilization was developed independent of other civilizations in other locations. The formation of urban settlements (cities) is the primary characteristic of a society that can be characterized as "civilized". Other characteristics of civilization include a sedentary non-nomadic population, monumental architecture, the existence of social classes and inequality, and the creation of a writing system for communication. The transition from simpler societies to the complex society of a civilization is gradual.

Scholars generally acknowledge six cradles of civilization. Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, and Ancient China are believed to be the earliest in the Old World,[1][2] while the Caral-Supe civilization of coastal Peru and the Olmec civilization of Mexico are believed to be the earliest in the New World. All of the cradles of civilization depended upon agriculture for sustenance (except possibly Caral-Supe which may have depended initially on marine resources). All depended upon farmers producing an agricultural surplus to support the centralized government, political leaders, priests, and public works of the urban centers of the early civilizations, though the evidence may be misleading, sometimes hiding the more civilized long-lasting ancient high cultures that might have left less evidence of their existence than the great power centers that dominate the archeological record.

Less formally, the term "cradle of civilization" is often used to refer to other historic ancient civilizations, such as Greece or Rome, which have both been called the "cradle of Western civilization".

The Future of Human Civilization (2022 — 3355 AD) - YouTube

YouTube · Beeyond Ideas

86.6T+ views · 1 year ago

9:31

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New Scientist

https://www.newscientist.com › article › mg2583445.

Humans

The civilisation myth: How new discoveries are rewriting human history

In an evolutionary eyeblink, our species has gone from hunting and gathering to living in complex societies. We need to rethink the story of this monumental transition

By Michael Marshall

27 June 2023

FOR almost all of human existence, our species has been roaming the planet, living in small groups, hunting and gathering, moving to new areas when the climate was favourable, retreating when it turned nasty. For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors used fire to cook and warm themselves. They made tools, shelters, clothing and jewellery – although their possessions were limited to what they could carry. They occasionally came across other hominins, like Neanderthals, and sometimes had sex with them. Across vast swathes of time, history played out, unrecorded.

Then, about 10,000 years ago, everything began to change.

In a few places, people started growing crops. They spent more time in the same spot. They built villages and towns. Various unsung geniuses invented writing, money, the wheel and gunpowder. Within just a few thousand years – the blink of an eye in evolutionary time – cities, empires and factories mushroomed all over the world. Today, Earth is surrounded by orbiting satellites and criss-crossed by internet cables. Nothing else like this has ever happened.

Archaeologists and anthropologists have sought to explain why this rapid and extraordinary transformation occurred. Their most prevalent narrative describes a sort of trap: once people started farming, there was no way back from a cascade of increasing social complexity that led inexorably to hierarchy, inequality and environmental destruction. This bleak view of civilisation’s rise has long held sway. However, the more societies we look at, the more it falls to pieces. Confronted with inconvenient evidence, we are being forced to retell our own origin story. In doing so, we are also rethinking what a society can be.

What civilization are we in now?

Humanity presently stands at Type 0.7276 on the Kardashev Scale, which was proposed to quantify the relationship between energy consumption and the development of civilizations. However, current predictions of human civilization remain underdeveloped and energy consumption models are oversimplified.12 Jul 2023

Translate Hindi

सदियों से ही इंसान में एक जागृति क्रिया करके आ चुके है

आज की हमारी यह नया जागरण उसी का ही हिस्सा है

आज हमारी नया सिविलाईजेशन की इशारा किस ओर इंगित कर रहा है

विकिपीडिया

https://en.wikipedia.org › विकि › Cradle_of_civilization

सभ्यता का उद्गम स्थल एक स्थान और एक संस्कृति है जहां सभ्यता अन्य स्थानों की अन्य सभ्यताओं से स्वतंत्र रूप से विकसित हुई थी। शहरी बस्तियों (शहरों) का निर्माण किसी समाज की प्राथमिक विशेषता है जिसे "सभ्य" कहा जा सकता है। सभ्यता की अन्य विशेषताओं में एक गतिहीन गैर-खानाबदोश आबादी, स्मारकीय वास्तुकला, सामाजिक वर्गों और असमानता का अस्तित्व और संचार के लिए एक लेखन प्रणाली का निर्माण शामिल है। किसी सभ्यता के सरल समाज से जटिल समाज में संक्रमण क्रमिक होता है।

विद्वान आमतौर पर सभ्यता के छह उद्गमों को स्वीकार करते हैं। मेसोपोटामिया, प्राचीन मिस्र, प्राचीन भारत और प्राचीन चीन को पुरानी दुनिया में सबसे प्राचीन माना जाता है, [1] [2] जबकि तटीय पेरू की कैरल-सुपे सभ्यता और मैक्सिको की ओल्मेक सभ्यता को सबसे प्राचीन माना जाता है। नया संसार। सभ्यता के सभी उद्गम जीविका के लिए कृषि पर निर्भर थे (संभवतः कैरल-सुपे को छोड़कर जो शुरू में समुद्री संसाधनों पर निर्भर रहा होगा)। सभी प्रारंभिक सभ्यताओं के शहरी केंद्रों की केंद्रीक���त सरकार, राजनीतिक नेताओं, पुजारियों और सार्वजनिक कार्यों का समर्थन करने के लिए कृषि अधिशेष का उत्पादन करने वाले किसानों पर निर्भर थे, हालांकि सबूत भ्रामक हो सकते हैं, कभी-कभी अधिक सभ्य, लंबे समय तक चलने वाली प्राचीन उच्च संस्कृतियों को छिपाते हैं पुरातत्व रिकॉर्ड पर प्रभुत्व रखने वाले महान शक्ति केंद्रों की तुलना में उन्होंने अपने अस्तित्व के कम सबूत छोड़े होंगे।

कम औपचारिक रूप से, "सभ्यता का उद्गम स्थल" शब्द का प्रयोग अक्सर अन्य ऐतिहासिक प्राचीन सभ्यताओं, जैसे ग्रीस या रोम, के संदर्भ में किया जाता है, जिन्हें "पश्चिमी सभ्यता का उद्गम स्थल" कहा जाता है।

मानव सभ्यता का भविष्य (2022 - 3355 ई.) - यूट्यूब

यूट्यूब · विचारों से परे

86.6T+ बार देखा गया · 1 वर्ष पहले

9:31

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नये वैज्ञानिक

https://www.newscientist.com › लेख › mg2583445।

इंसानों

सभ्यता मिथक: कैसे नई खोजें मानव इतिहास को फिर से लिख रही हैं

एक विकासवादी पलक झपकते हुए, हमारी प्रजाति शिकार और संग्रह से जटिल समाजों में रहने लगी है। हमें इस विशाल परिवर्तन की कहानी पर पुनर्विचार करने की आवश्यकता है

माइकल मार्शल द्वारा

27 जून 2023

लगभग पूरे मानव अस्तित्व के दौरान, हमारी प्रजाति ग्रह पर घूमती रही है, छोटे समूहों में रहती है, शिकार करती है और इकट्ठा होती है, जब जलवायु अनुकूल होती है तो नए क्षेत्रों में चली जाती है, और जब जलवायु खराब हो जाती है तो पीछे हट जाती है। सैकड़ों-हजारों वर्षों से, हमारे पूर्वज खाना पकाने और खुद को गर्म करने के लिए आग का उपयोग करते थे। उन्होंने उपकरण, आश्रय, कपड़े और आभूषण बनाए - हालाँकि उनकी संपत्ति उतनी ही सीमित थी जितनी वे ले जा सकते थे। वे कभी-कभी निएंडरथल जैसे अन्य मानवों से मिलते थे और कभी-कभी उनके साथ यौन संबंध बनाते थे। समय के विशाल हिस्से में, इतिहास खेला गया, दर्ज नहीं किया गया।

फिर, लगभग 10,000 साल पहले, सब कुछ बदलना शुरू हुआ।

कुछ स्थानों पर लोग फसलें उगाने लगे। उन्होंने एक ही स्थान पर अधिक समय बिताया। उन्होंने गांवों और कस्बों का निर्माण किया। विभिन्न अज्ञात प्रतिभाओं ने लेखन, धन, पहिया और बारूद का आविष्कार किया। केवल कुछ हज़ार वर्षों के भीतर - विकासवादी समय में पलक झपकते ही - पूरी दुनिया में शहर, साम्राज्य और कारखाने उग आए। आज, पृथ्वी परिक्रमा कर��े वाले उपग्रहों से घिरी हुई है और इंटरनेट केबलों से घिरी हुई है। ऐसा और कुछ नहीं हुआ है.

पुरातत्वविदों और मानवविज्ञानियों ने यह समझाने की कोशिश की है कि यह तीव्र और असाधारण परिवर्तन क्यों हुआ। उनकी सबसे प्रचलित कथा एक प्रकार के जाल का वर्णन करती है: एक बार जब लोगों ने खेती शुरू कर दी, तो बढ़ती सामाजिक जटिलता के एक झरने से पीछे हटने का कोई रास्ता नहीं था जो पदानुक्रम, असमानता और पर्यावरणीय विनाश की ओर ले गया। सभ्यता के उदय का यह अंधकारमय दृष्टिकोण लंबे समय से प्रभाव में है। हालाँकि, हम जितना अधिक समाजों को देखते हैं, वह उतना ही अधिक टुकड़ों में बंटता जाता है। असुविधाजनक सबूतों का सामना करते हुए, हमें अपनी मूल कहानी को फिर से बताने के लिए मजबूर किया जा रहा है। ऐसा करते हुए, हम यह भी पुनर्विचार कर रहे हैं कि एक समाज कैसा हो सकता है।

अभी हम किस सभ्यता में हैं?

मानवता वर्तमान में कार्दशेव स्केल पर टाइप 0.7276 पर है, जिसे ऊर्जा खपत और सभ्यताओं के विकास के बीच संबंध को मापने के लिए प्रस्तावित किया गया था। हालाँकि, मानव सभ्यता की वर्तमान भविष्यवाणियाँ अविकसित हैं और ऊर्जा खपत मॉडल अत्यधिक सरलीकृत हैं। 12 जुलाई 2023

[earthenfay]

My car's hybrid battery died today. 😔

This is a bad, bad day.

[flightlessnightingale]

On Lesbianism

I’ll state it at the top here, because many have not understood my stance. The purpose of this essay is not to say that Lesbian cannot mean “Female homosexual.” Rather, my objective is to show that Lesbian means more than that single definition suggests. Female Homosexuals are lesbians, unless they personally do not want to use that label. Now, on with the show: Lesbianism is not about gatekeeping, and I don’t want to have to keep convincing people that the movement popularized by someone who wrote a book full of lies and hate speech then immediately worked with Ronald Reagan is a bad movement. In the early ’70s, groups of what would now be called “gender critical” feminists threatened violence against many trans women who dared exist in women’s and lesbian spaces. For example, trans woman Beth Elliott, who was at the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Feminist Conference to perform with her lesbian band, was ridiculed onstage and had her existence protested. In 1979, radical feminist Janice Raymond, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, wrote the defining work of the TERF movement, “Transsexual Empire: The Making of the Shemale,” in which she argued that “transsexualism” should be “morally mandating it out of existence”—mainly by restricting access to transition care (a political position shared by the Trump administration). Soon after she wrote another paper, published for the government-funded, National Center for Healthcare Technology — and the Reagan administration cut off Medicare and private health insurance coverage for transition-related care.

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism is a fundamentally unsustainable ideology. Lesbianism is a fundamentally sustainable existence.

There used to be a lesbian bar or queer bar or gay bar in practically every small town — sometimes one of each. After surviving constant police raids, these queer spaces began closing even Before the AIDS epidemic. Because TERFs would take them over, kick out transfems and their friends. Suddenly, there weren’t enough local patrons to keep the bars open, because the majority had been kicked out. With America’s lack of public transportation, not enough people were coming from out of town either.

TERFs, even beyond that, were a fundamental part of the state apparatus that let AIDS kill millions.

For those who don’t know, Lesbian, from the time of Sappho of Lesbos to the about 1970′s, referred to someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy. It was not only a sexuality, but almost akin to a gender spectrum.

That changed in the 1970′s when TERFs co-opted 2nd Wave feminism, working with Ronald fucking Reagan to ban insurance for trans healthcare.

TERFs took over the narrative, the bars, the movement, and changed Lesbian from the most revolutionary and integral queer communal identity of 2 fucking THOUSAND years, from “Someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy” to “A woman with a vagina who’s sexually attracted to other women with vaginas”

How does this fit into the bi lesbian debate? As I said, Lesbian is more of a Gender Spectrum than anything else, it was used much in the same way that we use queer or genderqueer today.

And it’s intersectional too.

See, if you were to try to ascribe a rigid, biological, or localized model of an identity across multiple cultures, it will fail. It will exclude people who should not be excluded. ESPECIALLY Intersex people. That’s why “Two Spirit” isn’t something rigid- it is an umbrella term for the identities within over a dozen different cultures. In the next two sections, I have excerpts on Two-Spirit and Butch identity, to give a better idea of the linguistics of queer culture: This section on Two-Spirit comes from wikipedia, as it has the most links to further sources, I have linked all sources directly, though you can also access them from the Wikipedia page’s bibliography: Two-Spirit is a pan-Indian, umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a traditional ceremonial and social role that does not correlate to the western binary. [1] [2] [3] Created at the 1990 Indigenous lesbian and gay international gathering in Winnipeg, it was "specifically chosen to distinguish and distance Native American/First Nations people from non-Native peoples." [4] Criticism of Two-Spirit arises from 2 major points, 1. That it can exasperate the erasure of the traditional terms and identities of specific cultures.           a. Notice how this parallels criticisms of Gay being used as the umbrella           term for queer culture in general. 2. That it implies adherence to the Western binary; that Natives believe these individuals are "both male and female" [4]          a. Again, you’ll notice that this parallels my criticisms of the TERF definition of Lesbian, that tying LGBT+ identities to a rigid western gender binary does a disservice to LGBT+ people,—especially across cultures. “Two Spirit" wasn’t intended to be interchangeable with "LGBT Native American" or "Gay Indian"; [2] nor was it meant to replace traditional terms in Indigenous languages.  Rather, it was created to serve as a pan-Indian unifier. [1] [2] [4] —The term and identity of two-spirit "does not make sense" unless it is contextualized within a Native American or First Nations framework and traditional cultural understanding. [3] [10] [11] The ceremonial roles intended to be under the modern umbrella of two-spirit can vary widely, even among the Indigenous people who accept the English-language term. No one Native American/First Nations' culture's gender or sexuality categories apply to all, or even a majority of, these cultures. [4] [8] Butch: At the turn of the 20th century, the word “butch” meant “tough kid” or referred to a men’s haircut. It surfaced as a term used among women who identified as lesbians in the 1940s, but historians and scholars have struggled to identify exactly how or when it entered the queer lexicon. However it happened, "Butch” has come to mean a “lesbian of masculine appearance or behavior.” (I have heard that, though the words originate from French, Femme & Butch came into Lesbian culture from Latina lesbian culture, and if I find a good source for that I will share. If I had to guess, there may be some wonderful history to find of it in New Orleans—or somewhere similar.) Before “butch” became a term used by lesbians, there were other terms in the 1920s that described masculinity among queer women. According to the historian Lillian Faderman,“bull dagger” and “bull dyke” came out of the Black lesbian subculture of Harlem, where there were “mama” and “papa” relationships that looked like butch-femme partnerships. Performer Gladys Bentley epitomized this style with her men’s hats, ties and jackets. Women in same-sex relationships at this time didn’t yet use the word “lesbian” to describe themselves. Prison slang introduced the terms “daddy,” “husband,” and “top sargeant” into the working class lesbian subculture of the 1930s.  This lesbian history happened alongside Trans history, and often intersected, just as the Harlem renaissance had music at the forefront of black and lesbian (and trans!) culture, so too can trans musicians, actresses, and more be found all across history, and all across the US. Some of the earliest known trans musicians are Billy Tipton and Willmer “Little Ax” Broadnax—Both transmasculine musicians who hold an important place in not just queer history, but music history.

Lesbian isn’t rigid & biological, it’s social and personal, built up of community and self-determination.

And it has been for millennia.

So when people say that nonbinary lesbians aren’t lesbian, or asexual lesboromantics aren’t lesbian, or bisexual lesbians aren’t lesbian, it’s not if those things are technically true within the framework — It’s that those statements are working off a fundamentally claustrophobic, regressive, reductionist, Incorrect definition You’ll notice that whilst I have been able to give citations for TERFs, for Butch, and especially for Two-Spirit, there is little to say for Lesbianism. The chief reason for this is that lesbian history has been quite effectively erased-but it is not forgotten, and the anthropological work to recover what was lost is still ongoing. One of the primary issues is that so many who know or remember the history have so much trauma connected to "Lesbian” that they feel unable to reclaim it. Despite this trauma, just like the anthropological work, reclamation is ongoing.

Since Sappho, lesbian was someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy. For centuries, esbian wasn’t just a sexuality, it was intersectional community, kin to a gender spectrum, like today’s “queer”. When TERFs co-opted 2nd Wave feminism, they redefined Lesbian to “woman w/ a vag attracted to other women w/ vags”. So when you say “bi lesbians aren’t lesbian” it’s not whether that’s true within the framework, it’s that you’re working off a claustrophobic, regressive, and reductionist definition.

I want Feminism, Queerness, Lesbianism, to be fucking sustainable.

I wanna see happy trans and lesbian and queer kids in a green and blue fucking world some day.

I want them to be able to grow old in a world we made good.

[seafleece]

that campaign sounds SO COOL, PLEASE infodump about it

okay okay okay

so this is set at a time where interplanar travel has become about as widespread as flying— it’s not to the point of being universally free, but it’s available to the public and short hops are likely to be cheap (or, if you’re leaving the shadowfell, free). in terms of planar structure, the feywild and prime material plane are connected via the underdark, and the shadowfell is completely disconnected from the feywild and is totally presided over by the raven queen. the heavens still belong to and are populated by the gods, but everyone goes there after death, and the hells are just another plane, where archdevils and the like serve more of a landed gentry purpose. the outer planes are less reliable or are harder to travel to, but this is just because of distance and some reticence on the part of government bodies there to connect directly to the prime material plane.

the reserve the party works at is on the material plane, and is owned by this woman called the groundskeeper, who used to be a famous adventurer. she’s had it for decades, and has devoted enough time and money that it now has its own college on the portion of the grounds open to the public. the reserve has a bunch of firewatch-esque towers for staff use that are all connected by an underground rail system (which currently has a bit of an ankheg problem), and consists mostly of various miniature biomes that almost transition into each other neatly, but not quite.

working for the reserve, either as an employee or a student of the college, means that you’re expressly forbidden from harming the creatures on the reserve unless directly instructed to by a member of the senior staff, you have to carry and keep on a radio that connects to a network other staff and the groundskeeper have access to and carry ear protection that needs to be used when handling aberrations, which should always be reported. as a group, the party takes jobs either on site or off the grounds, and these range from collecting samples to tagging creatures to heading offsite to handle creature problems in other towns on behalf of the reserve. we use the gear system from blades in the dark, and the party brings their own equipment and/or borrows from the reserve’s stores, which are. plentiful.

i’ve mostly painted the material plane in broad strokes beyond specific cities, but one of the biggest aspects is the church, which is a network of churches in service to any of the gods, the implication being that this is a decidedly post-multiple crusades world where the worship of any god exists under at least a vague banner. the church body has grown extremely powerful being at the center of so many communities, but rarely intercedes in governments and mostly just relies on its daunting size and reputation to gain the benefits it wants. angels are sort of like immortal saints— they don’t often leave the heavens, but do so more often than the gods, and usually represent an ideal or concept. aasimar, as a term, refers both to people who are directly touched by angels and people who have devoted their life to following the example or ideal of a specific angel, like having a patron saint. the only god that presides over the main planes that isn’t part of the church is the raven queen, who instead rules over the shadowfell sort of like lord death in soul eater and refuses to engage with the other gods in any way. her followers, who brought the first ravens to the material plane, serve as her eyes and ears beyond the shadowfell and are generally received poorly by the church.

other fun miscellaneous world details:

-magical genetics is a rising field, and on the reserve the department is led by an ambassador from the hells very interested in learning evolutionary origins and how they intersect with interplanar contact.

-bahamut and tiamat aren’t in any conflict greater than the cain instinct, and are twin gods of knowledge as well as dragons. their minds are so ancient they’re essentially libraries, and a great honor among a lot of their descendants is to become a storyteller, an archivist with access to a portion of those libraries.

-rapid magical communication is available to the public, but still requires an access point.

-spells that specifically raise the dead any later than revivify rarely work properly, and undead generally don’t exist unless under extremely extenuating circumstances.

-giants are essentially planar travelers— metaphysically, they’re so large that they can simply pass from one to another like stepping in a tide pool, and are not native to the material plane.

-ravens aren’t related to corvids or any other creature on the material plane, and the only ones there come from the shadowfell, where most creatures are at least 30% raven.

-the reserve has devoted considerable resources to its sentience department, which determines sentience among creatures that might live on the reserve to avoid any more lawsuits (they’ve had. a distressing amount of lawsuits over the decades and have become very careful)

-the underdark doesn’t have anywhere close to 5e’s stigma, and is just another populated place that’s been around long enough for distinct cultures to emerge. it has some similarities to the abyss, which is accessible directly from the hells but is more of just a largely unexplored place, the bottom of which has never been found. there are some drow and duergar communities who have lived far, far below the surface long enough that they’ve adapted superior hearing and their eyes are incredibly weak or non-functional entirely, and they’ve pioneered a branch of illusion magic that relies on sound.

[visheshjohari]

Covid 19’S Effect On Traditional Businesses.

So first thing first, What is traditional business?

A traditional business is a local shop that sells its services or goods to its local people. It’s something where consumers have to personally enter the market to purchase the items.

Now, how Covid 19 affect it?

Covid 19 created numerous organisational and financial challenges for Indian businesses. During the lockdown, nearly 71.31 percent of the companies dealt with decreased cash flows with the manufacturing sector being the hardest affected. Since more towns were shut down or closed down, non-essential companies and corporations were ordered to shut down, and people typically avoid public spaces. The new outbreak has had serious economic repercussions around the world, and it may not seem that any country will be unaffected.

In several business industries, the COVID-19 pandemic epidemic has caused several firms to close, leading to an unparalleled disruption of trade. Many short-term problems are faced by retailers and brands, such as those relating to health and safety, customer appetite, revenue, and marketing, etc. This is because after we get past this pandemic, relative to the one before the epidemic, we will appear in a completely different environment. This not only has consequences for the economy; a great deal of society is impacted and has led to dramatic changes in many sectors. Many markets, especially in the tourism and hospitality industries, do not exist anymore. Many of them have literally lost their jobs and businesses, The epidemic triggered bankruptcy for many well-known brands in many markets, as customers remain at home, and economies are shut down. A recent report has said that Several small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in India are failing to implement the COVID-19 Automated Weather Tools. Almost 75 % of the respondents in the survey understood the value of transitioning to new technologies in order to revive their businesses. And now even small businesses are going online in order to save their value. you may visit www.covid19 india.org for more info.

[a-room-of-my-own]

By Julian Vigo

Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor's New Clothes tells the tale of a ruler who is unconcerned with the reigning of his kingdom—he did not care much about attending the theatre nor making any public appearances unless, of course, he was able to flaunt his latest clothes. That is until one day when two swindlers came to town and tricked the emperor successfully convincing him that they were weavers who could spin him the most beautiful cloth he had ever before seen in his life. These swindlers claimed, “Not only were the colours and the patterns of their material extraordinarily beautiful, but the cloth had the strange quality of being invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office or unforgivably stupid.” It was perfect, of course, for the emperor whose intelligence would not only allow him to see quite perfectly the beauty of the cloth before him but which would also allow him to choose his councillors wisely as he would discard any of them who were unable to perceive the magnificent beauty before their eyes. 

The emperor then bought these fraudsters the most expensive materials of silk and gold and a loom with which to make the clothes. The swindlers kept the materials for themselves and pretended to make the garments from the empty loom. First, the emperor sent his faithful prime minister to check up on the “weavers” who doubted his eyesight as he found an empty loom. He thought to himself, “Am I stupid?” wondering if he was fit for his office. In a choice between his trust of his eyesight or his desire to keep his position, the prime minister quickly came around stating, “It is beautiful. It is very lovely...What patterns! What colours! I shall tell the emperor that I am greatly pleased.” And each of the councillors the emperor sent thereafter had a similar reaction—at first doubting their sanity and then realising that if they did not concede the beauty of the cloth being spun that they risked losing their position. Soon, all those close to the emperor had announced their sighting of a magnificent cloth that in fact was non-existent.

When it finally came time for the emperor to view the completed cloth, the fraudsters and everyone around the emperor informed him how beautiful the cloth was. The prime minister exclaims, “Isn't it magnifique?” However, the emperor had a similar crisis to that of all those he had sent before to check up on the cloth: he saw nothing. He thought to himself, “I can't see a thing! Why this is a disaster! Am I stupid? Am I unfit to be emperor? Oh, it is too horrible!” However, like his officials who realised that their credibility and good-judgment lay in the balance, the emperor capitulates to his officials’ claims and announced the glorious artistry of a cloth that did not, in fact, exist at all. “It is lovely,” exclaims the emperor. After paying the thieves handsomely for their good work, the emperor decides to have the cloth cut and sewn and, in celebration of his new clothes, he has a parade. As he marches down the streets in sheer nudity, everyone in the kingdom is awed by the beauty of his clothes and shares in his delight and belief of the lie. That is until a young child sees that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes at all and the rest of the kingdom slowly begins to realise the same.

This well-known fairy tale serves as an allegory for political ideology that a government can impose upon its citizens, that a well-funded interest group can as well—that of false consciousness. In his essay,The Power of the Powerless (1978), Václav Havel explores what he calls the post-totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia wherein he reveals an ideology of false consciousness that is strikingly similar to the political consciousness of Andersen’s fairy tale. Havel uses the analogy of a greengrocer who displays in his storefront window the party slogan which reads “Workers of the World, Unite!” Just as the emperor's clothes are a production of artistic sleight of hand and cunning trickery, for Havel so too is the party literature, the slogan of the green grocer. The manoeuvre of an invisible cloth or a state-mandated slogan in both cases becomes the vehicle through which ideology surfaces and inscribes itself upon the masses whereby, as Havel writes, the citizens “confirm the system, fulfil the system, make the system, are the system.”

Havel’s essay is quite critical of political ideology calling it an “almost secularised religion” which maintains its force by offering the wandering masses a “home” that immediately grants the believer a life full of new meaning:

Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. As the repository of something suprapersonal and objective, it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves. It is a very pragmatic but, at the same time, an apparently dignified way of legitimising what is above, below, and on either side. 

Havel goes on to assert that ideology feeds a systemic drive that creates a “world of appearances trying to pass for reality” where the post-totalitarian system “touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on.” 

Havel’s essay is not only a damning summation of the ideological rituals common within Czechoslovakia, Poland and other Communist regimes of the era, but it eerily portrays much of what is happening in the west today fifty years later. With samizdat, a form of dissident activity across the former Eastern bloc nations long ago retired, we have laid witness in recent years to its unofficial rebirth among many critics of gender ideology. For those who have pushed back against the onslaught of gender ideology that has permeated the neoliberal left over the past twenty years, many critics of this era’s embrace of identity politics who refuse to be silenced have either taken to social media or they have published blog posts under assumed names. Due to the mounting authoritarianism from the left on this subject whereby individuals have faced losing income, being fired from their positions entirely, or being socially and politically ostracised, the protest to the official narratives of gender ideology has been emanating from unofficial spaces. 

Twitter and Facebook have been the two primary social media spaces where feminists and trans ideologues alike have created secret groups in an attempt to strategise, dialogue, and establish actions. It would be an understatement to state that the wave has not only turned in the favour of these feminists, but COVID-19 has assisted the many who previously doubted the importance of material reality, to understand the difference between identity as feeling and the somatic reality of male versus female, a virus versus a unicorn. I have been in many of the gender-critical groups that are composed of only women, only radical feminists, only leftists, and myriad other variations on a theme. Where women and men from the left have joined forces to fight what they perceive as an ideological backwater of men’s rights activism, this fourth wave of feminism has teeth and it is speaking clearly to what resoundingly appears to be a religious ideology of gender.

Now that the NHS and the BBC have radically transformed their websites in recent weeks to update the information on gender dysphoria to include mentioning childhood desistance and ROGD (rapid-onset gender dysphoria), there is now a mass wiping of servers of these and other institutions of all references to Mermaids, a UK-based lobby group and NGO that has long identified its constituency as “transgender children” and their parents. And Mermaids is no outlier in the industry that seeks the expansion of childhood medical “gender transition” as it has consistently encouraged policy changes within the British government and its agencies to effect the quickest possible transition times of the highest number of children with the fewest safeguards in place. In 2018, Mermaids received £500,000 in lottery funding to this end.

So how is it that in less than two years, Mermaids has gone from being the star charity ostensibly championing the rights of children to now being silently removed from the BBC and NHS websites in their information and support sections as all the claims that puberty blockers such as Lupron are “reversible” have also disappeared? More importantly, why is it now commonplace in recent weeks that the media and public figures as well as private and public institutions have in stealth removed mention of Mermaids and the cheerleading of “childhood transition” from their accounts or servers as if a damnatio memoriae rivalling China’s removal of Zhao Ziyang from most every public record available in China?

Last year British actor, Jameela Jamil, participated in a video in support of both sic “trans kids” and Mermaids. Yet, in the same time frame that the NHS and BBC servers were wiped clean of any reference to Mermaids with data amended that exaggerated suicide information or that omitted childhood desistance, Jamil has curiously wiped clean her many Twitter posts referring to Mermaids. While Jamil claims she deleted her history to “become a more activism focused account that I can lend to other activists and charities,” many activists have answered Jamil on Twitter noting the non-coincidence of her and British comedian Josie Long having both dumped their Twitter feed within hours of one another, to include the many tweets in support of both Mermaids and the lifetime medicalisation of mostly gay and lesbian children’s bodies. 

On the other side of this debate, you have trans activists like Katy Montgomerie who are soliciting screenshots of gender-critical people who have “bought this latest Mermaids conspiracy theory” as he calls it. One of the tweets sent to Montgomerie as “proof” of wrong-think was that of fellow-writer, Suzanne Moore, who tweeted this past week: “I see all you celebs deleting your tweets that supported the charity Mermaids? Wonder why you are doing that.” Now that Montgomerie is invested in collecting evidence of women’s words on social media (as if their clearly visible tweets were not enough), the pushback to gender-critical voices has become patently absurd, especially since feminists have been pointing out the sexism and homophobia inherent within transgender ideology for years. Next up, Montgomerie or another trans-identified male will claim that gender critics are right-wing, religious bigots because they questioned the sexism and homophobia of Mermaids which in turn made it impossible for them to question the sexism and homophobia of Mermaids. This is pretty much the cycle these online debates take in the vein of “on the wrong side of history” debates that pervade social media.

Content aside, what should trouble us all is that media of public and private institutions and individuals on social media is being scrubbed of history. As Havel’s essay shows us that the greengrocer’s shop slogan is divorced from what the slogan actually says, the true meaning of the social act of proclaiming allegiance to an ideology is quite clear and comprehensible because the code is so familiar: 

The greengrocer declares his loyalty (and he can do no other if his declaration is to be accepted) in the only way the regime is capable of hearing; that is, by accepting the prescribed ritual, by accepting appearances as reality, by accepting the given rules of the game. In doing so, however, he has himself become a player in the game, thus making it possible for the game to go on, for it to exist in the first place.

Today, here we are in the midst of a tide-turning moment where transgender ideology is being rejected en masse by gay and straight people, men and women alike. Meanwhile, the public institutions which have for years codified the social signs, sponsored the "gender identity" training, crafted the woke lessons transmitted by the BBC and the NHS permeating all arenas of media and public health, in addition to the cast of Harry Potter chiming in with their endless support for “trans people” through Twitter and other media outlets, and we have been handed the perfect storm exemplifying exactly how we got here in the first place. Of course, political ideology is a powerful tool when it leaves no oxygen in the room for anything else. Such an authoritarian narrative creates the subterfuge to the very ideology all these bodies and individuals espouse. 

For those like British journalist Owen Jones who declared in 2015 that all critics of transgender ideology were on “the wrong side of history,” we must be more circumspect in how we approach ideologues who ought to be covering the news instead of participating in it. While gender has wider implications beyond its very narrow media representation, the political backwater of how the media influences public policy, politics and even law is unparalleled today. We need to learn from Havel’s historical example of what happens when we allow ourselves to become the greengrocer who unthinkingly parrots slogans that have neither any base in reason nor any resonance within our society. The repression of artists, poets, thinkers and politicians in the former Eastern bloc countries has been well documented. So too have the attempts to purge antagonistic articulations about gender from the “party line” been noted in recent years across various anglophone countries.

Now that the gender narrative is falling apart quickly, many of its proponents are running for cover skipping over to the very side they previously denounced as “wrong.” Of course, these individuals will happily prefer their slogans be forgotten, to have their tweets removed and their websites altered from public record. “All traces of totalitarian influence, dissidents confirm, define, adopt, and integrate the methods of totalitarianism within their own structure building their 'truth' on its negation,” Havel reminds us.

Let’s now remind these political actors of the dangers that occur when espousing ideological hogwash as human rights. More importantly, let us now learn from this lesson of this dangerous era of public tyranny and return to the drawing board to continue that discussion about historical materialism and its significance today

[thebiasrekkers]

Touch In The Dark — MYG

For the @btswriterscorner​ - Amor Fabula Launch Project in celebration of the month of Valentine’s Day!

Plot: Min Yoongi comes from the prestigious family of Blue Blood lineage. However, to appear philanthropic in the eyes of the public, they volunteered their son to marry someone from “humble” origins. Two years have passed since he’s been married to his poor, orphan wife. But for the first time in two years, he’s starting to take note of things about her that are causing shifts in his views of her, shaking his heart.

Rating: PG-13 // SFW

Genre: dystopian!au/dystopian themes | angst | romance/fluff

Pairing: Min Yoongi x Female OC (Kiara Townsend)

Warnings: Strong language, mentions of suicide, extreme angst, interracial/intercultural relationship, arranged marriage

Links: FAQ || BTS Masterlist || Admin E’s AO3 || [ REQUESTS ARE OPEN ]

Word Count: 7,936

AN: I never thought I would write a story like this. I think this is the softest I’ve ever written for the boys. I know I only have one piece of lit for the fandom, but I have to say that this project caught me a little off guard. I never thought I would write Yoongi this soft, but it’s a very non-conventional soft. So I hope you all enjoy the world I was able to build from this, hug your loved ones a little close, and know that you are always loved. All reblogs, critiques/reviews, comments and affection are accepted! Happy reading!

© thebiasrekkers (Admin E). All rights reserved. Reposting/modifying our work is prohibited. Translations are not allowed. Plagiarism/stealing is not tolerated by any means. Legal action will be taken in instances of theft.

  ~ k.t. ~

On the day she was told that she’d been chosen as the “Charity Selection” for The Lottery, Kiara tried to kill herself. 

The heavy knocks sounded like thunder inside her tiny, rundown studio apartment. She stared back at her reflection in the bathroom, a handful of sleeping pills clutched in her palm over the porcelain. She’d purchased a full bottle of the prescription strength medication off the black market. It took her months to save up enough money to buy them.

Attempted suicide was a serious offense, punishable by large fines and incarceration for three months, followed by six months of psychiatric evaluation. The global population was already off-kilter with how many people suffered losses from wars, hunger and poverty. Decreasing the numbers in any amount was detrimental to society’s ability to rebuild and stabilize its structure. 

The knocking continued incessantly. Kiara knew if she didn’t answer the door, they would just kick it in and find out what she was up to. Sighing, she put the pills back into the bottle and placed it in the medicine chest behind the smudged mirror.

Twelve paces. That’s how long it took for her to make it from the bathroom to the front door. The ratty sofa doubled as her bed and the thin, pale blue blanket could hardly be considered covers. While Kiara did not get sick often, she could not stay warm during the winter months. Central heating was a luxury she couldn’t afford and space heaters were few and far between. The yellowing paint peeled off the walls and the stainless steel door knobs, once shiny and new, were now dull and gray from years of neglect.

When she opened the door, she was greeted by a man in a three-piece suit and two armed soldiers. He was an official from The Lottery office and he handed her a letter. He congratulated her, telling her how fortunate she was to have been chosen for the “Charity” portion of the Lottery. He explained that everything she needed to know about her future husband was in the envelope and that she could read it on the flight to meet him.

She’d never flown in an airplane before.

Kiara didn’t own much. All of her furniture were either hand-me-downs or things she found on the side of the road. Her clothes, what few she had, could all be stuffed into a single duffel bag. Her friends doted on her, telling her how lucky she was to have been chosen. They all pooled together and bought her a pretty sundress to wear since it was approaching Summer. Kiara promised to contact them whenever she was fully settled.

On the flight over, Kiara took a good look over the files she’d received. 

Yoongi Min. 26. South Korean. Computer programmer. His home was Daegu and he still lived with his family, as per tradition in the country. He was fluent in English, which was a relief. He was definitely handsome - dark auburn hair, pierced ears, and umber eyes that almost appeared a little withdrawn. Or was it sadness?

Was he hurting on the inside too?

At her request, one of the flight attendants gave her a tablet for her to study. She didn’t want to embarrass herself on the first day of meeting him.

If the plane didn’t crash on the way. Kiara could only be so lucky. 

Yoongi wasn’t the one who picked her up from the airport. It was someone from the family’s household staff. He was a kind looking middle-aged man and he helped her load what few belongings she had into the trunk of her car. The drive from Incheon to Daegu was long. The driver, Mr. Song, told her she could take a nap if she liked. But there were so many questions she wanted to ask and she was grateful that he was also fluent in English.

There were things she discovered about Yoongi that she felt she could relate to. He was an avid reader and enjoyed music. He preferred his solitude and when he had the time to spare, he took pictures and tended the garden at his family’s home. There were servants to handle such things as yardwork, but Yoongi insisted on raising seedlings in a greenhouse.

After she arrived at his family’s home, she was welcomed by the rest of the staff. Yoongi, again, did not greet her. His parents did, however. They were not so fluent in English, but they were kind enough to allow one of the maidservants to translate what they were saying to Kiara. She both nodded and shook her head at the appropriate questions. Nothing they asked was outside of a “yes” or “no” response.

“Are you healthy?”

“Are your parents really dead?”

“Were you comfortable on the plane?”

“You’ve never flown on an airplane before, have you?”

And finally, the question that served as Divine Intervention.

“Are you tired?”

The questioning ended when she nodded. It wasn’t that Kiara wanted to avoid her future In-Laws. She really was tired. She refused to nap on the long drive from Incheon to Daegu and the jet lag was starting to rear its ugly head. She could hardly keep her eyes open. After she was escorted to one of the guest rooms, Kiara barely took note of her luggage on the floor at the foot of the bed. 

She fell asleep almost immediately.

When Kiara awoke the next day, she found a handwritten note sitting on the nightstand. Groggy and hungry, she did her best to read the note. Her eyes quickly focused when she realized it was from Yoongi.

Miss Townsend,

I’m glad to see you arrived safely. I know this is a bit of a transition for you, but everything will be fine. I will be out of town on business until the day after tomorrow. Please meet me at City Hall on Wednesday so we can finalize everything.

~ Min Yoongi

Unsure of why, Kiara felt her heart sink. The note seemed so impersonal; business-like. She knew what kind of world they lived in now, but did it really mean that a perpetual wall would exist between them? 

Crumpling the note in her hand, she was grateful to be alone. She didn’t think she’d be able to explain the tears if anyone saw her. Mostly because Kiara, herself, couldn’t understand why she was crying.

~ m.y. ~

The days always began the same.

Yoongi woke up, showered, went downstairs and had his cup of coffee. Two spoonfuls of sugar. No cream. He hated watching television because most channels either rattled on political propaganda or spoke about the “Runners” rebelling against society’s standards for the world. He preferred the soft sounds of jazz peeling from the radio speakers. Sometimes it was purely instrumental. Other times, someone was crooning a song about heartbreak. It was an idea that he didn’t quite understand, but the tones were pleasing to the ears.

He wasn’t a fan of it originally. Yoongi only listened to it because she had it playing while she hung laundry out on the line one warm summer day. “Killing Me Softly” droned from the speakers and he could recall the look on her face when he told her to turn it off immediately. Music containing lyrics had been banned as it was a way for artists to spread their messages of love, freedom, insurrection and justice. 

She didn’t argue with him, but her expression shifted significantly that day.

In their society, love was something that could not be felt because love equaled passion and passion led to impractical thought. Impractical thoughts led to irrational decisions being made. Wars, hatred, violence: they were all ingredients for disaster that nearly wiped out the population of the world.

But mankind couldn’t very well lead itself to extinction. Population growth was necessary, so long as it was monitored and controlled. Maintaining order was paramount in this new age. The Lottery Bill was established across the world - bridging the racial and cultural divide that continued to exist until the United Nations took matters into their own hands.

The class system was determined by lottery. Blue Bloods all the way to Laborers. Everyone had their place and would accept that place. No one would strive to reach above their station as that would disrupt order and breed chaos. To regulate the classes, lotteries were also pulled for marriage. Couples were chosen from like classes to maintain balance in the system. 

But because the world’s government was not cruel, there were families chosen to participate in philanthropic activities. Every year, a small percentage of Laborers were pooled to marry into Blue Blood lineage. It was a way to show the kindness the global governmental body possessed. Most in the Blue Blood class referred to it as “Forced Charity” but they couldn’t argue against the positive impact it had both across the media and in society as a whole.

Min Yoongi’s family was one of the families chosen to participate in the “Forced Charity”. As the only son, he was obligated to be the one to represent their family during The Lottery. 

He didn’t make a fuss. When Yoongi received his Summons in the mail, he went to his district’s City Hall and took the envelope from one of the clerks. He had one week to accept the terms presented in his drawing. Since he was willingly volunteering to marry someone outside of his station, he had one opportunity for a redrawing. But only one.

Yoongi opted out of it.

He was living with his parents still and politely asked that they give him privacy. For five days they tormented him about what his bride was like. It wasn’t out of childish rebellion that he hadn’t given them an answer. It was because he truly didn’t know.

On the sixth day, he finally opened the envelope. 

Inside contained the dossier of his future bride, as well as a single photograph. Everyone who was eligible for The Lottery was required to have their picture taken at their district’s City Hall, regardless of what part of the world they were from. If his bride-to-be had to travel miles to get to him, then that was what had to be done. There would be no objections from either side.

He had no expectations. There was no reason to disagree with the marriage. Yet a part of him hesitated when it was time to call The Lottery office to have them send for her. The same part that looked at her picture and couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking when she was staring back at the camera. Yoongi wondered if he had the same expression on his face when he’d taken his photo.

Kiara Townsend. 26. African-American, German and Scottish. She had no parents and she worked full-time in a textile factory in North America. Her parents were killed during a neighborhood raid of residents who were presumed to have been involved in an underground movement of sorts - advocating free love and speaking out against the societal norms currently in place for the world. 

In the photo, her skin was a golden caramel, hair thick with large curls, and she had prominent brows and a set of full lips. Her eyes, small and hazel in tone, were seemingly endless - like she could see into the very souls of anyone she laid her eyes upon. But there was an emptiness that lingered there in her photo. 

After accepting his lottery choice, she was notified and escorted to his home country of South Korea. In three days, they were married. As a wedding present, his parents bought them their own home - a large estate in the Daegu countryside where they would have privacy. She no longer had to work now that she was married to a Blue Blood. Yoongi worked from home as a computer programmer and only went into town once a month for board meetings.

For the first month, neither of them said a word to each other. It was an unspoken rule that they had their own separate spaces in their home. Yoongi rarely slept and when he did, he slept alone. His wife often slept on the couch and he never bothered her to sleep in her own bed. 

They were like strangers who happened to share the same address.

Four months went by. Yoongi grew more and more numb to his situation. The whole point of marrying someone was to increase the population. Young men and women were fully educated in the concept of sexual intercourse so that there would be no mistakes during the coupling process. No one was truly a virgin when they were age-appropriate for The Lottery. Sex was no longer an act of pleasure in the world. It was a business transaction.

They didn’t have sex. Neither even so much as touched the other.

Six months into their marriage, Yoongi heard Kiara speak for the first time. 

“Can we send the servants home? I want to make dinner tonight.”

The sound of her voice was so soft. He was entranced and nearly forgot to speak. When Yoongi finally found his voice, he replied - realizing that his own tones sounded a little strange to him.

“Alright.”

~ k.t. ~

She hadn’t meant to be silent. There were so many things she wanted to know about her husband. But the very air around him appeared frigid and Kiara knew she didn’t want to bother him. There was a part of her that could sense his loneliness, but she never wanted to push or prod where she wasn’t wanted. The interactions they had between each other were brief, if even at all. 

Kiara didn’t have to want for anything. But was this really a life that she could grow accustomed to? It felt like the more she wanted to grow closer with Yoongi, the further he seemed to appear.

Did he hate her? Or not care about her? When he fussed at her about playing the radio, she wondered if she was simply an eyesore to him.

Wasn’t it better to simply stay out of his way?

The months bled on and while they were finally sharing small bits of conversation here and there, Kiara could sense the gap between them slowly transforming into a chasm. There were times when she caught him looking at her when she was busying herself around the kitchen or even putting away clothes. She was so used to a hard, springy mattress from her pullout bed in her studio that Kiara found it easy to fall asleep on one of the many couches throughout the house.

Their house.

But was it really her house? Could she call it her home?

Eight months into their marriage, she woke up in a bed after having fallen asleep while reading on the sofa. The warm blankets and plush down startled Kiara, causing her to halfway scramble from the bed. The room was unfamiliar to her and she felt slightly trapped. Most people would be elated to wake up in a room with pristine, painted walls, an elegant vanity table, and clean blankets and pillows. It was warm and inviting, something that Kiara saw in the pages of magazines. She never dreamed she would be able to sleep in a room like this. It was part of the reason why she couldn’t bring herself to do it in the first place.

Who could have brought her there? One of the servants, maybe?

Sighing, she took a moment to study the room she was in - the room that was designated as “hers”. It was as unfamiliar to her as the day she first set foot in this country. While Kiara understood the language and continued to learn the customs and culture of South Korea, there was a part of her that still felt strangely out of place. It shouldn’t have been the case, not with The Lottery Bill having been in effect for several years now. 

Only when her raging heartbeat slowed down a measure, did she notice the small note resting on the nightstand. With slightly trembling fingers, Kiara picked up the note and read it.

Stop sleeping on the couch. There’s a perfectly good bed not being put to use. 

You don’t have to make yourself uncomfortable for no reason. 

Haven’t you suffered enough in your life?

~ Yoongi

A warm feeling slowly blanketed her entire body. Kiara pressed the note to her chest as she sat on the edge of the bed. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel. Relief? Understanding? Perhaps. Maybe even a little hopeful.

There was the faint aroma of spices permeating into her room from the gap below the door. Setting the note down, Kiara left her room and made her way out into the hallway. The stairwell was just a few feet away, but she paused in front of Yoongi’s bedroom. Her eyes lingered a little further to the third door at the other end of the hallway - the master bedroom. It seemed that Yoongi opted to stay in a guest bedroom just like hers.

Was that out of concern for her? Did he not want to appear entitled? 

But that didn’t make any sense. He was a Blue Blood. His very lineage was entitlement, wasn’t it?

So then...why?

Her palm slid along the railing of the stairwell, her bare feet gliding over the perfectly polished wooden floor. She could hear a pot boiling as someone chopped methodically in the kitchen. When she reached the entrance, Kiara peeked her head around the corner. She felt like a small child stumbling across their parent in the middle of some adult task.

Yoongi was focused on chopping vegetables for a stew. The meat was already fully cooked in the broth and he appeared to be putting the final touches on what he was doing. Kiara gazed at his exposed forearms in awe - watching the muscles tensing as he worked. Her eye-line shifted, roving over the curve of his shoulders to the juncture of his slender neck. Sweat gathered around his temple and trailed down his jawline and with each movement, she saw his earrings twinking under the kitchen’s amber light fixture.

She couldn’t recall a time when she’d seen a man as beautiful as her husband. 

As if he’d sensed her presence, Yoongi craned his neck to look at her - his arms moving to slide the vegetables off the carving board and into the stew pot. He turned the burner down while setting the chopping board into the sink. Washing his hands, he then wiped them clean with a dish towel as he leaned against the kitchen counter.

“Did you sleep well?”

Kiara nodded. “I did, thank you.”

“Good.” 

There was a pregnant pause that seemed to stretch towards the edge of forever. Just as Kiara took a step forward, preparing to offer some kind of assistance, did Yoongi finally break the silence.

“I dismissed the servants,” he offered gently, his gaze meeting hers for what she felt like was the very first time since they were married, “it’s not like they really have much to do around here.”

Kiara didn’t know what to say, so she remained silent. Unconsciously, she began wringing her hands together. She very nearly averted her gaze until he spoke again.

“I’ll probably send them back to my parents’ home.” 

Again, her eyes locked with his. His expression stayed neutral and Kiara felt a lump forming in her throat. 

“Would it be okay if it was just the two of us?”

Her eyes widened slightly, unsure of what he was implying. But it was true that the servants didn’t have much to do in their home. Yoongi hardly made a mess and what mess he did make, he often cleaned up after himself. The same could be said of Kiara. If anything, the servants were often shuffling around and attempting to find something to do so they didn’t appear to have idle hands.

Surely they could take care of themselves, right?

Kiara didn’t know what expression to make, so she kept her face from shifting too much. Maybe it was out of need to keep herself just a little more guarded because of the lack of interaction for so long. She couldn’t be sure. But appearing too vulnerable, too open, could be just as much of a mistake as being too closed off.

Taking a breath, she nodded once more.

“If you’re alright with it, then I would like that, too.”

~ m.y. ~

He didn’t shower her with gifts because of an impulsive decision. 

He bought her things because he knew she chose to go without. 

Kiara came from a world that was vastly different than his own. Yoongi could hardly fathom the idea of not having enough clothes in his closet or enough food in his fridge. But she never complained about anything - whether he bought too much or not enough. She graciously accepted everything that was given. 

What was even more puzzling, however, was how a mild feeling of irritation blossomed when Kiara didn’t utilize the things he’d given her immediately. He knew she was grateful and she rarely made a fuss about anything. The one time he ever saw her upset in the entire year they’d been married was when he’d made the comment about the radio.

Hadn’t they reached a compromise?

Biting his lower lip, he found it difficult to focus on his computer work. Everything looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics, which was saying something considering that Yoongi lived, breathed, and dreamed about coding. He became a computer software programmer out of necessity for the ever-advancing world of technology they lived in. Modern society was growing more and more dependent on smart devices, which would have been a shame had he lived in a different world. 

People often missed the world around them when their eyes were glued to a screen.

The latch unhooked from the door, causing him to shift his gaze from the computer monitor. When it slowly opened, he saw Kiara quietly enter - arms cradling a small serving tray. Yoongi leaned back in his chair, threading his fingers through each other as she approached. She set a plate of toast, jam, and fruit on the desk - her motions smooth and practiced. She finally set the cup of steaming hot coffee beside the plate, as well as utensils wrapped in a cloth napkin. 

“You should take a break,” she said, the tray resting against her stomach, “you’ve been working non-stop for about four hours now.”

He set the computer to hibernation mode. “I didn’t realize I’d been here that long.”

“You can leave the tray outside when you’re finished.”

Yoongi watched her turn to leave, his body reacting before his mind could process what he was doing. Before he realized it, he was out of his chair and reaching out to grasp her shoulder - stopping Kiara from leaving him. He felt her muscles tensing and Yoongi pulled his hand back immediately. Slowly, she turned to face him again.

Her hazel eyes appeared to glow from the twilight rays peeling in through the windows of his office.

His heart crashed into his chest with heavy thuds. A lump slowly formed in his throat and he made a vain attempt to swallow oxygen through the closing airways. Yoongi knew he wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure what that something was. He opened his mouth to speak and, again, no words came out.

All he could do was push the bubble in his throat down into the knot twisting in his chest.

Sensing something was amiss, Kiara set the tray down on the desk. “Are you alright?” 

Yoongi remained silent, studying the crease on her brow as her curls bounced around cheeks and shoulders. She reached her hand up, pressing the flat of her palm on his forehead.

“You’re a little warm, but you don’t seem to have a fever.”

Every representation of logic was screaming at him to pull away - telling him to replace the wall that existed between them for the last year. She hadn’t moved her hand from his skin and Yoongi felt his vision swimming for half a second before refocusing back on her face.

How had he missed the beauty mark at the corner of her left eye?

Taking a step back, he watched her arm continue to hover in the air for a few seconds before settling back at her side. Yoongi saw something pass over her face, but it was so quick that he wasn’t sure he’d seen anything at all.

Kiara brushed some of her curls behind her ear. “I’ll head to the market and pick up a few things. Don’t worry about the dishes. I’ll take care of them when I come back.”

Then she turned away from him to head out of his study, leaving him alone without so much as a second glance.

His chest hurt.

Flopping back into his chair, Yoongi carded his fingers through his hair in frustration - hands resting at the back of his neck as he stared blankly at the ceiling.

“...I didn’t even thank her.”

~ k.t. ~

The months were getting colder. Kiara wasn’t a fan of the cold, but she loved seeing the snow in South Korea. Everything was covered in a soft blanket of white. It gave her an excuse to indulge in a savory meal, wrap up in a warm blanket, and read by the fireplace. Yoongi was in Seoul for a business meeting, leaving her alone to her own devices. This was the first winter that she would get to experience without the servants around, fussing over her in case she hadn’t acclimated to the weather.

She took a warm bath, drank from a large glass of wine, and enjoyed the book she’d discovered near the back of the library. Most of the books in Yoongi’s library were reference books and non-fiction. She’d combed through most of them. But nestled in the very back, tucked away in a hidden nook, was a small collection of fictional literature. There were more than a dozen; small in comparison to the rest of his library. But the discovery of it surprised her just the same. In the year she’d been married to Yoongi, he always seemed very “by the book” and she couldn’t forget the comment he made about the music she was listening to while hanging up laundry. Finding something of this caliber was like stumbling across buried treasure.

Kiara was currently flipping through the pages of Animal Farm by George Orwell. She chose it because next to 1984 , it had the most worn out spine. It meant that Yoongi read it the most in comparison to the others in his entire collection.

Upon completing the novel, she could see why.

Politics. Justice. Equality. Inequality. A corrupt system. Broken families. Broken societies. A dream that fizzled away to greed - a dream that would only remain a dream so long as dictators felt that “some were more equal than others”.

There was a small part of Kiara that almost seemed to understand Yoongi a little bit better. He was a thinker and also compassionate. He never asked her to do more than what she needed and he readily provided her with anything she would ever need. It was the sort of life that Kiara wasn’t used to for over twenty years of being part of the Labor Class.

Yet something was still missing…

The sudden slamming of the door startled Kiara, causing her to drop the book into the bathwater. She panicked, knocking over the wine glass as she flailed to pull the book out. The pages instantly soaked - some of them were already falling out from the binding. She released a sob while pulling the plug to drain the water, clambering haphazardly out of the tub. Her heel found the bath rug by the tub and she could only cling helplessly to the pages, gathering up what remained in the bathtub into her trembling hands.

There was a knock at the door and she whirled around to face it.

“Is everything alright in there?”

Yoongi was home early. Looking at the ruined book in her hands, Kiara’s heart sank. 

“I-I’m fine,” she said, leaning down to pick up the wine glass, “I’ll be out in just a moment.”

“Take your time.”

When she heard his footsteps fading away, Kiara sighed as she wrapped a towel around her body. She used a smaller one to clean up the mess on the floor - grabbing a small plastic bowl and filling it with water so she could wash what remained to let it drain out in the center of the bathroom. She let out another sigh, brushing her fingers through her wet curls. It was better to be honest and get it over with, wasn’t it?

Drying herself off, she slid into her pajamas, grabbed the ruined book, and made her way downstairs. Yoongi poured himself a drink in the kitchen, taking note of her presence with a simple nod. He held the glass up and out toward her.

“Drink?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I had some wine earlier.”

“Ah, I see,” he replied gently, replacing the cap on the whiskey bottle. 

There was a small measure of silence that stretched between them and she shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, her fingers digging into the wet pages of the book currently hidden behind her back.

“Uh, Yoongi?”

He hummed during mid-sip, swallowing and then setting the glass down. “Yes?”

Slowly, she pulled the book around from behind her and held it out to him from across the kitchen island. “I was reading and dropped one of your books in the bath.”

“It’s just a book,” Yoongi said with a shrug.

Kiara bit her lower lip, her hands shaking as she continued to hold the book out to him - waiting for him to take it from her. He looked like he was about to say something, but she noticed his eyes lingering over the cover. When his eyes scanned over it, they widened slightly and it took everything Kiara had not to wince. Her shoulders visibly tensed when he snatched the book from her hands.

Without another word, he left the kitchen. Kiara followed on instinct, her eyes widening when she saw him throwing the book into the open hearth. The flames seemed to fight against the wet pages, but it didn’t take long for the book to burn. 

“I’m sor--”

Yoongi was already moving, his body disappearing down the corridor. Her legs were rooted where she stood and Kiara wanted nothing more than to disappear between the cracks - to dip below the earth and vanish into the ether. She could hear his hurried steps and the breath left her lungs when she saw him carrying an armful of books.

Books from his hidden collection.

He moved faster than her brain could keep up and by the time she realized what was happening, he’d already thrown three more books into the fire.

“Yoongi, wait!” she cried, running toward him and pulling at his shirt sleeve, “Please wait! I said I was sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

Yoongi said nothing. He simply continued to throw the books into the fire. When all of those were devoured by the flames in the fireplace, he turned to head back toward the library. Kiara ran at him, wrapping her arms around his waist to stop him. He took three more steps before stopping completely.

She openly sobbed into his back, soaking his shirt as her fingers dug into his stomach to keep him tethered there.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, clinging to him as if he was a life raft, “I’m sorry…”

She felt the flutter of his beating heart against her face, drumming along her cheeks. It almost seemed manic, but his shoulders finally relaxed as she heard him taking several long, deep breaths. The flames popped and crackled in the fireplace, having had its fill from Yoongi’s literature collection. She knew there were still a few more on the shelf in his hidden nook, but Kiara didn’t think she could handle him destroying the things he clearly seemed to care so much about.

“I haven’t read those books in years,” he murmured gently, “I should have gotten rid of them a long time ago.”

Her hands slid up his chest, curling so that her fingers could slip over the curve of his shoulders. Kiara took a breath, sighing through the scent of his cologne.

“But why?”

“Because they’re dangerous. They provoke dangerous thoughts.” He paused and she lifted her face in time to see his head turning slightly. “It’s why they’ve been banned.”

“They’re precious to you, aren’t they?”

“It’s not worth keeping them if they get you into trouble.”

Taking a step back, she blinked and he turned around to face her. 

“Me?”

Yoongi nodded. “You’re so curious. I should have known that you would stumble across them eventually. But it’s just like with the music. You have to be careful.”

Kiara wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but she knew could tell that he wasn’t upset about her reading his books. He was upset that she had unknowingly placed herself into danger. He was concerned for her well being.

And that meant something to her. More than she would ever admit out loud.

Averting her gaze, she lowered her head slightly. “...I’m sorry.”

“And stop apologizing,” Yoongi said, an edge in his tone, “it frustrates me.”

She felt his hands around her shoulders, gripping them tightly. He looked like he was going to shake her, but thought better of it. Instead, he loosened his hold - letting his hands continue to rest on her shoulders. When she next looked up at him, his brows were furrowed and his pupils seemed to shake. She wasn’t sure what was still bothering him. Kiara wanted to know what she could do to make him feel less agitated.

But as she opened her mouth to speak, she lost all words of comfort as Yoongi leaned down toward her face. She was almost positive that her heart either skipped a beat or stopped altogether at that moment. Everything was so quiet. Kiara felt his breath dancing gently over her face as he pressed his cheek against hers, his lips brushing over her cheek. 

Kiara was afraid to breathe, believing that the moment she did, it would shatter whatever dream-like illusion she was currently experiencing. The second she heard her own heartbeat pounding in her ears, however, was when Yoongi pulled away. Blinking up at him rapidly, she was sure that her cheeks were inflamed and her hand absentmindedly went to touch her cheek as his hands slid away from her shoulders.

“...don’t stay up too late,” he said gently.

And then, just like a mirage, he quietly turned away and made his way toward the stairs. When she heard the door to his bedroom shut, she finally collapse to her knees. Kiara’s breathing came out in rushed waves and she buried her face in her hands, stifling a sob that nearly broke through the silence. She wasn’t sure if she should feel elated or devastated.

What was happening between them now?

~ m.y. ~

It had been three months since he burned his private book collection. The more innocent and bright-eyed side from his youth mourned the loss of the texts. He could always purchase them again if need be. He wasn’t exactly hurting for money. But it was the worn edges of the books, the notes he’d made in the margins, that he could never get back. 

Those would be lost forever. 

It’s probably for the best, he thought, sighing as he cradled his cup of coffee in his hands, the lessons have been learned .

He watched the sun setting slowly over the horizon from his back patio. He reflected back to Kiara’s face when he’d torched his books. She’d called them “precious” and she wasn’t exactly wrong. But she wasn’t completely right either.

There were more important things in life than the words on the pages of books. He wanted to be able to tell her that himself, but Yoongi found he couldn’t. He didn’t think the words he had swirling around his head would be enough to get his message across. 

Or maybe she already understood…

He turned to head back inside, closing the sliding glass door behind him. He peered around the main living area, absentmindedly wondering where his wife was. It was still early. Maybe she was still asleep.

As Yoongi moved toward the kitchen, the distinct sound of typing could be heard down the hallway. Blinking, he set his cup down and slowly trudged down the corridor leading to his office. He slowly turned the knob, opening the door to peek inside.

Kiara was rapidly typing at his desk, her eyes focused but clearly tired. Every few minutes, she would stop to roughly hit the tops of her shoulders, rolling her neck to loosen whatever knots were beginning to form there. His eyes wandered to the desk where there was a large stack of papers. Bundles were separated and stacked in varying directions so that there would be no confusion as to what stack belonged with which grouping. 

His printer whirred to life, shooting out page after page of whatever she’d just finished. When the next bundle was complete, Kiara pulled out a pencil and began to write on pages as she sifted through them.

She hadn’t noticed him yet.

“What are you doing?”

His voice clearly startled her, nearly causing her to drop the entire packet of paper she had in her hands. Yoongi closed the door behind him, approaching the desk and reaching out for the bundle of papers at the very top of the stack. Kiara made a noise of protest, but his eyes scanned the front curiously.

Then his curiosity gave way to surprise.

“This is…” he began, but realized he couldn’t finish as his eyes landed on the next bundle’s cover page.

Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Yoongi rapidly flipped through the pages of 1984 in his hands. It was written, word-for-word, from what he could remember of the book. The most shocking discovery, however, was seeing his own handwriting along the margins of the pages where he’d taken his own personal notes and written rhetorical questions to ask himself as he read. It was almost too much for him to take in.

Lowering the manuscript at his side, he looked up as Kiara stood from his chair. 

“I felt terrible about you destroying them,” she began, holding her hands up, “and don’t worry! I made sure that there aren’t any digital copies on your computer. Every time I finished one, I would print and delete it right away.”

He said nothing. He just continued to look at her; flabbergasted.

“You have photographic memory.” It was a statement of fact, not a question. 

Kiara nodded. 

“You even put all of my notes back.”

Again, she nodded.

His eyes wandered back to the large stack of papers. If it was separated by novels, then there were at least twenty books in the stack. Maybe more. And if she was taking the time to recreate his own scribbles, who knew how long this was actually going to take; how long she’d already been taking?

Is this what she’s been working on for the last month?

The ream of paper slipped from his hand and fluttered to the floor. Kiara gasped, rushing around the desk in a hurry to pick up the discarded pages. He stopped her before she could kneel to the floor, his hand grasping her upper arm to keep her standing. She looked at him with wide eyes and she tried to take a step away from him. But Yoongi held fast, refusing to let her move even an inch away from her. 

“...thank you,” he whispered softly. 

He felt what tension remained in Kiara start to ebb away.

And then she smiled. It was the first time he’d ever seen her smile and it hurt to even look at her. But Yoongi continued to stare at the curve of her lips and the way they turned upward. Her hazel eyes seemed to glitter against the twilight sky pouring in from his office window - the corners crinkling up just a little in response to the smile. He didn’t think it was possible, but Yoongi swore he could hear the sound of his heart breaking and reforming simultaneously. Suddenly, it was difficult for him to breathe, but he tried anyway. It felt like tiny needles were stabbing into the organ beating furiously against his chest, threatening to burst free and fall to the floor.

The logical side of his head, the one screaming at him to run out of the office and as far away from Kiara as humanly possible, was losing against the side that Yoongi didn’t even recognize. Like a time lapse, he watched their life together zip through his mind’s eye - a grainy film projection that continuously focused on every facet of Kiara that he could remember. Everything from big to small - a simple gesture and an even simpler question.

Nothing could compare to the sheer radiance that resulted in her smile.

In that moment, Yoongi knew that he wanted nothing more than to see her smile again. To see it past today and to watch her smile every single day after this one.

He would ask for forgiveness later. He wasn’t about to ask for permission. Not now.

Tugging his arm back, he pulled Kiara close to him. Her chest crashed into his, causing them both to stumble a single step forward and backward respectfully. Her smile disappeared, replaced with confusion. He watched her brows furrow and just as her mouth opened to speak, Yoongi leaned his face in - sealing his lips over hers in a rough kiss.

They both inhaled slowly and he could feel Kiara’s hands grasping at his shoulders. But she didn’t fight him. Instead, he could feel the heavy thud of her own heartbeat attempting to chase the cadence of his. Wrapping his free arm around her waist, he tried to pull her even closer. The smell of her shampoo, her subtle body spray, and how warm and smooth her skin was beneath his touch was almost too much. He feverishly kissed her, nipping and tugging at her full lips which would be swollen from his affection.

Darkness enveloped the sky, plunging them into darkness. The only light in the room came from the computer monitor, reflecting its light against the large bookshelf behind the desk. He pulled away from Kiara’s mouth, his eyes adjusting to the dark quickly as they both took the time to catch their breaths.

“Y-Yoongi,” she stammered, her body trembling slightly in his arms.

“I know what this is.” His voice was low, his breath dancing along her skin as he curled his fingers into the flare of her hip. “This is a problem.”

Even in the dark, he could see Kiara’s worried expression. She wasn’t a fool. She knew what this was just as well as he did. And just like him, she also knew how much of a problem this was.

But it was too late to turn back now.

“I didn’t want to fall in love. I didn’t.” Yoongi lifted one hand up to brush a few of her curls away from her face, resting his palm against her cheek so he could tilt her face further upward. “But then you smiled, and that was the end of everything for me.”

Even as he continued speaking, Yoongi could feel the panic creeping up his throat, threatening to choke the very life out of him. He’d heard of things like this happening in the past, years before he was born. When marriage was a choice made between two people who loved each other. It wasn’t something to be pulled from a Lottery. 

When loving someone was a gift, not a crime. 

A crime or not, Yoongi wanted to know. No. He had to know.

“Do you love me?”

And like he’d struck something buried deep at the core of her, Yoongi watched Kiara’s eyes fill with tears. They streamed down her face endlessly. For a brief second, he believed he’d hurt her feelings; that he’d done something irreparable. 

But then, just like before, Kiara smiled up at him. He felt her hand brushing over his face, her nails lightly scraping over his jawline and resting at the edge of his chin.

“I do,” she replied gently while nodding, “I love you, Min Yoongi.”

Unable to hold himself back, Yoongi kissed her again - their arms entangling themselves with one another. The need to continuously press and touch, to physically express everything they’d collected inside of themselves all this time, was overwhelming. But he couldn’t stop wanting her; wanting the woman he’d come to love little by little every single day and he hadn’t even realized it.

But they couldn’t stay like this forever.

They both pulled away to reclaim the air they’d stolen from one another, catching their breaths momentarily. He could feel Kiara’s ability to hold herself up beginning to wane. Slowly, he lowered them both to the floor - pulling her into his lap so he could cradle her against him. He took comfort in the feel of her arms around his neck, pulling him close so that he could rest his face against the juncture of her neck.

She smelled so good.

“We can’t stay here,” he finally said, his voice muffled in his own ears from the heavy thrumming of her heart, “they’ll find out eventually and we’ll both be thrown into prison.”

Her chest rose and fell as she sighed. “Where will we go?”

“Anywhere.”

“Anywhere?”

Yoongi smiled as he closed his eyes. “Anywhere but here.”

A moment of silence passed and he felt her sigh again, but her heart beat began to settle.

“Will anyone be able to help us?”

“I’m sure we aren’t the first ones to experience this.” Yoongi raised his head up so he could look at her. “And we won’t be the last.”

He watched her canting her head a little. “Is everything going to be alright?”

Yoongi gave a slight shrug, causing Kiara to giggle a little. “Even if it isn't, it doesn’t matter. I love you, Kiara.” Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead against hers. “Stay with me. ...please.”

As they looked at each other, Yoongi couldn’t help but drink in everything about her. Kiara’s eyes fluttered before closing and he quickly closed what little distance existed between them. This kiss was less intense, soft and meaningful - pulling and tugging at a want that perpetually nagged at him from the shadows for so long. Kiara shed light on the dark crevice of his heart - a part of him that he’d believed was simply meant to be there and to feel nothing else. To want nothing else.

Yoongi wasn’t sure if he was lucky or not, but he knew that he was thankful. He’d been so hollow for so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to feel anything; to yearn for something so much that the desire itself could swallow a person whole. But it was a feeling that made him remember what being alive was supposed to entail; what it truly meant.

Love. 

Her love.

His love.

This love.

Their love.

[raleighliving]

Pros and Cons of College Life in Raleigh

Last time I wrote about colleges in Raleigh generally and how it’s not like other college towns. This time, I’m gonna be speaking a bit more about the pros and cons so it should be a little more specific.

Before that, however, I wanna make this clear: Raleigh is not somewhere you should move to for college unless the school you’ve applied to is your dream school.  

In terms of academics, there are better choices than NC State or WPU. If you wanna study biology or medicine, schools like UNC-W or Duke would probably be a better fit for instance. If you live in Raleigh, don’t pick a school just because it’s close; if you live in another part of the states and you want to attend an east coast school there are options all along the east coast that you should consider.  

Raleigh is a great place to live and work, and there are plenty of friendly people here; but a degree from the right university can make or break your career (depending on the field and other aspects of course).

As a person suffering from anxiety, the question “Do you want the good news or bad news first” has always been a terrible one for me. Up until I hear the bad news, it could be literally anything regardless of what the person asking was doing or how much of the task they were on I’m familiar with.

Similarly, living in Raleigh (or really anywhere for that matter) is going to present a lot of subjective pros and cons. Please keep in mind this is gonna be super subjective, but I hope you enjoy reading this even if we disagree.

But you didn’t come here to read three paragraphs of disclaimer. So lets start by listing the good stuff.  

Raleigh is a city full of vibrant color, culture, and cool shit. You can find cool things almost anywhere you look, regardless of where you are in Raleigh. I mean, all of the pictures (including those in this article) I use for this blog I’ve taken in Raleigh or nearby it. As a result, the first pro has got to be the beltline highway system.  

The beltline is a highway system composed of I-440, I-40, and parts of I-540 that encapsulates all of Raleigh. It connects north and south Raleigh while having downtown in the center, letting travelers easily reach nearly any part of Raleigh. 

I’ve lived on the border of Durham, Cary, and Rolesville at different points in my life. I’ve had to make trips to Garner and Apex for various reasons. At no point in my 20+ year stay have I ever had to make a city trip that lasted longer than a half-hour (one way). It makes working in Raleigh especially easy, since the abundance of highway access points and the convenience of the loop design means I’m never too far from that loop. 

It even helps with adjusting to your new environment if you move here (for school or other reasons) since if you’re ever lost, the highways can act as a point to re-orient yourself by. I know I’ve had to do it plenty of times in the past, and it can really save you from looking like an idiot if you excuse your lost-ness by just saying “Oh yeah mate, I was just tryna get on the highway. Saves so much time.”

Does this mean Raleigh has the best transportation network of any city? Hell no. Does this mean that Raleigh has the best highway system? Not even close. But it’s still super nice, especially for students. You’ll run into the problems any urban place has like rush hour or crash delays, but this is mitigated by the fact you’ll be using it for our second pro: Everything happens in Raleigh. 

Well, not EVERYTHING everything but as I’ve ranted about before; there’s plenty to do and see in the city of Raleigh (even if you’re a student). 

For instance, according to raleighnc.gov, Raleigh is home to over 200 public parks. Not a fan of parks? Into more electronic entertainment? Then visit our very own “Arcade of Thrones” downtown and get your game on with your fellow nerds

Boring stuff like restaurants and night clubs aside, Raleigh is home to literally thousands of businesses and social clubs for you to partake in. Farmers markets, gun and knife shows, fishin’ holes and public church barbecues are available for that classic southern charm; but don’t forget to make use of our barcades, art festivals, concerts, comedy clubs and sport centers. 

The only reason why I’m not going into more detail about examples like First Friday, the downtown cultural festivals, PNC arena or other more specific events is because I want to write about them in-depth in the future.  

Of course, students having things to do and places to go is only part of the college experience. If you’re gonna come to Raleigh for college, the best pro I could possibly mention is the support network.  

Not to say that we’re exactly all one big happy family here, but in Raleigh you get that nice blend of metropolitan city life with your rural state. Orgs like the LGBT Center, Goodwill, Raleigh Missions, and more support locals in need constantly and provide for the many different groups around here.

Libraries and civic centers share the same city as mosques and churches which neighbor women's shelters and LGBT+ advocacy groups. If you’re a republican or democrat, that’s fine but be prepared to meet the other members of the political spectrum since groups like the Democratic-Socialists of America (DSA) are active downtown as well.

If you need help or want to help others, there’s a 98% chance that you’ll find someone or something out there that meets your needs. Join a community through Facebook or Nextdoor and you’ll see every diaper drive, garage sale, and community recommendation pop up whenever one is needed.

Of course, this brings us to our first con. Raleigh may be home to some of the nicest people I’ve ever met but it doesn’t mean you won’t run into some problem people sooner or later.  

There’s of course the typical collegiate douchebags, the upper-middle class young scions of no import who fumble through life with no regard for others because mommy and daddy will perpetually care for them, but being a red state you’ll also run into the more colorful republicans.

Every year there’s an anime convention called “Animazement” downtown and every year there’s a small herd of fundamentalist Christians warning all the otaku who’ll listen that they’re going to hell. Drive around town long enough and you’ll find a few different businesses that have made their opinions on things like masks and social distancing clear, not to mention there’s no shortage of QAnoners and alt-right sympathists. 

Of course, you shouldn’t let others dictate the quality of your life or the area you live in but you should be aware that these people exist. Raleigh is more liberal than other parts of North Carolina for sure but it’s not the leftist paradise those other parts would say it is.

Other than the coinflip that is neighbors, Raleigh is kind of a pricy place to live. The cost of living is on average higher than other cities in the US, cheaper still than New York of Californian cities, but pricey nonetheless.

Rent in Raleigh for a one bedroom apartment is on average $975 according to bestplaces.net and can go as high as $1200 depending on the complex and location. 

That, with a federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, means you’ll need 

>Multiple jobs >Multiple roommates >A good paying job

or any combination of the two to be able to afford rent, utilities, and food beyond cup ramen. There’s housing programs like Section 8 and military housing initiatives to help, but for students you’re looking at some pretty steep housing costs for anywhere that’s not student dorms. 

You can get a good job that pays decent, of course, nothing’s impossible. However, finding one that won’t require roommates would demand full time hours (which might be difficult to make on student scheduling) or a degree (which you’re probably at college to get). Most living spaces require you make at least 3x the advertised rent to even be considered as well, which may limit students to seedier student living complexes like University Village or The Proper (Formerly Vie, formerly wolf creek).

Finally, if you move to Raleigh for college be prepared to drive. A lot.

As I mentioned earlier, the beltline is a god send for students and people looking to explore; but it’s also practically mandatory for moving around Raleigh. Public transit in Raleigh isn’t non-existent but it’s pretty damn close.  

Live between 10-15 minutes from your desired destination? Taking the bus is gonna be anywhere from half an hour to a full hour, and that’s if you even live near a bus route. If you’re like myself and habitually on the edge of Raleigh, be prepared to drive for a bit before you even see a GoRaleigh bus let alone a stop. 

The buses do at least run pretty late (Closing normally around 11PM), but the lack of public transit lines and bike-able roads means that you’ll be adding to the urban congestion more likely than not.

Okay with driving? Hope you’re okay with paying another arm and a leg, because at most schools down here tuition doesn’t cover your parking pass. 

NC State prices range from $105 to over $400 depending on your credit hours and where you’re staying at. Other schools like William Peace only charge a flat $130 for their parking decal, but most of the schools require you throw them an extra Apple Pencil or two for the privilege of being able to park your own vehicle close to the actual campus.

There are workarounds, like parking off-campus nearby, but those carry risks and penalties that can add up over time. The audacity these schools have to take thousands in tuition and then demand that you pay and additional fee to just use the parking lot.

Hopefully, though, regardless of my thoughts if you live in Raleigh or North Carolina in general and you’re considering attending one of the fine establishments here; I’ve provided you some food for thought. 

College can be a scary experience for many, and the area around it can really make or break your experiences. We don’t have the biggest party schools or the most glamorous cityscape; but if I had to go through the collegiate system again I honestly couldn’t imagine doing it anywhere else.

Next time I’ll be talking about some alternatives to College though, so stay tuned for that.  

Special shout out to the DSA of Raleigh as well. They didn’t help write any of this or communicate with me during the production of this article, but they’ve been doing some amazing work downtown with the homeless during the pandemic.  They are some of the most amazingly hard working individuals who care immensely for the community and you can check them out on dsanc.org.

[berniesrevolution]

Food coops, housing coops, credit unions, and other such institutions are sometimes referred to as the “solidarity economy.” How do these institutions relate to working-class power? Do they offer working-class people some shelter or respite from capitalism? Do they perhaps even “create the new world in the shell of the old”? Nick Driedger and Eric Dirnbach, two veteran members of many institutions of the solidarity economy, debate these points.

Eric: We all noticed this recent article about the campaign for “postal banking,” where United States Postal Service branches would offer much-needed banking services for folks who lack access to bank accounts.  The USPS actually used to do this up until the 1960s, and other countries still have it. This would obviously be helpful for many low-income people, who are forced to pay high fees at check cashing stores, and of course Wall Street banks hate the idea because they don’t want the competition. Unfortunately, according to the article, the national credit union association allied with the banks to lobby against it, which was news to me.

Now, I’m a member of a credit union and a fan of the concept. Financial institutions owned and run by their members are a great alternative to handing over our money to the standard, capitalist banks and increasing their power over us. Credit unions are in principle more accountable to their members and their communities, and have policies that are much more progressive than banks. And yet they took this bad stance against postal banking, deciding to protect their turf, just like the capitalists.

This reminded me of the recent Organizing Work exposé about bad labor practices and union-busting at a number of food cooperatives. I’m also a fan of food coops and have been a member of several, and those practices are extremely disappointing. Another problematic example is the Mondragon coop network in Spain, which I think is really impressive, but also incorporates a second-class tier of international workers who are not member-owners and who have even gone on strike against the coop.  

Overall, these are examples of “solidarity economy” organizations behaving like capitalist enterprises. The solidarity economy can be described as a network of organizations and practices like worker coops, housing coops, community land trusts, food coops, credit unions, time banks, community gardens and other entities that are alternatives to capitalist businesses. A segment of the left, and I would include myself here, believes one strategy (along with others like union organizing) to help transition beyond capitalism is to grow this economy in opposition to capitalist practices and prefigure the better socialist world that we want. A hundred years ago they called this idea the “Cooperative Commonwealth.” But these examples of bad, non-solidarity politics undermine that ideal.

Nick: In the article you mention, we see an example of an arm of the United States government being called on to provide a new public service. The City of Cleveland specifically called on the United States Postal Service to provide banking services through post office outlets. These calls are also coming from grassroots campaigns among postal workers’ unions in the USA and Canada, who want the government to expand services, better serve rural communities and undercut payday loan companies, which are often the only way for many working people to cash their paycheques, at exorbitant rates.

I am a member of four different consumer cooperative businesses, and had my first job at one of them. The United Farmers of Alberta is an institution where I live. At one time, it was a political party, and for a number of years, a long time ago, it was the government of the province. I am a member and buy feed for my chickens and ducks there, and when I was sixteen they gave me my first job. It had benefits and clear hours and a job description. It paid head and shoulders above what most businesses in rural Alberta will pay a teenager.

I am also a member of my small town’s credit union. The manager of this credit union is a big player in the local United Conservative Party.  I pay my insurance through The Cooperators Insurance. The manager of this coop was our New Democrat (social democratic party in Canada) representative in the provincial government that just fell in Alberta a couple of months ago. In the past, I have voted for left candidates for the board at Mountain Equipment Co-op (a camping supply consumer coop popular in Canada) who wanted to push for stronger ethical purchasing guidelines and support the cause of Palestinian rights.

Cooperatives in Western Canada are political and there is politics inside of them. They are often on their local chambers of commerce, and there is both a left wing inside the cooperative movement as well as a very strong right wing.

Where I live, coops are also a part of the local history. My family in a Saskatchewan farming community have worked for generations at a consumer cooperative simply called “The Co-op,” which provides groceries and fuel in many communities. In many rural communities in Western Canada, no one would have electricity if not for early rural cooperatives. Later, government services followed, like Alberta Government Telephones (which was privatized in the 1990s). Often coops would establish services that would be picked up as public services later. The words “Cooperative Commonwealth” have a deep resonance with people and a history here. Even a lot of conservatives consider the history of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (forerunner of the New Democratic Party) a history working people and farmers can be proud of on the prairies.

Eric: That is a fascinating history and I’d love to learn more about coops in rural areas. Clearly coops were organized over the years to meet the needs of rural residents. Agricultural supply and electrical coops are great examples of this. More modern examples are the internet service coops.

I’m more familiar with coops in an urban setting.  I’ve lived in my housing coop in New York City for about ten years and was just elected to the board, so I’ve been thinking about this place a lot. Morningside Gardens, with almost 1,000 apartments in six buildings, was founded in 1957 and has a pretty rich history of cooperative activity, with many committees, clubs and other organizations formed. Folks started a cooperative workshop for woodworking and ceramics, a nursery school and a retirement service in the 1960s, which are all still running.  The retirement service allows senior residents to age in-place and not have to move to a nursing home.

Members here have also been involved in community-issue organizing for decades, such as supporting local libraries, fighting for good subway and sanitation services, and campaigning for better local zoning to restrict luxury condos. Residents have formed several babysitting coops over the years. A theatre group was formed in the 1980s which still exists. In the last few years, several buildings have started a “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” mutual aid program, which is like an informal timebank where folks help each other with household tasks.

We had a food coop for over 30 years; that closed in the 1990s. I spent some time reading our old newsletters to learn about it and write up a history. The food coop members advocated for better consumer protection and product labeling laws in the 1960s and 1970s when the entire grocery industry was against more regulations. The coop also supported the United Farm Workers grape boycott and the Nestle baby formula boycott. In the 1960s, it started a credit union, which lasted for 15 years, so low-income members could have access to loans they couldn’t get at a bank. The coop also helped start at least two other food coops nearby, with funding and technical assistance. It made a small profit in most of its years and often returned a rebate to the members, thus keeping money in the community and out of the hands of a billionaire grocery boss.  And it was a union shop. One of my neighbors worked as a bookkeeper there in the 1970s and 1980s and still gets the union pension today.

All this seems really positive to me and was enabled to a large extent by the cooperative setting. Of course, some of this activity could happen in a similarly-sized apartment complex of renters, owned and managed by a landlord, but a lot of it wouldn’t. Bosses and landlords monopolize power, decision-making and wealth. Workplace and tenant unions fight to expand worker and tenant power, of course, but ultimately the boss or landlord still owns the property and extracts the surplus value and rent. The process of people running their own key institutions requires a lot of volunteer work, but this cooperation I think builds skills and confidence and creates more opportunities and the desire to work together on other projects.

Now, I don’t want to overstate the situation here; this isn’t Full Communism. Of course there have always been folks who see it as just a nice place to live and are less engaged in its internal life and politics. And capitalism has intruded on our utopia. The coop was “limited-equity” for decades, meaning that apartments were priced at below market value to keep them affordable. This was because our coop originally received tax breaks and other assistance arising from the 1949 Housing Act, which was intended to create affordable housing (and has a complicated history).  Then there was a contentious, long-running debate starting in the 1990s where a majority of residents voted to shift to market-rate pricing over time.  

(Continue Reading)

[powerduped]

ohhhh my god ive spent the night on such an emotional roller coaster. feelin SUPER bad about myself with dysphoria + other shit. 

and im just. sitting here and thinking about........ how my mom asked me yesterday if i have any goals. and i just stood there stupidly. thinking about how:

the majority goals i have are not things that i can share with her, because she is one of the most anti-lgbt+ people i know. and i want to see a gender therapist. and i want to explore transition options. and i want to be seen and heard as ME. and i want to work toward something that might actually help me find happiness. and work past my fucking TERROR about all of it, and both her and my dad.

one of my goals is to literally just. keep myself alive? despite all the fucked up shit thats constantly swirling around in my head. and she doesn’t believe depression is a real thing so its not something i can talk to her about. she thinks its all on me. that im at fault for my “non-existent” mental illness. despite it being documented on my medical charts, and my desperate attempts to find an antidepressant that benefits me more than it causes side effects.

she’s expecting shit like “go back and finish my degree,” “get married and settle down to have a family,” “have kids and devote my life to them” and NONE of that is at all appealing to me (+ the idea of having kids actively repulses me, no joke it is just not for me). 

i want to move to a blue state. where i cant legally GET FIRED or EVICTED for being lgbt+. where i might actually find some sort of IN PERSON support system. where i can dress and act and express myself in a way that is actually true to myself. where i can have access to healthcare that might better cater toward my specific needs.

i think she knows something is up with me bc she keeps posing these weird questions and statements. telling me i need to get out more. telling me i dont have to “stick around for your parents.” telling me i need to open up, and that my family loves me, and will support me through anything. but.

i also KNOW that’s a lie. i KNOW how they treated (and continue to treat) my two lgbt+ cousins. i KNOW how much hate they’ve continuously volleyed at them, and how they’ve ostracized them to the point where i can’t even remember the last time i’ve seen them. i KNOW how disgusted they are when they see pro lgbt+ commercials and movies and just simple, nonsexual acts of affection like hand holding. i KNOW how they recoil when they see rainbow merchandise, with or without the intention of it being pride related.

i KNOW their track record.

i’m so fucking tired. and i’m so fucking lonely. bc the me i am with them isn’t me. they say they love me, but they don’t know me. and if they did they would hate me with all that same venom.

and im so damn MAD at myself. for being hurt by this. for this DEEP SEATED NEED to be loved by these people who have shown themselves to be so hateful. i hate how one little video clip of a trans man being genuinely supported his mom, something made to be happy and hopeful and lighthearted...... can trigger this fucking downward spiral in me because i know i’ll never have that. i know i’ll never have that beautiful, healthy parental-child relationship with either of my parents and it fucking breaks my heart.

im so mad that im so fucking full of fear. so full of this goddamn terror in my chest that i cant even cut my hair to help alleviate the slightest bit of dysphoria, bc they might get suspicious of my reasoning. scared to even DREAM about wearing a binder somewhere in public in my tiny town bc everyone knows me and someone might report back to them.

im almost 28 years old and these people i dont even LIVE WITH control my life with fear and guilt and emotional blackmail and im so drained. i cant even explain it. i dont feel real anymore. i dont feel like trying.

so i dont.

[spn-meanttobe]

Spn Meant To Be Masterlist - 2016

Here is the roundup from the last spn_meanttobe challenge! The entries were wonderful and stay tuned for details regrading a brand new challenge coming this way soon!

RPS

Title: Butterfly in a Glass case Author: all_the_damned Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 5K+ Warnings: dollification, spanking, rimming, indentured servitude, prostitution, BDSM, dubious consent/non-con, hurt/comfort, mental atrophy, body modification, control collars Prompt: "Captured": Lifelong best friends James Laird and Lola Caraway are reunited when Lola moves to LA after college. Lola is starting her new life, new job, and a new romance with a successful lawyer--a relationship which forces James to question the nature of his feelings for Lola.James has always been a master at pleasuring women, so it was an easy transition to play a Master on-screen in a series of BDSM videos which have brought him fame and the promise of a lucrative career. The films have also brought him the attention of hardcore producer Eva Satana, who wants James to be a ruthless Dominant -for real- in her brutal and extreme BDSM scenes.James soon finds himself caught in a contract he cannot break and compelled by threats to the woman who's stood by him through everything.Summary: When you’re a doll, there’s not much to do other than dream. Jared can barely remember a time when he wasn’t a doll. On the best and worst days, he gets to be with Jensen. Link to fic: Ao3 (Must be logged in to read) Title: Can a Girl Ever Have Too Many Cowboys? Artist: beelikej Pairing: Danneel/Jeff/Jensen/Jared Rating: PG-13 Medium: Photoshop Warnings: Polymory Prompt: 33. The Trouble With Texas CowboysNo sooner does pint-sized spitfire Jill Cleary set foot on Fiddle Creek Ranch than she finds herself in the middle of a hundred-year-old feud. Quaid Brennan and Tyrell Gallagher are both tall, handsome, and rich...and both are courting Jill to within an inch of her life. She's doing her best to give these feuding ranchers equal time-too bad it's dark-eyed Sawyer O'Donnell who makes her blood boil and her hormones hum.Link to art: LiveJournal Title: Home of the present Author: crimsonepitaph Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: R Word Count: 32K Warnings: language, mentions of depression Prompt: A man in need of a comeback…A woman in need of love. Off the court, tennis star Jason Cartwright's playboy image is taking a public beating. On the court, he's down forty-love. A comeback is in order, but the makeover he needs is in the hands of the woman he loved and left fifteen years ago. While single-mom, Izzy Connors, sees people for who they really are through the lens of her camera, even without it, she knows Jason isn't the star he appears to be. All she sees is his wasted talent and playboy lifestyle. Will the click of her camera shatter his world as well as his heart? Summary: Jared Padalecki is a failing tennis legend striving for a comeback. Jensen Ackles is the unwitting photographer co-opted in the makeover project, a biography meant to change the game. Single dad, definitely not a fan of Padalecki's, and a cynical human being in general, Jensen takes the job out of necessity, and gears for a year long charade. But what happens when Jensen discovers more than he signed up for - not just about Padalecki, but about himself?Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: Jensen's Choice Author: zara_zee Artist: amberdreams Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 44K Warnings: Kidnapping, violence, torture, minor character deaths, dubious consent*, rough sex, light kink (bondage, spanking, edging/orgasm delay,cock cage, slight D/s), crime, discussions of child abuse, smoking, drug use, addict in recovery, bad language and homophobic insults.*For the purposes of a dark romance, I’ll say dubious consent, however it should be noted that in the beginning, Jared has all the power and Jensen’s consent is definitely coerced. In the real world, I would classify that as rape. On the whole many unhealthy attitudes to consent are conveyed here.Prompt: An ex-pool hustler must fight her attraction to a sinful, sexy biker when she's kidnapped by the Dragons MC and sold to the club's Vice-President. Summary: Seven years ago talented pool hustler Jensen Ackles fled LA for his home state of Texas—with a price on his head and HellSpawn MC on his tail. Now, Jensen’s past has finally caught up with him. His debt has been bought out by the Vice-President of HellSpawn, Jared Padalecki, who expects Jensen to satisfy his dark sexual appetites. But even worse than life as the VP’s beck-and-call boy is the very real possibility that Jensen just might be falling for the sinfully sexy biker. Link to fic: on LiveJournal Link to art: on LiveJournal Title: Pranking the Padalecki Author: whiskygalore Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 9K Warnings: younger Jensen, older Jared, spanking, bad language, schmoop with a happy ending Prompt: The Brat Next Door Tessa Randall has loved playing practical jokes on her brother's best friend, Trace Samuels, for as long as she can remember. But when she pushes him too far one day, she finds herself getting her long-overdue comeuppance over his lap. When Trace follows this treatment with a kiss, Tessa's confused emotions take an unexpected twist. Has she been menacing the boy next door her whole life, just to get closer to him? Has it been her motive all along to simply get his attention? And if so, where does she go now that she unquestionably has it? Summary: Jensen Ackles has loved pranking his brother’s best friend, Jared Padalecki, for almost as long as he can remember. But when he pushes Jared too far one day and finds himself on the wrong end of a spanking, Jensen lets slip a secret that might change things forever.Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: Up Against Your Will Author: amypond45 Pairing: Jared/Jensen, past Jared/Genevieve, past Jensen/others Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 17K Warnings: reference to past rape/abuse (not graphic or specific) Prompt: Blind Wolf: Julia has never been on a date in her life. She's a curvy girl with no money, no education, and no way out of the town she works in as a library assistant... until Damien shows up. He's just like the prince charming Julia always imagined would sweep her off of her feet. There are just a few things standing in the way of true happiness: he's blind, he's dating someone, and he's WAY out of her league. Oh, and he's a werewolf. Damien lost his eyes two years ago in a wolf battle. Ever since then, the straggler pack of disabled wolves he leads has been searching for a place to call home. One house seems like the perfect choice, but Damien realizes too late that the person who lives there is the girl he met at the library. The human girl. Damien is torn between loyalty to his pack and raw lusting desire for the girl who haunts his dreams day and night. She's a human. How could she be his true mate? Summary: Jensen wasn’t planning to rent out the apartment in his basement. But when a tall, handsome stranger offers him a deal he can’t refuse, Jensen puts aside his natural shyness and lets Jared move into his home. Now Jensen’s having intense dreams, hearing strange sounds in the night, and one day he sees a wolf in his backyard. Can Jensen regain his carefully ordered life (and his sanity) before it completely unravels? Or will he give in to his passion for the beautiful blind man with all the wildness in his heart? Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: Dead men do tell tales Author: siriala Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 18K Warnings: mildly creepy and supernatural stuff surrounding death (which is not made into a major issue in this fic), shady but friendly Chad, voyeurism, judgmental and mean people Prompt: Her Ladyship's CompanionIn the Scottish countryside of Selkirk, Lady Isabella Stirling resides at Bowhill Park, serving penance for a sin that nearly ruined her family. For five years she has been condemned to a loveless marriage and confined to the estate where she does little more than tend her rose garden. With her husband absent for months at a time and few visitors, Bella lives a lonely existence, denying the passions that burn within her very soul.Then her cousin comes for a visit and makes an outrageous suggestion: what Bella needs is a lover. A hired lover. Despite her need, Bella says no. But soon Mr. Gideon Rosedale arrives-and he is at her service for two weeks. Indulging in what she intends to be a harmless flirtation, Bella is overcome by Gideon's intoxicating presence. And when she at last permits him to satisfy her desires, she discovers she's done the unthinkable-she's fallen in love.Summary: Jared has been alone most of his life. Good thing dead people can't be picky when he talks to them. Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: The Roommate Author: ashtraythief Artist: beelikej Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 for fic, PG-13 for art Word Count: 12.6K Warnings: ummm… there’s porn? And description of unhygienic storage of clothes? Unhealthy amounts of cereal consumption? Idk, this is just really schmoopy and floofy. Prompt: One Night With Her RoommateEver since her former roommates deserted her, Meg has had to share an apartment with a lazy, obnoxious ass. He won’t pick up after himself, and he refuses to get a good job. Plus, he doesn’t always wear enough clothes—which is really a problem, because he’s hot. Maybe he’s occasionally funny. And every now and then he can be sweet. But mostly he’s just annoying. It doesn’t matter how much he’s starting to flirt with her—Meg is going to resist. She’s way too smart to fall for a guy who never takes anything seriously. But then everything changes in only one night.Summary: When Jared moves in with Jensen, Jensen’s life is turned upside down. Jared is a terrible roommate; messy, loud and entirely obnoxious. Unfortunately, he’s also pretty hot and even kinda nice when his socks aren’t clogging up the sink. Not that Jensen would ever do anything about that, because Jared is straight and a giant slob. Or so Jensen thinks. Link to fic: on Ao3 Link to art: on LiveJournal Title: My Wicked Pirate Artist: kinkajou Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: G Warnings: none Prompt: Azure-eyed Alanis was by far the most exquisite treasure ever claimed by the black pirate known as the Viper, but his motives went deeper than his silken promise to ravish the feisty Yorkshire heiress. Commanding the waters of the Caribbean was his means to an end: reclaiming his birthright—and his blood debt against those who had betrayed him.Then he gave her nights of wicked pleasure...Comfortably betrothed to a nobleman, Alanis never imagined the heady emotions involved in the true games of seduction—games this blackguard seemed to thoroughly enjoy playing with her. Swept up into an adventure that soon revealed a gentleman and kindred spirit beneath the ruthless veneer of a privateer, Alanis began to soften towards her enigmatic captor, as her pride and her heart fell under his erotic spell.Link to art: on Ao3 Title: After All This Time Author: safiyabat Artist: vilabelle Pairing: Jared/Jensen, Gen/Danneel, Jared/Stephen, J2DG Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 7K Warnings: Internalized homophobia, het sex, Chad Prompt: Kinky Neighbors: The Mitchells and the Harts have been next door neighbors and friends for the past year. They have loads in common; double incomes, professional careers, no kids...and a kinky streak. Now they're about to become very good friends...with kinky benefits. The sex between them all is hot, naughty, and unbearably exciting. It isn't merely swapping partners and moving to another room; it's true foursome sex, same room, same bed, all four involved. For Drew and Cat Mitchell and Logan and Alexis Hart, it's about barreling through boundaries none of them have ever crossed before, doing kinky things they've only fantasized about. But when they begin to exchange not just sex but emotional connection, the problems start; a little jealousy, feeling left out, wanting more from the wrong partner. Can two couples really share everything without losing it all? Summary: Jensen's a pretty happy guy. He's happily married to his hometown sweetheart, Danneel, and he's got a thriving law practice in Austin. He lives next door to his lifelong best friend, Jared, who is married to his and Danneel's girlfriend, Gen. When Danneel and Gen suggest bringing Jared into the bedroom, though, things get weird. Jensen thought Jared had gotten over his schoolboy crush on Jensen, but it turns out that Jared isn't the only one with lingering feelings.Link to fic: on LiveJournal Link to art: on LiveJournal Title: The Lost Author: phoenix1966 Artist: amberdreams Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 93K Warnings: swearing, murder (off-screen), violence, m/m, top!Jensen, bottom!Jared, bottom!Misha (offscreen) Prompt: Al King is a rock singer and selfish stud extraordinaire. His brother and manager, Paul King, gets Al whatever he wants and boy does he want a lot. Dallas is a former hooker gone beauty queen/actress. Everyone wants a piece of her and she plays hardball like the best of them. What happens when the plane they are on crashes in the middle of the Amazon jungle? Summary: Big screen star Jensen Ackles was on his way to Brazil to continue filming his latest project. He was glad to lose himself in the role and bury the pain of his broken heart by slipping on a stranger’s skin. Because of his manager’s twisted attempt to help, he found himself on a private jet with a high-class rent boy. Before he could figure out what to do with that, a bolt of lightning sent them tumbling into the rainforest. Link to fic: on Ao3 Link to art: on LiveJournal Title: The Other Wesson Author: firesign10 Artist: milly_gal Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 8K Warnings: none Prompt: Beth Bradley has a problem. Everyone is expecting her successful music executive boyfriend, Charlie, to be her date for her best friend’s wedding. There’s one hitch: Charlie doesn’t exist. Unless she can think of something fast, she’s headed for the most humiliating weekend of her life. Alex Tanner has a problem. The former Navy SEAL's search for a double agent lands him at the Kensington Hotel, and he needs a cover to finish the job. When the sexy maid of honor blackmails him into pretending to be her lover, he thinks he's been handed the solution. Except Beth has a way of stumbling into trouble, and when the man Alex is hunting starts targeting Beth, Alex has to decide between solving the mystery or protecting the woman who has stolen his heart. Summary: Jensen Ackles has a problem. Everyone is expecting his successful accountant boyfriend, Sam Wesson, to be his date for his best friend’s wedding. And Jensen is the wedding planner! There’s one hitch: Sam doesn’t exist. Unless he can think of something fast, Jensen is headed for the biggest humiliation of his life. Jared Padalecki has a problem. The government agent's search for a possible sex trafficking ring lands him at the Isla Grande Resort on the Gulf of Mexico, and he needs a cover to finish the job. When he meets the sexy wedding planner while planting a bug in his room, Jensen blackmails him into pretending to be his boyfriend. Jared doesn't mind--he thinks he's been handed the ideal cover. Except Jensen stumbles into trouble, and Jared has to decide if this resort romance is just play-acting—or the real thing! Link to fic: on Ao3 (art embedded in fic) Title: These Violent Delights Author: dimpled_sammy Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 82K Warnings: Violence, gangsters, minor character death Prompt: Romancing the Mob Boss. Trina Hathaway is a waitress in a Las Vegas strip joint who spends a romantic evening with a good looking hunk she met at the club. Hoping to see him again, but not disappointed when she doesn’t, she goes on with her life. But a week later, when she interviews for a job at the renowned PaLargio Hotel and Casino on the Vegas Strip, and discovers that the owner of the hotel is the man she had slept with, a man who very much wishes to rekindle what they had captured that passionate night, her entire life spirals into a new and dramatic world where family ties and ever-increasing violence ropes them in. Summary: Jared Padalecki has only ever wanted to get out of Sin City. Trapped by extenuating circumstances, he works as a waiter in a Las Vegas strip joint, doing what he can to get by, including spending a romantic evening with a handsome stranger who wanders into the club one night. Hoping to see the stranger again, but not disappointed when he doesn’t, Jared moves on with his life. A month later, Jared interviews for a job as a financial consultant at one of the largest and newly made over Hotels on the Vegas strip. Jared gets the job, only to discover that his new boss is the same man he slept with: Jensen Ackles, the enigmatic and ice cold business man. Jensen Ackles, the city's biggest mob boss. Torn between his longing to get out of the city and his yearning to be closer to Jensen, Jared finds himself being sucked into a new and dangerous world where loyalty is everything, passion exists on a knife-edge, and the ever-increasing violence makes it impossible to escape. Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: Heartstrings Author: madebyme_x Artist: quickreaver Pairing: Jared/Jensen Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 7.5K Warnings: Language and references to drug and alcohol abuse Prompt: Heartstrings. As Julia prepares to settle in for another typical 12-hour shift in the ER, she's ready to handle anything...That's before Slade Hale rolls into her life...on a stretcher surrounded by 15 doctors and nurses. To her he's just another patient, and a cocky asshole Rock Star with an ego. Or at least that's what she thinks. When she's assigned to be his personal nurse, Julia suddenly feels out of her comfort zone. Slade is the most beautiful man she's ever seen in person and even in his vulnerable condition he seethes of raw sex appeal. When he starts to wake up, that's when the real trouble begins...Julia desperately attempts to fight his charm and wit, to stay professional, to keep the upper hand. Summary: Washed-up rock star Jared is rushed to hospital, and it's up to uptight nurse Jensen to fix more than broken bones. But what is it that they say? Opposites attract, or something like that... Link to fic: on LiveJournal Link to art: on LiveJournal

Supernatural

Title: Behind Glass Author: museaway Pairing: Dean/Castiel Rating: Teen Word Count: 21.3K Warnings: Temporary Character Death Prompt: Life as he has known it is over for Adan when his mother tells him she has bought a mansion in an exclusive community high in the redwood mountains. There are no other young people living there except one, a girl named Chrystal who has never been outside the community before or known anyone her own age. But Adan can only admire Chrystal from afar, she is beautiful and he is covered in scars. Summary: Castiel has spent his life secluded in the woods. At his father’s warning, he’s never left the property. He has no memory of his mother, and his father doesn’t come above twice a year with supplies now that Castiel is grown. But when he befriends a boy named Sam who trespasses on his land, and Sam's older brother, whose face and arm were maimed in an accident, he begins to doubt everything his father has told him. Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: The Trouble with Benny Author: angelus2hot Pairing: Dean/Benny Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 2K Warnings: none Prompt: Can a girl ever have too many cowboys?No sooner does pint-sized spitfire Jill Cleary set foot on Fiddle Creek Ranch than she finds herself in the middle of a hundred-year-old feud. Quaid Brennan and Tyrell Gallagher are both tall, handsome, and rich...and both are courting Jill to within an inch of her life. She's doing her best to give these feuding ranchers equal time-too bad it's dark-eyed Sawyer O'Donnell who makes her blood boil and her hormones hum.Summary: It took awhile for Sam to realize even though Dean could have almost anyone he wanted, his brother only wanted Benny. But when he did he and Garth devised a plan to get Dean to finally go after what he wanted. Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: Happenstance Author: stonenumberone Pairing: Sam/Dean Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 18K Warnings: Pre-series AU, underage sex, underage drinking, complete lack of listening to the concept of Stranger Danger, swearing and just a little bit of angst and sibling incest. Prompt: Colin Hartman can now add college to his list of failures. On the coast-to-coast trek home from California, Colin stops at a gas station in the Nevada desert, and can’t help noticing the guy in tight jeans looking like he just stepped off a catwalk. When he realizes Catwalk is stranded, Colin offers a ride. Riley only intended to take a short ride in Colin’s Jeep to the Grand Canyon. But one detour leads to another until they finally find themselves tumbling into bed together. However there are shadows in Riley’s eyes that hide a troubled past. And when those shadows threaten to bury the man whom Colin has fallen in love with, he vows to get Riley the help he needs. For once in his life, quitting isn’t an option… Summary: Dean’s never been really good at that whole “accomplishment” thing. Drifting is the one thing he really knows how to do, and a trip after his latest failure—college—with just him, his car, and the wide open road is exactly what he needs. Running into a boy with legs longer than the California coastline was definitely not on the agenda, but hey, it’s not like Dean has anywhere else to be. When the trip becomes more of a series of detours, Dean finds himself more and more drawn to the young Sam, who seems to be carrying more baggage than Dean originally thought. A secret revealed threatens to shatter everything they’ve built together in this short time; will they make it through or crash and burn like every other thing Dean has ever touched? Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: Sunrise Cove Obsession Author: smalltrolven Pairing: Sam/Dean Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 9K Warnings: Beyond Awful!John Winchester Prompt: Naomi Bowes lost her innocence the night she followed her father into the woods. In freeing the girl trapped in the root cellar, Naomi revealed the horrible extent of her father’s crimes and made him infamous. No matter how close she gets to happiness, she can’t outrun the sins of Thomas David Bowes. Now a successful photographer living under the name Naomi Carson, she has found a place that calls to her, a rambling old house in need of repair, thousands of miles away from everything she’s ever known. Naomi wants to embrace the solitude, but the kindly residents of Sunrise Cove keep forcing her to open up—especially the determined Xander Keaton. Naomi can feel her defenses failing, and knows that the connection her new life offers is something she’s always secretly craved. But the sins of her father can become an obsession, and, as she’s learned time and again, her past is never more than a nightmare away. Summary: When the boys are forcibly separated at twelve and eight by a father gone mad their lives take very different turns. When they are then reunited fifteen years later, they don’t recognize each other. Dean’s promise to stay away from Sam even though unwittingly broken brings a danger back that may kill them both. Link to fic: on Ao3 Title: Indelible Author: dare_darcy Pairing: Dean/Sam Rating: M Word Count: 25K Warnings: Light BDSM Prompt: Leni Brewster should have been disappointed when her twin sister had to bail on holding her hand during her first tattoo, but going to her appointment solo means time alone with the sexy-as-hell tattoo artist who falls into the Do Not Touch category. Only Jamie Rodriguez isn't as off-limits as Leni thinks. Privately single for months, Jamie finds himself more than looking forward to having the hot little librarian in his chair. And when she accidentally reveals a naughty secret about herself, he can't get his hands on her fast enough-he has to know what else she's hiding under that buttoned-up exterior. What he discovers sets his blood to boiling, igniting a burning determination to test every single one of the boundaries, both personal and physical, that she's set for herself. Summary: Dean Singer is a tattoo artist, single and unhappily so. Sam Winchester is the sexy librarian who has been feeding his secret book habit. When Sam walks into Dean's shop, will Sam break through Dean's walls and see the man beneath? (Summary to be fixed when I'm not sleep deprived.) Link to fic: on Ao3

[sydneypeoplemovertaxi-blog]

Child safety seats, laws and tips

Car Safety Tips for Parents With Children

Do you know the most important safety tip when dealing with a child in a car? Most people, parents included would say the seat belt is the most important safety feature that you can have, which is right but that is almost a given.

Do you know what causes more deaths than not having a seat belt on? If you said air-bags then you are right. More and more children are sitting in the front seat of sports cars, trucks and regular-sized cars. The reason for this is non-existent other than the fact the child doesn't want to sit in the back.

It doesn't matter if your child is 3 years old or 12 years old, the only thing that matters is the child is strong enough to withstand the impact of the air-bag. If you have a child in the front seat of your car the most important thing you can do is turn off the passenger side air-bag if you can.

Some cars don't have this feature and if not I highly recommend you take a bus, taxi, or anything else so you don't have to take your child in the front seat. But many people choose is the best baby taxi service. It is the best way to travel child safely.

Car safety tips

Buckle right - The first thing you need to know is how to buckle your child right. For most parents they think when their child is old enough to be out of a car seat they can sit directly on the seat, this is wrong. Children should sit in a booster seat till they are at least 80 pounds and can sit with the lap belt on their waist and the chest strap over their shoulder and one directly next to their neck.

Place in the back seat - What some parents have a hard time with is keeping their child in the back seat. If you don't keep your child in the back seat then you should start to, this will save the life of your child in the event of an accident.

Drive cautiously - Did you know that about 50% of all accidents could be avoided if you simply drive more cautiously? The driver is the one behind the wheel and as long as they can keep the car under complete control at all times and watch for others they will be fine.

Being a good driver isn't the hardest thing to do, you just have to keep your eyes peeled and look for things that can distract your driving.

If you want to keep your child safe it doesn't stop at the car, you need to keep them safe at home as well. For parents who need help keeping their child safe at home, you should consider baby safety equipment to help you out.

   Car Seats For Baby Can Provide Comfort, Style, and Safety

Many choices are available when choosing car seats for your baby. The main feature of these products is safety and protection from injury, in the event of an accident or quick stop. They also cradle the baby in a manner that makes them feel safe and secure. While prices for such products vary, the main considerations should always be safety ratings and ease of use.

Many models offer different color choices in the base and fabric used on the inside so they can be coordinated with other baby items such as a stroller or with a vehicle's interior. Most infant seats come with a base that can be secured in the vehicle, so that the carrier portion simply snaps in, with a locking mechanism. This is a convenient feature for those who wish to use the seat as an infant carrier.

Parents will still need to secure the five-point harness over the infant but will have an easier time securing a baby when the base is already secured. While car seats for newborns come with a variety of weight options, those with bases usually can be used for babies up to 22 pounds.

For those who must use public transportation, such as buses or taxis, there are certain models that can be used without a base, making it more suitable in these cases. Different modes of transportation have various configurations for the seat belts, so it is best to use these types of seats instead.

Many have a couple of different options for how the seat belt is secured to the carrier, so the device can be used in a variety of transportation settings. In addition to options in securing a baby seat, some models can be used with a wide variety of strollers.

This is a great feature for those who do not wish to purchase a combination product, that includes both devices. Often those who receive gifts for baby showers will get items individually. If you are considering purchasing such an item for a baby shower, this is a great feature to think about when making a decision on a newborn car seat.

It is also an ideal feature, for those who are hundreds of miles away and must ship baby gifts to the recipients. Prices of baby seats can vary greatly, depending on brand and features. However, a model with high ranking safety features can still be found for less than $60.

Some top models listed in various online product review sites can cost less than a third of other models. Top of the line car seats for newborns can cost up to $150, even without the addition of the coordinating stroller. It pays to do some checking for recalls and safety features, before selecting a car seat for baby.

Car Safety Laws for Children

 When seating your child in a car you should be aware of the laws surrounding seatbelts and child restraints as there are varying rules for different vehicle types and ages of child. In all of these cases it is the responsibility of the driver to make sure children are restrained in the correct way.

Babies

If your baby is in the front passenger seat and an airbag is present, it is against the law to use a rear-facing child seat. If the airbag was to release greater injury would be caused if the wrong restraint was used.

Children up to three

Should be correctly restrained in both the front and back of a car, the only exception is in a licensed taxi or licensed hire car where appropriate restraints are available. In this situation a child can travel in the back unrestrained. However, you should try to ensure that the necessary child seating is available as this was introduced for practical reasons, not safety.

Children over three and up to 12, or 1.35 meters tall

In 2006, a law was brought in to ensure seatbelts were positioned correctly across a child's body. Smaller children are required to sit in a specific detachable car seat for safety. This law applies to children up to the age of 12 or 1.35 meters tall, whichever comes first.

There are exceptions to this rule where a child in this category must wear a taxi baby seat Sydney instead. If three child seats will not fit in the rear of the vehicle and two are filled, then the third child is permitted to wear an adult belt. Over a short distance in an emergency situation, a child may wear an adult belt. In a private hire car or licensed taxi this is also permitted.

If seat belts are not present in the rear of a vehicle then a child over the age of three is permitted to travel without restraint.

Children over 1.35 meters tall or 12 years+

In the front and back of any vehicle a child must wear an adult seatbelt if available.

Passengers 14 or over must wear a seatbelt if provided in buses, coaches. Passengers 2 or over must wear a seatbelt if provide in a taxi.

Other

Non-UK citizens must also abide by the same rules and carry the appropriate child restraint. If you are renting a car then the company should be able to provide the necessary car seats if they are informed in advance.

Your child's safety should be of the utmost importance, it is your responsibility to ensure your child is restrained correctly. When traveling in someone else's car you should make sure that the car is appropriately equipped with the relevant child seat.

Ron Skinner & Sons sell used cars in South Wales. We care about the safety of you and your children and subsequently provide car warranties to cover all mechanical and electrical components of the vehicle, provided they are of the original manufacturer's specification. For more information on used cars visit the car supermarket in South Wales.

Child Safety Seats: Keeping Young Travelers Safe 

You're good parents. We know you are, because so many of you ask, "What do we do about car seats when we travel?" Unfortunately, the answers can be quite unsettling. Maxi taxi Sydney baby seat to travel safely.

Buses and Trains

Except for school buses, buses and trains do not come with seat belts of any kind. These mass transit vehicles are exempt from child safety seating rules, and without seat belts, there's no way to secure a safety seat. Amtrak recommends you place infant safety seats on the floor-a safer position at a sudden stop. Fortunately, there's enough legroom on railroad trains to make this practical. Buses, with their scant leg room, don't offer that option. There is a bad way to travel to your child.

Limos, Town Cars, Taxis, and Shuttles

These common vehicles for ground transportation can fall into a legal gray area in some states. Are safety seats required, or not? They may be exempted as "mass transit" vehicles, or maybe not. Of course, safety is the paramount issue in this article, regardless of whether there's a legal opening. Fortunately, nearly all these vehicles do have shoulder-and-lap seat belts, so if you brought safety seats with you for your flight, you'll be covered for the trip from the airport, too. If you have an older child who doesn't need a safety seat on the plane, ask the company in advance if it can provide a suitable safety seat. Some will and others won't.

Rental Cars

Child safety seating laws apply to rental cars as well as privately-owned vehicles, but car rental companies do not include child safety seats with the cost of the rental. Many offer safety seats for rent, and some minivans now have built-in safety seats. Be sure to settle this matter with the rental company when you make your reservation, as those safety seats may be in short supply.

Safety seats are your responsibility, and your added expense. As we mentioned, rental agencies usually rent safety seats, but you're probably better off with your regular car seats. Since car renters typically fly to their destination, you'll have car seats along anyway for the kids under 40 lbs., right? As for older children, the airline will often let you check (or gate-check) a booster seat without counting it against your luggage allowance -- be sure to ask about this before you arrive at the airport.

Florida has one of the looser child safety seat laws; a safety seat is only required through age three. Children four through eight can ride in the back seat, using regular adult seat belts. You may want to do better than that, and we wouldn't disagree. The best car rental service providing for child safety is "sydneypeoplemovertaxi.com.au" There is the best way to travel your child safely.

https://sydneypeoplemovertaxi.com.au

[kiev4am]

The AU that nobody asked for. Really, nobody.

Okay, so (a) this is a terrible idea and I'm a terrible person, but please consider (b) Brexit is legitimately horrifying if you live in the UK and aren't a xenophobic 'rah rah Blitz spirit' wingnut, because if we leave the EU without a trade deal we will have a degree of difficulty importing essentials like fresh food and medicines that has 100% not been honestly evaluated.  Supermarkets, hospitals, factories etc. have been stockpiling supplies for months in preparation for a possible no-deal Brexit in six weeks' time and our political leaders are so busy chasing their slim margins of power that they'd rather run the clock down while trumpeting jingoistic slogans than materially protect the country.  People are writing unironically in the papers about stockpiling food at home and it scares the crap out of me.  So much of the language of Brexit harks back to imperial nostalgia, mythical glory days when Britain supposedly forged ahead and didn't answer to anyone, and I'm already obsessed with a TV show whose major theme is 'people finding out in cruelly short order that Britishness isn't magical and you can't eat patriotism' so, well, here we are: with bitter sincerity and many apologies, I give you the Terror No-Deal Brexit AU.  Feel free to skip this if you feel it's too close to the bone.  I've split it into three posts to try and spare mobile users some pain - it's loooong because apparently I derived catharsis from this wreck of a concept.

Part 2  |  Part 3

Setting: 2 years into a no-deal Brexit.  Imports into the UK are subject to catastrophic delays and huge cost increases, which means demand for anything home-produced or home-grown is far in excess of supply.  The wealth/quality of life gap hasn't been this stark since the 1800s, and nobody in power is losing sleep over this since most of them are hard-right Tories who've spent their careers fetishising the undeserving-poor Victorian model of society.  Almost all the EU citizens who were living here have gotten the Tories' 'hostile environment' message loud and clear and departed, leaving many sectors struggling to survive without that workforce; this especially impacts healthcare, agriculture and local councils.  Non-critical clinical and surgical care is almost non-existent, medicines are being rationed (officially only non-essential ones, but there's increasing reportage of insulin, heart drugs etc. being withheld, plus things like anti-depressants and contraceptives are ruled 'non-essential', fun times), waste collection and water purification in cities is compromised, fresh food is a luxury, unrest and rioting is commonplace with typically harsh response by overstretched but well-armed police and security services who've been given the 'state of emergency' nod to use extreme force.  Schools are on a three-day week with much depleted class sizes (the research into why those numbers have gone down makes grim Dickensian reading) and many local authorities have introduced water and electricity rationing.  There is rhetoric about 'temporary measures' and 'light at the end of the tunnel' and 'Britain once more proud and independent' but the politicians who engineered the mess have all moved to their second homes in Spain and Italy, and in their few carefully curated television appearances the ones who are left speak with ghostly, heartsick cheerfulness.  Every local council is effectively on a wartime footing and their offices are like seige towers; with fuel, transport and public safety compromised, people frequently sleep at their workplaces rather than chance their route home every night.  There's a sense of everything being one explosion, one riot away from full-blown dystopia; of society hanging in the balance, trying to stay polite and bureaucratic on the very doorstep of anarchy.  No-one sleeps well.  Everyone who isn't super-rich has nutrition problems and is obsessed, on one level or another, with food.

Erebus House is one of those brutal 1960s office blocks with grandiose names that typically house local government departments; surrounded by the closed shops and boarded-up arcades that once made Barrow city centre a cheerful hive of activity, it is Northwest Council's last remaining administrative hub.  From these chilly beige rooms, shuffling in the dead-grey flicker of the last few striplights and guarded by a ragtag division of local police and army, a skeleton staff attempts to maintain law, order and some kind of subsistence for this once-prosperous Middle England town.

John Franklin was the local Tory MP who campaigned vigorously in favour of Brexit and was re-elected comfortably on the strength of his rich, confident visions of independence and national pride.  A keen amateur historian specialising in Victorian industry and exploration, he was also among those whose intransigence and hubris propelled the country towards a no-deal Brexit, convinced as he was that home-grown manufacturing and invention would flourish in adversity.  Unfortunately, he and his confederates were so sure of this outcome that they never underpinned it with any realistic contingency planning.  As the consequences unravelled so did Franklin, succumbing to a heart attack eighteen months in.  His widow Jane now channels her grief into fierce party activism, stubbornly insisting that the problems are transitional and that her husband's legacy will be a stable, thriving Northwest county.  Driven into town by her personal security staff, Jane Franklin visits Erebus House every fortnight to plead support for her causes and stress the need for 'visible, inspiring' gestures.

Francis Crozier was never a politician.  The closest link he ever had to government was his heartfelt but ill-advised attachment to Franklin's niece Sophia - an attachment which has mellowed now into genuine, if wry friendship.  An outsider, he always meant his stay in Barrow to be temporary, his job at the council a purposely dull stop-gap until he collected himself and moved on, preferably back to Ireland or to the itinerant sailing life he'd enjoyed so much in his youth.  Two things have held him back from this goal:  his frequent bouts of debilitating depression, self-medicated with alcohol, and the fact that - against all expectation - he turned out to have an excellent, intuitive grasp of town council management and infighting, combining logistical and bureaucratic shrewdness with an angry compassion that keeps him from walking away even at his most despairing.  His bold advocacy and fairness made him well-liked by activists and local grassroots organisations while setting him at odds with Franklin's complacency; their relationship became strained in the run-up to Brexit, then disastrous in its aftermath.  On his worst days Francis holds himself responsible for aggravating the stress that led to Franklin's death (his closest staff have offered to bar Jane Franklin from the building, but he doesn't have the heart).  On his best days he runs Erebus House like a ship in a squall, holding the shreds of the town's welfare in both shaking fists.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I’ve been trying to take a lunch hour just to get away from work.  I usually just walk away from my office as far as possible.  Things these days are beyond claustrophobic with little explanation or respect for my feelings or emotions.  This is the city let alone the world at this point in my eyes.   After spending so much time away from America it feels like the problem is the country at large.  This isn’t to say that I’m not exposed to a lot of different cultures here.  There is a rather large uptick in the diversity I see every day which is inspiring.  But I still feel like I have become a fixture in the background  much like a billboard.  A service for people to point to as a sort of beacon but won’t acknowledge or give credit for existing.  A light switch to flick on and off.  A manufactured piece of consent paraded in front of people as the good guy though nobody knows my superhero name, my powers or what I even do.  I guess this is what I get for wearing so many fonts and statement shirts.   On my lunch break I passed a man being followed by a real live pigeon.  It came to my attention that pigeons seem to communicate better than most Americans.  I said that out loud.  The man made a howling sound that was at once laughter and at once judgement.  Those kind of interactions are fun sometimes.  But it was a very real sentiment.  I wake up every morning to two feral cats on my doorstep.  The other morning my neighbor ran into me feeding them on the porch.  It was a friendly interaction but they seemed hesitant to proceed up the stairs.  My neighbor asked if they would bite.  My landlord has asked this too.  I never really assumed anyone would be afraid of cats but it’s a valid safety issue.  I wonder why these cats aren’t afraid of me when historically everyone seems to make me out as the monster behind my back.  I used to be afraid of dogs when I was small.  The thing I love about animals is that they communicate their emotions very intelligently.  You get back what you give.  While science might explain away domestication of cats as emotionless manipulation of humans for food it doesn’t explain how humans treat each other for capitalism over money and power.  In a city where for years people have been afraid to accept that I have dreams, desires, and needs I’ve become a Frankenstein like figure.  The one thing I can agree with the current trends in America for social justice and cancel culture is that it is confusing, isolating, and divisive at times.  But serving these societal needs sometimes is not as satisfying as you would like it to be.  We resist and protest in America to change things.  Change requires organization, planning and strategy.  Also an endgame that results in either compromise or complete destruction apparently.  And when you are the only one with a plan three years running, you start to think maybe you need a new plan or a new life entirely.  Because everyone wins at the cost of you losing year after year.

I was listening to Chomsky instead of the debates the other day.  He had remarked that you can predict the outcome of an election with scary accuracy just by looking at the funding.  And it is true that in America you are mostly free if you have the money to justify the air you breathe.  But America also has a history of taking freedom away for the benefit of others.  In liberal circles this is called “sharing power.”  Sometimes this is justified depending on the lens you view it through.  Is it fair?  For all the shit we talk about capitalism and how it is evil how is it any different?  It’s not concerned with a balanced budget or being fair.  It’s about profiting at any cost and our country depends on it regardless if someone else’s freedom. life, liberty or pursuit of happiness is at stake.  The same can be said about human capital.  If I’m the one doing all the work shouldn’t I be the one who profits?  I believe you shouldn’t profit at the expense of others.  This is why I generally work a non profit job.  Dj’ing is also a non profit job in my experience along with making music since it makes no money.  People pretend they’re worth gold because of it.  It may return some sort of social capital for people.  But my entire legacy of social capital is null and void these days.  All I can really rely on is the fact that I have a stable enough job and lifestyle to pay my bills and stay healthy.  I’m not the kind of person who is viewed as successful but I’m the person everyone always needs.  I have no social support network other than what I’ve built here anymore.  I’ve had the luxury of opening up about my experiences here and had people read from all over the world.  Maybe people who value me more than anyone possibly could in my home town.  But as far as how people view me in my own city it’s perverse and disappointing at best.  People point to me as some sort of example that nobody wants to make the sacrifices to become.  And people laugh at me because of it year after year and call me crazy.  I just sit here alone at my kitchen table thinking how hopeless it’s all become.  People in America love to shout from the mountains that they have freedom of speech but they never listen to anyone but themselves.  Or worse they surround themselves with people who constantly validate them and never make any sort of criticism.  Art school is full of critique.  I saw a flyer on the wall for critique in Chinese.  I thought that was amazing.  I’ve been the subject of English critique for over two decades and look where that got me.  Everybody’s favorite water cooler topic to bully and make fun of.  It’s like I’m the mascot.  Charlie Brown with hair.  Or Edward Norton overlayed in CGI green.  You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

I’ve given up on so much shit this last year.  Nobody really cares how much I’ve sacrificed or how it’s made me feel.  At least not on the surface.  But imagine an entire life of having to walk the streets with your ear scraping the ground every moment of the day.  Just to know people’s intentions about why they feel the need to interact or acknowledge you.  There’s people who see me on the street and think it’s my problem that I don’t recognize them.  Like nobody understands that largely for years other people have caused more problems for me demanding my interaction.  Chicago has a very forced sense of community.  It goes far back to the days of shady politics that still haunt our city.  People with money and power who intimidate you in and out of situations.  I have been hurt tremendously over the years sticking my neck out for people who don’t care if I live or die.  The minute you stop is the minute people have an opinion about it.  Like my services to people moved way past good Samaritan mode.  Now it’s an expectation that I bend over backwards for everyone while I suffer in obscurity.  I don’t often try to argue any of this.  I’ve almost nearly just shut up and down completely.  I don’t leave my house much other than to travel an hour on public transit to mow my mom’s lawn.  And even then people are always trying to get to know you and start some trouble.  Use you as a prop or an example then call you a hermit behind your back.  For years that is really what I have become.  A prop in the background to manipulate.  An urban legend that has no form and thus no real need to appease with anything material.  Unlike a Chupacabra I do have physical form.  I don’t have a personal life.  It’s been bludgeoned to death by abstractions and expectations from greedy people.  To this day nobody ever really addresses me like a human other than maybe cats on my doorstep at five in the morning.  I’ll never be good enough or successful enough to break free of my landlord.  I’m always negotiating my right to frown about my situation.  My privilege is checked at the door when I leave only to be greeted by a city that swings it’s own clout around in my face.  And then there’s the people on the internet who would rather argue about it like it’s a dirty secret.  I am that secret.  I am the one suffering in ways you could never imagine.  And everybody is just ok with it.  Nobody has any sort of emotion at all.  There is no closure.  It’s just me week after week typing into a void hoping that somebody is listening that knows how much it all hurts.  And generally if I take a deep breath and a sip of coffee I know this to be true.  Just like I know the world is bigger than America and it’s view of profit before people.  Just like I know the universe is vast and the planet is small.  In another month I’ll be back in New York.  And a couple of months after that.  And so on and so on until it clicks.  I’m worth more than this.  The trick is believing it enough to save yourself and wait for something that actually appreciates it.   That’s what intimacy is all about.   Save all the abuse, psychological manipulation and anger for the stand up routines.  They don’t call it the Second City for nothing.  I deserve to live in a world that puts me first after all this.  <3 Tim

[clarketomylexa]

To The Witches I Have Known, Chapter I

The Woods and the Griffin’s might as well be the Montagues and Capulets of Polis, Connecticut. As the heirs to their family lines, Clarke and Lexa have been juggling the magical politics of their rival covens with normal life since they were old enough to understand. But when a magical incident sparks fears that haven’t been felt since the unsteady truce was made between them – an incident that Clarke is the prime suspect of – both of them are going to have to get much better at multitasking.

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“I hate Halloween.”

Anya is in a sour mood, so much so that Lexa doesn’t know whether it’s the recent spiral the weather has taken or her cousins frostiness that has her fingers retreating into the woollen cuff of her sweater. She would say it was normal – Anya has never been the easiest to get along with – but she almost stepped on Wednesday earlier as the cat hogged the watery puddle of sunlight in the hall and she didn’t even say sorry.

“It’s pumpkin spice season,” Lexa suggests in appeasement.

“Public ridicule season,” Anya corrects her bitterly, shooting a scathing look in the direction of the merrily grinning jack-o-lanterns gathered at the steps of the gazebo. It had been a strange transition into fall. The leaves on the outskirts of the square are frozen halfway between green and russet orange, but the town committee had descended on main street on the first of October regardless with the manic kind of excitement that came with the prospects of pumpkin carving and scoping out costume options at the dinky shop in the corner of the square that never seems to realise that Halloween isn’t a year-round event. Not that she would ever give Anya the satisfaction, but Lexa quietly loves the eeriness of the festival regardless, of the silly mockery it makes of them every once a year.

Anya folds her arms over her chest. “If I see one more pointy hat, I’ll be giving out hexes for free,” she promises darkly.

“Anya!” Lexa’s eyes saucer. She whips her head around to check if they have been overheard but this early people are too wrapped up in their eight a.m. hunt for coffee to notice the pair. She turns back to Anya, lowering her voice anyway. “You know Titus doesn’t like you saying that,” she scolds quietly.

Lexa was seven the first time she realised magic wasn’t commonplace. The enormity of such a secret was almost too large to understand for a girl who had grown up chanting Latin incantations and watching coven meetings through the rungs of the staircase when she should have been asleep, but Titus hadn’t wasted any time in sitting her down and drilling the importance of confidentiality into her. She had walked around tight-lipped and grey-faced for a week afterwards for fear of retribution.

Anya laughs shortly. “I think Titus would rather I didn’t say anything at all.”

“Anya…”

“You know it’s true,” her cousin insists, “I’m barely a Woods, god forbid I have any opinion that doesn’t reflect the coven’s.”

The truth sits uneasily on Lexa’s chest. She twists the braided silver band on her ring finger, feeling responsible.

“I’m here to watch you and that’s it,” Anya continues, “next year I’ll be out of a job.”

Anya is the outcast of their household. She’s prickly at the best of times, with all of angles and sharp lines of the Woods and none of the softness Lexa inherited from her mother. Lexa doesn’t think Titus ever forgave Anya’s father for his illicit liaisons with a witch from another coven, or for his disappearance – lord knows why, but Lexa has learnt that Titus is more paranoid old man than wise advisor she thought he was when she was seven-years-old and hanging iron off her bed to ward away fairies. He ostracised her when they were younger, and is even more reluctant now to give his twenty-two-year-old niece the responsibility that a witch of her age should have – especially considering their family name.

In turn, Anya has fully embraced the role of black sleep, vintage leather jackets and all.

“You’ll always have a job as long as I’m in charge,” Lexa vows, reaching across to take her cousins hand in hers.  

She couldn’t call her childhood conventional. Since her mother died her care had been transferred to Titus and the coven to raise her as they saw fit, which had meant a rigorous regime of magical theory, and strict practice on top of trying to maintain a normal existence. The normal existence part still has her stumped, but there’s never an excuse not to perform. She is after all, the eldest direct descendant of the Woods line, as far as the coven is concerned, she’s their property and amongst all the craziness, sometimes she thinks Anya is the only thing keeping her sane.

“Sap,” Anya accuses. The show of affection makes her squirm and she disentangles their hands to cuff Lexa around the head, feigning indifference. “Anyway,” she changes the subject swiftly, tucking her hands into her pockets and scanning the empty square while Lexa tends to her mussed hair. “It’s not about that. Titus can shove it up his own as far as I care. You’re going to be eighteen next year.”

“Is that why you’re walking with me?” Lexa prods.

Anya stiffens before she can help it and Lexa knows she has struck a nerve. It takes a conscious effort to disengage every muscle in her body, but when she does, she elongates her strides and Lexa jogs to keep up, hands tucked inside her pockets as the wind picks up. “You’re lying,” she accuses calmly.

Her cousin shifts under the scrutiny, “how’s Costia?”

“Anya!” Lexa snaps, taking her by the arm and forcing her to stop in the middle of the sidewalk. They level their stares at each other, unflinching for a moment before Anya gives up the childish competition and snatches her wrist back. “Fine,” she relents ungracefully, massaging the skin, then nodding in an indication they should keep walking.

Lexa acquiesces but eyes her warily with each step it takes to formulate her answer.

“There’s been another incident.”

“An incident?” Lexa pounces on the word.

Anya nods. “Titus and Indra didn’t want to tell you.”

Frustrated, she stifles a biting comment. For all they drill this ridiculous sense of responsibility into her – ‘you’re almost of age Lexa, the coven must be your focus from now on’ – Titus and the others tend to censor what she is told like she’s still the eight-year-old she was when her mother died. Hypocrisy at its finest.

Anya is agitated again as she glances around. She puts a hand on Lexa’s back and guides her roughly down the nearest walkway between the second-hand bookstore and the coffee house where it smells like decaying paper and stale dishwater. Anya’s hand twitches, then goes up to smooth her hair behind her ear and Lexa tries to regulate the uneasy throb in her chest.

For as long as she can remember Anya has never been afraid of consequences, especially where it meant disobeying Titus and her discomfort now is unnerving.

“Lincoln found a dead raven on the back steps this morning,” Anya relays quietly when she seems satisfied they aren’t being heard.

Lexa’s breakfast curdles in her stomach.

Anya pauses to fish something out of her pocket. “Next to it was this.”

The odd object sits against her hand as Anya holds it up for Lexa to see, the black ribbon it’s strung on tangled in her fingers as Lexa takes in the intricate design. It looks like a seal stamped into a round of metal, a pentagram inside three rings of tarnished Latin that, for all of her afternoons cooped up in the dining room translating ancient texts under Titus’ trained eye, Lexa can’t decipher.

“What is it?”

Anya shrugs but hands it over and Lexa lets it sit in her palm. She thinks the pattern is familiar.

“Titus thinks it was the Griffins.”

Lexa’s head snaps up in alarm. “No,” she argues stubbornly.

“Lexa…”

The door a few feet further down the alley opens and an acne covered teenager emerges with a black trash bag at his side. Anya falls silent while he throws it in the trash can and gives them a confused glance before returning inside. “It had their magic all over it,” she informs Lexa curtly when the boy is gone.

The only other magical – but not non-mortal – founding family of Polis, Connecticut, the Woods had been stuck in a power battle with the Griffin’s since the town was founded. Every other non-mortal family in the area had fallen into an alliance on either side, and the magical violence that was said to have gone on between them got so bad, the fatalities rivalled the Salem Witch Trials. Gustus used to tell Lexa stories of when he was young to scare Lexa into practicing her magic even though every part of her body felt drained and rubbed raw. Apparently, four mortals had to end up as collateral damage before Titus enacted the truce.

Any act of violence now would be like an act of treason.

“They wouldn’t dare,” she insists confidently. Titus has had her involved in magical politics since she was old enough to understand it; both covens agreed to the truce, neither would risk the consequences. The Griffin’s might be altogether too liberal with their magic but they aren’t stupid.

Anya purses her lips like she doesn’t agree. She keeps her eyes trained on the spot where the alley opens out onto the square like she’s worried hellfire will erupt out of the cobblestones if she continues to explain. “Did you know Clarke is back in town?”

Lexa’s heart leaps and she pretends it doesn’t. “You can’t be serious?” She scoffs instead, understanding what Anya is implying. “You think Clarke did this?” It’s ridiculous and not just because the Clarke Lexa knows is too preoccupied with practical magic and floating bottles of vodka from her parents’ stash up to her bedroom to be sending malicious omens to the Woods’ doorstep.

And then there’s the other thing.

Lexa doesn’t talk about the other thing.

Anya throws her hands open in an aggravated ‘who knows’ gesture and Lexa fights not to get defensive.

“I’m not saying she didn’t,” Anya retorts. “She’s a Griffin, Lexa.”

Lexa hates that that’s an accusation in itself. Mostly because ‘she’s a Woods’ has plagued her entire life; the excuse for lab partners and dodgeball team mates rejecting her. More than any of the curses that are cradled in the aging pages of the books Titus keeps in the upstairs hallway, Lexa thinks having your identity boiled down to nothing but your last name is the worst curse of all.

Anger at Anya simmers into frustration in the pit of her stomach and she slips the seal into her pocket and shoulders past her cousin onto the main street.

“Lexa,” Anya grouses, quiet guilt colouring her tone as her steps clack in her effort to catch her. “Wait.”

Lexa shakes her head. “I need to talk to Clarke.”

Polis is just as insignificant as Clarke left it four months ago, but somehow, it still feels better than the draughty colonial of her grandmothers that she spent the summer and then some shut up in. She’s pretty sure the only thing of note that has happened in four months is her poor house plants ultimately death on her windowsill – apparently the half-hearted self-watering charm she had uttered on her way out wasn’t long range. That, or her mother walked into her room one day to see her dinky tin watering can hanging in mid-air and had dismantled the thin spell with an eye roll.

Her parents have always had a liberal attitude to magic. As long as she wasn’t spell casting in the front yard or enchanting her stationery to write her biology essays, they were content to let her explore her it on her own terms.

She hadn’t known magical theory was something people practiced as actively as they did until her parents got tired of her quote unquote behaviour and sent to her study under the tuition of her mother’s mother. Or that’s what they told her when she came home on the last day of school to find her bags packed in the hallway – ‘you’re the heir Clarke, you need to learn to control your magic’.

In reality, she knows it was really a ploy to get her out of town after Abby interrupted Finn kissing her goodnight after homecoming.

Her parents had never been phased by her frivolous magic use in the past, and the Collins are notorious for being unreliable allies – evidently magical politics doesn’t take a break for school girl crushes.

The bell rings for the end of the period and Clarke rises from her desk, rubbing her thumb over the braided band on her ring finger. She doesn’t know what excuse her parents gave the school for her absence but she can feel the teacher’s hesitancy to bring the subject up as he waves her to the front of the class and it’s suffocating. The Griffins are formidable figures in the eyes of the town, and it feels like Mr. Walker is handling her with kid gloves as he hands her a sheet covering the last few weeks, tells her to read Macbeth and suggests she borrow a classmate’s notes. It feels too stiff and formal, and suddenly her whole life is being played out in front of her; a clinical rotation of coven meetings and maintaining magical politics that she isn’t ready for.

She nods into the panic bearing down on her chest and leaves as quickly as she can.

The building used to be a private residence before it was the high school. Like everything else in Polis the high arched ceilings, wrought iron embellishments and stained glass were leftovers from the gothic revival period that her history teacher – as old as the town itself – loves to go on about. In Junior year a rumour went around the back staircase was haunted by the ghost of the last owner, who’s grisly death in the late 1880’s had been enough to give The Tribune content for four months straight.

People seem to have gotten braver over summer though, because the staircase is packed again – likely because the ‘haunting’ stopped as soon as Bellamy had been busted by an Octavia intent on revenge for her broken curling iron and suspended from magic use for the summer. Either way, Clarke is unhappy to collide with a trio of rowdy Freshman with their shirts shredded and fake blood soaked. Agitated, she curses at them loudly for getting the concoction on her sweater, trying to pick it off with her finger nails to no avail before looking up in defeat and freezing.

Lexa stands halfway down the corridor, head in her locker as she diligently switches out her books and Clarke watches, feeling abruptly guilty as she tucks her hair behind her ear and twists the lock to scramble the combination.

She didn’t tell Lexa she was back.

She didn’t know if she was supposed to tell Lexa she was back.

There text conversations had switched abruptly from numerous and emoji filled, to once a week at most and strangely formal at the end of Sophomore Year. It left them in an awkward twilight zone of ‘just friends’ that neither of them quite knew how to navigate correctly.

When Lexa turns to walk to class Clarke raises her hand in a static wave, and an urgent expression passes over Lexa’s face.

“Clarke!”

Whipping her head around, she sees two girls narrowly miss being taken out by the backpack Octavia has slung over one shoulder as she barrels down the stone staircase, flinging it to the harlequin tiles to throw her arms around Clarke’s neck. The girls mutter something crude and following behind, Raven flips them off aggressively. “Freshmen,” she mutters, picking Octavia’s backpack up off the floor.

“Ignore her,” Octavia disentangles herself from Clarke and when she looks back down the hall, Lexa has gone. Octavia cards a hand through her hair, taking her backpack from Raven with an exasperated glance. “She’s cranky because her car got scratched.” Her fingers are full of stacking rings and black nail varnish chipped down to the cuticle, but the sight of her friend, in her Champion tee and black jeans ripped at the knee, just as chaotic as usual, is familiar in a way Clarke didn't know she needed. She feels the vestiges of irrational terror slink away.

Raven gives Octavia a pointed look. “Last time we take my car to the lake,” she informs the brunette curtly as she leans in to give Clarke a hug.

Clarke is appalled. “You went to the lake without me?”

“You dyed your hair back,” Octavia retorts smartly and Clarke winces.

“My grandmother wasn’t exactly a fan of cotton candy pink.”

‘Not exactly a fan’ is an understatement. The woman, who was still as spritely as Clarke remembered her being when she was five years old, had rolled her eyes at the audacity of ‘teenagers these days’ and marched Clarke into the dining room to sit her down and mutter Latin until the home done dye job leached out of her hair.

She hadn’t heard someone do a verbal spell in years.

“Boo,” Octavia pouts, reaching up to twist a lock of Clarke’s hair around her forefinger. “I’m not ready for serious Clarke.”

Pink starts to crawl up the coil but Clarke bats Octavia’s hand away in alarm, looking around wildly to check if they had been seen, the strictness of her grandmother still sits weirdly ingrained in her immediate reactions. She adjusts her hair over her shoulder and tucking the now pink-ended lock behind her ear where it isn’t noticeable. “I’m not serious,” she argues, “I’m Clarke. I am!” she insists when Octavia makes a comically sceptical face. “Look, we’re still going to Atom’s tonight, right?”

“His parents are out of town, everyone is,” Raven confirms and Clarke sits back on her heels, satisfied. “Great,” she decides, “then I’m going to be one hundred percent fun Clarke.”

Raven snorts, “God help us.”

Costia has a polaroid of them tucked inside the metal slit of her locker that Lexa notices as she listens to the redhead grumble about the Chemistry pop quiz sprung on her by an unsympathetic teacher, humming and then nodding when she is accused to not listening.

She doesn’t know what to make of them exactly. Her and Costia that is. A witch herself, she understands the complexities of the situation Lexa has been born into, and despite all the ways that that simple fact makes her more likeable, it also makes the prospect of “them” infinitely more complicated. Which is probably why they are hanging in an awkward dimension of hugs that last too long and walking each other to class every other day.

“I’m sure you did well anyway,” she says mindlessly.  

There are dollar store witch hats strung on fishing wire from the arched ceiling and poster paint cut outs of ghosts and the school initials tacked to the walls. She fixates on the stylised pentagram inside the ‘o’ of ‘All Hallows Eve’ on a poster advertising a Halloween party in town that no one will attend, and lets the trepidation that’s been clawing at her chest all day swell to a boiling point. The seal sits in her front jean pocket, conspicuous enough that she untucked her sweater from her waistband as she walked into advisory for her own piece of mind.

“Lexa?”

She straightens, “yeah?”

“You’re really out of it today,” Costia’s brow peaks in concern, as she dips her chin to try and catch Lexa’s eye. “Did something happen? Or…”    

Shaking her head, Lexa wills herself to engage. She hasn’t seen Clarke since Octavia and Raven had interrupted their almost-reunion but the need to speak to her grew more urgent with each minute the seal gathered weight sitting in her pocket. “Just a lot going on,” she explains pathetically and Costia slides a hand up her arm.

“Anything I can help with?”

Lexa opens her mouth to assure her that ‘no, it’s fine’, when a blonde firecracker struts up to them with a melodramatic sigh and a faux-hurt expression.

“Are you cheating on me Lexa?” Clarke demands flinging her hand over her heart like she’s in a soap. “Does this ring mean nothing to you?” She thrusts her ring finger under Lexa’s nose, indicating to the familiar silver band, and Lexa struggles to hide the amused quirk in her lips.

Costia rolls her eyes, taking her cue to leave, “I’ll see you tonight, Lexa,” she says sweetly, squeezing her hand, then looking over, “bye Clarke.”

“Bye, Costia.”

Clarke twists her ring like it isn’t sitting right under her knuckle and leans a shoulder against the locker. “I’m sorry,” she apologises when Costia has disappeared. “She likes you.” Lexa doesn’t know how she is meant to respond to that, grappling for a reply feels like reaching out into a muddy pond in search for answers.

“She’s not my fiancée,” she drawls instead.

Clarke snorts.

It’s ironic, Lexa thinks, that, for the amount of weight their so-called “engagement” holds within the magical community, it has become such a joke between the two of them. Since the ceremony four years ago – a date which Clarke likes to ironically mark in her calendar as their “anniversary” and give Lexa cards with ‘To My Loving Husband’ embossed across the front in scripted letters – Clarke in particular has taken every available moment to mock the sanctity of the fealty they swore to each other and their rival covens in a bid to stop the violence. And after a while, compelled by the ridiculousness of all of it, Lexa joined in.

“How was Maine?”

“Four months shut up in a library translating…” Clarke glances around, then lowers her voice, “incantations that haven’t been used since Salem isn’t my idea of a good time. I lit a sparkler on the Fourth,” she perks up, “but my grandmother was worried it would set fire to her herb garden so she put it out.”

All at once, Lexa remembers being five-years-old and standing on the front lawn with a kiddie-sparkler in hand. The sparks burn stone-cold and morph into technicolour from the spell her mother recites in her melodic voice – purples, blues, greens and oranges twisting in and out of each other wonderfully. It isn’t the Fourth, she thinks – they didn’t celebrate holidays like that before Lexa was school aged – but the sky is a watercolour of dusky pink. Midsummer perhaps.

Then, as quickly as the memory came, it vanishes, leaving an echoing ‘whoosh’ in the vacuum of her head. She blinks, dizzy.

“Lexa…”

“We need to talk.”

“Oh?” Clarke sings flirtatiously.

“It’s serious.”

Her face drops, “oh.”

The bell trills but Lexa learns into the nearest classroom to find it dark, the desks empty and blinds pulled, and she wills Clarke inside, waiting until she is perched on the edge of the nearest desk before pulling the seal out of her pocket.

“Do you know what this is?”

It looks oddly mundane hanging from her fingers. In this light, it’s hard to make out the tarnished Latin or the pentagram inside it, but it’s ice-cold despite the hours it has been sitting in her pocket and that’s enough to make her sceptical.

Clarke’s eyes saucer. Lexa takes careful note of her reaction.

“Where did you get that?”

She opens her palm and the seal sails into her hand.

Lexa has always been taken back by Clarke’s liberal approach to magic. While Titus has drilled into her that magic serves a purpose and that purpose is not her own personal needs, Clarke seems to find a need for it in every situation. Quietly, she thinks she admires the easiness she wields it with because, the truth is, Lexa is too scared of magic to do the same.

“Do you know what it is?” She dodges the question. “The Latin’s illegible, but it looks like a penta –”  

“It’s not,” Clarke shakes her head. She puts the seal flat on the desk, ribbon at the top, then turns it one hundred and eighty degrees so the pentagram is inverted. Suddenly, Lexa knows where she has seen it before. “This is dark, Lexa,” Clarke warns her, “like, black-magic-devil-worshipping dark.” There is an element of awe in her voice that twists in the put of Lexa’s stomach. “Where did you get it?”

“There was one on the cover of that book you used to have,” Lexa says calmly.

“Lexa.” Clarke insists.

She sighs. “Lincoln found it on the back steps.”

Clarke scrutinises her. “There’s more.”

“Anya thinks it was you.”

“What?”

“Did you do it?”

Clarke straightens, growing stony at the accusation. “Do you think I did?” She fires back.

There’s a whole host of replies Lexa could give, all of them laced with the political idiocy that Titus likes to spout around the dinner table, elitist bullshit about how the Woods are magically superior in the traditional sense of their craft, how the Griffins are liberal pretenders, imposters and manipulators. But none of it has ever translated to Clarke in her mind. When she looks at Clarke she sees herself, a freer version of herself maybe, but still, someone stuck in this mess other people have made for them and she can’t knowing blame her for something she doesn’t have the capacity to do.

“No,” she admits, hoping she is right.

Clarke deflates in relief. She lets out a heavy sigh and sifts her fingers through her hairline, shaking out blonde locks until Lexa can see a pink streak, the colour glimmers slightly like a mirage in a way she knows isn’t drugstore hair dye and fixates on it. “I didn’t,” Clarke promises in a voice so soft it’s barely there.

“I believe you.”

[grid6ix]

The Effect of Institutional Design on Transportation Planning

Now that I am thoroughly familiar with the geography and politics of both Ottawa and Toronto, I am able to compare, contrast and comment on the state of transit planning in both cities. Upon examination of the City of Ottawa’s plans for future LRT extensions, the first thing you will likely notice is the city’s insistence for grade separation everywhere, even in the suburbs where ridership and frequency is lower, and where space often permits surface operation. The justification for this is the possible decreased minimum headways which become possible when an entire line is grade separated, and the city plans on grade separating even the peripheral branches of their LRT lines, such as the Confederation Line extension into Barrhaven which is supposed to be trenched and elevated along Woodroffe Avenue. Although full grade separation is a feature of the two main lines currently in development, the city has in its future plans surface rapid transit on Carling and Baseline. This prioritization of grade separation stands in contrast to the proposed LRT lines in the City of Toronto proper, and even those in the suburbs. The best comparison to the Confederation Line in Ottawa is the Eglinton Line in Toronto: both lines run from one side of town to the other, partially on the surface and in tunnels, and both lines are projected to have subway-level ridership numbers requiring coupled LRVs from day one. The main difference between them is that where the Confederation Line runs on the surface, it retains full grade separation using bridges and trenches, most of which survive from the transitway the line is to replace. The Eglinton Line on the other hand, effectively behaves as a streetcar along its surface section, operating in the median through signalized intersections and more frequent stations. Extensions to the line further into the inner suburbs are also planned to operate primarily on the surface. There is no question that grade-separated rail lines, despite their significantly higher capital costs, are conducive to greater speeds, frequencies and distances than their streetcar-style counterparts, which are best suited for local uses. It then becomes necessary to ask what caused these differences between otherwise similar lines. If one were to focus only on the first phases of both lines, they would think that the presence of a former transitway corridor along the Confederation Line is responsible for its grade separtation, but when planned future phases are considered, they would notice that the Confederation Line is to be grade separated even in the suburbs where transitways currently do not exist, and that the Eglinton Line is planned to run on the surface along its extension towards the airport, where space permits viaducts or trenches. As it pertains to politics, the first and most obvious answer relates to the sizes of the respective cities: the Confederation Line is the flagship project in a metro of just over 1 million, and the Eglinton Line is one of many lines being planned and built in a metro of close to 7 million. Because federal and provincial governments want to broaden their appeal across numerous ridings, suburbs and smaller cities receive disproportionately high levels of transit funding, it is safe to say that transit dollars increase, but degress, as population density increases. Beyond funding it is necessary to pay attention to municipal structure in both metros. Both Toronto and Ottawa were the subject of amalgamation forced by the Harris government in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. Both cities are now as a result, under the jurisdiction of a municipality whose boundaries include the old city as well as suburbs. But the difference is that while Toronto was merged only with the inner suburbs that comprised its former regional government, which are far more urban and dense than what is usually considered a suburb by Canadian standards, Ottawa’s amalgamation included, among other things, all of its suburbs, such as those outside of the greenbelt and those which are better characterized as rural satellite villages. A municipal government that answers to urban and suburban concerns is one that will design a transit network for commutes from the suburbs to employment centres, that is to say: rapid transit should be as fast as possible and be optimized for long distances at the expense of local travel. If Toronto had been amalgamated with municipalities in Peel, York and Durham, it is likely that the Eglinton Line and other rapid transit projects would have been designed with long-distance trips in mind.

The Ford government has proposed uploading subway construction and operations to the provincial level. Although personally I believe this would create more problems than it would fix, because urban transit projects would never get off the ground and would suffer from stagnant funding when managed by an agency that answers to the whole province (look at the state-run MTA), it is a move in the right direction that goes too far. Rapid and regional transit systems in the GTA are increasingly used by suburban residents for traversing long distances, it makes sense that they would have input in their design and planning. TTC surface routes on the other hand, are predominantly used by residents of the city, and should remain in the hands of local government. For Toronto, I would prefer the subway (and possibly commuter rail) systems to be administered by a regional agency, either following the London model which would result in further amalgamation of the region into a two-tier mega municipality; or the Vancouver model, where rapid transit is provided by an agency that answers to the mayors of the municipalities in the region, which themselves would remain intact. I prefer the Vancouver model because it doesn’t require such great reorganization of municipal government in all aspects to achieve only one goal. I do not agree with those who seek to get politics entirely out of transit planning, this is public money being used for public benefit, and the public ought to have reasonable input. I do however, think it necessary to decrease the influence of the mayor and council of Toronto as it pertains to matters whose impact goes beyond city limits. I would like to see established, a dedicated assembly comprised of delegations sent by the respective municipal councils, whose votes would be weighted in regressive proportion to their respective populations. I would include in the assembly all cities reasonably connected and concerned with the rapid transit network centred on downtown Toronto, such as: Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Oakville and Pickering. The assembly would meet 2-3 times per year to give approval to measures and decisions made by a partially-independent commission, who would be working on planning and designing rapid transit full-time. 5 of the commission’s members would serve at the pleasure of the aforementioned assembly, and the other 5 elected by it for staggered terms of fixed length (say 6 years). The agency would receive consistent and stable funding (from the fare box, its constituent municipalities and from the province) for the carrying out of its projects, and potentially would be endowed with the ability to levy indirect taxes on residents subject to its jurisdiction. Since cash flow would be largely fixed and independent from political pressure, I feel as if the fear that commonly arises in response to subway-upload proposals, that most money would be spent almost exclusively in the suburbs because the city would be outnumbered in the assembly, would fail to materialize. Firstly, the suburbs would not be able to petition desperate federal and provincial governments for funding during election season. More specifically, government MPPs in Toronto ridings, whose party’s incumbency depends on their performance in swing suburban districts, are more likely to support disproportionate transit funds going to the suburbs, than are delegates of the Toronto city council, whose incumbency and ability to govern has no dependence on suburban politics. Each suburb benefits more from projects that happen in the city than they do from projects happening in another suburb, so while small amounts of money would be appropriately allocated to suburban BRT projects for instance, the bulk of the funding available would go towards significant central projects that directly or indirectly benefit the vast majority of constituent municipalities. Because the assembly and the commission would be so diverse, projects already approved and underway would be less likely to suffer from cancellation unless public pressure is so great. A regional agency of this nature would only function without setbacks if it is able to act notwithstanding the wishes of the respective city council, it needs to be independent from interference of that type. An example of this is LACMTA (better known as Metro), which is an agency of Los Angeles County and thus prevails over the county’s many subordinate local governments.

Ottawa being fully amalgamated unlike Toronto, I feel as if it does a better job of planning truly rapid transit for the whole metro, but since local transit is planned at the same level, it suffers from being designed for the same long-haul purposes (I often joked this summer that the first municipal service provided to every new Ottawa subdivision is a direct bus to Mackenzie King Station in downtown), and as a result, Ottawa is just now implementing a grid pattern for its transit routes. There are some drawbacks to non-unitary local transit, namely that what may otherwise be a continuous route along a single corridor may be two or three routes requiring a transfer and potentially a different fare. I feel as if the assembly and commission I proposed for the GTA would lack the local expertise of a municipal council or transit provider required to plan and operate surface routes, the best a regional agency can do for local transit is to facilitate fare integration, which itself would prove to be less important for interface between local transit providers when rapid transit transcends city limits (in other words, rapid transit services would be the primary vehicle through which municipal borders are crossed when they are constructed across and without regard for them). Beyond that, I am most concerned about inter-provincial transit planning for the National Capital Region. I am sure that the Harris government would have amalgamated Gatineau into the City of Ottawa if they could, but interestingly enough, Gatineau went through its own amalgamatory process ordered by Quebec City. As a result, both cities independently enjoy the benefits of amalgamation in rapid transit planning, but actual action to integrate the two networks across the river still seems unlikely. For the National Capital Region, I would propose the creation of an inter-provincial agency tasked with providing long-distance rapid transit to both cities. This would include LRT lines, as well as Transitway and Rapibus Services, and long distance rush hour commuter routes to satellite villages such as Rockland and Richmond. Inter-provincial agencies are quite rare in Canada because there are very few metro areas that straddle provincial boundaries (Ottawa-Gatineau is the only one of significant size), but they do exist. Lloydminster is another such border town which is jointly administered by Alberta and Saskatchewan. Cooperation of this type between the constituent governments of a federation is far more common south of the border, where it seems like most major cities are close, if not adjacent to a state line. There are countless examples of interstate agencies that operate rapid transit services across state lines, the best example of which is WMATA (again better known as Metro), which operates the Washington DC Transit Network. It is a particularly interesting example because it operates services in two states and the federal district. Again I would prefer that local transit be retained by local government in the National Capital Region, but there are only a handful of bridges across the Ottawa river, the choke points they form are by far the worst place to neglect rapid transit development.

I will admit that what I propose in Ottawa is made extremely hard by the requirement that two separate but equal governments co-operate. But what I propose in Toronto is one Act of the Legislative Assembly away from happening. What I appreciate most about the Ford government is its willingness to consider institutional reform as a legitimate vehicle through which deficiencies may be addressed, but I feel as if inquiries into uploading and amalgamation were long overdue and were bound to be undertaken as soon as a party other than the Liberals formed government.