#so....... employment will unironically save me

[dustyspines]

the joys (finally being employed again) vs. the horrors (my writing time is being absolutely decimated)

[volunteerismandanarchy]

Social Security may well prove the belief that taxation is theft. FICA contributions to Social Security and Medicare are not opt-out. The American worker and their employers are legally compelled to pay. You have no choice here unless you choose to work under the table or in some alternative economic market out of the view of the federal government, and woe upon woe to you if the IRS finds out.

To add insult to injury, Social Security is not a retirement savings program. It is a transfer program. Income in the form of FICA contributions is taken from the paychecks of working people and is to be distributed to current beneficiaries of Social Security. That's it in broad, general terms.

The promise to those of us whose income is being taxed is that when it comes our time to draw benefits there will be funds available. Of course, we will need to continue taking money out of the checks of those working even if we have surplus funds available. As the current reports by Social Security Trustees indicate, we don't, and given current projections, we won't. Drastic measures will have to be taken to secure the program for the future if we hope to keep the Boomer Generation and Early Gen-Xers (my demographic) from bankrupting the program out of existence.

I'm 57. I've been making contributions for over 40 years if you take into consideration my fast-food jobs as a teenager. There had better be Social Security when I retire. The chances are, the minimum retirement age will be raised and benefits will be cut to stave shortfalls and prevent insolvency from becoming bankruptcy.

I have acquaintances that mistake my attitude for irony impairment. "Taxation is theft, but keep your hands off my social security," they joke. The answer to both is an unironic, "Yes."

Taxation is theft as I didn't agree to the program or tax on my income in the first place. In fact, these came about some thirty years before I was born. I entered the workforce and had no choice but to agree to these mandates. As stated above, FICA contributions are not opt-out.

Keep your hands off of my Security since you haven't given me the choice to opt-out. I would like to recoup some of the income I lost over my decades in the workforce. In fact, fix the damn program so that my contributions aren't a loss to me and future generations of workers. Now, if you want to refund all of my FICA deductions with interest and adjusted for inflation, okay...do what you want.

Since we know that isn't going to happen, it's time for Congress to get their act together. The GOP would rather we cut Social Security out of the federal budget altogether, while the Democrats seem unwilling to make necessary changes. Both parties are putting American workers on a speeding train to ruin.

So yes, "taxation is theft," and I want my money back, so "keep your hands off of my Social Security."

[beybladefanboy]

Top 5 Favourite Beyblade Characters

Random and unasked for but I figured I would talk about my favourite characters in the Beyblade Metal Saga.

#5 A tie between Chris and Hikaru

Chris

I’m putting these two in the same spot because I wanted both of them to be on this list and a “top 6” doesn’t have as good of a ring to it as a “top 5.” Anyways, the first time I watched Metal Fury, I didn’t care much about Chris. Now however, I find his arc of being stuck in a job that brings him no joy to be incredibly relatable. His lack of passion for Beyblade makes complete sense: the fun of the sport was completely sucked out when it became an obligation for him and he wasn’t allowed to fight for himself. He was completely obligated to his employer and had little choice in the matter. That would suck away anyone’s passion, trust me, I know. So seeing the light return to his eyes as he rediscovered his passion for Beyblading was incredibly satisfying.

Hikaru

A lot of the appeal of Hikaru is admittedly that she is a female blader, and yeah, it is great having a strong female character. (We need more of those) What’s great about Hikaru however is that she isn’t just a token girl character or a mary sue: she is treated the same as any other blader and is allowed to fail and feel emotions without being degraded. I like that we even see a bit of her backstory where we learn that she is driven to be the best blader because of her likely deceased mother’s words. It’s a shame that she quit Beyblade due to her trauma but I also think it’s understandable and that it was interesting to explore that trauma. The moment that broke my heart rewatching Metal Masters was when Hikaru sees Dark Tsubasa and is paralyzed by terror, clearly remembering what Ryuga did to her. Beyblade’s most powerful scenes to me are the ones that delve into a character’s mind and allows me to see their thoughts and feelings. It allows me to understand and be more attached to the character and we got a lot of that from Hikaru and Chris.

#4 Yuki

Yuki is kind of underrated in my opinion but then again, so is the entirety of Metal Fury. Yuki was a really fresh character for the series. Nearly every character is extremely reckless: acting first, thinking later so it was really refreshing to see a character who overthinks everything to the point of anxiety. I just relate more to a character that doubts himself and has to fight to overcome not just the great evil but his own self-doubt and fear as well. Also, I love that scene where he fights Ryuga. He probably knows he doesn’t stand a chance against a guy like him but he doesn’t care because he’s fighting for his friends. I can relate to that. When I’m just doing something for myself, I tend to doubt and question myself but when I’m standing up for my friends, I show no mercy. So yeah, Yuki is a really relatable character, as well as a pure cinnamon roll that needs more love.

#3 Kyoya

If you asked who my favourite Beyblade character was two and half years ago, I would’ve answered “Kyoya” without any hesitation. While I do still really like him, I think his character was kind of fumbled in Metal Fury. I’ll talk about that separately though because I want this to be a positive post. Still, Kyoya is a great character. I like how he develops from a villain to that one liner asshole friend of Gingka’s. While I do like him unironically, Kyoya is honestly just funny to me. He is so ridiculously arrogant about his own skills but he actually is as good as he says he is. He’s also a tsundere. He’s absolutely a tsundere. He’s always helping his friends with whatever bullshit they’re doing: helping them infiltrate the Dark Nebula, going to look for Gingka when he disappears, helping them infiltrate Hades city, going with them to look for the Legendary Bladers, and on two separate occasions, staying behind to fight someone so the others can go forward. Even his determination to beat Gingka feels more like friendly competition than actual malice. And yet he insists he doesn’t care about them with lines like, “It’s not like I came to save you or anything.” It’s honestly kind of majestic. He’s also a complete badass. He always gets back up after a loss and fights to the bitter end and, sometimes to the detriment of himself but never his Beyblade. When Leone was on the verge of breaking to pieces in The Fearsome Libra, he forfeited the match to stop that from happening, risking humiliation and accepting defeat to do the right thing. That is genuinely admirable. It takes courage to fight but even more courage to admit defeat. Also, his fight against Ryuga in Metal Fusion is insane. Kyoya nearly falls so many times but keeps himself on his feet and rises up again. It takes being stabbed in the heart by the dark power for Kyoya to be defeated. Out of everyone, Kyoya came the closest to defeating Ryuga through sheer will and determination alone. What a badass.

#2 Tsubasa

Similar to Yuki, Tsubasa is also a pretty unique character for this series. While he is passionate about fighting like all the others, Tsubasa is much more thoughtful and cool-headed, which is appealing especially among a cast of hot-headed crazy characters. When Tsubasa is first introduced, he’s kind of a mystery. We don’t know his true intentions or alignment until we learn that he was working for the WVBA, about 15 episodes after his initial introduction. This unpredictability made him interesting to watch in Metal Fusion as I didn’t know what he was going to do next. Then in Metal Masters, he becomes even more interesting. While it was emotionally intense to watch, I think the “Dark Tsubasa” arc is one of this series’ greatest achievements. It revealed a completely new layer of personality to Tsubasa and gave him so much development. 

While he was being somewhat controlled by the dark power, it is made clear through the dialogue that that side of him was always there and the dark power just enhanced and unmasked it. He did often hide his true emotions and intentions in Metal Fusion after all. The scenes where Tsubasa interacts with his dark self are very interesting and relatable to me because I often try to hide my negative emotions and avoid situations where they might come out until those feelings fester into madness, which is essentially what Tsubasa did. However, the resolution to this arc is what makes it so special to me. Tsubasa doesn’t drive out the darkness or continue to repress it: he accepts the darkness as part of who he is because everyone has darkness in them and the way to control it is to become one with it. And in the end, he becomes a stronger blader and person as a result of this arc. This is legitimately inspiring and helpful to me. It’s important to remember that we are not defined by our worst thoughts/feelings, we are defined by how we handle them and accepting ourselves, flaws and all, is important. So really that arc alone makes Tsubasa one of my favourite characters but he also has an appealing personality as well. It’s a shame he was kind of underused in Metal Fury but I love what we got from him.

#1 Ryuga

Yeah, okay, this was obvious. Take one look at my feed or even my profile picture and you could probably guess that I love Ryuga. Two and a half years ago, I hated him with a passion but after rewatching the show again, I realized I only really hated him because of what he did to Hikaru, Tsubasa, and Kyoya which yes was horrible and I don’t condone it in any way but he was under the influence of the dark power at that point and he never does anything quite that awful again. Anyways, onto the positives. Ryuga in Metal Fusion is the best villain the show ever had. He poses a significant threat and was the first person to legitimately defeat Gingka. He’s also a terrifying sadist that cackles at others’ pain. If Ryuga had stayed like that, I would probably still like him as a character but I certainly wouldn’t have developed a crush. Damn, that would’ve been nice. But alas, even in Metal Fusion, Ryuga is somewhat sympathetic when you remember that he is just a kid and was both used by Doji and not even in full control of himself because of the dark power. He is seen trying to resist its control in the final battle after all. It’s interesting to see a character who is literally corrupted by the power he sought out and actually does learn from his mistake. In Metal Masters, he realized that humans’ greed and hatred was what caused the dark power to be so harmful and decided to draw the power from its original source, before it was tainted by humans, and became super powerful. Even if you hate Ryuga, you have to admit that is awesome. And once he stopped being a sadistic villain, he became much more unpredictable as sometimes he would even help the main heroes in Metal Masters, albeit for selfish reasons. Ryuga sort of feels like a combination of traits I liked most in Tsubasa and Kyoya. He has the unpredictability and loner attitude of Tsubasa and the confidence and determination of Kyoya. Also, I don’t think I need to say that Ryuga is a badass. That’s not even an opinion: it’s something that we all know to be a fact. I mean, this is the guy who launched his Beyblade at a floating city, wrecking it enough to send it crashing into the water and causing a reactor meltdown that nearly destroyed the earth. That last part was unintentional and in all fairness, he did help stop the end of the world, but still, he is both powerful and reckless enough to do something like that. He was kind of frustrating in Metal Fury but I did like his friendship with Kenta and while his blind pursuit of power was annoying, I gotta admire the ambition. And… yeah, I cried at his death. I cried harder at that than anything else in this show at any other point I watched it, including when I was a kid even though I knew it was coming. Even though his motivations for fighting Nemesis were far from righteous, he still died trying to defeat the great evil and his final act was giving Kenta the star fragment to give the heroes the chance they needed to win. Ryuga died a hero, plain and simple. I wish he had lived so we could see him develop even more after that moment but either way, Ryuga is a great character. He’s the best villain in season one and I love his fiery personality and aesthetic in the following seasons.

[ajokeformur-ray]

Hey can I get some headcanons of your relationship with your F/O parents bc y’all are such a cute family dynamic and I wanna hear more about how you all interact🥰💗

and @arianatheangelworld 

asdfghjkl; omgggg~ you’re all gonna kill me asghj 🥺😭😭thank you darlings omggg ~ 🥰🥰🥰💗 I hope that you all enjoy this, it’s always so bittersweet but also so comforting and fun to explore my dynamic with my parental F/Os and, well... isn’t that the point of it all?💖 Thank you thank you thank you for supporting and enabling me omggg ~ 💙😊

Word count: 3, 184 (holy shit I am so sorry... not😂)

It’s a quiet life, but there’s lots of underlying tensions beneath it all.

By quiet, I mean because I spend my days in my bedroom studying (not so far from reality, these relationships😂) but there are underlying tensions because no one in the household knows who Edward Hyde really is - it’s a secret between my parents and I. 

What that means is that it’s tricky for Papa and myself to spend time with one another if other members of the household are awake - as far as they are concerned, Father is my parent and so is Mama, and Papa has no part in that. So as you can imagine, questions would be raised if Papa and I are caught spending too much time together (plus, this is set in the Victorian Era, so you can imagine the scandal of an unmarried twenty-three year old woman spending lots of time alone in a room, unchaperoned, with a man old enough to be her father...)

This is why Papa and I only have our time together late into the night, when said members of the household have gone to bed and it’s only my parents and I who are awake. It’s safer for all of us that way - it protects Father and his name, his reputation and his career, which in turn protects the household members from being turned out onto the streets due to a lack of employment and this in turn protects Father’s family, who always come first.

From the moment I wake up, my parents are there. As you’ve probably gathered from previous posts, I sleep with my parents a lot so it isn’t unusual for me to wake up with one of them. Rare and special occasions mean that I get to wake up with Mama and either Father or Papa. 

Mama’s always up by five in the morning or she’ll fall behind on her chores so if she’s the one I slept with in the night, then I’ll get up when she does. She always insists that I go back to bed and that I go to sleep, but I rarely do. I much prefer to have those early hours with her so that I can help her with her chores and maybe, if I’m very lucky... I’ll get to be the one who takes Father his breakfast tray so that I get to see him early in the morning and so that I can crawl into his bed and get me some extra cuddles before I start my day.

If I sleep in with Father, then the opposite happens and I’m woken up when he gets brought his breakfast tray (7 AM on the dot!), and of course I end up getting up when he does because even though he won’t kick me out of his bed, he also knows that if he leaves me to my own devices in a soft, warm bed, I’ll end up falling asleep until noon and then I’ll beat myself up about it, so he makes sure I am awake and up before he’s done with his breakfast (and if Mama knows I slept in with Father, she’ll bring me some breakfast too!) to save me any emotional distress. 

Father always wakes me up gently... up until a certain point. He will shake me gently while saying my name, which usually gets a sleepy groan from me. Then, it’s onto talking, with his voice going from a whisper and increasing in volume until he’s just above his normal speaking level. He never raises his voice at me and we all know why. If that doesn’t work, then Father will just “accidentally” pull the covers off of me. He isn’t subtle, but he also isn’t mean about it, and if I do genuinely need some more sleep, then he will let me have that. But for the most part, he makes sure that I’m up once he is on the nights I’m in his bed.

I never ever get to wake up with Papa. It just doesn’t happen for various reasons. Firstly, because Papa’s constantly moving around like a lion stuck in a cage and he loves me dearly but not enough to stay in one place for more than a few hours unless he’s already sleeping. Secondly, because he can’t be caught in my bed or vice versa by anyone other than Mama to protect Father’s name etc. Thirdly, I may wake up to Papa crawling into my bed or easing himself in his own if I fell asleep in his bed, but I don’t ever get to start my day with Papa. Our time is night time and that has to be non-negotiable. It does upset me if I wake up in an especially needy mood, but Father and Mama will get me through the day in the meantime.

Mama likes to sneak me items of Papa’s or Father’s clothing to wear when I go to bed. She’s not supposed to but Mama is sleight of hand and I can be quick when I need to be. She and I often have silent conversations in a crowded room and all it takes is for Mama to “accidentally” make a noise, like a quick scuffing of her boot on the floor or for her knuckles to make a noise against the wooden table and I just look at her.  Mama catches my eye and then gives me A Look before she turns back to her ironing. I walk past and at the point where our lower bodies are hidden by the ironing board, she stuffs an unironed shirt in my hand (usually Papa’s) and I walk off, the shirt stowed away under my arm and then placed for safe-keeps under my pillow for the night time. Sometimes it might be one of her night-dresses, but I am comfier in either Papa or Father’s clothes.

There are so many secrets between myself and my parents which are kept from the other members of the household. Between all three of us, we manage it as best as we can, though I have no doubt that the others think we're a little odd. 😊

There are periods which are weeks long where Father is so busy in his laboratory that no one sees him. It's communication .via. letters on the stairs and that's all anyone hears from him. Mama and I worry immensely but Father's always been this way and all we can do is be patient and wait for him. He's a workaholic and he often makes himself sick from all of the working and everyone in the household knows what to do when these times arise, which are getting more frequent as Father gets older.

In especially bad times, even Mama won't be able to get through to Father. I get upset if that's the case, because if he shuts away the one person he loves above all else, it's a serious warning sign. Mama and I have a pact that if she can't get through, then I will. Father is always so protective of me, and now it's my turn to protect him. I take this very seriously, understandably so, and I wait up until two or three in the morning, so late that even Mama's gone to bed and is sleeping. I wait in his study for that time, reading one of his old medical journals, and then I go downstairs, out the back door, and into the laboratory.

It's freezing in there because there's where Father used to carry out dissections and lectures back before his illness (never canonically diagnosed but it's believed to be depression or similar) got worse, so I always take him his old smoking jacket (which doubles as my blanket when I take naps in his study). By this time in the night, Father will be so tired and sleep-deprived that he's more likely to be honest with me, and it's for this reason that I also stayed up so late - Father will assume I'm unable to sleep because I'm so worried about him, and while that's true, it's also because I know him well enough to know what time of night is best for an intervention. Yes, it's slightly manipulative on my end of things, but I am my Papa's daughter and it's with good intentions so I don't linger on this thought for too long. It won't do me any good and my Father's most important. I'd do anything for him.

I find Father where I knew he would be - scribbling in a journal by candlelight, his fingers covered in ink, his hair a mess, yawning every few seconds. A cold plate of mutton is left forgotten by his elbow, only half eaten. I'm just like him when I study so I don't lecture my Father on his bad eating habits -he and I have the same work ethic so I would be a hypocrite to tell him off for something he usually tells me off for. I announce myself by putting his smoking jacket over his shoulders. Father pulls the jacket around himself with a shiver and I smile. You're welcome.

"You should be in bed, Erika." Father frowns in disapproval and I almost want to call him out on his hypocrisy.

"So should you," My tone is sharp with worry and frustration and Father takes a moment to look at me - I never speak to him like this. "Mama's really worried about you. So am I. We haven't seen Papa for weeks, and we - " Just like always, my anger turns to upset and I move away, trying not to cry.

"Erika." I turn back to my Father and I see that he has tears in his eyes, too. He's hurting and even though he's been trying to find a cure for years, he's never been able to find one which really helps him. "I am sorry, I - my work, it is. Well, let's not discuss the details." A pause. Neither of us know what to do, even when there is no one to see or hear us. "Come here." He pats his lap and I make a happy noise, which makes him smile. I love sitting on my Father's lap - it's been something I've done ever since I was a child and it always makes me feel so safe.

I go and I sit on my Father's lap (and have a quiet cry - he knows but he doesn't say anything about it because he doesn't want to embarrass me) and he continues to work, but as the hours drag on and we both get increasingly tired, Father knows that the time for working is over. On these nights when I manage to find my Father in his own mind and pull him back with just my presence (and my very existence is a reminder of what he holds most dear), I also spend the night in his bed.

"Thank you, Erika, for..." Father trails off, but I know what he's saying to me.

I snuggle into his bed, feel my Father kiss my forehead and whisper his love, and then I sleep.

The night is half the battle - getting Father to take a break tomorrow morning will be an even bigger battle, but by then Mama will be awake and we'll work together to save Father from himself.

It's not the first or the last time, but all of us in the family have our Own Moments which require special attentions and solutions, and we love each other even harder during those times.

The reunion with Papa after getting Father to take a break from his weeks of working always makes me cry, too.

Over the years, it's become almost a... tradition, of sorts, for Papa to greet me this way after a long separation.

I could be doing anything - reading in Father's study, writing in my bed, studying at my desk - and all of a sudden, out of nowhere -

"Erika."

Whispered so casually, so quietly, but my entire body freezes. I know that voice anywhere. I drop whatever I'm doing, I tear up, and I turn, slowly...

Papa's smirking at me, a cold and calculative look in his eyes, but I'm not afraid. I'm not even nervous. Anyone else would make me step back with this look, but not Papa. No.

"Oh, my - Papa!" I step forward into his embrace and I melt into the parent I've been missing most of all. I cry, of course I do, and Papa says nothing about it (he and Father aren't so different at all, once you get to know them, though I'd never tell them that. Or Mama. It's a thought I keep entirely to myself.) because he doesn't see why he should need to; he only holds me tighter.

I can almost hear his fond eye roll and it makes me smile.

"It's difficult to understand someone who is entirely incapable of asking for what he most wants, wouldn't you agree? You're the only one he listens to," our daughter.

There is pride in Papa's voice but just like always, I can hear what he doesn't say, just as he hears what I don't say. It's just how it is between us; Papa and I have a level of understanding between us which we don't have with anyone else.

That night, Papa sleeps in my bed with me. I'm never ready to say goodbye to him, or goodnight, either. The following conversation is a nightly ritual because of this:

"Just five more minutes, Papa?"

"I'll be here tomorrow night. you know that. Sleep, child."

"But - "

"Erika."

A warning. No one else receives warnings from the Edward Hyde and lives to tell the tale. So I listen.

"Fine." I know he will be with me tomorrow night. "Stay with me 'til I fall asleep?"

Papa sighs, rolls his eyes, and pointedly lays down, watching me the whole time. I couldn't hide my smile if I tried, so I don't even bother to - Papa taught me to show my emotions and to not hide them.

"Goodnight, Erika."

"'Night, Papa. Love you."

A kiss on the top of my head, and all else fades to black.

My parents and I are very physically affectionate with one another and it's... unusual, especially if you consider the fact that it's in the Victorian Era, but the members of the household find it touching. They get hugs and affection, too! Even if they don't necessarily know how to react to it, they still do get their hugs in the morning and late at night just before they all go to bed (which is between 10 and 11, whereas I go to bed anywhere from midnight to 3 AM).

If I have a nightmare or a bad dream, I am at total liberty to climb into any bed in the house, but of course I make a beeline typically for Mama's bed. She knows nightmares well and she'll simply hold me until I feel safe, and then she'll hold me some more because I get clingy and I don't like letting go. There's been times I've cried because she let me go before I was ready for the cuddle to be over (though those times were when I was much younger) so now she just lets me decide for myself when I've had enough.

With the way I sleep with my hair in two braids, I always get a mass of tangles at the back of my head. Always. I hate it and it always makes me hesitant to brush my hair, which is now midway down my back (so I can’t not brush my hair every day), because I know it’s gonna hurt me. I’ll brush the front parts of my hair and I’ll try to brush the knots out, but it hurts so I stop and I don’t want to brush my hair. 

A part of me is always tempted to just leave it, but at the same time I know from previous experience that hair knots can and will get worse, so during these times I’ll take my brush to Mama. She’s always so gentle, not just with me, but also just in her nature. 

She is such a tender-hearted person and I admire her so deeply for that. She’s incredibly busy so typically I’ll leave brushing my hair until the evening, when she has more time to help me. I don’t always ask her for help with my hair, so when I do, she knows immediately that it’s because I really can’t do it myself.

“Mama, there’s a - I have a knot. Can you help me?”

A small smile and she goes to get her wooden comb. It’s gentler on knots than my own hairbrush, which pulls more than it needs to, and we both know it. Mama is so gentle that it barely hurts me, and within minutes she’s done what I’ve delayed all day.

“How do you want it tonight, Erika? One braid or two?”

I fondly roll my eyes - like she needs to ask. My smile is in my voice as I ask for two, and Mama and I get to spend some time with one another quietly enjoying each other’s company.

Sometimes I return the favour by helping her brush out her hair, but she’s incredibly self-sufficient and she largely prefers to do it herself. Which is fine... I’ll find other ways to help her!😊

“Thank you, Mama.” My words are doubled up with a tight hug, and then I’m ushered off to bed because it’s late and she’s exhausted.

I technically have three parents and each one fulfills a different need for me, so all together, they meet all of my needs and I try, I try to be a daughter that they can be proud of, that they can respect and that they can love unconditionally. I try so hard every day to live in a way to honour their places in my life.

There's nothing I wouldn't do for my parents. I would die for my parents, to give them a happy ending, to give them the time to be together, but in many ways... I am that happy ending, even if things aren't perfect. It's a fight sometimes to keep secrets exactly that, but we make it work. We have to.

I tell them each and every day that I love them, I hug them and cuddle them and help them out where I can, because they deserve the world.

They are my parents and I am very grateful to and for them. They have made me who I am today and they'll be with me forever, no matter where I go or what I do or who I become. I just hope that they'll continue to walk with me for the rest of my life, because I wouldn't be alive without them... in more ways than one.

[sureivy]

is that HALSEY? no, that’s just IVY CALDER. SHE is TWENTY-FOUR years old and is an EMPLOYEE AT DON’T FRET & PAWS 4 LOVE. rumor has it they’ve been in town for FOUR MONTHS / TEN YEARS. on a good day, they’re CREATIVE & VERSATILE. but watch out! they can also be IRRESPONSIBLE & VOLATILE. TRIGGER BANG BY LILY ALLEN (FT. GIGGS) plays in my head whenever i think of them. can’t wait to see them around springhill!

hello my pals ! i’m amy ( 20 // est // she/her ) and i am super excited to be here! we also over here bringing back a fairly old muse (i,, apparently,, play her during election years,,) with a couple of tweaks, so we love that for me! also! pls forgive me if this is lowkey disorganized, we’ve been in and out of airports all day! can’t wait to contract that sexy corona!

QUICK FACTS:

full name: ivy rose calder

date of birth: may 2, 1995

*does not perfectly reflect the below big three zodiac chart because that’s too much math

zodiac big three: taurus sun, pisces moon, aquarius rising

gender & pronouns: cis woman & she/her

sexual orientation: bisexual ( preference for women bc we luv that for her but we also luv leaving things open to chemistry )

education: high school diploma

enneagram: 7w8?

mbti: enfp

moral alignment: chaotic neutral

positive traits: creative, versatile, passionate, compassionate

negative traits: irresponsible, volatile, impressionable, hedonistic

BACKGROUND INFO:

triggers: brief implied sexual abuse, suicide, a lot of death talk?, drug abuse ( desoxyn ), overdose

ivy lived the first eight years of her life in newark, nj. she had a mere family of three – her mother, a model-turned-stay-at-home-mom, her father, a politician, and herself. she was much closer to her mother, but she and her father were close at night.

when her mother finally found out about this, she wasted no time in taking ivy’s father’s side. what a good mom! instead, ya girl was already getting in touch with cps herself... but wow... it was gonna ruin his career in politics :\

“Now, one thing I lerned from Storys is, when something big is about to okur, a riter will go: Then it hapened! This tells the reeder: Get Reddy. Here I go: Then it hapened!” - fox 8

then it happened!

humiliated, clearly never getting a platform back, and absolutely bitter, ivy’s father killed himself before being sent to prison. 

Very Tragique™

ok. so. to distance themselves from the poor memories, but to save money, ivy and her mother moved to springhill, temporarily sharing ivy’s aunt’s apartment while her mother began collecting enough money to buy an apartment of their own and keep it.

during this time, ivy was seeing a lot of people and she didn’t know why! they asked questions about her mental health, but she didn’t know why! i mean, totally not traumatic, right?

yes. instead of managing communication well, she became very fascinated by the concept of death. she had many questions about it, she, a youth, had some extended conversations with clergymen about it –– she never killed any animals, god forbid, but she was absolutely fascinated when she ran across them.

SO CLEARLY THAT WAS ALSO TRYING TO BE DEALT WITH.

ok, i’m gonna skip ahead a little. now in teen years and still fascinated by death, but in a healthier way!, and no longer in therapy because... like... that costs a lot of money!

she dealt with it the best she could. became enamored with music... because why wouldn’t she? some covers here and there, some originals here and there, living that youtube lyf, but not expecting anything to come of it. just liked validation! mood!

she also dealt with it the worst she could! became enamored with drugs! naturally, it started out small. some weed, some lsd, some molly –– you know, just drugs that you don’t typically think of as addictive. although her grades suffered, it was harmless enough...

upon graduating high school, she figured... no college. instead, with barely any money to her name, she was like “i... will go to new york... and i will become famous.”

and she did! she did go to new york! she found a few sketchy places that didn’t charge much for a few nights as she began networking - both socially and “i would like to be known for music” (i literally just forgot the word for networking like..... employment wise.... y’all i’m so dumb). when she’d made some friends, she began crashing on couches that were not quite as sketchy! 

but :\ she did meet these friends in sketchy places :\ and they were like “ok here r some new and more addictive drugs for u to try!”

what she wound up abusing using the most was desoxyn. it kept her awake, it kept her focused, it even shed a few pounds to create an excellent figure! what wasn’t to love! 

i mean it’s literally a prescription methamphetamine,,, when abused,,, literally almost exact same effects as meth,,, but when meth mouth, skin lesions, acne, etc aren’t occurring as a side effect? who was she to care!

20, she released an actual ep with the help of a super cool friend who made everyone call him puppy mills! wow! things were excellent! it wasn’t necessarily seeing mainstream traction, but there was a decent enough following! enough to release an album at 22!

perfect timing, btw! desoxyn was starting to become too expensive for puppy to afford and trying to fake having such a severe form of adhd that desoxyn would be prescribed as opposed to something like ritalin or adderal when it’s literally illegal to prescribe in some countries now?? too hard :\ but the money from the album helped her and puppy!

*olaf vc* puppy died. *end vc*

she was there for it too. she thought it was just a freak-out, took a LITTLE too much, but not OVERDOSE worthy... then he l i t e r a l l y died. and it was a painful death!

“oh wow! maybe prescription meth isn’t super cool after all! shucks!” but that was also an opening?? to visit death herself?? like... she didn’t necessarily want to die (sort of), but she wanted... an answer to the question that had plagued her her entire life... so she was like “ok hope i die then someone revives me but if i die then :\ i guess i die!”

did not die. but also did not get a satisfying answer to her question. the only way it would’ve been truly satisfying? if she had been dead for longer than a minute - then it would’ve given a definite answer! because the answer she received was just nothingness which, while peaceful... is it true?

she tried to detox alone, what because rehab is a business, and it... only... sort of worked. she would be clean for a few weeks, then fall back in, then clean for a few weeks, then fall back in. whenever she wasn’t just naturally focused and awake, or whenever what she was focused on was the past, she would fall back in.

i mean, a side effect is memory loss, so win/win!

she made the semi-wise decision to move back to springhill. wisest would’ve been to just move to a town/city she had absolutely no memories in, but better than moving back to newark!

so... without much to show, and with an unreliable streak, she knew she wouldn’t be able to start looking for much of an occupation – but she still needed money! so she began working at don’t fret out of a love for music, then began working at the animal shelter after completing training.

the main training was, of course, for putting animals to sleep.

FULL CIRCLE.

ah yes. how she pretends it’s healthy... even tho there are studies and statistics relating suicide to veterinarians and shelter workers who euthanize animals... ah yes.

has been back for four months now. love that. do not know how to finish this.

TL ; DR:

born in newark. moved to springhill at 8. childhood trauma that she is still carrying causes fascination with death. “i love music.” moved to ny at 18 because realistic. childhood trauma also causes dependency on desoxyn. releases an ep and an album. does not become famous, but they both have decent traction. moves back after an overdose. relapses... often. now sells records and puts animals to sleep. miss american dream since she was 17, amirite?

PERSONALITY / MISCELLANEOUS INFO:

one person one week, a totally different person the next.

wants to please people, but also wants to be her own person? it’s a whole deal!

in spite of her slight icarian incident, she still hopes to maybe one day become a real musician and performer. until then, we selling records and saying ‘goodbye’ to sweet animals!

can truly flip like a switch in interactions! does love ruining things for herself! almost always feels bad after bc :\ damn :\ alright :\

i’m very bad at these sections i really hate that i always include them!

is still avoiding healthy coping mechanisms. love that for her.

favorite movie is, unironically, the bee movie. favorite horror movie is cats.

SO GOOD at memorizing random lines or trivia. could probably recite literally all of who’s afraid of virginia woolf? other than that?? her memory is so bad. hate drugs for that :\

she uses her hair to express herself! (that sounds really boring.) ...she uses her hair to express herself!

but no. seriously. wears the black shag weave the most, followed by the blue/yellow combo ( we stan the badlands aesthetic ). occasionally forays into other colors and styles when money permits, but it’s usually gonna be one of those two!!

was an envy on the coast stan in high school which makes an inappropriate amount of sense.

will go out and steal the dumbest shit when she’s drunk. has a history of stealing chickens.

once again: hate that i always include these!! feel free 2 j consult the personality parts in the quick facts!!

CONNECTION IDEAS:

ok we gonna list some general ones for right now! all are open to multiple people unless there’s an asterisk by it!

close friends –– moonie, teagan,

ride or die

childhood friends –– moonie,

bad influence ( mutual or her on them ) –– veronica ( mutual ),

good influence ( them on her ) –– presley, hayden, gabrielle,

exes ( can be from high school or something like that if based in springhill, can be from 20s in new york if based in new york )

fwb –– trent,

will they, won’t they –– presley,

someone who knew her music ( can be neutral, a fan of it, or hate it afhkjsl ) –– presley, moonie, teagan, indiana, 

will also possibly be sending in some wanted connections for things that are! more specific!

truly anything!! also up to brainstorm and/or look at yours if you have them!!

UPDATE: i have created a wc page so we luv that for me.

OK. like this or hmu if you’d like to plot!

[adios-aoidos]

What the Rich Think: a fly on the wall essay by 4onSix

This essay was written by user 4onSix on one of the leftist subreddits. I repost it here only so that the good people of tumblr can also read it. You can find the original post here.

~~~

I’m poor. If it weren’t for the ACA I couldn’t afford my crappy insurance. Even then, I can’t always afford medicine or doctor visits. I don’t own a tv, laptop, & if I weren’t mechanically inclined, my car wouldn’t run. I struggle to save money for the dentist and the cat’s vet.

But through strange chances of employment, I know some rich people. Without going into details, I work a blue collar job, but also as a musician.

Both jobs have introduced me to rich people. The ones I know best are probably “low” 1 percenters , but through them I’ve meet a few absurdly wealthy. Probably not anyone in the 9-figure range, but I have trouble gauging. I do know, most 1 percenters don’t view themselves as rich, as they all know people with far more money. The only ones who came from “upper -middle” classes have high income jobs and married up.

I’ve known some long enough that they forget, at least somewhat, my background. They certainly find my views amusing, and aren’t afraid to tell me what they really think.

The rich know how to code-switch in a way that will make your head spin. They talk differently at home, work, school and among friends. Their children go further, as in addition to that, they usually like hip hop, and online culture. (FWIW, “Get Out”, and “This is America,” had a profound impact on some of these kids. But, will it stick?)

Some of them are liberal, more are conservative, but those are sort of skeptical libertarians. They aren’t opposed to gay rights, many aren’t opposed to transgender rights. They love pot. I’ve noticed the rich women largely acknowledge systemic racism. Some of the men do as well, though more believe minorities could achieve social & limited mobility through “hard work.”

But most common, at least among the men, is an ideology that I don’t recognize. It’s not Randian Objectivism, as they usually acknowledge luck and the vagaries of fate. They usually accept that life and society are inherently unjust. And I mean “accept”- they have no desire, even to reform existing systems.

Their acknowledgement of luck is actually problematic, as it makes them more protective of their status. They know they could not simply replace any lost wealth.

It’s not nihilism as they do usually believe life has inherent meaning. It’s just a meaning reserved for a small group of people.

I’m not sure post-modernism fits, but I lack a better term. Everything is relative to them. They can have pet causes they care deeply about. It’s not just optics; they feel good about it. For example, they may donate money and even time to children’s hospitals, but adamantly oppose expanding Medicaid.

Every single one of them despised Trump in 2016. Most voted for him. The few liberals loved Hillary, but would take Pence over Sanders any day. Some of them, while still preferring a Romney-esque figure, have grown to love how he “triggers the libs.”

The conservative & libertarians among them despise the Democratic Party. While leftists view the Democrats as a centrist party, to them, any redistribution of wealth is socialism. They aren’t being ironic or dishonest when they claim Nancy Pelosi is a socialist. Hire taxes = socialism.

Once, in response to complaints about a local tax increase to fund road repair, I made a sarcastic joke, saying maybe taxes should be “a la carte.” It was clear that I was kidding, but everyone there essentially believed that. To them, corporate, property, income, estate and marginal taxes are all the same thing. You cannot “trick” them by saying you’ll only raise taxes on large corporations.

(It should be obvious that given those views, that reforms and moderation make no sense. Don’t cede power to be viewed as respectable; you’re not and never will be.)

I never wrote this stuff down, as I think other writers have done a better job. I have some issues with Chris Hedges, but his writing about boarding school are great.

But things have changed. I am trying to write this as carefully as possible, but please criticize me if needed. Some of these people are Jewish, maybe half. I live in the (mid-Atlantic, Acela Corridor.) They are mostly secular, but are Zionists, liberal or otherwise. They largely ignore Israeli politics, so to them, Netanyahu is not a Likud conservative; he’s just the Israeli leader.

After the massacre in Pittsburgh, I expected some of them would be filled with grief, concern, or even fear. Most Jewish people I’ve talked to have been shaken by this horrific tragedy.

So, I was surprised that the response from the rich was blasé. Yes, they thought it was tragic. But, they refused to see any connection to mainstreamed conservative bigotry. They universally condemned protestors who opposed Trump’s visit.

I thought this apathy was due to the Tree of Life’s progressive bent, or its ties to HIAS. But it was not. They simply can compartmentalize their identity in a way I cannot understand. Their solidarity retracts to the smallest contingent in which they belong.

I thought, perhaps they would take the Israeli position, that Jews are not safe anywhere except Israel. But they did not.

This is not to say they are not scared. But it’s not down to religion, it’s all of them. In the past few years, many of them have built up gun collections. They joke about the “zombie apocalypse.” I’m sure they have safe rooms and safe houses, emergency supplies and plans.

But their fears aren’t those of the persecuted minority. It’s a recognition of the growing instability of the socio-economic order, and the destruction that entails. They’re afraid the horse they’re riding isn’t truly broken.

A few nights ago, i overheard a discussion among a several middle aged rich men, a few of whom live in Florida.

They started talking about Gillum & DeSantis. They outright acknowledged he was a white supremacist. They don’t necessarily agree, but more than that, don’t really care. They think Rick Scott is a class traitor for expanding Medicaid. I expected to hear about Gillum’s tangential connection to BDS, but that wasn’t their concern.

To them, he’s a socialist, a criminal, and an existential threat. DeSantis could be a fascist, but he won’t raise taxes. As throughout history, as recently as Bolsonaro, the wealthy will ALWAYS side with fascists, over even milquetoast progressives. The liberals ones are no exception.

The topic of “the caravan” came up, and again, veered into fascism. Basically it was evenly divided between, “Let them in, they just have to work for free.” And “Time for target practice.” No exaggeration. (A few of these guys unironically love “The Purge.”)

I don’t know what any of this means. I don’t know what the best tactics are.

I just know, things are gonna get heavy, and I’m afraid a lot of leftists, particularly socdems and demsocs, have no idea of what they’re facing. It’s easy to talk about systems and theory, but these guys have all the power, the police and armed forces, and a highly attuned personal instinct for survival .

It’s absurd to think they can be persuaded to relinquish anything. So, to quote a dead guy, “What is to be done?”

~~~

[scstoll]

Everything Is True: Inside China’s Dream Factory

 “Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.“  — Raymond Carver (Cathedral)

“You wanted to be honest, right?” 

And there he is. Picture him as best you can. Johnny Bravo. A  bureaucrat who exists on the middle to upper level of Hailiang Education; a multi million euro company in the back arse of Zheijang Province. The drinker of litres of green tea brewed in beautiful expensive kettles by nervous secretaries. The only man who will conduct an interview formally and then spit in the middle of it. Sitting there in his freshly ironed short sleeved white shirt, even though it’s pushing 30 fucking degrees outsides. Like the world’s most polite Godfather, he was the one who made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, or live with. He beamed up at me. It was the earnest smile of a man who believed in a system whose only job was not to believe in him.  And there began our troubles in China. Call it an ‘adventure’. Adventure being a code word for a supposedly safe thing I’ll never do again. 

In many ways China is quite a big country. But it’s also a small one and it’s shrinking everyday. A shrinking list of people who can traipse around in expensively ironic t-shirts compared to those who can’t. T-shirts with pastiche slogans like the “Antisocial Social Club” and “Make Your Own”.

Here you can sponsor a tree for the cost of an education, and girls you meet on Tan Tan will respond to the question “What do you want to be?” With the answer “Skinny”. Unironically.

But I didn’t know any of that then. So as Johnny Bravo began to ramble on in his self taught English about the immense privilege my being there would bestow on their institution, I sat back and I felt flattered. I liked the idea of being respected because you were ‘uniquely qualified’, which is much the same thing as being male and white. I liked the idea of getting to wear a sharp leather lanyard with the words ‘Master’ emblazoned on it. I especially liked the idea of being presented with this lanyard at a special welcoming ceremony, bowing to receive my prize like a skinny, Irish Luke Skywalker. Smiling noncommittally as the school’s collection of beautifully mannered and well heeled students burst into Hailiang’s anthem “We are Family” in a tone deaf zeal which bordered on desperation. These were children whose parents were exclusive members of the Got Rich First crowd in the People’s Republic. The people who everyone else was meant to emulate but never could. Here it was the hallmark of successful parenting to send your children away from you to an expensive corporate institution as quickly as you could. So it was that the Got Rich First parents did indeed complain that the levels of homework on national holidays were too low. This left them with the unfortunate possibility of having to speak with their offspring. An unfortunate scenario which they paid lower class people to do. And so Johnny Bravo could have saved me the pep talk and let me see what really happens when you build a school campus in the middle of rain forest, fueled by nothing but a dismissive attitudes toward planning laws and the social anxieties of your number one educational consumer, the parent. But that would take time.

It took time to realize that here billboards are secrets, whispers are lies. In China’s dream factory only the lies are true. In many ways this was the university of the quick visa. Everyone was a photo opportunity without a caption. Welcome ladies and gentlemen, to the world’s first truly postmodern post primary school.

Even visiting Western academics soon found the lure of an institution based almost entirely on self promotion to be almost irresistible. As an ‘esteemed foreign guest’ I sat on numerous meetings where Chinese Principals and heads of Irish colleges talked for hours about “Educational partnerships, yada yada yada visa visa visa.”It turned out that vague corporeatise was a language which transcended borders. But worse was to come.

My first assignment was to shadow a Bangladeshi teacher who had long ago lost his final straw of sanity. He began everyday by typing on a keyboard which was worryingly not connected to a computer and then shouted out instructions to take down notes from a PowerPoint which was never displayed. The terrified students complied in silence.

Yet another foreign teacher had long let slip the bonds of common sense to read curriculum plan templates all night while teaching students exclusively about her fractious private life. Repeat after me, she drilled into the ever willing class with her shrill English accent

"I have developed trust issues, that’s past continuous kids”, she intoned.

An eager student would invariably thrust forward his hand.

“Yes Phoenix?” She asked wearily.

“Present continuous means it continues into the current situation.” Phoenix said seriously.

“Thanks Phoenix, tell me about it.” She sighed.

But all of the foreign teachers put together couldn’t match the appeal of Hailiang’s two Crown Jewels. A pair of beautiful blonde teachers who were either brother and sister or dating, admittedly this was an ambiguity which was at once novel and deeply troubling. Everywhere they went you were sure to be informed that those two teachers were from Oxford. This was like a label of untouchable platinum whiteness affixed to their very souls. And if they have child I can tell you that while that child may have been born in China it will be inextricably an Oxford child. Of course the Oxford crowd weren’t as popular with the rest of the Irish teachers. Especially Brady from Cavan. "Oxford can go away and shite” said Brady.

Of course the sense that most things here were done or said mostly for show didn’t just restrict itself to the exclusive campuses of the Got Rich First crowd. It was Lee from Arklow who had first discovered that here the taxi drivers had also imbibed the sense that it was the speed of the journey rather than the exactitude of the destination which counted. In many countries taxi drivers would be precluded from practicing their craft if they were either illiterate, or drunk or had a general difficulty with directions. Yet it was in Shanghai at 5am in the morning that Lee would find out that even a gentleman in possession of all three of these attributes could readily find employment behind the wheel of an official taxi.

The driver stared in sheer perplexity at the hotel’s directions which were clearly displayed on Lee’s phone.

"Woo, woo!” The clearly drunk driver shouted.

“You’re a fucking retard like” Lee said.

“Woo!” He repeated in forlorn stubbornness.

It wasn’t that the meaning had been lost in translation, there had been no real meaning to communicate in the first place.

Everywhere appearance trumped reality, in a manner which was much too earnest to count as deception.

Even in KFC the customers who ordered ice cream were presented with a cardboard cutout and an apologetic shrug.

Welcome to the desert of the real.

Indeed the barometer of just what the fuck was actually going on here could be measured by China’s most successful fast food franchise, Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC was so ubiquitous that it could peddle products which were clearly both wrong and unappealing. Like Chiza, a piece of chicken with pizza drizzled over it that was quickly snapped up and splashed all over Wechat by happening twenty-somethings. It was one of those things that if you thought about too much they could become an issue, China was jammed with things that if you thought about them enough you could be hit with a kind of mental brain freeze that could take decades to clear.

Another one of them was the trend of Shanghai beggars to stand outside nightclubs that Westerners frequented with what was for all intents and purposes a small monkey dressed in a prisoner’s outfit.

We all stared in amazed astonishment as one of these little monkey inmates clambered joyfully onto Lisa’s shoulder and posed happily for pictures. It took another moment for the potentially dangerous part of the situation to sink in on us.

“Is that a fucking monkey?” Exclaimed Lee thoughtfully. It was. And it bit down on Lisa’s flesh with a desire which was both wrong and unappealing, like Chiza.

Even more traditional customs could look to us like everyone had taken a kind of national leave of their senses. We walked by open mouthed as two chefs took turns kneading dough with massive wooden mallets. “Look” said Brady, “two lads bating the absolute shite out of their dinner”

There is a chasm between genuine ignorance and willing collusion. The first stemming from a lack of information about the outside world, the later stemming from a dearth of knowledge about ourselves. We would learn that from Paul and Debra. Two middle aged semi-professionals from England who saw teaching in China for what it was; a market inefficiency that could be exploited by the callous and the desperate.

We met them in the centre of Hailiang’s  vague Campus;  Life Experience Square. The school’s authorities just named places after the things they wanted and then were disappointed when students didn’t obtain them through some kind of fucked up spacial osmosis. Paul and Debra took us to the night market in Yiwu, where we haggled for bargains on fake t-shirts and they laughed as a beggar with no limbs dragged himself past us on a skateboard.

“Hilarious, isn’t it?” said Paul.

I mean at the end of the day, you could forgive the odd bit of baldfaced lying, hell even whole societies built on patently inaccurate foundations have been consigned to the dust bin of history with nothing but a regretful shrug. But you can’t ever forgive unwanted honesty. And so that’s what really fucked us up. China wasn’t some grim facade. It was a two way mirror and behind it was us. Playing the same games with a lot more makeup. You can’t unsee through people. You can’t unsee through yourself. If the eyes were the windows to the soul then no amount of tint is going to help us now, for fucks sake.

Johnny just sat there, his tea beginning to fester. His eyes alight with a glow which wasn’t so much enthusiasm as it was fear. And so I looked down the barrel of Johnny’s offer, gulped once and got out of there as fast as I fucking could. And for what, like? Even now back on the disappointed streets of midlandia, I find myself looking through people like they’re CVs. Weighing up profit and loss, balancing up awkward shifts against another evening falling asleep while Netflix buffers. Let’s put it this way, it’s not necessarily living. Maybe Johnny was right. Well, certainly not right. But unlike the rest of us he has been afforded the unique social and economic skills to persevere in his wrongness, and who wouldn’t want that? We don’t all have the apparatus of a heavily militarized state to ensure the stubborn persistence of our own personal dream factories. To make sure our flights of fancy are laced with enough denial to stave off reality indefinitely. But if we could do that, then we would in a Hailiang heartbeat.

You wanted to be honest, right?