#some services are terrible because our government just spends all the money on other shit or on other countries (which isn't bad! it's good

[seeyatellite]

Personal venting because sometimes it sucks talking only to a therapist and community based in professional psychology driven toward healthy conversation and human connection:

I think the chasm between mine and some family’s understanding is so vast because I’m not facing the world from their level of wealth.

I’m facing the world from a position of utter poverty and that’s where my values originate. I don’t see an absolute need for a bed, a car, a pretty dresser… I see needs for blankets, a pillow, shoes and a bag or crate to store my clothes in. Those are my foundational desires.

From there I begin working toward functional accessories like kitchen essentials, cleaning essentials, body soap and hygiene essentials.

I have let go of all need to maintain an image beyond anything but survival and capacity which is normal when you make a fixed, unchanging $1,500 per month under significant spending restrictions due to guardianship, making some things more expensive than others since the modern world makes things cheaper through digital means, erasing a paper trail and limiting in-person service to cut employee costs.

So, I prioritize survival. I don’t care to find a wife or settle into a marriage or raise kids. I care about art and celebration of the art of other people. I prioritize celebrating life in terms of flourishing life; nature, human collaboration and compassionate connection.

Yes, I may be absolutely terrible at a great many things including those which deepen my connection with people who share my values. I also am willing to learn and adapt which is a much easier process with absolute accountability, awareness of exactly which influences shaped me and what seems to hold me back or limit my receptiveness.

These are core values and principles for me. I have been raised mostly by external community, not family. In fact, most of my life it was family who constantly handed me to someone else and blamed me for their decisions to do so.

I am naturally inclined toward accepting others and being curious about them. I never developed the sort of attachment love that comes from consistency in nurture and healthy protective parenting.

I’m probably polyamorous or I’ll either feel insecure and unfulfilled in a stagnant monogamous relationship or even possibly cheat… which I’d imagine is a stretch. I’m more inclined toward self suffering than causing that kind of pain especially if my partner and I agreed on mutual exclusivity.

My point is, I think I understand where my family and I clash. They have core positions of comfortable and self-sustaining wealth with values and principles rooted in systems of belief and community governing their choices and actions which I have had very little significant experience with.

Yet they expect me to have the ability to act on knowledge I never truly received through means I never experienced. I was not raised in the same way, by the same hands or even toward the same goals. My entire life has been focused on healing, not thriving… and I’ve even been shit on for trying to do that.

Our society seems to separate the struggling from the “successful” and it has various methods of shading and shadowing the divide between these groups. We’re often taught to suffer in silence, to keep quiet so people don’t know you’ve felt pain at all… we’re told to learn and work in secret so we only share our success for contributing to collective surface-level harmony.

Thing is, life is not just a solo artist’s song… it’s an infinitely evolving orchestral assembly complete with every instrument we’ve ever known and many we’ve never even heard of.

So, yeah… I get why I don’t fit into the family’s collective narrative.

I wasn’t even written with the same ink.

You have money; boats (plural), cars (plural, houses (plural), an inherited lake house, hundreds of thousands if not millions invested in your sports cars, jet skis and massive Star Wars fan cave basements… that’s an assload of material wealth.

…and you judge me for what? Not finding that stuff important enough to protect over truth and compassion for people and acknowledging the differences in conditioning experiences here.

You call it love to say the words and offer me a seat for dinner or the occasional barbecue. You don’t act like love is a verb. You act like it’s a noun.

To my father, you say “you know I love you,” then cause emotional and physical harm and deny the reality we both shared. You deny responsibility for your own actions and call me selfish or needy and want me to lie for you.

You race across the US to drive Pikes Peak with your Viper buddies and host an annual “kennonball run” event from the Chelsea Proving Grounds to your inherited lake house… with your son nowhere in sight as I suppose I’m an embarrassment on disability income who can’t legally own a second car so classy to show off… because of legal restrictions you introduced me to.

I have nothing. You own 3 houses and a condo, 2 classic cars, a performance car and a pickup truck, 2 boats and two jet skis kept in a marina and a lake house inherited from your father who built it with his bare hands. Your father also built a house in that same neighborhood for your disabled brother and nurtured a family relationship with beautiful people who cared for him.

…and you just placed me on disability income at age 15 then abandoned me at 17 to live with beautiful strangers, my girlfriend and her family.

On the note of disability, you also frequently deny my lived experiences through childhood and teenage life; relationships, exploration, extremely active lifestyle… we had to visit our family-owned glasses place a few times per year because I always recklessly busted my glasses from ridiculous levels of natural activity.

You defend your disability decision against the truth of lived and shared experiences with vast social groups outside your domain of community.

Who’s the problem here?

Because therapy and professional help are telling me it’s not me… and I’m finally coming around to wholeheartedly believing it.

Where’s the “truth” and what does that word even mean to you? Is truth just a narrative support mechanism for maintaining your position and respect? Is “reality” just your story written to make you the infallible protagonist?

To the rest of the family and friends dazzled by his shiny toys and pretty boats and cars… how the hell can’t you see this?

[6blackfilin9]

I love your Anko fanart! Tell me, what are your views/headcannons on Anko X Kazuku?

hThank you so much for the ask, finally I can answer it

here is my big thank you for the waitng

In a nutshell, the shipp was created by accident while me and my buddy were working on our first Naruto AU in 2019, where Kakuzu and Deidara survived their shitty plotholes end eventually ended up in Konoha

Yeah

so, the shipp’s birth date is july the 1, 2019

anything like classy, aristocracy kind of tension-filled passionate gothic romance with playful, psychological games & hurt/comfort vibes with slight scent of rivalry is KakuAnko

Basically, they are: a very, very old man with absolutely horrendous background who’s trying to finally have his mother*cking 10 or 30 years of peace, and a rather young lady with a rocky youth who’s being good & noble yet has very strong antihero tendencies

You know, I think they do have potential, since, in fact, they seem to be very similar, at the core

They are both very pragmatic realists, the people of logic and reason, yet if Kakuzu’s irritability doesn’t affect him a tiny bit due to his ideal self-control, Anko’s can lead her to quite bad places, sometimes. They put their interests in the first place, and even though she tries to attach them to Konoha’s, she still has ‘personal’ things (I’ll write ‘bout it lower*). Their mindsets are so complicatedly organized that, at some point & way, it prevents them from having many close people, and makes them very hard to see through and predict

Both of them are very flexible & adaptive, independent individuals with similar outlooks on plenty of things and high intellectual level. They clearly can find plenty of traits that they would highly respect and adore in each other

Here I will speak mostly for “why and how” kind of things, bc both of them are terribly tricky to accurately figure out. But there will be some headcanons too

So, there are still some odds about them, due to the strong difference in their occupation, like, in plenty of cases they are really tricky to be brought together, because:

- Of the job

In original, Anko is a Konoha’s special jounin, and she is very dedicated to serving the country. Independently of whether she likes her job or not (depends on the plot), she orienteers at the people, at society’s gain from her work. So, accordingly, in any other AU her job is somehow connected to civil service, whether it’s something police-like, connected to science, or something like CCG in Tokyo Ghoul

Kakuzu, on the other hand, is a hitman and a persona non grata in literally all the five big countries, Konoha too (which makes it barely possible to bring them together in the original universe without hard complications or heavy drama. But still possible). He orienteers on his own gain alone, but, depending on the job, it can include others’ gain, too.

This detail makes him a saint once he holds supervising position in some company or any high position in the government (the better the working conditions of the staff now- the more money in the prospective), and the sheer nightmare once he has it on the opposite side of the law. Him as a mob boss is a complete different topic for discussion, but to get the point, in this case, the trouble isn’t him increasing the level of criminality (its rather vice-versa), but taking hold of too much control in the high and underground structures. Even as an ordinary hitman he’s rather tricky, since everything depends on the case

In most of the stories, they come to some sort of compromise, and how hard it is to reach it depends on how shitty his job is and how attached they are to each other at the moment

Like, in the above mentioned Shippuden AU and Harry Potter AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) everything went like clockwork, because there they are both more or less on this side of the law, in Tokyo Ghoul AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) it is a bit more complicated, with her being in-law and him being very much outlaw, in the Avatar AU (which I also figured out with my buddy, but we never happened to write it) it is also pretty smooth, with both of them being outlaws and then jumping out to the glory after all the shit is done, but in another Shippuden AU of mine, this all would be just a motherfucking bloody disaster

- Kakuzu is actually a hard nut to get attached to anyone

He lived too long to be truly afraid of anything, though. Its mostly because he doesn’t really need to get attached to or become close with someone to satisfy his need for communication. The man can get along with anyone once he wishes to, he can have countless acquaintances and plenty of buddies, but he doesn’t have many comrades and barely can call anyone a friend. Because he is used to lose everything and everyone he ever had or happened to have, because of his inhumanly lengthened lifespan.

It requires time for him to get used to the person, and then, eventually, in some cases, spend plenty of it to get attached

Plus, for him, due to his profession, each close connection is a really great responsibility for him. In most cases, he’d think twice of weather he is ready to take it or not

Though it of course has the personal factor, too

In Anko’s case, she has a grand privilege by being a very intelligent and keen woman, not just in cognitive plane, but in emotional, too. High emotional intellect is actually a rare trait, so she automatically stands out of the crowd for him. Even though it won’t guarantee his alliance, it will grant her his high respect and some sort of sympathy

- Kakuzu is, technically, an asshole

He does have his moral compass, which includes a great amount of common social morality, but he also has that “I am working” state

Even though Kakusu has a set of professional principles, and he still acts accordingly to what he thinks is right, one and the very same situation can be solved diametrically different once the context changes from working to casual and vice versa

This, and him being very independent and quite antisocial, makes the degree of assholeness depend on various factors

This can lead to major conflicts of interests, and if they are possible to have any compromise or not is strongly attached to the circumstances. After all, both are very, very prideful and dignified people

- In other words, the only major issue for them would be morality questions. It’s possible to make the case acceptable for Anko, since both of them ain’t truly squeaky clean, along with Kakuzu being willing enough to watch his borders

- She is provident and doesn’t really need a lot of money on a daily basis, which is much of a joy to him lol

- *they both seek for the stable ground, first of all

Taking in consideration the life conditions Kakuzu had in his youth (despite war state, he still stably had family, friends, grand respect from everyone, home, warmth and food) and how terribly he was torn out of his secured social environment, I believe what he seeks through all his bounty hunt and other money-connected manipulations is stability. Sustainability he had back then. The only way to have it in the conditions of our existent world order is to have money (and a very good mind and luck)

Anko has indeed much more altruistic motives, yet it’s still not that simple. It seems to be, on the first sight, yet considering the “Orochimaru related cases” and her very wayward behavior toward them, it’s clear she keeps her own motives and needs in mind oh so well. The service she has is very well payed, it allows her to do what she likes or believes is right, and to have the living conditions she finds comfortable. And only here, relying on the made sustainable basis, she does what she does

- Thus, they both illustrate the principle “first help yourself, next help the other” just right

- She knows she can keep an eye on him, yet it’s clear for her that her influence isn’t borderless, as well as telling him off some stuff is kind of a not wise thing to do. So in the majority of cases, she never interferes

- This is not common, yet he can actually change some plans if the situation is serious and the compromise can’t be found. He is that kind of person who works on a further prospective, and in this context, this would be the relationship with his loved one

- While Kakuzu is quite conflicted and has very reserved controversial persona, Anko is both controversial, conflicted, and sort of two-faced, on top of that

She is a very sincere, cheerful and humbly honest human being, yet she has some darker natural traits of her character that became rather strong with age and traumatic experience. Cunningness, guile, ways-depend-on-the-case and a bit of ruthlessness, that is. Moreover, she has some unsolved personal issues, which makes her even more twisted.

Like, remember the time when she confronted Orochimaru during the exam? And Kabuto, on the war? Getting rid of them is indeed beneficial for Konoha, but it’s clear that for her it is personal vendetta in the first place. She wouldn’t have tried to do this alone, otherwise, because these two are rather dangerous ones, to say the least.

She uses greater good to cover her real motives (even though it is not truly complete bullshit), and seems to have a terrible habit to keep silence about really important things, which makes her quite prone to lying, in some cases

And sometimes it very badly pisses Kakuzu off, since it makes her prone to doing useless but dangerous shit too

Yet this not any kind of separate hidden side, it is integrated into her personality, and coexists with her bright one. That’s where her violent humour comes from, for example.

But Kakuzu, on the other side, is completely monolith individual, yet sometimes his mindset can create contradictions when it comes to something important to him. but it's another topic

And seeing these layered constructions, and motives, they can pretty finely predict each other’s behavior. Not super-neatly, but they for sure see the basis. This is what helps Kakuzu to prevent Anko from doing some stupid shit, sometimes

- Anko has a role of an indicator for the people who don’t understand and see the changes in Kakuzu’s mood sometimes, since she usually reacts quite openly. Yet, when she has the same unreadable mask of cold, or one of guile, it’s a nightmare for them

- They prefer the non-verbal way to show their feelings, even though Anko is obviously the more chatty one

- They don’t say things such as “I love you”, or other sensual stuff like that really often, believing it to be some sort of cherished words that shall not be spelled mindlessly

- Anko isn’t majorly into PDA, but she fancies it much more than Kakuzu does. She has her whole moments of studying something with her hands, whether it’s a hand, scar or face. He’s more into passive display of affection, like wrapping an arm over her waist or leaning to her or something of this kind; they can allow themselves to (not sexually) kiss in public though

- She knows he doesn’t like to walk hand in hand due to considering it a youthful thing, so there are times when she intentionally walks holding on to his sleeve; generally they walk separately in order not to bother each other, but sometimes they walk arm in arm (like an old Victorian couple lol)

- Being older and wiser, Kakuzu eventually upholds some kind of mentoring position, yet he never considers himself any kind of a teacher or master to Anko, believing her to have a good head of her own. He is just insightful enough to break something through to her or give a word of advise

- This, combined with his highly powerful demeanor, also makes him have the leading position in their relationship

- Anko respects him much enough to fortify this, entrusting with plenty of life questions (like organizing the family budget), even though they make the majority of decisions together. Mostly because he is truly wise and highly experienced individual.

- This makes him one of the very few people Anko would actually listen to and take their opinion in consideration

- So basically they have equal relationship with some tendency to patriarchal order

- And it is, really, mostly economically-based disbalance, with him earning much more than she does

- Yet they never have any financial-based issues, since both of them keep in mind and respect the contributions of each

- There is major power play here, too. He has the absolute might, she has seduction. Anko loves how he makes her want to submit to him, let him have all the power, so she likes provoking him. And she knows he adores it, loves the subtle control she has over him

- They don’t have conflicts in their everyday life. Each knows how to avoid pissing one another off

- He cherishes her playful demeanor, her intellect. Combined with her cunningness, it allows her to rival him, in social sphere. The way she constructs her phrases, the way she speaks, mimics, moves, how bewitchingly it suits her feminine snaky features makes his blood boil and heart melt

- Both of them, actually, have rather specific kind of dry, dark humour. Kakuzu’s is very cynical, satirical, quite often menacing and subtly demeaning; Anko’s is very sarcastic and quite dirty, even gruesome and rather violent

- Sometimes they “fight” verbally as a form of a play. In some circumstances they may sound pretty vile, so some unobservant people mistake this for display of hate

- In general, Anko is the one to heat things up with her playful demeanor, which can include provocation and rivalry, and Kakuzu is the one to keep this energy in borders, accumulating it up to much more intense states

- They both put the comfort in the first place when it comes to household. Everything must be cozy, useful, silent and super clean

- Yet they are both very unpretentious and modest, really

- She absolutely adores when he is showing his serious, severe side, or powerful demeanor. She finds it incredibly suitable for him. She also likes how his real age is sliding out in this or that way. Like, even though he has rather young face (that of 37-40 y.o.), his eyes give away that he’ve seen oh so much more than it seems; the grumpy noises and grunts he makes, the lazy attitude in movements and the way how rapidly he finds a comfy pose once he has a chance to take a seat

- They are both rather patriotic, yet while in the most stories Anko’s feelings mostly lay towards the country she lives in, Kakuzu’s more often lay towards some places, so called small motherland.

- Kakuzu actually could be a source of deep, strong admiration and delight for her, despite all of his bullshit. The unbreakable will he has, mighty burning heart, all the wisdom, talents and mind. Being sent to fight god damn Hashirama, clearly a genius of his times, financial & management genius at the least. And, still, after all the hard times he’ve been through, he maintained the very strong sense of dignity and nobility, even though slightly twisted due to the profession and abnormal lifespan

- And the very same things can serve as the source for her chagrin: with all those traits, he could have been so much more rather than a criminal. With all the gifts he’ve got, he could have been of great use to society. He’s much easier about this, since his prospective is much wider and embraces decades (and in some universes even centuries) instead of months & years, and he knows that he’d be switching sides throughout his life, being on this and that side of the law, yet he still is a bit uncomfortable once it’s brought up

- They are deeply into science, which makes them atheists. He’s into medicine and human biology, she’s into chemistry and reptilian biology; both of them are nuts for physics, history and psychology

- They solve complicated physical and mathematical problems together time to time. She is the first one to have tea-breaks due to losing her temper over it, he tries to figure things out right until you can sense the smoke coming off his head

- Actually, they do have a stumbling stone aside from job & morality complications. And this is Anko’s attitude towards Orochimaru

What she does is basically ruins her life very-very slowly, maintaining the issues she has and planning to make him pay for all he’s done

Kakuzu knows exactly what is really going on with this attitude and why, but he can’t really do anything about it. Like, he knows he can’t make her change her mind or put something into her head

All he can do is really nothing but try to explain how those things are working, and even this option is basically a landmine field for him. At some level she does understand that he could probably be right, yet she just refuses to go back on her mind. And this is actually really dangerous, so at some moments they can fight quite badly about it

- He’s scared shitless to lose her, though; especially like that, even though he knows clearly that he will, anyway, sooner or later

- he knows that losing loved ones ends up with sheer disaster for him, yet he isn’t afraid to pay such a high price for those six, five or four decades of being with her. Because these decades are that of a paradise ones for him. Wife and family, as well as stable job, incomes and life conditions, are some sort of physical definitions of sustainability he craves. Especially family, yet it’s far ahead to plan

- The fact that he will have to bury her one day makes her rather depressed, as well as the knowledge that the only thing she can really do about it is to try to bring him as much happiness and comfort as possible before she dies

thank you, i'd say more, but it's too much already

[pannacottawarrior]

From what I saw there’s maybe a one pound difference in gas prices (admittedly sometimes 2 when ours are on the lower side, which they fluctuate A LOT) per gallon, so gas isn’t really that much cheaper.

did you not read the rest of what i said or did you purposefully just read what i said on the reblog because if so then uhhh please get out of my inbox ^^ not to mention prices on products and etc here are expensive too so yeah please leave me alone :)

[camilieroart]

Testimony of a French person during the pandemic.

I’m the french person. This testimony is featuring my school’s pressure and a lowering mental state.

I have been quarantined at home since March 2020. I have gone out maximum 20 times, always being really careful. For me and others.

I have a constant source of informations on what is going on in France and the world, and this causes a big flow of anxiety. I spent the entire summer vacation in my house, working on my project and being really productive. I didn’t see anyone, didn’t go anywhere. Just me, my parents and our two cats.

My classmates, however, aren’t as worried nor careful as me, and most importantly not as informed or free to act as they wish. So, they have gone out, and been to beaches and seen people, like the government said. Because yes, as soon as the summer vacation started, the French government declared that the virus was gone and that everyone had to go out and pay for stuffs, and spend money, to “keep the economy rolling”. Of course the Covid was still there.

As the start of the school year was closing in and that people in France had been getting sicker and sicker due to the craziness of the summer holiday, we thought that they would cancel, or at least push back the day. But no.

Around that time, I had also lost my uncle and my grand-mother (not due to the coronavirus), and the pressure of staying home this long, and having constant awful news about outside and how there wasn’t a glimpse of hope was having terrible effect to my mental state.

As back to school day arrived, we had made the decision to not send me back, although the government had said it was “mandatory”. However, I have worked hard all my life to get a diploma and go to a good college and have a degree, and I wasn’t giving up yet. So, we lied. Well, not really. We said we had to bury my grandmother and it was true. So I didn’t come the first week. The second, I catched a cold, and couldn’t make it due to the coughing. The third, I had a stomach ache...

My mother hates lying. She loathes it. It was incredibly hard for her to do so. But she did because if I went, I would probably kill my other grandma and maybe kill my parents. And have scars for life. And contaminate strangers.

What about my classmates, you ask ? They all went. I was the only one, of my whole class, to not have gone back. And boy, was I glad I did. I kept talking to my friends, and I heard how the teachers didn’t respect the safety distances nor put the masks correctly. I heard how in the cafeteria they were all sitting at the same table, pressed against eachothers without a mask. At that time, I already had heard horrible things and how poorly it was handled.

One week, as she had one of the CPE (head of the supervisors) on the phone, my mom had the first breakdown I have seen her have in years. She started crying and explained everything. She cried, and argumented and I was so shocked to see her like this. The truth was out ! I didn’t go to school because the safety stuffs the government put in place was bullshit.

We expected me to be kicked out in the following minutes. But, they couldn’t. I had been giving back all the homeworks and assignments I could, showing I wasn’t quitting. So, they couldn’t kick me out for being a quitter, and they couldn’t kick me out for trying to keep myself, my family and them safe. So they didn’t. Instead, they tried to push me into resigning.

At that point, it had been 5 months since I had really gotten out for something else than groceries. I hadn’t seen anyone, friends or even acquaintances for months. The school and news had been horribly stressing me out, and I had my first breakdown. Around a day after, we had a call from the school’s nurse. She asked me if I was okay, how I was doing, if I was sick... And that I should really go back to school. It’s senior year after all. I told her I heard they handled it badly. She called nonsense and stupid rumors, telling me lies that I immediatly understood were lies, selling bullshit and trying to force me to come back. I was very polite, made her understand that I would be trying if the situation got better, and hung up. It took us a minute to understand that she was trying to get evidence of me being kept home against my will and called social services. She didn’t call for my health at all. Thankfully, I handled it very well and we never heard back from her.

Not long after that incident, I heard of something that happened in my school that made me mad beyond understanding. Since the interns at the boarding school were forbidden from going out, the school decided to put a movie for them Wednesday afternoon. They said they asked students about what they would like to see but I highly doubt it. So, that Wednesday afternoon, when my classmates, seniors in highschool, with TONS of homework they had been working on where called in the auditorium for “informations” they had no choice but to go. The informations were given, and they were about to leave to resume working when the CPE and the deputy director stopped them.

They said my classmates HAD to see this movie, it was mandatory. Let me insist on the fact that they were around a hundred, all in a closed space, in the middle of a pandemic. Yes ? Great. So, my friends protested, saying that they had to work and didn’t want to stay. The deputy director started cutting them off to keep repeating some bullshit like “we made that for you” “we listenned and gave you this” “we worked hard on this”, like 5th graders. Until they said “I’m your superior and I order you to stay. Now shut up and take a sit”. My friends were astonished but did as asked. Which was incredibly unsafe and even dangerous (closed space, no safety distances...). And that movie that was “for the students” and “they worked hard on” was a goddamn movie about the Shoah. And I SWEAR TO GOD, there was panic attacks in the room, breakdowns, terrible reactions, and they didn’t give two shit about it.

And a day or so before, the nursed called to say I had to go back because it was “safe and everything was ok”. I was boiling.

After that incident, one of my teachers requested a call with me to talk about the class I had been missing. Very aware of the manipulative state of my school at that time, we were really careful, and a bit worried about it. Turned out it was a call of a genuine teacher that actually wanted to talk about the classes I had been missing and the homeworks I had been giving ! Of course he quickly tried to get convince me to come back, but I handled it well, once again. It was the highlight of my day.

At that point it had been 8 months since I had last been really out.

I had severals other breakdowns, mostly due to the ungodly stress I had been under because of school and news. I had been stressed out for 8 months now, and what had to happen, happened.

I had a burn out.

My mental state was so low I couldn’t even do what I love. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t draw. All I could do was watch shows and movies, or stare at the ceiling for hours. This was incredibly frustrating and scary. I couldn’t do my homeworks, and we feared I might get kicked out.

Then a miracle happened. Which is sad it got to that, but it was one. My teacher got quarantined, and started online classes. I had my first class of the year on November 14th. And I was there ! I answered tons of questions, and it kind of shocked everyone in class to realize I existed and was still trying to follow the classes.

It allowed to get better, and keep a very small following of school.

A week ago I have been able to do my Spanish homework. I am slowly getting better, trying to avoid stress and work as much as I can.

What I haven’t been able to talk about but did happen :

-One of my classmates caught the virus and she realized it a week later. The school said it was useless to quarantine her now and let her go back to class. The first thing she did was take off her mask and lean in everyone she was talking to. -I haven’t got any of my art classes since the beginning of the year. My teachers made the class believe they were giving it to me when they didn’t. I am specialized in art. -One of my classmates have been diagnosticated with depression. We’re 17. Several others have depression tendencies. -The school is trying to ignore us by not responding to anything we send, hoping we’ll resign. The pressure is still there. -We learned recently that many other parents and students had done the same thing and the schools have put pressure on them too. Some threatened the family. We hadn’t hear about it until now because schools are covering it up -Schools are covering numbers even inside. Most teachers doesn’t even know if a kid has Covid or not. If the teachers get sick, they are forced to immediatly go back to school.

This has been written the 22 november of 2020, in France.

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[moonraccoon-exe]

Hi, Connie. I know it's been a while since you did any headcanons and idk if you still do them, but I'm curious of your opinion. I realize the wall is one giant quarantine bubble, but the people are still free to do as the please inside it. How do you think each of the chocobros would handle an Insomnia-wide quarantine like what's going on in most of the world right now? What if one of them got sick (assuming a FFXV equivalent of COVID-19?) How would Regis, as King, take care of his people?

PS: Aparently the Keep Reading line is having some troubles. May appear right under the question (how did it get THERE?) or nowhere at all lol pls forgive tumblr he trying. 

HEEEEEEEEEELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s definitely been a while since I did any headcanons, but that’s because school has kept me busy like crazy, and when I have spare time, I put it into my two big fanfics going on (I don’t want people to wait too much!) but I’ll definitely keep doing these, every single one of them, until I finish, even if it takes me years and years <3

The ask prompts are one of my favorite things in the world so of course I’ll keep them going!

HOH

YOUR PROMPT IS SUPER INTERESTING!!!!! AYYYYY, let’s see what this raccoonie brain has there!! 

FFXV Insomnia in a quarantine

First things first, the government

Regis, as King:

Regis is going all the way into making sure EVERYONE can stay home.

Regis is going to ask the other countries to lend Lucis money. As in. M I L L I O N S.

“Your Majesty, you ARE aware we’re nowhere half to repaying that debt in a near future?”

“THIS IS A LITERAL PLAGUE WITH NO CURE YET THAT’S KILLING DOZENS SOME OF WHICH THEIR FAMILIES CAN’T SAY GOODBYE TO AND YOU W O R RY  A B O UT   T HE  E  C O NO M Y   ¿¿¿? ?!??”

Regis has brain and, most importantly, humanity. He’s definitely going to put the country in debt for the next 15 kings is that helps people right now.

Mostly because he’s aware it’s no one’s fault. 

Regis is announcing what he’s going to do to keep people safe publicly:

The next three months of any loans are forgiven. Mortgage, rent, water, electricity, and all the public services will be free for the next three months. If you own any debts, be it a house or a little clock, you don’t have to pay on the next 3 months, and instead that amount will be divided into future months in small amounts so it’s recovered in the medium or long run. No one needs to spend one gil in any of the basics, don’t worry about that, it’s covered, government’s got you, SO PLEASE STAY HOME. 

Regis is aware that some people can’t stay home because what little they earn is what they spend in basic food; Regis is going to spend lots of the money he burrowed in them.

Regis is going to pay as well to teachers and artists for online classes and entertainment, because he’s aware of the mental/emotional distress people can be in after certain time indoors. 

Regis is going to put most the money in the medical and cleaning services.

Regis is going to keep online and phone polls for people to fill in particular cases (I still need to go out because I need to go look after my mother each friday, I still need to go out because I need to go get medicines each certain time at this district) so the Citadel’s intel know best what to do.

Regis is going to make sure to have teams sanitizing public transport and places everyday.

Regis is a no-game man, dammit.

((Regis is the reason Insomnia only needed three months before being free))

Makes sure the media broadcasts not only the death cases, but also and most importantly the healed cases. Not gonna let the media get stupid with this for money or paranoia, no sir

Noctis, as prince

DID YOU THINK HE WAS JUST GOING TO MOP, THIS IS THE PRINCE

(Remember the game tells us he was a damn good prince as in politically? what a bean <3)

Noct was taken more off guard; Regis acted immediately like a (good) madman, Noctis still needed a bit to process it

Noct is who comes up with some ideas that Regis puts into action (the phone/online polls, the online classes, for example)

Noct too manages some of the intel going on during quarentine to see how the city is progressing and how else they can help.

Noctis is in charge of the interviews along the...health minister (?) everyday, while Regis stays at work and intel.

Noctis makes sure to do a livestream each certain days to greet the people, answer questions, or just have a bit of fun, and to remind them to stay home and to keep the spirits up. We know Noct would rather rot in boredome in his sofa because Sleepy Boy, but he knows the effect he has on his people, so he does the livestreams for them; to keep them entertained, informed, and simply to keep them sane.

Noctis came up with the idea of making an app/text service for those that suffer of domestic violence; “staying home” sounds easy to him because he has a huge house and a good family, but he’s aware that not do everyone. 

(Putting a keep reading here)

Noctis

Sleeps it away lmao

Honestly Noct doesn’t have much troubles with the whole “stay home” thing. He likes home. He LOVES staying home. LET HIM STAY EVEN AFTER QUARENTINE IS OVER.

Noct has videogames and his bed. You don’t need to tell him twice to stay home. 

Noct sleeps most of the day. 

Noct decides to not shower everyday.

The only trouble Noct goes through is that his room starts getting super messy everyday and Ignis isn’t going to appear to help him out. 

Noctis spends his time doing homework and mumbling about how “teachers didn’t use to give us this much homework until quarentine, this is just their excuse goddammit fuck this shit”

I feel you Noct

Besides that, videogames, trash food, and sleeping.

It’s 9 pm, he’s in pajamas. That he hasn’t taken off in three days. 

It’s 6 am and Noct is out of bed. He hasn’t slept since 2 am.

What is this guy’s sleep schedule.

Despite the careless and carefree attitude, Noct still worries. He still has to stay the most informed, as the prince, of the international and national situation, and it sometimes gets stressful.

When Noct sees numbers grow and a gloomy future, he gets stressed but won’t say it; that careless attitude is his way of coping. Like pretending it’s not true.

Noct worries about the poor, too, and the low and working class. He too came up with more ideas along with Regis to keep them safe too and not force them to work while the middle and upper classes stay indoors like it’s not the big deal.

Noct thinks a lot about Prompto. He knows he doesn’t need to go out too much, but he also knows how much of a terribly, horribly emotional distress Prom is in when staying at his house for too long.

Noct takes up on video-phoning Prom, everyday. His best boy can’t be sad, stressed, or messed up, and he’s going to keep him sane and cheer him up everyday. 

Noct may or may have not ended up inviting Prompto to spend quarentine at the Citadel with him. He hadn’t finished saying it when Prom was already at the Citadel’s door asking to be sanitized before going in.

If he got sick, everyone around him would be more scared than him LMAO

“OHNOTHEPRINCEISILLHE’SGOINGTODIEIAMNOTREADYFORTHISNOOOOOOOOO” 

Noct: so can I skip online school like this?

He’d be looked after with almost paranoia, there’s only two of the Lucis Caelum alive and honestly losing the heir and only one that can have kids at this point to the virus woulnd’t be very epic on history books

Noct IS worried, just pretending he’s not. 

Noct is going to avoid Regis LIKE A PRO. He’s going to ask to live somewhere else, will ask to sanitize his room and keep it locked, will ask that Regis gets nowhere near ANY of his belongings. Basically, Noct is going CRAZY over avoiding Regis...so Regis doesn’t catch it :’’( 

What a pure bean

Even if Regis tries visiting him, and even if the whole place is sanitized and like a little bubble away of the rest of the world, Noct will still not want him to come inside. 

Honestly, this is going to make Regis really, deeply sad and maybe even hurt. He wants to stay positive, but he keeps thinking of what if Noct dies to it, and not only dies, he’d also die without having held him for a last time or seen him.

They meet through the window. They phone each other and just touch through the closed window... :’) </3

Noct knows he may be over protecting Regis, but he’s honestly not going to have it any other way. He has way more than enough watching his old man grow old too fast from the Ring to run the risk of giving him this stupid virus. If he has to make his old man sad in order to keep him healthy, SO BE IT. 

Ignis

He’s fine.

He’s just so cool with this.

“Ah, of course. A plague. It was our turn, as was expected.”

...w...what are you talking about, Ignis.

He’s barely impressed. 

Master of following instructions, they told Ignis to stay home and THAT he did.

The store? The neighbor? Just an inch outside his main door? NO. THAT’S NOT INDOORS.

It’s not that he’s paranoid, he’s just not bothered by the idea fo not going out and he knows that the more he stays home the faster this will pass that he just. Stays in, sometimes not even looking out the window for a day or two.

Ignis still phones Noct each two days to remind him his room is messy do something because I won’t, or do nothing, the cockroaches will help you with the crumbs and leftovers in a day more.

Ignis isn’t bored. He still has home office and paperwork to do, the poor, young, miserable thing. 

In his spare time he likes doing stuff he likes, as he normally didn’t have the time to do. 

Ignis is making sure to call the other chocobros to make sure they’re ok. He’s particularly attentive to Prompto.

Boy is having video calls with Gladio because Best Friends. 

Ignis attempts to do as your raccoonie; will try to finish two-week worth of his paperwork in one or two days t o have the rest of the time free LMAO

(I hope, unlike me, he’s succeeding at that)

Ignis worries mostly about others and the outside Lucis. He takes up on the advantage of being bros with the prince to suggest something, that Noct can suggest to Regis to make it better for as many people as possible.

If he got sick, he’d attend hospital and not go out until he’s 100% okay AND spent 2 weeks with no fall back into it. 

He’d thank the doctors and nurses like every five minutes honestly. Iggy appreciates they’re doing such high risk job, keeps admiring them. Dammit.

He would accept no visits. Is it the prince? tell him to FUCK OFF. 

Mostly the throne family Ignis won’t dare visit even after he’s healed.

“IGNIS IT’S OK YOU’VE BEEN FINE FOR A MONTH”

“TALK TO ME WHEN QUARENTINE IS OVER AND/OR THERE IS A VACCINE, GET THE FUCK OFF MY FRONT YARD”

Ignis is not overly worried about the illness. He has stupidly strong defenses and can see himself getting out of this. He worries just what’s normal but keeps spirits up with all the numbers of healed cases.

Go Iggy! 

Gladio

Surprisingly, he’s taking this really well.

Gladio’s sort of more scared than the rest at the news; he was so prepared for physical enemies, the idea of an abstract, non-physical one suddenly sweeps him off his feet.

But he handles it well. So long he doesn’t watch the news.

Gladio won’t listen or read the news on the virus; he’s aware of it, he’ll take care and be careful, but he won’t read or hear numbers or updates, he’ll just live this out until it’s over.

Gladio takes his mind off it with indoor exercising, lots of it. 

Gladio’s job was mostly physical, so he takes on the advantage that he has nearly no chances of home office to do stuff he likes; mostly, this nerd will drown in history documentaries on KupoTube, will watch the equivalent of Disney and Dreamwork movies, will read like the world is ending, and will take up on online courses.

He likes crafts. Okay? Leave him alone and let him give his baby steps into watercolor painting. 

Gladio is video calling Noctis. To force him to exercise LMAO

“OY, NOCT, THIS IS PRE-RECORDED, DO YOU THINK I’M AN IDIOT? COME BACK HERE TO YOUR COMPUTER OR IT’LL BE WORSE”

Gladio is holding back a Desperate-To-Go-Out Iris.

She’s not irresponsible, she just HATES INDOORS LET ME GO OUT IT’LL BE JUST AROUND THE BLOCK

Gladio’s not letting Jared go ANYWHERE

“SOMETHING HAPPENS TO YOU AND I DIE, YOU STAY HERE, I’LL GO BUY GROCERIES AND DON’T YOU DARE GET ANYWHERE NEAR ME AFTER I’M BACK UNTIL I’VE SHOWERED”

Gladdy it’s ok :’)

A bit paranoid when it comes to others, though will still be a bit paranoid about himself.

Gladio is mostly calm about it; just a few times every now and then he’s stressed and a bit too troubled for an easy sleep.

Video calls Iggy every day because Best Friends.

Iggy keeps him sane, the baby :’(

Honestly, Gladio also makes sure that Ignis is ok. Ignis is always looking after all other three, but Gladio is who’s most aware of looking after Ignis. Ignis won’t say it, but he’s probably feeling very lonely after a month indoors, as his family won’t pay much attention to him. Gladio’s making sure to keep him happy, distracted, and in good spirits, and in company.

If he got sick, he’d probably have a very bad emotional time at first.

Gladio would cry and think nearly for sure that he’s dead already.

Not like in drama, he would seriously get sad and be very, very scared :’(

Same than Noct, he wouldn’t let Clarus near him or any of his belongings, nor Jared. Not Iris either, of course, but he worries more for the older men.

Gladio would probably not do very well emotionally in hospital. He’d spend there the necessary time, but then he would probably like most to be in an apartment for himself if available or in his room without letting anyone near. 

Gladio will keep thinking of the chances to live or die, of how scary the idea of a virus with no cure is, will get really gloomy and negative on it.

His family try to provide emotional support, but every time they call Gladio just drowns himself in ideas like what their family would do if he died and it just makes him sadder

The doctors and Iggy are what keep his spirits up, to be honest.

The sadness lasts the first days. AFter that, Gladio’s going to handle the ilness like a DAMN WARRIOR

“YOU INJECT THAT THING, DOC, BRING IT ON”

A new treatment and the consequences are unsure? BRING IT ON.

Whatever it is, Gladio’s HEAD IN FOR IT

Baby boy just needed some time to process it. After that he’s just taking it so lightheartedly, even the doctors get cheered up at his bright attitude towards it.

“You’ve progressed on a 1%”

“HELL YEAH ONE PERCENT!!!!!!!!!!! :D”

What a beautiful boy omg

Prompto

This one is the chocobro that REALLY gets hit by quarentine.

Prompto’s not hyperactive, he can stay indoors if they ask him to...the problem is his house.

Prompto gets easily anxious staying at home for too long. He spent his childhood locked away in there, isolated. No parents, no friends, nothing. He stayed locked away in what was the toughest moments of his life. He doesn’t hate indoors, he hates indoors at his house. It brings all of that back.

Prompto’s trying to keep all the lights on to make it less like in his childhood; gets easily guilty remembering the huge debt the King put himself into so he doesn’t have to pay for electricity and now he’s wasting it. 

Prompto gets easily anxious around food nowadays. Remembers it was staying indoors doing but eat what got him so fat and lonely.

(Prommy it’s ok, fat is not bad :(( this poor angel )

Honestly Prompto’s so busy emotionally stressing over being indoors at his house that the pandemic in the world isn’t even super concerning, it’s just as if there was a storm outside; he knows it’s bad and that not everyone can stay safe from it, but he’s just worried in his own situation at home.

His parents get to stay indoors with him for home office, which is as good as it is bad.

For some reason it’s not so comforting because it makes Prompto think of how absent they used to me. For some reason, it also IS comforting because unlike his childhood, at least they’re there now.

Prompto tries to make the best out of this and tries bonding with them when they’re not busy.

It actually works <3 They don’t get overly emotional or anything but they get to spend some good time together, watch movies, talk more, etc.

It helps Prom with the food issue that Dad does the cooking this time.

Good as his parents are with him during quarentine, it’s home, like the physical place what keeps gnawing at his emotional health.

Prom is going to try EVERYTHING to keep himself distracted. 

Iggy phones him constantly, which helps a lot. Noct videocalls him everyday, which really keeps him up.

Prom is taking BUNCHES of online courses and classes, bECAUSE THIS BOY LOVES DOING AND LEARNING STUFF

Week 6 of quareantine, Prompto has made his own jacket out of kitchen towels. It’s...actually impressive.

If he got sick, he too would be paranoid.

More than sad, Prompto would be openly scared and nervous.

EXTRA

The chocobros as a Four:

They’re having online video parties and meetings.

The four got a pizza each. They’re video meeting, and pretending it’s the same pizza lol

“YOU ATE THE LAST SLICE HOW DARE YOU, I TOLD YOU I WANTED IT!!! >:’‘(”

The guys are showing their quarentine achievements to each other.

“Look, I’ve let my feet nails long because I don’t need shoes anymore and I shaped them like I’m a dragon haha”

“Oi look, I learned a new trick with my yo-yo”

“Look how GREASY my hair is right now haha. what do you mean if I’m attending the national interview later like this, of course I am”

The chocobros are sending each other online courses that they think the others or one of them will like

They’re having one of those online movie in different computers together. 

Also multiplayer games because they can.

Ignis wins every time. 

The chocobros are playing a 4-members Squad mode in Battle Royale games. Noct and Prom are okay. Ignis is the Pro. Gladio is the bait.

Iris:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Cor: 

Cor is surprisingly calm about this.

Cor is spending his time meditating.

Cor has barely any paperwork, as his work is mostly physical, so he gets a lot of time free with Regis’ politics for a proper literally-no-need-to-go-out politics. Meditation that is.

Cor is phoning Prompto each now and then, too. 

Prompto would answer happily that he’s fine and with no virus. Cor finally once tells him he’s not asking if he’s ok about the virus. Prom needed no more explanation and just said he was ok, if a little sad.

Cor is working out at home.

Cor is getting bored.

Cor is reading, watching series, or meditating, or cooking just for the sake of it.

Cor just has one problem.  He’s a workaholic. You give him no work, this man starts slowly having a meltdown and descent into the abyss of madness. He needs to die of stress, how else do you expect him to live?

The first weeks were fine. After the first few weeks Cor starts getting anxious about needing work to do.

Cor you stupid thing 

Cor is starting to get distracted in meditation because he keeps getting anxious about working in something.

Cor starts phoning Regis.

“Do you have any paperwork for me now?”

This is every two days. 

Regis COULD have given him something. Regis doesn’t. Cor needs to learn to know how to be AT PEACE FOR FUCKING ONCE.

Cor is making paperwork up to work on lol

Cor was diagnosed with the virus. They put the virus in quarentine for its safety. 

[anotheronechicagobog]

Tylenol and Tequila Part 3

written by @anotheronechicagobog​

Warnings: swearing, mature themes, fire, chemical reactions

A/N: This one is REALLY long. I don’t know the word count but it took up ten pages in google docs with size 11 font, so I hope you guys like it!

Also, I came up with the term ‘Hermann Horde’ to describe him and his kids, I think it’s hilarious, but let me know what you gusy think.

Stella Kidd has always wanted to be a mother. To experience the joy, fear, love, frustration, cheer that being a parent brings. The only problem? She didn’t want to be the one to actually give birth to them and she didn’t agree with surrogacy. But she had been homeless and in the foster system when she wasn’t living with her addict parents, so she knew that there were lots of kids who just needed someone to love them. This had been a point of contention between her and Grant. Biological kid(d)s are the only ones he would accept. It would end in screaming matches, Grant saying at some point that it would happen whether she liked it or not. That should have been a huge red flag for her, but she’d loved him so she ignored it.

With Kelly though, he understood. He understood that if she got pregnant she would have to take leave from being a firefighter for a while, so long as there weren’t complications with the pregnancy that were severe enough to end her career, and that was something he would never ask or expect her to do. When Stella wanted to have a serious conversation about kids he watched her collapse in relief that he shared her opinions. That he thought it would be better for both of them to foster older kids, pre-teens and teenagers.

Kelly had never liked Grant. Always thought that he was a manipulative piece of shit, and every even remotely serious conversation had been about Grant ignoring Stella’s wants, needs, and choices. If Grant showed his face again it would take an army and at least one dragon to stop him from killing Grant.

The only people they’d told were Boden, cause he’d need to know as their chief, Matt and Sylvie because they’d need someone to talk to about it besides each other and references. They’d all been ecstatic for the couple, Sylvie in particular. She didn’t remember much about her time in foster care, but she remembered enough to know how terrible, nightmarish, and broken it was. 

Kylie was the first kid who popped up in both their minds. Her dad was a neglectful cop who had multiple families and her mom was a heroin addict. Kylie did what she could to remain afloat, to distance herself from who her parents are and what they do, but it was hard. Her dad just showing up and doing whatever the fuck he wanted and leaving ruins in his wake, and her mom was only around a third of the time, almost always on a bender with whoever she was ‘dating’ that week. Kylie had spent most of her childhood living with her grandma after being placed there by social services but was dumped back on her mom after seven months after her grandma passed three months in the system. The four months she spent being tossed between group homes and foster families were not times she advertised or wanted to remember. Girls on Fire had brought the support that she hadn’t had for so long into her life. When she missed a Girls on Fire meeting Stella got worried, it didn’t correlate with her character. 

A call to detective Jay Halstead from Kelly brought out the depressing truth. Her mom had gotten high, signed her out of school, and then dragged her to a scummy abandoned warehouse to help her score some product. Kylie managed to slip away and call 911 for help after the dealer smacked her around for saying ‘no’. But he found her at the end of the call, and he didn’t react well. They’d rushed over to the ED when they found out where she was.

Stella actually started to cry when she saw the state Kylie was in. So frail, monitors beeping, covered in bandages, arm in a sling. Kelly tracked down Natalie to figure out what her condition was, and it wasn’t good. Amelia Wood, a social worker showed up just as she finished explaining everything.

“Hello, I’m Amelia Woods from DCFS, here for Kylie Reyez?”

“Of course, Ms. Woods as I was just explaining to lieutenant Severide, Kylie has a minor concussion five bruised ribs, a shoulder fracture, and we’re waiting on the results from her sexual assault kit.”

“And why would you be explaining it to lieutenant Severide? The only relatives listed in her file are her deceased grandmother, ineligible father detective Mark Reyez, and criminally negligent mother Daphne Adams.”

“My girlfriend Stella Kidd runs a program called Girls on Fire, a fire department outreach program for girls, and Kylie’s signed up for it. When she didn’t show up for the last session she had a really bad feeling and Kylie wasn’t answering her phone so we called some people and found out she was here. We rushed over, Stella’s actually with her now. What, uh, what’s going to happen to Kylie?”

“Well she’s not going to live with either of her parents, and she has no other family, so she’ll go into the system.”

“Group home or foster family?”

“... Group home to start... We’ll try to find a foster for her but that’s unlikely at her age.”

“Stella and I are in the final stages of getting approved as a foster family, would it be possible for Kylie to be placed with us?”

“Who’s the social worker assigned to you?”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a week in the ED Kylie was permitted to leave, and go to Severide and Kidd’s apartment. Kylie was ecstatic, Stella and Kelly had made it clear that their apartment was a safe place for Kylie, that all she would have to do was be a teenager. There would be some rules and curfew in place but Stella and Kelly were just focusing on making sure that Kylie had a stable home.

When they got home Stella gingerly showed Kylie her room. It was plain, had been seen Matt moved out the year before, but Sylvie had offered to help Kylie decorate it when she was comfortable. “We can arrange for that shopping trip in a few days, let’s just get you settled in first.”

“Ladies, our deep dish order has been placed and should be here in forty minutes. I think that maybe we should take this time to talk about some rules and stuff. Then we can chow down on pizza.”

Stella chuckled at her boyfriend’s attempt at humour, and Kylie smiled at how they looked at each other. “That sounds like a good idea Kel. You ready Kylie?”

“Yeah, let’s hear it.”

“Okay, so curfew is 10:30pm, but if there’s something special going on that night just let us know in advance and we can extend it.”

“School is priority, if you want a part-time job or something that’s fine, but school comes first.”

“Look, we don’t want you drinking or having sex-”

Gagging from Kylie interrupted Stella, “yeah, yeah, it’s gross to talk about with your guardians but we get that as a teenager that’s just something you might get into, so if you need condoms or a ride home or something, just let us know or call, we just want you to be safe. We won’t exactly be happy that you’re partying or whatever, but anything’s better than playing keep-up.”

“And if there’s stuff you want to talk about, we’re here. And if you don’t want to talk to us, that’s okay too. As long as you’re talking to someone, a teacher, guidance counselor, Brett, whoever, just as long as you talk to someone.”

“When we’re on shift we’ll both have our phones on if you need us, we’ll leave you by yourself so no parties, please. If you want to have a friend over that’s fine, but let us know beforehand and we’d like to meet them first.”

“The system actually covers therapy bills so you could even talk to a therapist if you want. And as far as the money from the government goes, we’ll budget it so that some pitches into groceries, and there’s some spending money for your room or stuff you want, but the rest will go into a post-secondary school fund for you, which we’ll also be personally putting some money into.”

“... Really?”

“Yes, really. We are here to make sure that you have support, and that includes making sure you have some money for when you’re out of high school.”

“Thank you...”

“You really don’t need to say ‘thank you’ sweetheart, we’re here to help and love you as much as we can.” The doorbell ended their conversation that left tears brimming the eyes of all three, “I guess it’s time for pizza.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There had been some disagreements and adjustments, but overall everyone could agree it had been a complete success. A month later, after the move-in and hours spent convincing Kylie that having money spent on her was okay, Sylvie, Stella and Kylie met up at the nice shopping area of downtown with money to spend. The plan was to spend the morning shopping then meet up with Kelly and the rest of 51 at the park for a picnic with the lovely souls from 51, 21, and MED.

“Where to first, Kylie?”

“Umm, a bedding store maybe?”

“Kylie, we talked about this, it’s okay that we want to spend money on you, okay?”

“Kylie, I went through this too. I still get freaked out when people spend money on me, especially if I didn’t have time to discourage them from doing so. I’m still pretty stingy if I’m honest. I know that it’s hard, you feel panicked and like you’re not worth this, you’re not worth this waste of money. What I find helps is taking lots of deep breaths, going straight to the sale and clearance racks, and remembering that all the stores we’re going to are family businesses, and that by spending money here we are supporting small businesses and people who work really hard to earn money and own a store of their own.”

Kylie thought for a moment, taking in Sylvie’s advice. “Okay, I’ll try that.”

“Okay.”

“So, where to?”

“I could use a couple shirts...” Stella and Sylvie smiled brightly, grabbed onto an arm, and marched over to the nearest boutique.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After dropping everything off at the apartment the three women made it to the park a thirty minutes after the designated time. “‘Bout time you three showed up!” 

“Cool it, Halstead, besides, shouldn’t you be spending your girlfriend?”

“Hailey is not my girlfriend!” 

“Y’know, it’s kinda funny, Stella didn’t even mention a Hailey...”

“Hey! I have more than enough people on my back about this, I don’t need a kid I haven’t met- oh waiiiiit, you’re Kidd and Severide’s foster right? Well, I’m Jay Halstead, Severide hasn't shut up about you, everyone’s really excited to meet you.”

“Including Hailey.” Jay froze for a second, before an exasperated expression took over his face, then he leaned his head back and groaned loudly before stomping away, leaving nothing but laughter in his wake.

“You know what Stella? I think Kylie should meet Hailey first.”

“Ooooh, yes.”

“Hailey! We have someone we want you to meet!”

They all ran across the field to her after hearing the panicked ‘NOooOOOooo’ from Jay Halstead. The confused blonde greeted them with a chuckle. “Hi, I’m Hailey Upton, you must be Kylie. It’s really great to meet you.”

“You too, I’ve heard a lot about how badass you are.”

“Oh, don’t listen to all that you hear-”

“Ig- *gasp* ignore her. She’s awesome.” A stressed-looking Jay sputtered out as he took his place beside Hailey. “Well,” Kylie slyley started, “I’m not sure that you’re unbiased, but I guess I’ll take your word for it.” Jay panicked, Hailey was confused, Stella and Sylvie were doing everything in their power not to laugh.

“Wha-”

“Maybe she should meet Casey next, hmmm?” He gave a well-placed look to Sylvie and she started to pout.”

“That was cold.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been a long day, filled with grilled food, cake games, and new family members. Kylie was happy though. It had been a lot, but she felt like she connected with and could count on everyone there. She was full of food and happiness. “That was really fun. It was great to meet everyone.”

“Really you didn’t feel like it was too much?”

“We were worried that we’d overwhelm you.”

“No, I think it was good to do it this way, like ripping off a bandaid.”

“Good. Well we have shift tomorrow, starting at six in the morning. So we should probably head to bed.”

“I’m gonna do the same, I am beat the Hermann Horde really knows how to wear it out of you.”

“The Hermann Horde, oh my god... That describes them perfectly.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shift had gone rather smoothly so far, a couple fire drills at local schools, a few fall-down and PD calls for ambo 61, and a smoke-detector check in an apartment building. All was well and good until around two o’clock when Stella got a horrifying phone call from Kylie.

“Stella?”

“Kylie? What’s wrong your voice sounds really shaky.” Kelly’s head snapped up at her words and she gestured for him to come over, he’d arrived and Stella turned the phone so they could both hear and talk just as they heard screams. “Kylie? Kylie!”

“There’s a fire, it’s getting big and we’re trapped and I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay, where is the fire? What lit it? Has anyone called 911 yet?” Kelly prattled off doing his best to be helpful instead of curling into a ball and crying. “Chem room, sulfuric acid and a chlorate, and everyone else is calling 911.”

“Okay, are you near a carbon dioxide extinguisher?”

“Uh, cupboard next to me... Yeah!”

“Pull out the pin, lift the nossel and aim at the BASE of the fire by squeezing the levers together.”

They didn’t get a response but could hear what was happening, it took a few minutes before Kylie picked up the phone again, “it’s ou-t but smoldering or- smoking a bit? What-ever, it was down enough for all of us to- get out, so- we’re running.”

“Oh thank god. We’ll  come right away- or do you want us to meet you at the hospital? You need to get medical attention if you were near ractive sulfuric acid.”

“Uh, how about I just keep you on the phone as I get checked out, we can figure it out from there?” 

“Okay, we- we’ll wait.” Stella and Kelly just about collapsed in relief, all the members of 51 who had gathered around them smiled and offered them as much comfort as possible. “Hey, um- my foster parents? They’re on the line, they’re firefighters, uh, just want to know what hospital we’re going to, if I’m okay.”

“Well, tell...”

“Stella Kidd and Lieutenant Kelly Severide.”

“Kidd and Lieutenant Severide to meet us at Chicago MED.”

“We’re leaving now.” They both froze and stared at Boden like deers in headlights. “Alright,” in Boden’s usual gruff voice, “mount up everybody. We’re going to MED. We’ll keep our radios on and leave from there if necessary. Kidd, Severide, I’ll need to call in a floater to cover one of you for the rest of shift. It’ll be easier if it’s Kidd, cause at least one of you has to stay with Kylie. I’ll see what I can do about a floater for you though, Severide.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amelia met them at the hospital, there were some incident forms, but because Kylie called them for help and saved herself and her classmates because of it, Amelia just gave them a smile and told them they were doing great. Kylie needed to stay at MED for a couple days because of the smoke she inhaled, but so did her classmates and they kept each other entertained. Then OFI showed up. Seager was quite obviously still carrying a torch for Kelly, but was still very polite to Stella and Kylie. “Well, your story matches up with the evidence we have and the statements collected from your teacher and 29 classmates.”

“Wait, she has 30 classmates, there’s 31 kids in her class.”

“Yes, well, Chad is the only one who’s story is off, but that’s because all the evidence points to him messing around and starting the fire. None of you can say anything to any of the other victims and their families.”

“Got it.”

Seager left with a longing look directed at Kelly, but no one was looking at her. Kylie had started to tear up, the reality that she could have died finally hitting her at full force, and both her parents (what she’d started calling Stella and Kelly in her head) immediately tended to her. Hugging her, letting her know they were there, and that it was okay to cry. So Kylie lay there, shaking and sobbing, as the two people who loved her just as much as her grandmother had, did everything they could to let her know they loved her, and that they had been scared too. That they would be sad if she had died. At some point the tears stopped being about fear and started being about love.

This was the scene that Casey walked in on, he quietly stepped away, knowing just how intimate this moment was supposed to be. He walked back to the waiting room. “Not yet guys, they need some time to themselves. I think it might be better if we came back later with some food or something.” A call came over their walkies before anyone got a chance to agree with their captain.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kylie had transferred schools after the fire, the smoke from the chemical reaction that started the fire had gotten into a vent and messed up the entire air con system, meaning the school had to be shut down for the rest of the year while it was replaced. The air quality was deemed too dangerous for students and staff to even retrieve their stuff from the school. So Kylie had been transferred to the same high school as Lee Henry Hermann. He’d shown her around the school and introduced her to his friends. Things had been going really well until 51 got a call to a mattress factory fire. Kylie hadn’t been around when Otis died, but she could still see how everyone was affected by his death. The fire was so bad that the news had been reporting on it since before school even started and new, terrifying developments were still coming. Kylie was scared, her stomach was so twisted she felt what she could only describe as extreme nausea, she couldn’t focus, and she was practically jumping out of her skin everytime she got a notification on her phone. She couldn’t find Lee anywhere either, she had no way of knowing how he’d be handling it. While he was around to know Otis, his dad had been a firefighter longer than he’d been alive. Maybe he had coping methods.

After another panic grab for her phone Kylie was excused from class with a sympathetic glance from her teacher. She wandered the halls for a few minutes, doing everything not to cry, not to feel hopeless, when one of Lee's friends spotted her. “Henry heads to the greenhouse on bad days.” Was all Donovan said before walking away. Kylie took a breath, hiked her bag higher onto her shoulder, and headed to the greenhouse. What more did she have to fear?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door was unlocked, so she walked in and... Immediately took off her cardigan. “Lee?”

“Kylie...” His voice wasn’t confident like it usually was, it was hoarse and weak. She maneuvered her way around all the planter boxes before finding Lee sitting on a small, poorly made if she was being honest, wooden bench that was surrounded by peonies of varying colours. It was strange seeing Lee the way he was. Sickly pale, eyes red, exhausted lax muscles. “You’re scared too.”

“Terrified... I don’t know how you’ve dealt with this your whole life...” Kylie couldn’t control her emotions anymore. Lee tugged her by the wrist to sit beside him and wrapped her in his arms. “I don’t know how I’ve dealt with it either. I don’t think I do, really.”

“Does chocolate help? Cause I’ve got some in my bag...”

“Oh, yes. Chocolate helps.” The rest of their last two periods were spent crying, hugging, and eating chocolate in the greenhouse. They didn’t find out until they were leaving that the last of the fire had been put out, and that no first responders had died, and while three had been injured none of them were from firehouse 51.

“This may seem childish, and I know you don’t do this, but I think I’m gonna head to 51... I need to see that they’re okay for myself...”

“The only reason my siblings and I don’t do that is because our mom manages to keep them in the dark still. She used the child safety functions to keep the news from giving us alerts, she only tells us something happened after the ash has settled, or she just tells us that dad had a bad shift a half hour before he gets home. She runs so much interference, but, I... I disabled the child safety stuff when I was twelve, so that I could watch some PG-14 movies, I didn’t find out about the news notifications until a month later. I mean, I saw that news apps were specifically selected when I disabled the setting, but I didn’t think anything of it until they got a call to a train wreck. I had never been more afraid for my dad in my life. I hadn’t fully comprehended just how dangerous my dad’s job was until that day. Every five minutes there was a... higher body count, reports of trouble at the scene, a video of a gas explosion that 51 was barely able to control... I strongly believe that it was the worst day of my life. I wanted to go to the firehouse, I told my mom that I found out from friends, I didn’t want her to turn the news off again... But she told me I couldn’t go see him. I had to wait. It was a long four hour hours. So, I get it. If you want, there’s some time before I have to pick up my brothers and sister. How about we go pick up some doughnuts, then my siblings, and then make a visit to 51.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this for me.”

“Yeah, this way I get to see my dad after fearing for his life all day and I can use you being worried as an excuse when my mom asks.” Kylie laughed as Lee smirked, proud of his plan.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey Brett.”

“Hey, I brought you doughnuts, courtesy of the Hermann Horde and Kylie.”

“How annoyed is Hermann that the nickname caught on?”

“Very.”

“So, how do the kids look? I imagine at least Lee Henry and Kylie saw the news today.”

“Kylie looked like she was going to burst into tears when she saw Stella and Severide. Lee looked like a weight came off his shoulders when he saw Hermann. But then, he uh...”

“Hm?”

“Lee Henry looked at Kylie and smiled, really softly, and he got this puppy dog look in his eyes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I know what I saw.”

“You think there’s something going on?”

“Not yet... But I’m keeping my eye out.”

[drzedzworth]

For those who gives a shit

This is yet again another vent, so i won't interupt your dash

____________________

General:

Basically every day, i live day by day, trying to get though the day by just relaxing and playing games. People drink to forget their problems, sometimes they do drugs, and i honesty don't blame them, that's why i ignored my commissions for many weeks, and time goes fast, luckilly i do plushies....but it isn't easy...at all...people are vile and evil to me, every single day I'm being told to fuck off because I'm just trying to make a little living of selling plushies and making sure I pay my bills, I'm really sick of this because all I am trying to do is live my life but also help support my life as well and I'm going through so much financial troubles and because I buy Arts here and there with some of my own money I get bitched at as well, and honestly DePue pitch at me or complete other fucking idiots cuz the drink they don't bitch at the people that they're always fucking pulling their dicks at because the only people they're doing is the people who buy from fucking major artists.  people should be bitching at the fucking people who spends all of their money on OCS from fucking big ass artists instead of picking up people like me who actually look for a little artists to get a better art then the big shot artist, but what really pisses me off nowadays is when people actually have money they shake it and wave it around all the fucking want just spending it on all kinds of bullshit well I had to suffer through fucking getting hate harassed and bullied online just because I'm trying to make a fucking cell and nobody appreciates my effort or work. and so I am forced to get on stupid media's like Kik Telegram and Discord just a fucking offer my products and services in return for some funding where I could support myself and whatever's leftover and extra I can actually spend on myself because honestly I Love My OC. she means a lot to me and I love getting art of her more than my original OC. and when I think of our Humanity today I feel like you're nothing but a bunch of monkeys and sheep all they do is just Trend over each other and they are so ignorant and so I capable of thinking nowadays that they think it's okay just to go around and harass people and pull it off just as a prank. they're really disrespectful nowadays and they have no manners and they have no morals people smoke in there like 16 people where they get pregnant at 15 and honestly it's just terrible to see how Humanity has gone from the simple times to now on these bad times. especially the people on the internet who are very rude and very Cruel to me and I try not to lose my cool but I end up fighting at them because I feel like I don't want to take shit from anybody anymore but regardless I will always be doing that and I always will take it even if I don't want it.

The future:

 if I'm really honest with you I'm really terrified about the future because 2016 everyone said it was the worst year because of Donald Trump winning the election. now we are going into 2017 and we already had threats of a nuclear war in Guam from North Korea, things get political and next to you know all of a sudden there's a fucking hurricane coming to Florida. but it wasn't just one hurricane. It was 5 all around the world. this is because I feel like it's cuz of global warming and honestly during the summer time or air conditioner was broken and it was intensely hot. it was like over a hundred degrees outside and it was almost unbearable to stay outside and inside. so many nights I try to stay cool how you put ice in my room and it doesn't stay cool. and then next thing you know I hear about the end of the world. and I was really really scared for my life and I ended up breaking down in tears almost every single night. we had no power we had no air conditioner and I was always just afraid every night thinking that it might be a sound of a huge Rock coming to hit Earth. and I was scared I was shaking for a week straight. I always look down to the news to see where the meteor was coming from and what people are planning to do. And they see no I found out it was a revelation from the Bible and that Mary told somebody that is a lot of fear on the Earth. About wars earthquakes volcano eruptions hurricanes and Nixie nail a piece of the sun will land on the Earth. thinking about the extinction of mankind and everything we have and everything we have done will all become meaningless and a matter of seconds. And we would all be dead and it really brings me to tears and I was shaking because I was really scared to I lose everything. I was really depressed and I didn't even want to clop anymore masturbate or whatever silly should I do I didn't even want to play violent video games I didn't want to play anything I was so depressed and scared out of my mind. Topics about the end of the world gave me PTSD because I was too petrified about all these things that add up to the end. and now I'm scared of next year because of global warming there will be stronger storms. More fires in California. and who knows maybe earthquakes and volcanoes will erupt. then I can hear all the people in the men and children and the women crying in pain and fear. During those times I actually feel them. I feel their sorrows and I feel their pain and it made me cry as well. 2016 wasn't that bad. but 2017 has the top the worst year. but now we are going 2018 and I just pray to God that he will be merciful to us.

Other shit

 I'm not one to be religious but surprisingly the fact that I have my OC on PornHub and I draw clop, not to mention buy clop.  but I am actually a member of the Mormon church and I don't really go there as I should but people that are the only honest Church Christians whatever in the world. they have an organisation they also help people and they even feed the Homeless and they're doing so much as he sings and yet people don't even know what Mormon is and they even make fun of them even if they knew. and people who think that religion is stupid or fake honestly in my opinion they can be ignorant because I've witnessed evil before and I heard that the devil's greatest trick is to make people think he doesn't exist. because if there's not a devil there's not a God but there is one. I tested my faith in many practices before. I watched as I planted my seed and watch her grow fruit and I harvested that fruit as blessings to keep me fed. I helped people before and I've been blessed for it. And I testify that it's true because if I do something for God God give something back to me. Sunday I gave 40 bucks to the church and I told my mom to do it for me because I skipped out on Church. next thing you know today I actually had one of my customers pay off their plushie and I was surprised and I even yelled out my prayers have been answered because I have been blessed. you can't tell me that it's a coincidence that if I hadn't donated and give money to the church that will help people then I couldn't have receive a blessing today. but honestly I'm scared to think about the second coming and Jesus and everybody else because it'll be chaotic and if I die it would not be the end. just like everyone else I will be judged on all my actions that I have done on a scale of all the evil things I have done and all the good things I have done. and honestly I think I'm going to hell. I really try my best to be a nice person not because I am afraid of going to hell or I want to gain something from it. I actually couldn't help myself to not help anybody. I feel so bad for them because honestly right now I'm begging for help from you guys. and some of you guys actually listen and help me and I love you for that. so it's my turn to give back and when people ask me for help of course I say yes because it's only fair. then again I just clop every single day...at least it's not porn. That is pure evil and costs me problems....believe me.

Last shit

From what I have experienced really concerned about the small things in my life and the big things in life in general. I'm scared about the world but I'm also scared about myself going homeless and I'm also scared about my own health because my face was feeling numb the other day and I was worried I might have a stroke maybe I still can or maybe I'm sick either way. I'm really overweight because I stress eat a lot and I get cravings and I take more than two portion. I honestly worry too much because I don't know how to stop things and I don't know how to do anything really. I dropped out of high school because my dad took away my mother's company and because of that shit I am basically in poverty. I'm really poor and I actually feed my dog cereal but just because I buy Club every now and then. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't help me out because of some of the things I do. I try to get my commissions out and with those commissions that's where I can buy my art for my OC. but for plushies I give most of that money to help pay the bills and to help pay whatever Necessities we need. But I'm just hoping that good things will come. Maybe we learned that Congress or government or people who have authority will turn out to be good people and they will have a change of heart and show kindness. But I also hope That my financial situation will soon disappear and then I will have a happy wealthy life and whatever treasures and riches I get. I will use it to help the poor and make sure that all the people around the world that are sick hungry homeless and said that I will be there for them to help because nothing makes me more sad to see our reflection of myself but same time I have the ability to do something and I just don't do it. that's how I feel about people's right now. They are rich and they are having fun with all their money gambling and spending it on really really expensive things well people like me Don't get any of that and we're forced to suffer poverty. I used to draw for free but I can't afford that because I need money to sustain everything in life. So I do not know how things will turn out but all I can do is pray and wish for things to get better but the cold truth is rather than worse is coming or the best is coming and right now it looks like the worst but I'm going to hold on to my faith And hope for the best.

 if you people are read the entire thing. I would like to thank you so much because you actually took time and effort to read this thing.

 it would also really mean a lot if you would leave your thoughts in the comment section below. Fucking how I sound like a damn YouTuber. Funny thing is I actually wanted to be one but I don't think I'm ready for anything yet

But Thank you so much!

[professorblind]

Hate is a very strong emotion, but if I hate anyone, I really really hate Ronald Reagan.

- 8 reasons why Ronald Reagan was the worst president of our lifetime

“If you ever happen to come across a Republican on television these days, chances are that you will hear the name Ronald Reagan. Recent Republican debates are the perfect example of the love fest that the current Republican party has for Reagan as each candidate name drops the former president at every turn. If you only listened to conservatives you would think that Jesus Christ was the only person above Reagan on the totem pole of conservative love. They talk about his love of low taxes, less government and conservative family values. The problem is that when you step out of the conservative dream and come back to reality, you find that not only was Ronald Reagan a bad president, but he was one of the worst presidents we've seen in modern times. Reagan's policies have destroyed the United States for three decades, and for the eight years he was in office”

- Was Reagan a bad president? Why? 

“Frankly, the Reagan Era is likely only 'fondly remembered' by those who did well economically during his Presidency or by those who have only read positive accounts of his terms in the White House.”

- Why do some say Ronald Reagan was a bad president?

“Reagan pursued policies as President that were short-sighted, reckless and, for many, hurtful. His economic legacy is one of deplorable disregard for the consequences of his actions, and the ramifications of Reagan's decisions remain with us to this day.”

- Ronald Reagan was the worst president in our History

“Yes, he was worse than all the rest because his legacy of deficit spending and amassing of national debt to this day is crushing our ability to deal with the short-term and long-term world crisis. Bush I and Clinton both tried to get Reagan's deficit down, Clinton with with some success only to have Bush II add even more shit to the pile. Even today, much of our national budget goes to servicing Reagan's debt and reassuring our debtors. For the past 25 years we have continued to pay perhaps hundreds of billions just in interest because Reagan decided the wealthy shouldn't have to pay so much in taxes. Those tax cuts for the wealthy were simply passed on to all the rest of us with the crippling debt they created and may take decades or even a century for you and I to pay off. When it's all said and done Reagan's debt and all the interest we have had to pay on that debt could add up into the tens of trillions. It's not much different than a poor person running up their credit card to $10,000 and then only paying $10 a month to pay it off because that is all he has left to pay on the card. By the end of the poor person's life he may end up paying the credit card company $100,000 or more for a $10,000 loan. Think of Reagan and Bush II's debt as being on your current credit card statement even though it doesn't show up, because the fact is we will be paying for it out of our own pockets probably for the rest of our lives. “Keep in mind the so-called Reagan boom was in fact a rather middling episode of economic growth. The economy grew much more slowly in the 1980s than during the 1960s, more slowly than the postwar average of 3.6% annual growth, and no faster than in the 1970s or the 1990s. This is absolutely terrible when you think of all the debt he saddled upon us. We got no bang for one hell of a lot of bucks that we are still fucking paying for! Clearly the tax cuts had very little impact on stimulating the economy. Most of the other economic numbers from the 80's were below par compared to other decades. In a nut shell, if you did a cost benefit analysis of Reagan's economic policies he would get not just an F but a ZERO because he did much more damage than good.”

- The Irony and the Ecstasy

“Things were pretty dire when Reagan took office back in 1981, as Ryan remembers it. But Reagan ‘was not defeated or deterred. Instead, he proposed a plan to get America back on track.'

“Well, yes, in his speech to a joint session of Congress shortly after becoming president, Reagan presented his 'plan'—a reasonably detailed discussion of proposed tax cuts and spending cuts, pursuant to his vision of smaller government. The thing is, almost none of these changes ever happened. The tax cuts went through in 1981 but were partially repealed in 1982. In his 'plan,' Reagan promised to cut two Cabinet departments (Energy and Education). Instead he added one (Veterans Affairs, now the government’s second-largest). Ryan chooses to remember the Reagan of 1981, when anything was possible. This allows him to take Reagan’s promises as some kind of reality. Thirty-four years down the road, it’s too late for that.

...

“Reagan inherited a federal budget of $599 billion in revenue, $678 billion in spending, and a deficit of $79 billion. He left office with a federal budget of $909 billion in revenue, a little less than $1.1 trillion in spending, and a deficit of $155 billion.”

- 6 Ways You Didn't Realize Ronald Reagan Ruined The Country

“If we're talking pure numbers, there really isn't anything to argue about when it comes to which administration oversaw this country in the shadiest manner. Reagan wins that hands down. During his time in office, an astounding 138 members of his team were investigated, indicted, or convicted for their roles in various scandals. You could argue that merely being investigated shouldn't count, but that would be a stupid argument. Of course being investigated counts. Plenty of people live their entire lives without being the subject of an investigation of any sort, you know?

“Even if you did take that part out of the equation, the number of Reagan administration officials who were convicted of wrongdoing of some sort is astonishing, especially when compared with the statistics of famously "corrupt" presidents like Nixon or Clinton. This list on DailyKos.com just references those who were convicted of crimes that related to the jobs they performed as part of the administration. There are 21 names on the list. A similar list about the Nixon presidency would only produce eight names. Clinton's would have just one.”

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/268091833&color=ff5500"></iframe>

- 5 Terrible Things Ronald Reagan Did As President

“After his tax cuts devastated the federal treasury, ushering in the era of giant deficits we’re still mired in today, Reagan raised Social Security taxes, ostensibly to protect Social Security for future generations. Instead, he dumped that money into the general treasury fund to reduce the deficits he had created.”

- 5 More Terrible Things Ronald Reagan Did as President

“Deinstitutionalization of mentally ill patients began before Reagan was president, and in fact it was already recognized as a policy failure by 1981. But that didn’t stop the president from cutting funds for treating and preventing mental illnesses. The result was a big jump in the homeless population, a large percentage of whom suffered from serious mental illness. It’s a legacy that remains to this day.”

- 21 Reasons Why Ronald Reagan Was a Terrible President

“After several Americans were taken hostage by terrorists in Lebanon, Reagan provided weapons to Iran in exchange for their release. Despite this concession, ultimately more hostages were taken.

“After Reagan sent Marines to Beirut for a peacekeeping mission, a terrorist’s truck bomb killed 241 U.S. Marines. Reagan responded by immediately doing exactly what the terrorists wanted, pulling all the troops out of Beirut.

“After the bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Reagan promised to track down and punish the terrorists who committed that horrible act. He never followed up on that promise.”

-  8 Reasons Ronald Reagan Was One of the Worst Presidents Ever

“Before being elected President, Reagan said that being a member of a union was a ‘basic right’ all workers deserved. But oh how Washington corrupts. The air traffic controllers went on strike when salary negotiations failed. If they didn’t return to work, Reagan said they would be fired. Of those workers striking 11,345 were officially fired and banned from working for the federal government for life. His arrogance not only hurt families it also caused airline problems for several years to find and train new air traffic controllers. According to Michael Nolan’s book Fundamentals of Air Traffic Control, the FAA assured Washington the problems would be solved in just two years, but it took nearly ten years for staffing of air traffic control to return to normal. In 1993 President Bill Clinton lifted the federal service ban.“

-  Ronald Reagan cared more about UFOs than AIDS

“Reagan talked about this alien threat all the time, to the apparent consternation of his staff. When his 1987 U.N. assembly speech didn’t include the alien story, he wrote, 'and toward the end perhaps I still would like my `fantasy’ — how quickly our differences world wide would vanish if creatures from another planet should threaten this world.'

“If Ronald Reagan was a genuine UFO nutter or simply in thrall to a simplistic sci-fi plot makes no difference to me. But the fact remains that he spent a lot of time talking about spacemen. Spacemen killed, according to my estimates, no Americans, at all, during Reagan’s presidency.

“Reagan never mentioned AIDS until he was directly questioned about it in his second term, and he never gave a public statement on the epidemic until 1987, when 20,000-30,000 people had already died from it. When it came up in press briefings, it was, at first, a subject of humorous cajoling. Later, the president was advised not to say that children couldn’t catch AIDS from casual contact. Members of the Reagan inner circle attacked Surgeon General C. Everett Koop for encouraging sex education and condom use. The Centers for Disease Control was underfunded and there was never a comprehensive plan for dealing with the epidemic.

“The president mentions in a 1985 diary entry, in passing, that Rock Hudson was rumored to have AIDS — and the topic doesn’t come up again for two years. (And for some reason, late in his term, he begins consistently misspelling it, as 'Aides.') There isn’t much evidence that he devoted much time at all to even thinking about AIDS, which was killing a frankly staggering number of Americans throughout his entire presidency. Edmund Morris recalls him wondering if 'the Lord brought down this plague [because] illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments,' which does not sound like the statement of a man who’s given the disease much thought.

“Whether he himself was an anti-gay bigot who thought that the disease was a punishment from an angry god or simply a callous old man (surrounded by Christian right ideologues) who didn’t concern himself with what was killing so many homosexuals hardly matters. People died either way, because the government didn’t make fighting the epidemic a priority.”

[...and this should be horrifyingly familiar to anyone awake this past month]

- Behind the Ronald Reagan myth: “No one had ever entered the White House so grossly ill informed”

“At presidential news conferences, especially in his first year, Ronald Reagan embarrassed himself. On one occasion, asked why he advocated putting missiles in vulnerable places, he responded, his face registering bewilderment, 'I don’t know but what maybe you haven’t gotten into the area that I’m going to turn over to the secretary of defense.' Frequently, he knew nothing about events that had been headlined in the morning newspaper. In 1984, when asked a question he should have fielded easily, Reagan looked befuddled, and his wife had to step in to rescue him. 'Doing everything we can,' she whispered. 'Doing everything we can,' the president echoed. To be sure, his detractors sometimes exaggerated his ignorance. The publication of his radio addresses of the 1950s revealed a considerable command of facts, though in a narrow range. But nothing suggested profundity. 'You could walk through Ronald Reagan’s deepest thoughts,' a California legislator said, 'and not get your ankles wet.'

“In all fields of public affairs—from diplomacy to the economy—the president stunned Washington policymakers by how little basic information he commanded. His mind, said the well-disposed Peggy Noonan, was 'barren terrain.' Speaking of one far-ranging discussion on the MX missile, the Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton, an authority on national defense, reported, 'Reagan’s only contribution throughout the entire hour and a half was to interrupt somewhere at midpoint to tell us he’d watched a movie the night before, and he gave us the plot from War Games.' The president 'cut ribbons and made speeches. He did these things beautifully,' Congressman Jim Wright of Texas acknowledged. 'But he never knew frijoles from pralines about the substantive facts of issues.' Some thought him to be not only ignorant but, in the word of a former CIA director, 'stupid.' Clark Clifford called the president an 'amiable dunce,' and the usually restrained columnist David Broder wrote, 'The task of watering the arid desert between Reagan’s ears is a challenging one for his aides.'

“No Democratic adversary would ever constitute as great a peril to the president’s political future, his advisers concluded, as Reagan did himself. Therefore, they protected him by severely restricting situations where he might blurt out a fantasy. His staff, one study reported, wrapped him 'in excelsior,' while 'keeping the press at shouting distance or beyond.' In his first year as president, he held only six news conferences—fewest ever in the modern era. Aides also prepared scores of cue cards, so that he would know how to greet visitors and respond to interviewers. His secretary of the treasury and later chief of staff said of the president: 'Every moment of every public appearance was scheduled, every word scripted, every place where Reagan was expected to stand was chalked with toe marks.' Those manipulations, he added, seemed customary to Reagan, for 'he had been learning his lines, composing his facial expressions, hitting his toe marks for half a century.' Each night, before turning in, he took comfort in a shooting schedule for the next day’s television-focused events that was laid out for him at his bedside, just as it had been in Hollywood.

“His White House staff found it difficult, often impossible, to get him to stir himself to follow even this rudimentary routine. When he was expected to read briefing papers, he lazed on a couch watching old movies. On the day before a summit meeting with world leaders about the future of the economy, he was given a briefing book. The next morning, his chief of staff asked him why he had not even opened it. 'Well, Jim,' the president explained, 'The Sound of Music was on last night.'”

##

Editorial:  Nearly every problem of the 1990s, 2000s, and even into the 2010s can be traced back, not to the 70s of Nixon, Ford, and Carter, but to the 1980s. Yes, even 9/11 [Reagan’s CIA armed & trained Bin Laden].

The Cult of Reagan and the myths about the efficacy of his policies haunt us to this day. Every time a GOP congresscritter makes noises about how spending and deficits are some kind of exclusively ‘Democrat’ failing I have to wonder about their willful blindness to the true Reagan legacy.

Basically, every good thing to come out of the Depression era and WWII - all the economic and social advances of the mid 20th Century, were either slowed, halted, or rolled back starting with Reagan and gleefully perpetuated by his acolytes. 

The challenges we currently face all started in the 80s: automation of manufacturing, global trade facilitated by massive changes in shipping logistics, the transition from paper-shuffling to computerized records, and the move from full-service to self-serve - not just at the gas pump, but also things like ATMs, self-check out at the register, voice menus instead of operators & receptionists, and even internet retail. Technology has changed the nature of employment, white- and blue-collar both (and also changed the education needs of future workers) but we’re stuck with “tax cuts will solve everything” fantasies and nostalgia-mode economic policies that look back to the 50s, or 20s (or 1880s) for solutions.

I also have to wonder where our planet might be if the initiatives for solar and green energy that barely got started under Carter had been encouraged and expanded, rather than immediately rolled back - would we have started the transition to renewables 30 years earlier? 

I guess we’ll never know.

[enolareven]

Stop the arguments. Read a dictionary. Read the bible. (A letter to Republicans.)

Everyone else may as well pass over, because you already agree. Please do send this post to any Republicans or Trump Trolls you know or come across, because I put everything I could in here all in one letter.

Republican? Trump supporter?

So you think poor people are ‘takers’ or ‘leeches’.

To accept help or a gift is called ‘recieving’. As your business recieves money in exchange for goods and services. Sometimes, when you sell something, people give you money for other reasons than wanting your product, especially if you are in the entertainment business. They gave you the money...Did you leech or take it?

You think people should all work for themselves.

Do you really work? Did someone help you get where you are? Do you just sit around and extort money from people by owning their basic needs and charging ridiculous prices for it? Maybe your parents gave you a job, gave you free advice and education, gave you money? Not everyone had parents or money or access to education to begin with. It doesn’t make them lazy.

You think everyone should be independent.

I have heard that a Republican value is ‘less taxes’, ‘don’t touch what I earned’.

Why do all Republican politicians want to either raise taxes, or redistribute taxes into the military? What are we protecting so fiercely? A country where the sick, old, non-white, unmarried women, and born-poor can die on the street alone while rich cis-het white men spit on them? A country where veterans starve to death after returning from war? A country where teenagers are murdered at school for holding hands with someone of the same sex or wearing whatever non-offensive clothing they want? A country where men still regularly get away with rape scott free? A country where women are harassed and put down and verbally abused and told that their proper place is as someone’s sandwich and baby making machine?

Do you think you are ever really independent? You run a business....You depend on people buying your goods and services.

All of these people could be consumers. If you own apartments, low income housing brings your tax money back to you and supports them. If you own a grocery store, food stamps gives your tax money back to you and supports them. If you own hospitals, medicaid pays all of their expenses and supports them. If you’re in entertainment, welfare probably comes back to you and enriches their lives. You own hotels or travel companies? Those traveling business owners and workers have companies that are partially supported by these government programs. If you own a factory which produces any kind of goods... guess what? That cycle still applies to you.

The only people our next president wants to give back to are oil companies and weapon makers...one of which will be very likely become obsolete within my lifetime. He wants to make America suffer the Great Depression again. The cabinet is full of sick people who just want everyone to be like them, do what they say, and die otherwise.

Everyone has a right to life and fair treatment. You don’t like helping other people? I say tough shit. It’s the way it ought to be. Think any differently, and you have murderous ideals.

Families are ok taking care of sick blood relatives. Couples are ok taking care of a person they selected to commit to. Why should we not treat all disabled people like our grandfathers, brothers or sisters? What is wrong with our taxes supporting them? There is more than enough to go around.

Republicans are mostly bible thumping Christians....so...

READ THE BIBLE.

“Look at the flowers of the field- they neither till nor toil, yet every one of their needs is taken care of.” - Jesus Christ

He was saying that this is how God is. God takes care of everyone and provides for their needs.

“Love one another, as I have loved you.” - Jesus Christ

He was saying that to do as he has done, to provide for the poor and heal for the sick without asking anything in return, is the way into heaven. Their color, name they call God, and sexual recreational activities matter not. He didn’t say “except the poor, black, female, gay ,and muslim.”

Can you point out where it says in the bible “FUCK HELPING PEOPLE. Be selfish, keep what you’ve got and kick starving poor people off your huge ass lawn cause you don’t like looking at the color of their skin.”

If Jesus is the lord, why do you selectively listen to all the really terrible shit other people in the bible claim that they heard God say to them? Surely, if anyone burns in hell, it’ll be you, not the gay couple down the street.

Stop using the bible to defend your hatred and violent sadistic nature.

Lastly, I want to address the holier-than-though “I’m so logical’ type of Republican.

You think everyone owning guns will stop violent crime? If guns were easier to get, this would only INCREASE the ease of access to really fucked up people, dumbass. More people owning guns means more chances for bad people to steal those guns or to acquire those guns.

Democrats don’t necessarily want to send us back to all fighting with swords...they want guns kept inaccessible to civilians so only police and military can use them to protect us. Tell me one other place in the world where all people having access to guns has made for a more peaceful and safe society. You’re just an neurotic, obsessed gun nut who doesn’t feel confident enough in fighting off attackers with his fists.

As for the welfare crap...Welfare isn't taking anything away from anyone who needs it. That’s the whole point! It gives to people who need it. What the crap are you crying about? HOW THE HELL IS WELFARE DESTROYING OUR ECONOMY??? YOU’LL HAVE ONE LESS MOVIE TICKET PER YEAR SO A POOR FAMILY CAN HAVE FOOD? OH, SOB. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT PAYING TAXES. TAXES ARE FAIR AND WELFARE TRIES TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE HAS ENOUGH TO LIVE. If you have no issue with giving your tax money to building more totally unnecessary rockets and bombs, but you do have an issue with it feeding a ‘gross family of disgusting lower class colored people’ or ‘providing health care for some loathesome sodomite’ or protecting the planet which you live on and depend upon, Then you are fucked up, & downright stupid.

I love that we have taxes that take care of people. I love that the government does this. I love that there are doctors, nurses, psychologists, Christlike pastors, elder caretakers, food and clothes closets, Planned Parenthood, LGBT centers, people who dedicate their lives to helping others. I love this because it makes my work easier. It makes my life easier. I don’t to take time to help individual people constantly, and with more toward the right things it would leave less panhandlers on the street, less odor of people who are mentally handicapped and have no place to bathe, less sad sights of violent hate crimes...more educated people all over the country, more happy people. More people with money to spend, and therefore more beautiful variety and diversity in art, music, fashion, and even food. I would have been so happy if Bernie Sanders had become president and increased the tax percentage, taking away one small luxury from those who have them. And I will happily pay my taxes and donate money to charities should I ever become a billionaire. Fuck Trump, I look up to REAL successful businessmen like Bill Gates...Mark Zuckerburg (who even though I thing said some very twatty things, has given millions away to San Francisco’s only low-income hospital and pledged 99% of his stock to be given towards scientific advancements of humanity), and Michael Bloomberg (Who gave millions to help wean people off of coal energy.) Guys who didn’t go bankrupt 6 times and have recognizable names to pretty much everyone in the world before 2016, and actually paid their taxes.

I am far from a billionaire, in fact, I am below poverty level. I still donate 1% of my yearly income to people even less fortunate than me. Whatever I can spare.

If you are a Christian, you should have heard about tithing.

This is the deplorable sack of shit you voted for:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/for-years-trumps-charity-gave-veterans-little-more-than-peanuts/article/2000776

[topicprinter]

When it comes to closing more clients and growing your business one of the most important things to master is the art of persuasion.Some people might hear the word persuasion and feel "icky", like you’re trying to trick people.The image of a used car salesmen probably comes to mind as they try and sell you a lemon.But the truth is that humans have a terrible track record of taking action in our own self-interest. Inertia is a powerful force, and unless someone persuades us effectively we’ll just keep doing what we’ve been doing, even if means we never achieve our goals.If your course or product or service or whatever can genuinely make your clients life better, then it’s your duty to help them see that. And that’s what effective persuasion techniques can do.(This post is a text version of a live stream recorded inside the Client Science Facebook group. If you prefer watching video then come join us there and you'll find it saved to the group.)Blair Warren (the famous copywriter) is obsessed with the art of persuasion.He’s read just about every book there is on the subject, not to mention written a few himself.In 2005, he created the One Sentence Persuasion Course where he distilled all of the various persuasion techniques he’s picked up in his lifetime down into into a single sentence.This one sentence encapsulates the base mechanisms of persuasion, on which most other theory’s and methods are created.Because of that it might seem somewhat simplistic, but that’s the point…WARNING: Do not skip ahead. You first need to take into account this one crucial point, or else the sentence won’t have much impact at all.“The most magical things in life are often the result of the correct application of the most basic principles imaginable.” — Blair WarrenTo illustrate this Blair gives an example of going into a magic store and been amazed by a magic trick. You’re so impressed that you pay $20 for the trick to see how it works.Once you get into your car you start unwrapping the package to discover the magic inside. But then you learn how it’s done and you become disappointed. It’s so simple. Now that you know how the trick was performed it feels ordinary and mundane. Why did you even pay money for this stupid thing? You’ll probably regret spending that $20.But the powerful part is that the magic trick still works. It still has the exact same impact on people. It worked on you, and it will continue to work on others, even if the the way it works seems basic and normal now that the "magic" has been revealed to you.This sentence is no different. The power behind it comes from the correct application of it’s basic and ordinary principles.Without further ado, here is the magic sentence:People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions and help them throw rocks at their enemies.Read it again. Slowly. Take in every word.People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions and help them throw rocks at their enemies.It’s simple, effective, and powerful advice that a lot of us (myself included) could do with remembering.Hitler used it to wage a world war, cult leaders use it to influence their followers, and you can use it to sign more clients.If you’re still not convinced, try and find an ad that doesn’t contain at least one of the those elements. After searching through dozens of ads you’ll have sufficient evidence that these elements stand on their own. Even if you do manage to find a few ads without any of those elements (someone is bound to dig one up in the comments) I think you’ll find that they’re the exception to the rule.Let’s break the whole thing down, one part at a time.People will do anything for those who…Encourage their dreamsNaysayers are abound and everyone will try to shit on your dreams. So when we find someone who believes in us we become instantly bonded.Imagine telling two people your dreams…The first one tells you to be conservative and play it safe, because the unknown path is fraught with despair.The second one encourages you, believes in you and your abilities, and gives you advice on how to make it happen.Which one are you going to follow?Justify Their FailuresNo one wants to feel like a failure — so it’s essential you assure clients they are not responsible for their past mistakes.You can do that by taking the responsibility off their shoulders…“It’s not your fault.”“There’s no way you could have made it work without the right information.”“You just weren’t using the right tools, that’s why you failed.”“I’m not surprised you’ve been struggling, considering how the last guy you hired was running things.”Allay Their FearsFear is a powerful force. Your prospective clients won’t budge an inch until you allay their fears.If you have ever told someone “don't be afraid” then you’ll know it doesn’t work.Instead, talk them through it, in the same way a good friend would comfort you if you were afraid. Present evidence. Tell them success stories. Offer your support.Confirm Their SuspicionsEveryone has their suspicions, and there’s nothing quite more satisfying then saying the words “I knew it!”If you’re suspicious of the government then you’ll enjoy hearing news that your suspicions were justified.If you suspect meat can give you cancer you’ll feel gratified reading a study that confirms you were right.If you think two coworkers are hooking up, you’ll feel an incredible impulse to yell out “I knew it!” when they announce to the office that they’re in a relationship (I do not advise this).Confirming someones suspicions is a long used tactic of marketers and politicians to bring people into the fray.When our suspicions are confirmed we feel a surge of superiority, and we feel attracted to the person who helped us feel that way.Help Them Throw Rocks at Their EnemiesWe all have enemies, even if you don’t think you do. That’s because we’re all involved in some sort of struggle — and whatever you’re struggling with is your enemy; be that a person, a group of people, a religion, a setback, a rivalry philosophy, or anything at all.SEO professionals feel like they’re battling the almighty GooglePeople on a diet are fighting hunger and fatSmokers are struggling with addictionForex traders are always working against “the market”When you’re in a struggle, you’re always looking for someone to help battle your enemy.One of the fastest ways to connect with someone is to point out that common enemy, because now you're in it together, their on your side. When someone helps battle your enemies you become more than friends, you become partners.People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions and help them throw rocks at their enemies.The power of this sentence doesn’t lie in it’s unique perspective , but in the fact that it is so rarely put into practice.“While these insights seem like common sense, they are anything but common practice — except among master persuaders” — Blair WarrenCan this famous sentence make you rich? On it’s own, no.Can applying these basic principles help you close more clients? It just might.Print the sentence out and stick it on your wall.Refer to it next time you put out any marketing material or jump on a call with a client.It might just make you rich.If you like learning about this stuff then please come join us in the Client Science Facebook group where we talk about these topics in-depth.

[secular-vernacular]

Bullshit Jobs - Terrible psychic wound running across our society - Huge swathes of people spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound - Over the course of the last century, professional, managerial, clerical, sales and service workers have tripled, growing from one quarter to three quarters of all employment - FS, tele-marketing etc: and a those industries that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones - According to economic theory, a profit-seeking firm wouldn’t employ pointless people: yet through some alchemy the number of paper pushers seems to increase - What does it say about our species that it sees to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (If a small percentage of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, ‘the market’ reflects what they think is useful or important) - This is profound psychological violence; how can you talk about dignity in labour when you feel your job shouldn’t exist? - The more obviously one’s work benefits others, the less it is paid - Free market ideology a political project dressed up as an economic one - The overall effect of free market policies has been that rates of economic growth have slowed pretty much everywhere except India and China: scientific and technological advance has stagnated; and in most wealthy countries, the younger generations can expect to live less prosperous lives than their parents - Qui bono (Roman) - who benefits? - Creating an insecure and overworked workforce destroys the basis for organised challenges to power - How did such a large proportion of our workforce find themselves in bullshit jobs, and why do so may consider this state of affairs to be normal? - When and how did we come to believe that creativity was supposed to be painful, or how did we come up with the notion that you can sell your time? - We have come to believe that men and women who do not work harder than they wish at jobs they do not particularly enjoy are bad people unworthy of love, care or assistance from their communities. It is as if we have collectively acquiesced to our own enslavement. - A bullshit job: one so completely pointless that even the person who has to perform it every day can not convince himself there’s a good reason for him to be doing it - Work has become an end in itself - Socrates: when our own definitions produce results that seem intuitively wrong to us - it’s because we’re not aware of what we really think - There is social value apart from market value and no-one has ever really bothered to measure the difference between the two - Many of them haunted by the knowledge that nothing of value would be lost to the world were their jobs simply to disappear - Bullshit jobs are different to shit jobs; shit jobs actually need to be done but the workers are usually paid little and treated badly - Private & public bureaucracies have become so entangled it’s almost difficult to tell them apart - If you complain about getting a run-around from your bank, officials will tell you it’s regulation - but regulations were written by the bank - USSR: had full employment policy so made up jobs in the public sector - may be part of the misconception of wasteful public sector - If you wear a uniform, you’re likely to b hard pressed. It’s as if businesses were endlessly trimming fat on the shop floors to add layers of upper management - Could certainly make the argument that there’s a deep structural affinity between wasteful extravagance and bullshit - Something terribly wrong with a society that tells its female population they are worth more dancing on boxes than they will be at any subsequent point in their lives, whatever their talents or accomplishments - The process of bullshitization is highly inconsistent: has affected middle more than the working class (e.g. nurses vs brick-layers) - Flunkies - make someone else look or feel important - Giving people a useless task to keep them busy / happy enough to prevent them from uprising (e.g. vagabonds outside castle) - Badge of seriousness; if they don’t do this, what else that I expect won’t they do? (E.g. receptionist) - Cold caller for a broker to make them see important - too busy making money to speak to you - Managers off-loading their work to give the impression they were too busy to do it themselves - Sometimes, flunkies do nothing - sometimes they do their boss’s job - Tomb of famous noble men always had slaves - to be an aristocrat meant the power to order others around. Same in a company - three levels of command - Goons: have an aggressive element. E.g. armed forces. Countries need armies only because other countries do. Have a largely negative impact on society - Distinction between honest & dishonest illusions - when you subtly change appearance, you are changing viewers’ unconscious assumptions about what everyday reality ought to be like, to create an uncomfortable feeling that their lived reality is an inadequate subtitle for the real thing - What irks is the aggression and the deception - Duct tapers: jobs that exist due to a glitch or fault in the business - Coders are often happy to perform the interesting and rewarding work on core technologies for free at night but since that mess they have less incentive to think about how it’d be compatible, coders reduced during the day to tedious (but paid) work of making them fit together - It’s a full time job cleaning up after someone - The moral agony of the duct taper: to be forced to organise one’s life around caring about a certain value (e.g. cleanliness) because more important people can’t be bothered - Duct taping has traditionally been women’s work, and working class - Box Tickers: employees who exist primarily to allow an organisation to say they are doing something they’re not - Not only does it not accomplish the goal, it actively undermines it - Government fact finding commission - 1) implies that apart from a small group, no-one knew what was happening (hardly ever true) 2) a way of implying someone will do something about it - On some level, all bureaucracies work on this principle: once you introduce formal measures of success, reality for the organisation becomes that which exists on paper, and the human reality that lies behind it becomes secondary at best - Immediate material manifestation of power and prestige (emblem) is visual quality of reports - Taskmasters - two subcategories - those who assign work to others and bullshit generators - Coming up with statistical measures that your underlings can falsify - Strategic leadership - inserting quantifiable methods for assessing performance, forcing teachers & scholars to spend more time assessing their performance and less time doing it - Dealing with underperformance - Imaginary friends - people hired ostensibly to humanise an inhuman corporate environment - make-work student employment was a way of ‘preparing and training’ students for their future bullshit jobs - The more jobs becoming suffused in bullshit, the more pressure is put on college students to to learn about the real world by dedicating less of their time to self-organised and goal-directed activity - Tesla: I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heat like that felt by the inventor as he seems some creation of the brain unfolding to success - Rational economics: minimax (minimise cost, maximise benefit) - Much of our public discourse about work starts from the assumption that the economists’ model is correct. People have to be compelled to work. - People would rather work than have nothing useful to do - In prison, it’s a punishment to be given nothing to do - Infants express extraordinary happiness when they figure out they can cause predictable effects in the world - Play - the pleasure at being the cause - Children come to understand that they exist, that they are discrete entities separate from the world around them, largely by coming to understand that ‘they’ are the thing which just caused something to happen - the proof of which is that they can make it happen again - Our sense of self is grounded in action: when we are truly engrossed in doing something - we tend to forget that we exist - Broucek: ‘trauma of failed influence’ - first show them the delight of creation, then deny them it - Groos: freedom as exercise of our powers as as end in themselves - If make-believe play is the purest expression of freedom, make-believe work imposed by others is the purest expression of lack of freedom - In feudal times, work was largely unsupervised - A worker’s time is not their own; it belongs to the person who bought it - idleness is theft. Most human societies would never have conceived of such a thing - E.g. with pottery - in old times; you could buy the pot and the potter (Slave) but not the potter’s time (implies their labour power distinct from them) - Majority of wage labour in the ancient world from people who are already slaves - Simultaneous moral & technological changes. By 14th century, most European towns had clock towers, usually encouraged by local merchant guild - Merchants placed human skulls on their desk as memento mori to remind themselves that they should make good use of their time because each chime of the clock brought them closer to death - As it spread to commercial use, everyone was encouraged to see it as a finite property to be carefully budgeted and disposed of. Went from passing time to ‘spending’ or ‘wasting’ it - Preachers began speaking of the ‘husbandry of time’ - careful budgeting of time the essence of morality - Link between education and workforce; preparation for the labour force - Went from a technological problem to a moral one - particularly puritan - middle classes came to be seen as poor because they lacked time discipline - You learn your lesson - don’t be too efficient - you won’t be rewarded, you’ll be given more meaningless busywork - There is a religious element: dutiful submission even to meaningless work under another’s authority is a form of moral self-discipline that makes you a better person - Humans are social beings that begin to atrophy if they are denied regular contact with other humans; insofar as they do have a sense of being an autonomous entity separate from the world and from others, it is largely from conceiving themselves as capable of acting on the world and others in predictable ways. Deny humans this sense of agency, and they are nothing - Who is forcing pretend work? The employer? Society? - Many middle class people now have little social ties outside of work which makes much of the day-to-day drama of gossip and intrigue confined to office - Airlie Russell Hochschild: emotional labour - become haunted by depression, emptiness and confusion - Ambiguity where the rules are never quite clear - Particularly in larger companies where managers don’t have much of a proprietary feeling and don’t have reason to believe they’ll get in much trouble with their own supervisors - Not being challenged / not being able to exercise your powers - Psychologists refer to it as ‘scriptlessness’ - codes of behaviour are ambiguous, no ons is sure what they are supposed to say or feel about the situation - Most people in the world are still taught to see their work as their principal way of having an impact on the world - A transaction everyone knows is pointless - a ritual of humiliation - Fromm: nonsexual forms of sadism and necrophilia tend to pervade everyday affairs in highly puritanical and hierarchical environments - Physical & mental health impacts exacerbated, not mitigated, by generous compensation - To become the face of the machine you despise; it has not escaped my notice that most horrible monsters don’t kill you, but turn you into a monster yourself - Workers who are hired for a certain skill, but who are not then really allowed to exercise it, rarely end up exercising that skill in a covert way when they discover they have free time on their hands - One might imagine that leaving millions of well educated young men and women without any real work responsibilities but with access to the internet (the repository of all knowledge) might spark some form of Renaissance. Nothing remotely along these lines has taken place - Social media - basically forms of electronic media that lend themselves to being produced and consumed while pretending to do something else - It’s astonishingly difficult to repurpose time for which you’re paid - particularly if you know they’re entirely futile - European universities spend roughly 1.4 billion euros a year in failed grant applications - money that would obviously have been available to fund actual research - How much of your time you spend vying with one another to convince potential donors you already know what you’re going to discover - Seemingly endless accrual of layer upon layer of unnecessary administrative and managerial positions resulting from the aggressive application of market principals - Only in the 1970s that the financial sector and executive classes - upper echelons of of corporate bureaucracies - effectively fused - Intrinsic connection between the financialisation of the economy, the blossoming of information industries, and the proliferation of bullshit jobs - Economists measure value in utility - the degree to which it’s satisfying a want or need - Any utility ultimately ends up in the subjective territory of ‘taste’ (e.g. why one dress satisfies your preferences more than another) - To a large degree, needs are just other people’s expectations - So most economics conclude there’s no point sitting in judgment about what people should want; better to just accept that they do want, and then sit in judgment about how effectively (rationally) they set about pursuing their desires - The market can get it wrong: doing nothing is not worth £40,000 to them - So many people acknowledge the inverse relation between social benefit and level of compensation - and think this is how things ought to be. That virtue, as the ancient stoics used to argue, should be its own reward. You wouldn’t want people motivated by greed to do those jobs - Those who choose to benefit society and know that shouldn’t also expect middle class salaries - those who suffer from the knowledge they do pointless or harmful work should be compensated for it - There seems to be a broad consensus not so much that work is good but that not working is very bad; that anyone not slaving away harder than they’d like at something they don’t enjoy is a bad person - Labour theory of value reigned supreme until 1890s - that labour is the sole source of wealth - Then, concerted effort by capitalists to change message: capital, not labour creates wealth & prosperity - the productivity of ‘concentrated’ capital would so lower the prices of commodities the workers of tomorrow could live as well as kings of the past - Promulgation of consumerism also coincided with the beginnings of the managerial revolution - Labour theory of value based on production, deeply theological and patriarchal - Most working-class labour, whether carried out by men or women, actually more resembles what we archetypically think of as women’s work, looking after people, seeing to their wants and needs, explaining, reassuring, maintaining, looking after and maintaining plants, animals, machines, etc. - The world we made is something we made collectively as a society and could be made different - based on what we thought people would like - Caring for others requires a world that’s relatively predictable as the grounds on which caring can take place - Northern European notion that paid labour under a master’s discipline is the only way to become a genuine adult - Paradox of work: - 1) most people’s sense of dignity and self-worth is caught up in working for a living - 2) most people hate their jobs - Denied the ability to define and respect oneself - Bullshit jobs proliferate today in large party because of the peculiar nature of managerial feudalism that has come to dominate wealthy economies - but to an increased degree, all economies. They cause misery because human happiness is always caught up in a sense of having effects on the world; a feeling which most people, when they speak of their work, express through a language of social value - Moral envy & virtue signalling - Automation will mean we shift even more from productive to caring labour - First wave of managerial feudalism reaction to the 60s counterculture - When faced with a social problem my impulse is not to imagine myself in charge and ponder what sort of solutions I would then impose, but to look for a movement already out there, already trying to address the problem and create its own solutions - 60% of those eligible for benefits don’t receive them - Universal basic income as a solution

Graeber, Bullshit Jobs

[tas-ss7a]

“Europe In The Middle Ages: The Big Picture” Blog By Tom Le

Hello strangers that to read my want blog, I’m trying not to make this introduction as weird as possible, so I can really write a blog in my way. I’m Tom and this is my blog about something that I don’t feel very interested of. It’s about “Europe in the Middle Ages: The big picture”. At first, I don’t know any shit about this topic *cough* cough*... But after 20 minutes of asking Mr. Google every single question that I can think of, I finally know what it is about (and with the help of Mr. Matt’s notes). And that is why I’m writing this blog, to share my thoughts, feelings and knowledge about this topic.  

Europe in the Middle Age is about the history of Europe, also known as the “Dark Age”. It's started from when the Eastern Roman fell in 476 C.E and ends in the beginning of the Renaissance which began in the 1300s. People believes that this is the times when art, science and philosophy stopped making progress and improvements. The “Dark Age” talks about these main topics:  

The Catholic Church

The rise of Islam

The Crusades

Art and architecture

Economics and society

The “Dark Age” started when the Western Roman fell, but the other half survived. I think that this is one of the best events happened in the “Dark Age” because the Roman Empire is very cool. But how the Roman Empire fell is even cooler, there’s so much ways it can fell just by the citizens or government of the empire. But that’s not one of our topics that we will be talking about. Instead, we will start with the topic about Catholic church

The Catholic Church:

Catholic church is the most powerful organization on the continent in that time. Kings, queens and other leaders had to rely on the protection of the Church in order to hold onto their power. Because of this, ordinary people across Europe had to donate 10 percent of their earnings each year to the Church, there’s a name for it called “tithing”. At the same time, European governments don’t get the tax from the Church because they rarely had to pay it. I think this make a lot of sense, cause the kings, queens and other leaders rely on the Church’s protection so they rarely had to pay their tax. If they need to pay it, then the Church will not have that much power in that time when they both use their money for protections and taxes. So as the result, the Catholic built up a great deal of both money, power and trust.

The rise of Islam:

Meanwhile the Catholic is still growing, the Islamic world was growing larger and more powerful over time. In class, I don’t really understand about this topic, so I asked Mr. Google a crap ton of questions about it. So basically, the prophet Muhammad who founded the religion of Islam had died in the year 632. In the following years, parts of the Middle East had been conquered by the Muslims armies. Because of this, they united them under the rule of a single leader, called a caliph. At its height, medieval Islamic world was three times bigger than the Christian world.

Under the caliphs, life and culture in great cities such as Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus blossomed. Poets, scientists and philosophers wrote thousands of books. Religious leaders even taught and interpreted the Quran, the holy book of Islam, and it spread it cross the Middle East to the readers or learners can spread the knowledge even farther. I don’t know if this is true because in the Dark and Middle Age, the art, science and philosophy don’t really have any improvements. But this proves that maybe one of these facts is wrong (or did I read the wrong website). But the madness didn’t stop there, Muslim thinkers translated Greek, Iranian and Indian texts into Arabic. They also developed the number system that we all use today. And it still didn’t stop there. Inventers even came up with technologies ideas like the pinhole camera, soap, windmills, surgical in instruments and the early flying machine. I don’t know if I can really trust Mr. Google anymore, I think I should use Firefox instead...

The Crusades:

Soon after that, the Christian and Islam worlds came into conflict. A series of military campaigns called the Crusades, was made by the Catholic church. They made it to force Muslims to leave Europe. Crusaders believed that their military service would guarantee that they could spend eternity in heaven. I don’t know why and how they would think like that, but I think I don’t want the answer for it so... The Crusades began in 1095, when Pope Urban summoned a Christian army to fight its way to Jerusalem, a city that is consider how in both Christianity and Islam. They continued and off until the end of the 1400s.  

Art and architecture:

The Catholic Church was busy building grand cathedrals and monasteries while the Crusaders were shipping of to battle. In the year 900 up to the 1200s, hundreds of cathedrals (large churches). Most of them is in the Romanesque, and it's very heavy with stone arches. But around the 1200, builders start to embrace Gothic architecture for the cathedrals. Compare to the Romanesque, the Gothic architecture seems almost weightless. Religious art started changing as well when artists were hiring to make fabulous creations. In the 1300s, city booksellers began to sell small illuminated manuscripts to wealthy individuals because many craftsmen start to make another important art form, which is bookmaking.

Economics and society:

In the feudal society, the king gave large piece of lands known as “fief” to nobles and bishops. And the landless peasants known as “serfs” work on those lands, so they can live for themselves and the fief owners. They also promised to get protection in case of an enemy invasion.

The feudal were also been introduced to new farming technologies like the heavy plow. With these new technologies, fewer farmers were needed but more food was produced. Because of this, the serf's populations grew, but there’s no more fief to work on so moved to new towns or cities.  

Meanwhile, Europeans merchants started to sell goods like mine, olive oil and fabric. Some also trade their goods by the seas with their boats. As a result, the populations in many cities grew very large over time. But then between 1347 and 1350 however, a strange disease known as the “Black Death” killed millions of people. It’s especially deadly in high population cities, because this is where people are crowded. This disease can spread from person to person just by walking near or interact with them.  

After the Black Death, a new era was born... The Renaissance. Many historians see it as a golden age that put Europe back on track after the “Dark Ages”, but it actually had things related to the Middle Ages.

This is my blog (low quality one). I have never created a blog in my life, so this is my first blog. I hope you will like my weird and terrible blog...

[bastardtravel]

November 9, 2017. Athens, Greece.

They hid the Acropolis.

I don’t know what they stand to gain from it. I think maybe the only way they could convince people to go through the Plaka. Apparently, it’s a beautiful, idyllic village, and one of the oldest towns in the world. It seemed to me like a whole lot of lame graffiti and narrow alleys full of outgoing grifters with friendship bracelets, all of whom happened to love my Barcelona shirt and sought to vocalize that.

The Plaka is a labyrinth that might wind up saving me the trip to Crete, and what few signs exist are in Greek. I asked a tiny goth girl on the corner if this was the way to the Acropolis. Her eyes got big for a second, but then she realized I was not trying to beg for money, give her friendship bracelets, or sell her drugs, and she became very helpful.

“All roads lead to Acropolis,” she said in some of the best English I’d heard out of a local, “But I think that one over there is easiest.”

“I’ll take easiest,” I said, and did. It’s possible she was a grifter plant, and by easiest she meant “most dense with people calling you MY FRIEND, giving you garbage bracelets, explaining how hungry they are, and inviting you to an African dance festival in the square”, but unfortunate dentristy aside, she was too cute for that to be her job. She could’ve been a waitress, at very least. Especially in America. Goth chain restaurant food service workers are the sultry, emotionally damaged specters that haunt every young man’s dreams.

I wove through the Plaka uphill, up stairs, up more hills, more stairs, small cafe owners giving me shady looks as I cut through the stairs that they somehow set up tables and chairs on. When I finally got to the top, I discovered all of the humans.

I later found out there’s an Acropolis metro stop, which is probably how all these fat old Americans beat me to the top. No one’s more confused by my aversion to obvious tourists than I am, considering it’s usually pretty obvious I’m a tourist, especially in Europe. I’m a foot and a half taller and 50 – 100 lbs heavier than everyone except the Nords, and none of them even lift. I think part of their socialism is they all decide on one guy who lifts for Scandinavia, and that guy is The Mountain.

All these little purple-lipstick hobbit women keep looking at me like I escaped a genetic engineering lab, and the international perception of Americans can’t be helping. From what I’ve gleaned in drunken hostel conversations, most Europeans and Australians seem to think America is a post-apocalyptic spaghetti western where we’re all looting in all the major cities and open-carrying AR-15s in case President Immortan Joe sends his death squad drones to Build the Wall.

As I approached the Acropolis, a one-eyed man on a Segway wearing a laminated SEGWAY TOURS sign cruised up to me and said, “You goin’ to the Acropolis?”

“Yes indeed,” I said without eye contact. I don’t want a Segway. This is a goddamn pilgrimage. You think I came around the world to irreconcilably demonstrate to Athena that I’m a li’l bitch?

“Well, you better hurry,” he said in an unexpected show of non-hustling candor. “It’s closing in an hour.”

“I thought it was open til 8.”

“They changed the hours. They start kickin’ people out at 4:40.”

Well, it was 4, so it was go time. I thanked him and charged up the hill, dodging around enormous Asian tour groups and lines of geriatric Central Americans walking 5 abreast to make sure no one could get past them. Everyone was shouting, all the time, forever.

I swung off the path a few times because it was easier to just climb the rocks than navigate the teeming sea of human vermin, paid the 10 Euro to get in, and climbed up toward the Acropolis proper.

You know in spy movies when there’s a laser grid the protagonist has to cross, so they do gymnastics and cartwheels to avoid hitting any of them? Imagine that, but with cameras and selfie sticks. No matter where you went, you were photobombing somebody, and still, they were screaming. Everyone was screaming so much at the silent hilltop archaeology temple, and making faces for the cameras like they’re in a cheap photo booth, and forcing me to hate them.

The Old Temple of Athena was devoted to Athena Hygieia, which pertained to health and medicine. This was probably my favorite part.

The olive tree planted on the west side of the Erectheion symbolized the original olive tree that built the world as we know it.

In the ancient days, Athens was already booming, but it wasn’t called Athens. King Cecrops almost single-handedly dragged Greece into civilization, introducing ceremonial burial, marriage, and literacy to his society. It’s arguable that this was a mixed bag, but eh. After seeing all the thriving, he decided that what the city really needed was more thriving and issued an open invite to the gods to have one become the city’s protector and patron. Immediately, Athena and Poseidon both laid their claim.

Athena suggested to King Cecrops that a contest be held, and he be the judge. Now, Cecrops must have been shitting bricks, because every time the gods hold a contest someone gets turned into a cow or raped by a goose or something, but you can’t tell Athena “that’s a terrible idea” because then you will definitely be getting flayed alive every day for the rest of eternity, so the king said, “Yeah, totally. Let’s do that.”

Poseidon had it all figured out. He knew what Athens needed. He stabbed the earth with his trident and brought a flood right up to the edge of the city. The people had water, now! Poseidon brought water, what a surprise! It was really practical and convenient, right up until they discovered it was seawater and drinking it would kill them.

We can assume that Athena shook her head in disgust before presenting Cecrops with the olive tree, or rather, seeds to it.

“Plant this and wait,” she said. “You’ll see.”

Seed they did, and see they did. Olive oil became a staple for everything in Greece, in ascending order of importance: fuel, wood, shelter, food, and lube. When the trees finally grew, Cecrops faced the music and declared Athena the winner, and they just kept building her temples after that. If you read up on the mythology, Poseidon got the shaft pretty often. Probably why he was always so salty (ha haaaaa).

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus. They still do performances here, unlike the Theater of Dionysius, which was far too ruined and roped off for me to sneak in and honor Diogenes’ memory by poopin’.

The plague of humanity was becoming too taxing. I was getting snippy. A dude’s just trying to honor his personal patron goddess. Did I yell in your church? Well, okay, a little outside of the Basilica in the Vatican, but that wasn’t on me. God started it.

I shimmied down a hiking path to get back to center city. On the way down, I saw a scrawny girl wearing boots with 6 inch heels, trying to navigate the slippery rocks and loose gravel that made up the entirety of the hill.

“Heels to the Acropolis, huh?” I asked her. Her boyfriend was not thrilled at my casually outgoing nature, and sneered a “Yuh” at me, as though he were the one wearing heels to the Acropolis.

“Bold choice.”

She giggled. He didn’t. I slunk back into Athens and went back to the hostel to spend happy hour writing. My Greek bartender friend tried to hit me up for that 4 Euro beer because happy hour didn’t start for another 3 minutes. I gave him a dark look and said I’d wait it out. When the clock rolled over, I got two smaller beers for also 4 Euros, but it was a net gain I could abide.

Outside on the terrace, I met four excitable Australian lads. We got drunk and compared cultures, and they taught me a lexicon of Aussie slang that I knew most of because of the internet. We were joined by a guy from Michigan whose accent was, to me, more pronounced than anyone else’s, and the Austrian tagger I mentioned yesterday. You can check out his work here.

“All right, mate, let’s hash this out,” they asked me. “How in the FUCK did Trump happen?”

“Bible belt, man,” I said. “The news you see coming out of America is all left-leaning media from metropolitan areas. New York, Boston, Philly, D.C., anywhere in California. The majority of America is middle America. Impoverished, living in the boonies, voting straight Conservative every time cuz “we gotta stop that therr abortion, mm-hmm”. The left is louder, but the right is definitely more prevalent. Not to mention, more likely to vote.”

“So, like, is it that bad? Is he really gonna build the wall?”

Me and the dude from Michigan both laughed.

“No, dude. There’s no wall happening.”

“He’s a joke,” the Michiganian said. “He just goes up there, and says things. But there are people behind him in the government that have to allow him to do these things, and they don’t.”

“Right, because they’re impossible and stupid,” I said.

“I think he just says things for attention. And that keeps getting him attention, so he keeps saying it.”

“So let’s get to the kangaroo thing,” I said. “Are they like deer?”

“They’re just like deer,” they said. “They’re everywhere, and all they do is jump in front of your car and fuck it up.”

“Yeah, that’s what deer are for.”

“Down in the bush, ya go shootin’ roos. Ya shoot a lot of things in Straya, actually. The ecosystem is wrecked from all the species the Europeans introduced, so if you shoot one of the poisonous toads and bring it to the municipal, they’ll give you 8 dollas.”

“Damn.”

We drank our drinks, then I said, “I saw an odd thing, the other night, allegedly pretty common in Australia. How prevalent are shoeys?”

Immediately, they all started screaming in joy like I just said the secret word on Peewee’s Playhouse.

We hit the streets, inhaled some 2 Euro gyros, and attempted to find a bar. Instead, we found a hookah bar that claimed it was 5 Euro a hookah, but was actually 5 Euro per person smoking a hookah. That, my friends, is how they getcha. They blasted reggaeton the entire time we were there, which kind of clashes with the intended ambiance of a hookah bar in my ever humble opinion, but nobody asked me.

After that, the impetuous Australians went to buy drugs from one of the shady grifters in the square. Apparently, friendship bracelets aren’t the only thing they’re selling. They picked up 6 gs of Grecian weed for 50 Euro, and then pledged to us that they’d meet us up on the roof terrace with it. It wasn’t going to make or break my night, but we gave them a half hour and they never showed. Ghosted. Too savage. But, you know what they say: Ozzie come, ozzie go.

Off to the rest of the sights. Talk soon.

Love,

The Bastard

  Athens: Sartre Was Right November 9, 2017. Athens, Greece. They hid the Acropolis. I don't know what they stand to gain from it.

[somedaypast-thesunset]

i need to do some writing today.

here is what i know as a fact: i am undoubtedly more mature emotionally and in overall life than him. no matter what, i will always handle life easier than him because “my journey” “taught me” “how to be strong”.but its not strength. its like.. an armour coating. and i just kept painting a protective sealant around my soul everytime something happened so now when something happens thats pretty fucing bad, my reaction is much less than the average person. kind of like an ER trauma doctor - theyve seen so much. i have seen more than almost any other person my age. i know more. even though i didnt have the same experiences as them, i still know of life much more. i know the true reality of life as it is and not what is sold to you or influenced by a higher source. 

and life is absolute total complete shit. it’s totally completely terrible and if you are lucky - and ONLY if you are lucky, will you find your own success which will satisfy you just enough to make it through. 

i am not depressed solely because my father is dead. thats simple. that doent stop me from living my life. if he just died randomly - that sucks ass but you move on. its not his death. its his life. he worked 47 years to have his pensions stolen legally. like government approved pension theft. he worked so hard to die in poverty. he wasnt a homeless person. he never borrowed money from anyone. he had no debts. why in the FUCK did he get that? what kind of god, if there was a god, would reward your earthly services with fucking poverty. the government told him if you pay your taxes and be a good citizen you will get X amount for the rest of your days but no where did they say if you get married though and become seperated your wife will take your pensions. what the fuck is seperation if nothing changes? 

47 years to be crippled in a lazy boy watching wrestling. FORTY. SEVEN. YEARS. where in the FUCK was his reward? he didnt even get a loving family! he died ALONE. he gave everything he had in his life toe veryone else and he died ALONE starving in a hospital bed. 

so tell me now how you paying 1.50 for air at the pump is the sign of the world ending. tell me how them raising the gas prices before a holiday is the worst of capitalism. tell me how you working sooo hard for the past year has been just absolutely terrible and “gotten you nowhere” as you live in your mothers house for free. 

bitch you dont even know the worst of life. you dont even know what it is to do everything right and stil get nothing for it. he said to me, “you dont know, ive had to actually work -” .. “ive watched a dozen men in the exact same position as you get royally fucked much harder than you and have to keep going. how does this give me any incentive to go out and work as i watched men break their back for _nothing_? their lives are no better.”

i told him that my doctor believes i completely understand whats going on. that im not like delusional or creating scenarios in my head - i have encountered the true realities of life and human beings have extreme difficulties dealing with some of the worst parts of life; such as moving & public speaking & death. 

so i go back and forth. because im told im shit i believe im shit and infantalize myself; i must be so ignorant and so blinded not to see the “truth” and that my depression is a fog keeping me from seeing positive things. 

but then there are times like this where i realize i might actually be one of the few people around me who actually see things for how they are. his mother returned from her vacation and immediately she brought a cloud of darkness with her because she is the epitome of mass consumption and spoiledness. and its become disgusting the level in which she is consuming and spending money and i cant even pretend to be amused anymore. it really pisses me off. because i have such little money i am dictated as to how i should be using it and what i should be buying and yet she has enough money to stock her house with food that has been expired for two years and continue to buy more and be particular about bagged milk or eggs with omega 3 and its like you lived on an island which shouldve been closer to farm life and you somehow came out entitled and spoiled as fuck. my friend and i slept in her bed for four hours one night after drinking and she left her rings but we didnt know. his mother found them and fraked out that we slept in her bed because “you cant sleep in a bed someone else has slept in”.

and its like within this “concern” she had no bearng at all on the fact she was insulting me and my friend. he said, “theyre probably cleaner than i am” in response because it did sound like she was saying my friend and i were sooo dirty we somehow sullied her bed. like we’re below her and we fucked up her things. this is of course after she had moved my bag of laundry from inside the house to the garage. so its like one after another thing making me feel sooo second class and shitty and hes crying about 1.50 at the pump. his own mother is apart of the larger problem and continually makes me feel like shit. theres no reason for my laundry to be moved; at all. it was just ‘ugh get out of my house’ without saying it because people like her make passive aggressive moves while smiling sunshine out of their ass. 

the weekend was continually up ad down with him. when he returned he was so excited to see me. he was super affectionate and loving and outwardly praising me in front of his friends and it was really fucing nice and it lulled me into a false sense of security. but like in no way do i believe hes acting malicious. like he did this purposely to manipulate me. his actions were not done maliciously, but this is the result of them. i was lulled into false security because the next four days were very up and down and not great but still okay?

on thursday & friday he was very focused on the time i spent with a new friend. but he portrayed this like a “joke”. like he was “mocking” it or “making fun”. but it became like.. so often that it was not a joke. it became a VERY clear sign of insecurity that amounted on saturday to me saying i was “bored” and him becoming VERY insecure. he apologized that i was bored, he “joked” that i would disappear for a day and suck some other guys dick and lie about it for six months. and lke these are not jokes. theyre said as jokes, his tone is joking but this is not a joke. this is a projection of insecurity.

but the thing is it doesnt make sense. our “relationship” is “open”. for all intents & purposes, hes allowed to “be with other people”. will i also be with him? .... remains to be seen. maybe i will. i dont know. i cannot say if he is sooooo important and i am soooo progressed in my perspectives that i would say i cant be associated with him. i dont know yet. but this is an “allowable occurence” as deemed by him and “agreed” to by me. so this is open. but its becoming increasingly apparant that this is not open for me. none of my actions in any way can or should be considered “cheating”. not that any of my actions ould be described as cheating - ive gone for drives & walks with friends and drew pictures. i have not even physically touched another man in a year beyond a hug which has lasted probably maximum ten seconds long. but even if i had 2 minue long hugs which tured to make out sessions and sucked dick at the end - it shouldnt be cheating. there is no rule that says this is cheating. everything says this is okay. if HE can do it, then CERTAINLY i can also. 

he directly referrred to the fact that my new friend had gone to an art gallery in kitchener and wondered outloud if thats what he shouldve done but didnt think it wold be worth it. he was just focused on the fact this person existed in my life at all and that he would be seen as boring and uninteresting in comparison. i had never seen him so outwardly insecure and bothered by something like this in our relationship.

the next morning he woke up and reminded me that we had an open relationship and that he thought about these other girls and wanted this and this etc. it seemed obvious that he was saying this because he was upset by the insinuation i thought he was boring (which i never said, btw, i said i was “bored”. i specifically remember saying i was bored. period. not that he caused the boredom or was a boring person) and maybe was looking somewhere else. like he had built the delusion up so far he had to hurt me with “yeah well i can do this too” even though i wasnt. i told him this later on and he meekly said that wasnt why he had brought it up but it clearly was. later that night he said, “if you leave me you have to tell me so i can leave you first” which i felt succinctly described what happened - he felt like i was going to leave him so he pre-empted by reminding me he could also fill my space. 

i continually repeated that i wasnt going to leave him but it became so exaggerated that .. it wasnt that i didnt believe that i wasnt going to leave him but i didnt believe there was a relationship to leave. what would i leave? was it not him who wanted to leave? was it not him who wanted more? was it not him whos unsatisfied? why would you assume i would leave when its him whos unhappy? see, i want to have a life with him. i try to make an effort to have a life with him but im completely stuck. 

last night i helped him with this very dumb and futile task of taping large pieces of vinyl wrapping on a deck in the wind before a storm. i didnt have to but i did because i love him and knew it was a shitty task to have to do and next to impossible on your own. we werent able to do it and he was upset about it and his job and his life and within an hour was taking it out on me. he said that our relationship was the “easy way out” and that he could get instant gratification in his day by fucking and smoking weed. if he was alone more then he could have time to “think” and “be himself” and that i should respect when he says no or wants to be alone (he didnt say he wanted to be alone). he said hes run by anxiety and that in another time he wouldve just up and moved by now instead of talking about it.  

i felt really offended that our relationship had been degraded to instant gratification. it was the first time i really felt like a whore in the relationship and that my purpose was to fuck. i asked him what i could do when i was with him to encourage better choices beyond fucking and smoking weed. he told me there was nothing. so i also felt like i had no choice either but to be someone he fucks and smokes weed with and thats it. like i cant build a life with him because im just a fucktoy who smokes his weed. like sure, he wanted to express the dissatisfaction in our routine but he was no better than his mother in expressing it because he didnt care that he was insinuating i had no other use to him. 

he tried to be easy going after this conversation - i didnt respond to his crap but i did not feel good anymore. i made a legitimate effort to help him resolve his personal issues and he essentially shit on me. i wasnt condoning continuing the routine, i was encouraging a change and it was like no, we still have to do this but also give me time alone to have a seperate life.

and i live that already. i live this shitty duality of lives where i spend my days alone trying to put together a life i lead completely independent from him like he doesnt even exist and then have to pick it back up and act like its this most important thing of my life. there is no middle ground, its one extreme or the other while pretending tht this is a “relationship” and that we’re “in love”. but i think we just love each other. i dont think this is in love. maybe im in love, maybe because i understand “in love” more than him but i think he just loves me and cares about me. which is fine - its not even like i think he doesnt want to be with me. he does. but he is not really capable of being with me in the capacity that i need and im not needy. im not broken because this is not good enough for me and that im like wrong for wanting more. its natural and okay. 

he jokes that we are already married. that i will do womens work because he goes to work and i stay home. but there is no “home” in which to do this work in. he has not provided me anything beyond packs of smokes and weed and iced capps. like he supports me in the way the government supports me. just enough to still need more support but not fail completely. i thik he feels comfortable playing house and i’m sort of looking at him like are you for real? like the test drive is about to be over. 

he said he “felt like a prisoner” because he didnt want to go downstairs and make food and face his shitty mother. i told him i felt the same at my place with my roommate. but theres like.. no response. no empathy - like hey, we share the same shitty thing. or maybe even like a deeper understanding of who i am and the life i live without him. 

this morning i woke up and fel the same. he wanted to fuck and i didnt, i said no but he continued to pull down my pants. and this is not going into like some assault story because thats not it at all. yes,  i said no. and if i had pulled away and been like fuck no - it wouldve ended.  i wasnt trapped. i made a concious decision to let him do this but not even want it. and i dont think he really even cared; in many ways he can be pretty depraved and its likely the idea that i was doing it just to get it over with turned him on anyways. and i dont even judge these behaviors because the horrors and depravity and realities of life keep me interested and he is just honest about his depravity because people are ashamed of theirs. maybe i am too. not that i was turnd on by this; im not into guys fucking me when im not into it, but i coud probably participate in rape fantasies so maybe i can disconnect easier and take it for what it is. its never malicious. no one is uisng sex to make me feel this way except maybe myself. i took advantage of an oportunity to amke myself feel like shit for this brief moment. he came suprisingly fast. 

i think he knew i was upset though and i didnt want to have a conversation about his offenses at 630am. he started complaining about gas prices and air prices and i just took that as an opportunity to vent my projections and frustrations. like - fuck off. life is shit and you won the god damn lottery. your anxieties are insignificant and bullshit, you are ungrateful and self centered and lack empathy for others. like you feel “guilty” but you dont actually understand how THEY feel. like watching kids in africa and youre like omgz so sad *sends coffee money*. like, please. 

i tried to approach it from an empathetic point. we hae similar problems. we are both crippled by anxiety and finding a purpose / worth in life. we believe there are solutions “if we could just do this .. this would be better” and maybe we’re right. maybe. but the anxiety stops us. so i tried to help him with my own coping methods - he says he has too much anxiety to look at apartments. i told him to build it up, make it exciting, make it positive and follow through and then feel good about it even though it seems really stupid to have to put this much care and effort into a simple task. it still gets done, right?

he told me that doesnt work for him. i was like “oh”. i didnt know it was an option. when ive said this in the past he told me i wasnt trying hard enough, that i should do better. 

this morning i focused back on me. i hope im accepted for disability. i feel stuck. i want a break. i dont need to put in physical hours at someones business to deserve a fucking break in life. that does not determine my worth. and it shouldnt be this hard. it shouldnt. but society wants poor people dead. they do not care about mental health - and you’re right, no one cares about you. very few people will ever feel the momentous weight of no nest at all. 

so whatever, you know? you dont want to live with me? you dont want to spend time with me? then i just wish i had disability - not for the “quick fix” because nothing about it is quick. but for the opportunities it gives me because no one in the world can do anything without someone else. period. end of sentence. that is the true reality, that is what i absolutely know to be true in an experience which very few people have lived with and those who have would more than likely agree because most success stories are ones who have been elevated by someone or a system created by someones. i dont know a single one off hand that didnt have, “and then i met so and so and everything changed” or “and then i got this x opportunity through this person”. 

i dont want to be paid for in life. i dont want to be supported. i dont even want someone to ust completely pay for me out of their own pocket right now. thats terrible. i couldnt feel goood about it, no matter how “easy” it would be. i want to pay my share, support myself, my habits, my life by my own means. which is what i do now while putting in copious amount of  man hours into “womens work” to offset snacks and meals in what should be a “relationship”. 

i feel like this weekend was a good sign of why i need to work on accepting my independence as highest priority in life. i deserve a family but i wont have one right now because life is not fair as much as it is not fair for people who suffer in war and poverty in third world countries. life is no different - we all live in the same timeline & world & existence so this is not completely unheard of and people do survive terrible tragedies. life is just not fair and for as long as human beings existed as sentient beings, we have been creating unfair scenarios for the benefit of ourselves. thats life. thats what i can know and breathe as life. you can never be surprised or shocked by the actions of a human being - theyre just unpredictable and yet predictable at the same time because no matter what they will create unfairness in some capacity. and it took me soooooooo long to accept this knowledge at all. i wanted to believe that unfair things just happened. like some random force in the world makes unfair things happen and if you do enough right things then itll be smooth sailing glory days. but thats not it. life is not a series of check points. random organic beings evolved seperately like a colony of a million ants and althrough a million ants can make a whole workng system, within those millions are a million different minds. and they need the fucking colony because individually they are nothing but ants. theyre just things flying around on a big ball in a vast nothingness and everthing all a the ame time. and theyre terrified you know? theyre fucking terrified because you dont know why the fuc you came to be. youre just brething and shitting and eating and sleeping. what in the fuck is the purpose to all of this? and maybe theres no answer and youre just here on this fucking big blue ball flying in vast nothingness. but within the colony, its easier to eat and shit and sleep and not die or be threatened by imminent death. and you have a job, you have some task that keeps the gears rolling in this system that suddenly is more important than whats happening outside because this is easy and anything outside is hard and terrifying. 

but every being feels this. its not unique to one hero. its everyone. everyone evolved from nothing and inherited a really complex system that was supposed to make it easier to live and they hoped whoever birthed you prepared you appropriately for the system; if not, or if you’ve lost them, good luck. 

but at some point almost everyone, perhaps everyone, comes to a point, even in the comfort of their parents, where they question their purpose on this ball. why the fuck are we here, why am i in this system, how do i use it to benefit me if outside is unimaginable? how do i not hate myself for it?

and thats where we begin to create individualized coping strategies. maybe its leaning on your parents harder while you question existence, taking 9 yrs to graduate school, hitchhiking across the country, doing recreational drugs, finding “instant gratification” in other humans and eventually, hopefully, you find what works for you. and once you do, it will be hard to convince you otherwise because thats what makes you “happy”. you are at full “easy’ in life where all the basic needs have been covered and you havent degraded yourself for it - whether it be sucking dick or working long hours at a shitty job. 

so i find it hard to demonize anyone at all. even all the people who did me wrong. even all the shity actions described above - thats how they coped to find their personal “easy” because thats the very best you can get within this system because our agreed upon basic purpose in life is to make basic survival “easy”. perhaps our brains and mental capacities never considered what basic surivial truly entailed and maybe were not there yet. is it just breathing eating sleeping and shitting? of course, fucking is involved but thats a future survival of genetics and if you cant surviv until puberty, thats not even an issue. is it also tending to the care of emotional and mental development? 

i feel like society as a whole, human beings as a group, despite the individuals who might go against the majority, but as a group, in popular culture, emotions & mental status are not an issue until theyve created one. so we are purposefully ignoring what weve evolved to know to be a necessity in basic survival. yes, grandpa was ‘tough as nails’ but grandpa was not a fucking robot and perhaps learned good coping methods such as active hobbies, a friend to talk to or maybe grandpa drank a lot. humans are not weaker now, they were dumber before. they had no idea that mental illness existed, that some could be preventable or treated. they did not understand the brain as they did not understand space, the oceans - this is one of life’s greatest mysteries and since we dont understand it we imagine it to have a grand capacity but everything has its limitations. i dont understand the brain at all, i cant fathom the idea of why a person can continue to learn and adopt new things throughout life but never consider what is insde of themselves and capacity they have or why. they’re just full of pride that they managed to ‘achieve’ a perceived limitation. anyone can do anything. whether you have the tools or opportunities to do so is completely different. 

outside of genetic defects, everyone is made up of the same shit. no one is uniquely special or better. everyone, even ones with defects, needs to breathe eat shit and sleep. and thats where the unfairness comes in. for some people, in this system, their inheritance of privledges makes it way more opportunities to create “easy” things in their lives. why do they deserve this inheritance if we are all born as equals? no one as a baby did anything to deserve the opportunities or priviledges that set them up to inherit a better system. why did some babies get better opportunities thn others? 

the system is unfair but you cannot change the system when it still “works” for everone else. you cant change it. it’s so unfair, it’s so completely unfair. but no matter how fucking unfair it is you still need to eat. you still need to shit. you still need to sleep and breath clean air. and thats why you work. thats why you keep working. i try to imagine why others have chosen what they have. perhaps their parents brainwashed them into the system and they had other priviledges and they just blindly accept what they “know”. i question why people buy alot of things they do. i wonder why they put value of themselves, like it was worth doing literal work to earn the money to buy a tube of lipstick? how does that factor easy? but i guess life had become so easy that the anixieties about the color of their lips are higher priority than the comfort of their next shit. 

but THATS not the way it used to be. that would be the difference from grandpa to our modern world. and that frustrates me alot. i would thrive in a tiny home but at 27, and where im at now, thats like a dream i have for 20 mnues before entering real life again. its not going to happen. so how do i compromise right now? im walking wide eyed terrified alone on this big ball in vast nothingness, where do i find my “easy”? my inheritance was the same “strength” and stubbornness my parents had - no opportunity, no priviledge. i’ll survive, but it wont be pretty. 

if i get disability, i want to move. although i want to go to college, that’s a really big step in life that i think i can just hold as a goal. i would like to go to college before im 30. considering i am still interested in my original course and its something that is recession proof and doesnt really require “upgrading” any skills in the future - it’s a totally feasible and good goal. so i want to move. and i could probably move anywhere in ontario or the gta. i mean not even probably - i literally can. i can go anywhere. i have friends here. but i made them all in the past 2 years, without working. i guess i “worked” but it wasnt “work. i found a way to make that “easy”. 

i want to live a creative life. thats my pretty top priority in “easy independence”. i also want to accept that this is plan a b and c. theres no like, “well if this person comes along”. this is so desirable to me that it should take months of considderation to break down the intricacies of my own wants and desires and things i provided myself to decide to merge with someone. 

so im trying to do that. and it takes alot of thinking because this is life or death for me. this is happiness or failure. this is being stable and content or homeless poverty. im “afforded the luxury” of living somewhere “safe” that i can afford as i think about these things. where do i want to move? i want to have my own place. even if its like my friends with no kitchen, i want my own place that i dont have to worry about someone else in. my curret place feels like a hotel or dorm room.  i wan to feel comfortable spending time “alone” and actually be “alone”. id like to move closer to downtown because it was easier to walk around and had more ammenities. i consider also my doctor who woudve gotten me this opportunity and how important it might be to keep within travelling distance. but maybe its better to move? 

if i went to college, it would be in the same city he wants to move to, pretty much down the street 20 minutes away. thats the real insult to all of this. i could have a much easier time but hes decided to make both of our lives very difficult. do i want to move there if he does? or regardless? continue this expensive routine of having seperate places? or commute to college everyday, five days a week? its close to toronto, on the subway line - a total change from my life now. my life perhaps ever. 

i got the letter saying they got my application. it could take 90 business days to decide, which means i might not hear anything until november, maybe even december. which sucks pretty bad. but having even the glimmer of hope makes things “easier” for the time being. i still have this time to fill. and even if idid go to college next year, i have atleast a year before it starts. what do i do with the rest of 2017? he wants me to take a class. he told me also to start getting my liscence. i need a new phone to really kick off my new business idea and my desire to do anythng art related right ow is super low. i hate my environment. its cold and dark and damp and loud. i dont want to make anything, not even jewelry. 

i was paid five days ago but ive done nothing but buy weed and smokes. i havent bought any groceries yet. truthfully i havent showered since sunday (maybe saturday) and i wasnt even home until this morning. i mostly want to sleep. ive smoked so much weed, im not even really getting high anymore. spend some time with my cats who i had really started missing. im expected to open the arts colletive back up and announce upcoming plans but im still trying to care. just, at all. i fell off the radar and dedicated too much time to him and im sad that i cant even be anxious to seehim because even thats pointless now. 

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6 Ways You’re Secretly Ruining Your Waiter’s Life

One of the biggest culture wars being fought today is between the people who work in food service and the people who think it can’t be all that bad working in food service. As a rule, we tend to side with the folks who have the power to spit in our tacos, but even then, we wind up accidentally making things worse for them every time we eat out. You’ve probably ruined a server’s day this week without even realizing it. For example …

6

“Hidden Menu” Items And Special Promotions Are A Damn Nightmare To Make

Viral posts about fast food “menu hacks” get tossed around the internet like discuses at an Olympic trial, so odds are you’ve strolled into a Taco Bell armed with a Rolodex of “hidden menu” items you can’t wait to try, such as a chili cheese burrito or a Dorito shell chalupa. The thing is, fast food restaurants operate based on order and routine (that’s why they’re “fast”), so while you may enjoy the feeling of being part of the Cheap Meat Sandwich inner circle, it’s the hourly servers who have to deal with the utter chaos of jury-rigging three different burgers into one bun for the benefit of some rando who thinks they’re too good to order from the menu at fucking Burger King.

Take the Chipotle quesarito, the unholy union of a quesadilla, a burrito, and boiling liquid cheese that could strip the bark off a California redwood. As some Chipotle employees helpfully explained on Reddit, ordering a quesarito will cause them nothing but misery. Not only are they a total hassle to make, but you’re also about to give a poor server second-degree burns so that you could order a burrito that almost certainly won’t wrap properly just to impress your friends.

However, even when an officially sanctioned abnormal or “promotional” item hits menus — something customers are encouraged to buy — it creates chaos and bloodshed. When Starbucks rolled out its Unicorn Frappuccino, a pink and blue monstrosity that looked like a blended Lisa Frank folder, it made sure customers knew that the colorful drink was only available for five freaking days. Naturally, people rushed to see what liquid candy disguised as coffee tasted like, and the baristas were the ones who had to suffer. Braden Burson, a teenage employee from Colorado, posted a video of himself ripping Starbucks Corporate a new one over his now-acute glitter intolerance. “My hands are completely sticky. I have unicorn crap all in my hair and on my nose,” he cringes. “I have never been so stressed out in my entire life.”

It wasn’t only Braden, either. The Starbucks Reddit page had a field day with the Unicorn Frapp, highlighting the plight of the broken baristas unable to keep themselves from drowning in a flood of pink sludge. Blue and pink powders combined with mango syrup choked the air and coated everything like instagrammable napalm. Baristas had to deal with a constant film of unicorn shit clinging to their body like some kind of metaphor for the spoiled dreams of youth. Seriously, this photo of an order of 56 Unicorn Frappuccinos will one day be shown as part of a trial in the Hague:

5

“All You Can Eat” Promotions Screw Servers Out Of Tips

We’re not here to shit on the idea of eating as many appetizers, bread sticks, miniature shrimps, and/or bowls of Mongolian barbecue as you can. That’s the American Way, goddammit. We simply feel that it’s our duty to inform you that your intestines aren’t the only ones suffering through these glutinous promotions.

You see, all-you-can-eat promotions bring in customers who normally don’t eat out, because they’re generally pretty cheap. We’ve all been there: You spend most of the week eating asparagus and butter sandwiches because that’s all your broke ass can afford, and then along comes Olive Garden with a tantalizing offer of never-ending pasta for ten goddamned dollars. So you show up with an empty stomach, consume roughly two meals’ worth of food, and then try to take what you can home. It’s a steal … especially from the servers who waited on you, whose earnings are disappearing at the same rate as the pasta bowls. Odds are if you were lured out of your home by the promise of a buttload of cheap food, you’re not going to be leaving much of a tip. After all, Oliver Twist didn’t slip a 20 into the jacket of the guy serving the gruel.

So all-you-can-eat patrons don’t tip big (partly because their bill is so low, which is the whole reason they went out), but another big problem is that they stay forever. It takes a while to eat your entire weight in shrimp, so these folks will camp out at their table for hours, which prevents their servers from getting new customers. Anyone who has ever waited tables before knows how important it is to get multiple tables in a night just to break even in tips by the end of their shift, and a family of five gasping their way through a third round of plates at Golden Corral clogs up the flow of business.

Waiters have been complaining about these practices forever. Restaurant owners may claim that it drums up more business, meaning more money for the staff, but the math on these promotions doesn’t add up. They work their staff harder, they get paid less to serve more food per billed line item, and the buffet gobblers keep tables from opening up and bringing in new customers. Restaurants with all-you-can-eat promotions both target customers who make less money and force their employees to work for less money. It’s a delicious double-edged sword.

4

Large Parties Leave Terrible Tips (Which Get Taxed)

When you go to a restaurant with a large party (whenever you’re able to wrangle more than half a dozen of your friends to be at the same place at the same time, so either you’re going to the prom, a wedding, or a funeral), there’s often an “automatic tip” added on of 15, 18, or even 20 percent. The reason for this is that, despite it being a lot of extra effort keeping track of ten people ordering completely different entrees — some with tomatoes and some with don’t you dare put any tomatoes anywhere near this fucking thing — something called the magnitude effect kicks in, which basically means that people tend to tip less percentage-wise the larger a bill becomes.

The auto-tip was supposed to combat the magnitude effect, and for a while, it more or less did its job. Then in 2014, servers got slapped with an IRS law which says that any automatically added gratuity is now considered earned wages instead of tips, and that’s a huge difference. We apologize in advance for the upcoming math.

Say a party of ten puts together a bill of $200 and there’s a 20 percent auto-gratuity of $40. That $40 is already used to tip the busboy, cook, and the guy whose job appears to be chain-smoking and occasionally wiping off some menus. That means that, for handling a large party over the span of probably an hour or more, the server made maybe $10. According to the IRS, that $10 tip isn’t a tip at all, but “non-tip wages,” which are subject to Social Security tax, Medicare tax, and, of course, income tax. Not only does that dent their income, but the server also probably didn’t get a chance to work many other tables, because large parties require a lot of attention and tend to stay for well over an hour, meaning that they couldn’t earn any non-automatic tips from other tables with smaller parties. The government is apparently so hard up for cash that it needs to nickel-and-dime people who are already making less money than the “street artist” standing outside the restaurant.

Not that servers have to worry too much about figuring out the taxes of their auto-gratuities, because you can’t tax zero dollars. One of the major effects of the IRS law is that, rather than having to report extra income from auto-gratuities to the IRS, chains like Outback Steakhouse and TGI Friday’s have eliminated the auto-tip altogether. Which means the magnitude effect is creeping back in, with many servers seeing their biweekly pay drop from about $1,000 to $600-$800. But maybe there’s a silver lining here. Maybe IRS employees like having spit in all of their food.

3

Working A Drive-Thru Is Ridiculously Dangerous

Ask any server, and they’ll tell you the most stressful part of their job is the customers (and their hair perpetually smelling like old bread caught in a grease trap). Drive-thrus seem like an obvious solution — you have minimal interaction with the customer, they order quickly, pay for their food, and leave immediately. It’s ideal for customers too, because honestly, most times you go to a drive-thru, you’re in no mood / condition / level of sobriety to really deal with or be seen by other people. However, while it’s true that you might have less interaction with difficult customers while handing food out of a window, a lot more of them are actively trying to kill you.

Grewal-Digital/iStock This resembles the opening of a horror movie for a reason.

People commit armed robbery at drive-thrus all of the time. A drive-thru coffee shop in Kentucky was robbed four times in the span of a couple months. A McDonald’s in Florida was robbed twice in two weeks, which honestly seems downright restrained for Florida. There are lots of reasons for these sprees. Drive-thrus tend to be open earlier and later, some even 24 hours — you’ll note that robbers aren’t huge fans of broad daylight. Also, unlike gas stations, which mostly get paid with debit or credit cards nowadays, people still largely buy their nuggets and fries with cash, and the cash drawer is usually right there at the window. Finally, most fast food joints are located right near major intersections or highway exits, making drive-thru robbery really convenient in terms of getaways. Drive-thrus are essentially magic windows full of money and delightful food — a combination robbers find irresistible.

But even when they’re not going for the register, there’s something about being behind the wheel of a car that makes people angry — especially if they’re only going 5 mph and waiting for a stack of burgers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that workers in restaurants that had a drive-thru are twice as likely to be assaulted as workers at sit-down restaurants like Olive Garden or Red Lobster. The fact that a Red Lobster is a better work environment than anything with a drive-thru means having to be anywhere near a serving window is a violation of your human rights.

And if the risk of getting shot isn’t enough for you to consider, then there are the endless streams of dipshit YouTube pranksters trying to spook you to consider. Drive-thru workers should start robbing the customers.

2

McDonald’s All-Day Breakfast Doubles Their Workload (So They Serve You Old Food)

There’s nothing we want more than what we can’t have, even if that something is a lukewarm Egg McMuffin at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. One of the greatest moments in customer peer pressure history occurred when McDonald’s decided to start offering its customers a limited all-day breakfast menu. McDonald’s saw sales spiking, and the resulting publicity was better than anything it could’ve hoped for from that Michael Keaton movie. And it’s great! Who among us can say they’ve never tasted the bitter defeat of arriving at McDonald’s to order a bag of breakfast burritos, only to discover that breakfast stopped being served minutes ago?

However, while customers might love it, the employees hate it. McDonald’s employees are the target of a lot of public ridicule (there’s an entire political party and accompanying news network that revolves around thinking up reasons to deny burger-flippers minimum wage), but that doesn’t stop the job from being thankless and hard. That has only gotten worse with the all-day breakfast, which requires employees to run the same extensive breakfast-to-lunch cleanup of their stations every time a stoner wants a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel at noon. At $7.25 an hour, how much could you be bothered to give a shit about re-cleaning your station every time someone orders an egg, cross-contamination be damned?

McDonald’s employees have, however, found a loophole — which is not a word you ever want to hear concerning the people who feed you. Many will cook up a bunch of eggs at the beginning of the day and stock them in food warmers for afternoon use. Hashbrowns are a quick and easy thing to throw in the fryer alongside the french fries, but pancakes don’t make it to the griddle next to the hamburgers; they’re just microwaved. So know that the second after 10:30 a.m., ordering breakfast means you’re eating reheated leftover McDonald’s. Nobody deserves that.

1

Children Ruin Dining For Everyone

Kids are like ironic mustaches that you can’t shave off — you think it’s delightful, but you’re really just annoying the shit out of people everywhere you bring it. One of the most unnatural habitats for children has to be the restaurant, which to them looks like a playground with glass and knives. And who has to deal with these infant tornadoes when dining out? Their parents? Ha ha, no. It’s the servers who have to become de facto babysitters..

Small children make dining experiences categorically worse. They deface the aesthetic of the restaurant by drawing on the walls or even scratching them with coins. They bother diners by blasting their iPads (meant to pacify them) at full volume. Parents will bring tiny snacks (such as Goldfish crackers or Cheerios) to distract the kids until the food comes, only to have them thrown everywhere and ground into the floor. Aisles are blocked with high chairs and strollers, making spills inevitable. All this mess makes it harder to clean up, which raises wait times for tables, meaning servers are getting fewer customers and those customers are getting more irate. That’s actually the most important point: Kids tend to make the dining experience less enjoyable for every customer, which can impact their generosity when it’s time to calculate the tip.

Some diners may recognize how much their server is struggling with a particular table and its particular high-chaired bastard king and be sympathetic. However, the party that brought the child almost never is. According to a survey of servers at Cornell, families with children are notorious for tipping below average, meaning kids probably possess the most disparate effort-to-reward ratio of all diners.

Understandably, restaurants dislike allowing small children, but this has become a contentious debate. They can receive horrible backlash for even thinking about banning children, and there are no shortage of mommy blogs that will happily point the blame for their disruptive children straight at the servers, offering helpful “suggestions” for dealing with their darling children, including “Come back to the table often so the child doesn’t get restless” and “Don’t allow us to order a dessert and then discover that it’s sold out” — the latter of which you may recognize as something that is literally impossible to avoid. That link also includes a helpful letter full of instructions you can print out and hand to your server, as if you two are trying to coordinate a flawless meal for a foreign head of state instead of a group of children who are too young to be expected to sit still in a public setting for longer than five minutes. The general retort from both restaurants and servers is that Applebee’s is not a daycare, and waitstaff already have their hands full dealing with adults who behave like children, which is frustrating for parents who expect you to feed and entertain their children for $2.19 plus a shitty tip.

Unfortunately for servers, the messy ethics of banning children means they will have to deal with these little poop tornadoes until the end of days. Sure, fine dining might get away with restricting children, but it’s not like Outback Steakhouse can pretend it’s too good for screaming toddlers. People show up there in sweatpants to eat fried onions.

Isaac actually kind of enjoyed working at Chipotle while he was in college, and still has the guacamole recipe memorized. Follow him on Twitter.

Also check out 5 Apocalyptic Realities Working At A Dying Chain Restaurant and 5 Disgusting Truths About Every Restaurant (From A Chef).

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6 Ways You’re Secretly Ruining Your Waiter’s Life

One of the biggest culture wars being fought today is between the people who work in food service and the people who think it can’t be all that bad working in food service. As a rule, we tend to side with the folks who have the power to spit in our tacos, but even then, we wind up accidentally making things worse for them every time we eat out. You’ve probably ruined a server’s day this week without even realizing it. For example …

6

“Hidden Menu” Items And Special Promotions Are A Damn Nightmare To Make

Viral posts about fast food “menu hacks” get tossed around the internet like discuses at an Olympic trial, so odds are you’ve strolled into a Taco Bell armed with a Rolodex of “hidden menu” items you can’t wait to try, such as a chili cheese burrito or a Dorito shell chalupa. The thing is, fast food restaurants operate based on order and routine (that’s why they’re “fast”), so while you may enjoy the feeling of being part of the Cheap Meat Sandwich inner circle, it’s the hourly servers who have to deal with the utter chaos of jury-rigging three different burgers into one bun for the benefit of some rando who thinks they’re too good to order from the menu at fucking Burger King.

Take the Chipotle quesarito, the unholy union of a quesadilla, a burrito, and boiling liquid cheese that could strip the bark off a California redwood. As some Chipotle employees helpfully explained on Reddit, ordering a quesarito will cause them nothing but misery. Not only are they a total hassle to make, but you’re also about to give a poor server second-degree burns so that you could order a burrito that almost certainly won’t wrap properly just to impress your friends.

However, even when an officially sanctioned abnormal or “promotional” item hits menus — something customers are encouraged to buy — it creates chaos and bloodshed. When Starbucks rolled out its Unicorn Frappuccino, a pink and blue monstrosity that looked like a blended Lisa Frank folder, it made sure customers knew that the colorful drink was only available for five freaking days. Naturally, people rushed to see what liquid candy disguised as coffee tasted like, and the baristas were the ones who had to suffer. Braden Burson, a teenage employee from Colorado, posted a video of himself ripping Starbucks Corporate a new one over his now-acute glitter intolerance. “My hands are completely sticky. I have unicorn crap all in my hair and on my nose,” he cringes. “I have never been so stressed out in my entire life.”

It wasn’t only Braden, either. The Starbucks Reddit page had a field day with the Unicorn Frapp, highlighting the plight of the broken baristas unable to keep themselves from drowning in a flood of pink sludge. Blue and pink powders combined with mango syrup choked the air and coated everything like instagrammable napalm. Baristas had to deal with a constant film of unicorn shit clinging to their body like some kind of metaphor for the spoiled dreams of youth. Seriously, this photo of an order of 56 Unicorn Frappuccinos will one day be shown as part of a trial in the Hague:

5

“All You Can Eat” Promotions Screw Servers Out Of Tips

We’re not here to shit on the idea of eating as many appetizers, bread sticks, miniature shrimps, and/or bowls of Mongolian barbecue as you can. That’s the American Way, goddammit. We simply feel that it’s our duty to inform you that your intestines aren’t the only ones suffering through these glutinous promotions.

You see, all-you-can-eat promotions bring in customers who normally don’t eat out, because they’re generally pretty cheap. We’ve all been there: You spend most of the week eating asparagus and butter sandwiches because that’s all your broke ass can afford, and then along comes Olive Garden with a tantalizing offer of never-ending pasta for ten goddamned dollars. So you show up with an empty stomach, consume roughly two meals’ worth of food, and then try to take what you can home. It’s a steal … especially from the servers who waited on you, whose earnings are disappearing at the same rate as the pasta bowls. Odds are if you were lured out of your home by the promise of a buttload of cheap food, you’re not going to be leaving much of a tip. After all, Oliver Twist didn’t slip a 20 into the jacket of the guy serving the gruel.

So all-you-can-eat patrons don’t tip big (partly because their bill is so low, which is the whole reason they went out), but another big problem is that they stay forever. It takes a while to eat your entire weight in shrimp, so these folks will camp out at their table for hours, which prevents their servers from getting new customers. Anyone who has ever waited tables before knows how important it is to get multiple tables in a night just to break even in tips by the end of their shift, and a family of five gasping their way through a third round of plates at Golden Corral clogs up the flow of business.

Waiters have been complaining about these practices forever. Restaurant owners may claim that it drums up more business, meaning more money for the staff, but the math on these promotions doesn’t add up. They work their staff harder, they get paid less to serve more food per billed line item, and the buffet gobblers keep tables from opening up and bringing in new customers. Restaurants with all-you-can-eat promotions both target customers who make less money and force their employees to work for less money. It’s a delicious double-edged sword.

4

Large Parties Leave Terrible Tips (Which Get Taxed)

When you go to a restaurant with a large party (whenever you’re able to wrangle more than half a dozen of your friends to be at the same place at the same time, so either you’re going to the prom, a wedding, or a funeral), there’s often an “automatic tip” added on of 15, 18, or even 20 percent. The reason for this is that, despite it being a lot of extra effort keeping track of ten people ordering completely different entrees — some with tomatoes and some with don’t you dare put any tomatoes anywhere near this fucking thing — something called the magnitude effect kicks in, which basically means that people tend to tip less percentage-wise the larger a bill becomes.

The auto-tip was supposed to combat the magnitude effect, and for a while, it more or less did its job. Then in 2014, servers got slapped with an IRS law which says that any automatically added gratuity is now considered earned wages instead of tips, and that’s a huge difference. We apologize in advance for the upcoming math.

Say a party of ten puts together a bill of $200 and there’s a 20 percent auto-gratuity of $40. That $40 is already used to tip the busboy, cook, and the guy whose job appears to be chain-smoking and occasionally wiping off some menus. That means that, for handling a large party over the span of probably an hour or more, the server made maybe $10. According to the IRS, that $10 tip isn’t a tip at all, but “non-tip wages,” which are subject to Social Security tax, Medicare tax, and, of course, income tax. Not only does that dent their income, but the server also probably didn’t get a chance to work many other tables, because large parties require a lot of attention and tend to stay for well over an hour, meaning that they couldn’t earn any non-automatic tips from other tables with smaller parties. The government is apparently so hard up for cash that it needs to nickel-and-dime people who are already making less money than the “street artist” standing outside the restaurant.

Not that servers have to worry too much about figuring out the taxes of their auto-gratuities, because you can’t tax zero dollars. One of the major effects of the IRS law is that, rather than having to report extra income from auto-gratuities to the IRS, chains like Outback Steakhouse and TGI Friday’s have eliminated the auto-tip altogether. Which means the magnitude effect is creeping back in, with many servers seeing their biweekly pay drop from about $1,000 to $600-$800. But maybe there’s a silver lining here. Maybe IRS employees like having spit in all of their food.

3

Working A Drive-Thru Is Ridiculously Dangerous

Ask any server, and they’ll tell you the most stressful part of their job is the customers (and their hair perpetually smelling like old bread caught in a grease trap). Drive-thrus seem like an obvious solution — you have minimal interaction with the customer, they order quickly, pay for their food, and leave immediately. It’s ideal for customers too, because honestly, most times you go to a drive-thru, you’re in no mood / condition / level of sobriety to really deal with or be seen by other people. However, while it’s true that you might have less interaction with difficult customers while handing food out of a window, a lot more of them are actively trying to kill you.

Grewal-Digital/iStock This resembles the opening of a horror movie for a reason.

People commit armed robbery at drive-thrus all of the time. A drive-thru coffee shop in Kentucky was robbed four times in the span of a couple months. A McDonald’s in Florida was robbed twice in two weeks, which honestly seems downright restrained for Florida. There are lots of reasons for these sprees. Drive-thrus tend to be open earlier and later, some even 24 hours — you’ll note that robbers aren’t huge fans of broad daylight. Also, unlike gas stations, which mostly get paid with debit or credit cards nowadays, people still largely buy their nuggets and fries with cash, and the cash drawer is usually right there at the window. Finally, most fast food joints are located right near major intersections or highway exits, making drive-thru robbery really convenient in terms of getaways. Drive-thrus are essentially magic windows full of money and delightful food — a combination robbers find irresistible.

But even when they’re not going for the register, there’s something about being behind the wheel of a car that makes people angry — especially if they’re only going 5 mph and waiting for a stack of burgers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that workers in restaurants that had a drive-thru are twice as likely to be assaulted as workers at sit-down restaurants like Olive Garden or Red Lobster. The fact that a Red Lobster is a better work environment than anything with a drive-thru means having to be anywhere near a serving window is a violation of your human rights.

And if the risk of getting shot isn’t enough for you to consider, then there are the endless streams of dipshit YouTube pranksters trying to spook you to consider. Drive-thru workers should start robbing the customers.

2

McDonald’s All-Day Breakfast Doubles Their Workload (So They Serve You Old Food)

There’s nothing we want more than what we can’t have, even if that something is a lukewarm Egg McMuffin at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. One of the greatest moments in customer peer pressure history occurred when McDonald’s decided to start offering its customers a limited all-day breakfast menu. McDonald’s saw sales spiking, and the resulting publicity was better than anything it could’ve hoped for from that Michael Keaton movie. And it’s great! Who among us can say they’ve never tasted the bitter defeat of arriving at McDonald’s to order a bag of breakfast burritos, only to discover that breakfast stopped being served minutes ago?

However, while customers might love it, the employees hate it. McDonald’s employees are the target of a lot of public ridicule (there’s an entire political party and accompanying news network that revolves around thinking up reasons to deny burger-flippers minimum wage), but that doesn’t stop the job from being thankless and hard. That has only gotten worse with the all-day breakfast, which requires employees to run the same extensive breakfast-to-lunch cleanup of their stations every time a stoner wants a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel at noon. At $7.25 an hour, how much could you be bothered to give a shit about re-cleaning your station every time someone orders an egg, cross-contamination be damned?

McDonald’s employees have, however, found a loophole — which is not a word you ever want to hear concerning the people who feed you. Many will cook up a bunch of eggs at the beginning of the day and stock them in food warmers for afternoon use. Hashbrowns are a quick and easy thing to throw in the fryer alongside the french fries, but pancakes don’t make it to the griddle next to the hamburgers; they’re just microwaved. So know that the second after 10:30 a.m., ordering breakfast means you’re eating reheated leftover McDonald’s. Nobody deserves that.

1

Children Ruin Dining For Everyone

Kids are like ironic mustaches that you can’t shave off — you think it’s delightful, but you’re really just annoying the shit out of people everywhere you bring it. One of the most unnatural habitats for children has to be the restaurant, which to them looks like a playground with glass and knives. And who has to deal with these infant tornadoes when dining out? Their parents? Ha ha, no. It’s the servers who have to become de facto babysitters..

Small children make dining experiences categorically worse. They deface the aesthetic of the restaurant by drawing on the walls or even scratching them with coins. They bother diners by blasting their iPads (meant to pacify them) at full volume. Parents will bring tiny snacks (such as Goldfish crackers or Cheerios) to distract the kids until the food comes, only to have them thrown everywhere and ground into the floor. Aisles are blocked with high chairs and strollers, making spills inevitable. All this mess makes it harder to clean up, which raises wait times for tables, meaning servers are getting fewer customers and those customers are getting more irate. That’s actually the most important point: Kids tend to make the dining experience less enjoyable for every customer, which can impact their generosity when it’s time to calculate the tip.

Some diners may recognize how much their server is struggling with a particular table and its particular high-chaired bastard king and be sympathetic. However, the party that brought the child almost never is. According to a survey of servers at Cornell, families with children are notorious for tipping below average, meaning kids probably possess the most disparate effort-to-reward ratio of all diners.

Understandably, restaurants dislike allowing small children, but this has become a contentious debate. They can receive horrible backlash for even thinking about banning children, and there are no shortage of mommy blogs that will happily point the blame for their disruptive children straight at the servers, offering helpful “suggestions” for dealing with their darling children, including “Come back to the table often so the child doesn’t get restless” and “Don’t allow us to order a dessert and then discover that it’s sold out” — the latter of which you may recognize as something that is literally impossible to avoid. That link also includes a helpful letter full of instructions you can print out and hand to your server, as if you two are trying to coordinate a flawless meal for a foreign head of state instead of a group of children who are too young to be expected to sit still in a public setting for longer than five minutes. The general retort from both restaurants and servers is that Applebee’s is not a daycare, and waitstaff already have their hands full dealing with adults who behave like children, which is frustrating for parents who expect you to feed and entertain their children for $2.19 plus a shitty tip.

Unfortunately for servers, the messy ethics of banning children means they will have to deal with these little poop tornadoes until the end of days. Sure, fine dining might get away with restricting children, but it’s not like Outback Steakhouse can pretend it’s too good for screaming toddlers. People show up there in sweatpants to eat fried onions.

Isaac actually kind of enjoyed working at Chipotle while he was in college, and still has the guacamole recipe memorized. Follow him on Twitter.

Also check out 5 Apocalyptic Realities Working At A Dying Chain Restaurant and 5 Disgusting Truths About Every Restaurant (From A Chef).

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