#this article is here for awareness
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July 27, 2024
By Kevin Baxter
(Los Angeles Times) â When Maritza Correia McClendon started swimming in Puerto Rico, she stood out because of her talent, not the color of her skin.
âThereâs a lot of diversity in Puerto Rico,â said McClendon, who is Black and Latino, as are one in five people on the island.
Then her Guyanese-born parents moved to Florida when she was 8. Though she had become even faster in the pool, that was no longer the first thing people noticed about her.
âI remember a parent telling me, âWhat are you doing here? You should go do track or you should go on a basketball court,ââ she said. âThey were almost shaming me for being that outcast on that pool deck.
âThat is definitely traumatizing. Itâs still hard for me. I do definitely still struggle with that confidence factor.â
McClendon overcame that to become the first Puerto Rican of African descent to make the U.S. Olympic swimming team, the first Black female to win an Olympic medal for the U.S. and the first Black American swimmer to hold a world record.
In an effort to get others to follow her lead, McClendon is now among a growing number of former swimmers, coaches, officials and administrators working to make the sport more accessible and welcoming for people of color, from the grassroots level, where she was once shunned, to the Olympic team, where she shined.
The Paris Games has the opportunity to provide a big boost in those efforts when the swimming competition begins Saturday. Although only two of the 46 pool swimmers who will compete for the U.S. in Paris are Black â and none are Latino â those two, Shaine Casas, a three-time world champion, and Simone Manuel, a two-time Olympic champion and five-time Olympic medalist, have a chance to inspire a generation.
#Olympics#2024 Summer Olympics#Paris 2024#Team USA#swimming#USA Swimming#Maritza Correia#Simone Manuel#Shaine Casas#Cullen Jones#Jim Crow#as someone who did competitive swimming as a kid I'm not sure if USA Swimming is moving as fast as they should#this article is here for awareness#Los Angeles Times#news
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Nana x "Where is My Place in the World? Early ShĹjo Manga Portrayals of Lesbianism" by Fujimoto Yukari (tr. Lucy Fraser)
#augh#nana#upl#queue#when I first read this article I thought of them tbh like...they both come up against the ideas here in their own ways#hachi trying to moor herself & achieve maturity by pursuing relationships with men#nana wrestling with how she feels she can't succeed if she's tied to ren/managing feelings abt wanting to keep hachi close#a future with each other is not an option - both in-text and in a genre/meta sense - bc there are no men in that roadmap#nana feels so self aware in this way. like especially with hachi: by all external measures she 'grows up' - but it leaves her isolated#& still yearning for that connection she had with nana...but it's not possible within the confines of their stories and the genre#anyway i'm aware there's lesbians in shojo but the point of the article is examining why this is an anomaly. definitely recommend reading!
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The F1 driver who takes every opening he sees
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A mechanicâs son, Esteban Ocon took an unlikely path to an F1 driverâs seat. Now heâs fighting to keep it.
MONTE CARLO, Monaco â The mechanicâs son walks past women in bright dresses and men in fine suits, many of them sipping champagne. He breathes in the salty air of the Mediterranean, its shoreline neither rocks nor sand but dozens of mega-yachts.
The Monaco Grand Prix, held each May, is the global peak of sports opulence, less street race than picture postcard from high society: A-listers and royals toasting the good life in the richest place on Earth. Several Formula One drivers live here, their plain-sight hideaway amid a Netflix-fueled fascination with their sport. Among them are Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton â champions, multimillionaires and household names in a sport Hamilton has called a âbillionaire boys club.â
Esteban Ocon, though, is not of this world. When Ocon was a karting wunderkind, other drivers would sneer at him and scoff, whispering that the only child of a dumpster-diving mechanic doesnât belong. That the Frenchman, now 28, will forever be a [wanderer] playing dress-up in a place such as Monaco. Even after eight years on the grid, he remains an outsider.
Then again, an impressive finish here would change minds. It might even change Oconâs, convincing him itâs possible to be born into one end of the economic spectrum and, with enough talent and moxie, reach the other.
He changes out of his jeans and into an Alpine race suit. He stretches the muscles on his thin frame and climbs into a $15 million super machine. The green flag drops. Ocon accelerates, 0 to 100 mph in 2½ seconds, trying to position himself and his team for an early chance at points. Over the years, he has proved himself as a skilled and fearless driver, aggressive sometimes to the point of recklessness.
With Monacoâs narrow streets and hairpin turns, passing is dangerous. Three-time world champion Nelson Piquet once compared it to riding a bicycle in your living room. And trying to pass a teammate? It simply isnât done.
Before the race, in fact, Alpine instructed its drivers to avoid each other. Whoever is ahead after the first lap should stay there; the driver behind him is to protect his blind side.
Midway through the first lap, the cars are clustered. Pierre Gasly, Alpineâs other driver, is immediately in front of Ocon. On the eighth turn, just before the circuitâs famed tunnel, Gasly eases off the accelerator. Ocon sees his teammate drift left, allowing space between Gasly and the wall, creating an opening.
FIVE HUNDRED MILES NORTH, thereâs a small French village built into the lush countryside. People in Ăvreux raise chickens, recycle batteries, mow their own grass. And the locals tell of a man north of town who could bring back the dead, so long as the corpse had four wheels.
One of those locals, Marc Guillouet, still remembers the sound of Laurent Oconâs air compressor bellowing at all hours as Ocon performed reconstructive surgery on another broken-down used car that had been towed through his gate. Then, hours later, another sound: the engine humming back to life.
âThe way he refurbished it,â Guillouet says, âit was like new.â
Laurent was a self-taught mechanic who built his shop onto the back of the Oconsâ home, a single-car garage jutting out in yellow stucco. It was in the houseâs rear, but it acted as the familyâs entrance. Before school some mornings, young Esteban would see his father, grease up to his elbows, still trying to solve the previous nightâs puzzle. When Esteban returned in the afternoon, he would watch Dad beamas he turned the key, listened and ⌠there it was, that beautiful music.
âWe live for that,â Esteban says now. âHe wants to win, like me.â
Laurentâs passion was reviving machines. His sonâs was maneuvering them. Esteban says he was 4 the first time he got behind the wheel of a go-kart, gliding around the track at an amusement park, through cones and around other karts as if it were second nature. His friend who came along drove straight into the wall.
Esteban kept driving, testing himself in bigger, faster, more complex machines. The families of some other 8-year-olds hired engineers, barked into radios and traveled with professional mechanics. But Laurent and wife Sabrina had no money for that. If Estebanâs carburetor failed or his torsion bar broke, it was Laurent who mounted a new one. Then they would return to Ăvreux from Ambourville or Rouen, often with Esteban cradling another trophy.
âWe tried to protect Esteban from pressure as much as possible,â Laurent says, answering questions emailed by The Washington Post. âBut unfortunately, the only solution is to perform.â
After one of Estebanâs races, a representative from a management company approached. The boy had the talent to make racing his career, the man said, but it wouldnât be easy. Or cheap.
Thousands of European kids grow up dreaming of the Formula One life, waiting to pilot a rocket at circuits such as Monza and Silverstone and Monaco. Most never make it, and even those who only come close do so after millions have been spent on equipment, travel and engineering.
The families of many drivers commit hundreds of thousands before their child becomes a teenager, largely to get noticed by top feeder programs and driver academies. Among the hopefuls are the kids of billionaires and oligarchs, able to bankroll the pursuit of a nine-figure dream. A few even pay their way onto the F1 grid, with cash-strapped teams agreeing because it transfers the financial responsibility.
Most, though, spend years working their way up.
âEven if you are talented,â Esteban says, âif you donât have the right people, you donât manage.â
But all he had were his parents.
âIf he really wants to do it,â Esteban remembers hearing Laurent say years ago, âweâll give him everything we can.â
LAURENT AND SABRINA SOLD THEIR HOUSE and the family business, leaving behind anything that didnât fit in a 21-foot motor home. They stuffed Estebanâs mini-kart into the rear of a van, surrounded it with tools and Estebanâs toys, then hitched the motor home to the vanâs rear.
âPrepping,â Estebanâs parents told him, âfor the rest of your life.â
With Ăvreux in the rearview, home now was a parking lot in Lyon or a roadside in Le Mans. Ten-year-old Esteban had his bicycle and the family border collie to keep him company. Sabrina outfitted the motor home with a fake fireplace and told friends it was their mobile chateau. Le Palais des Ocons had a living room and shared sleeping quarters, with views that were a mountain some days, a vineyard others.
Sabrina and Laurent convinced their son that each day was an adventure, each morning a chance for Esteban to open the door so he and their dog, Viper, could breathe in a dramatic new backdrop. He and Laurent sometimes went on long bicycle rides, where they talked about engines, racing, the future. Then the convoy headed to a nearby track, where the soft-spoken Esteban slid on a helmet, climbed into his kart and transformed into an assassin. There wasnât an opening he wouldnât hit, a pass he wouldnât attempt, a throat he wouldnât cut. Esteban wanted to win races, yes, but victory was about more than bragging rights.
In his 9-year-old mind, he says, it was the only way to repay his parents.
âI had weight on my shoulders very early,â he says. âThere was never a Plan B in my head.â
In 2006, Esteban, then 10, won the regional mini-kart championship, which qualified him for a spot in the French Cupâs âMinimeâ division. He reached the final heat, and he and another young star, Charles Leclerc, angled for positioning on the last lap. Esteban went inside, trying to overtake Leclerc, and their tires touched. Leclerc spun out and hit the wall; Esteban recovered but finished outside the top five. The two boys spent the rest of the day crying.
The family returned to Ăvreux each winter, staying with family so Esteban could attend a few months of school before the new season. Otherwise, they kept moving, rarely in the same place for more than a few days.
Esteban won the French Cup in 2007, the âCadetâ title a year later, the junior championship in 2010. With every promotion came longer trips and more expensive gear. An entry-level âbabyâ kart costs about $3,000, not including registration fees and fuel, and a used mini-kart engine and chassis can be twice that.
By 2011, with a promotion to Winning Series Karting, the chateau was crossing borders so Esteban could race in Spain, Italy and Portugal. Entry fees alone were upward of $5,000 per race, with fuel and spare parts pushing the cost higher. All youth sports have their own unique cultures, and in this one, there is an established taboo: Kids donât talk about their parentsâ wealth.
But chatter happens anyway. Jos Verstappen, father of 14-year-old Max, used to drive in Formula One and spent $1 million bankrolling his sonâs career. Leclerc grew up among the yachts and Ferraris of Monaco, and Lance Strollâs dad, Lawrence, was a fashion billionaire.
Estebanâs folks?
Homeless, the other boys murmured. Sometimes, they said, they even saw his dad lurking near the circuit, waiting to pull other driversâ used tires out of the trash.
IN 2014, OCON, THEN 18, won nine races and finished in the top three in 21 of 33 races to claim Europeâs Formula Three championship. But it was 17-year-old Verstappen, who had finished third, who was promoted seven months later and became the youngest driver ever to appear on the F1 grid.
âMy dad always said itâs not going to be easy,â Ocon says now. âI didnât really know what my future would be.â
He spent the 2015 season with Mercedes and Lotus â discussed alongside Verstappen, George Russell and Gasly as the sportâs next generation of starsbut still toiling in its minor leagues.
The next season, another young driver, Indonesiaâs Rio Haryanto, won a spot with Manor Racing, a fledgling F1 team from Britain. F1 teams today operate under an annual maximum budget. Back then, though,the annual cost for a two-car team could reach nearly $200 million per year. Some teams have lucrative sponsorship agreements and investments from engine manufacturers, but others rely only on prize money and the potential share of a year-end financial pie that is distributed to the teams that finish in the top 10 in points.
Haryanto started the first 12 races that year before Manor dropped him â and not just because he never finished better than 15th. It was because Haryanto, initially backed by a $16.65 million investment from an Indonesian oil and gas company, ran out of money.
Manorâs own survival depended on performance, so in August 2016, it contacted the most talented driver available and told 19-year-old Esteban to get to Belgium. A management company had agreed to underwrite Oconâs career, so with the motor home now retired, the family traveled by plane.
âA lot of emotions and relief,â Laurent recalls. âThe culmination of 16 years.â
FOUR MONTHS AFTER ESTEBANâS F1 DEBUT, with the sport itself at a crossroads, Manor Racing announced it was broke.
It was January 2017, and this was the first of several dominos to tumble.
The next was that Force India, a well-funded team and a new contender, offered Esteban a multiyear contract after its No. 2 driver, Nico HĂźlkenberg, defected for Renault. With an elite car, Esteban finished seventh in Russia, fifth in Barcelona, sixth in Montreal â valuable points for his team and proof he belonged.
Then, in Azerbaijan, Ocon saw an opening. He tried to pass Sergio Perez, his Force India teammate, before their wheels touched. A moment later, he went for it again, contacting Perezâs car and damaging both vehicles.
âWhat did Esteban do, guys?â Perez said on his headset radio. He later called Oconâs behavior âunacceptable.â
Three races later, Ocon again collided with Perez in Hungary, and a week later in Belgium, Ocon tried to pass his teammate on the inside. The cars made contact, Perezâs front wing flew off, and the veteran driverâs anger exploded.
âHonestly, what the f--- is this guy doing?â Perez said. âF---ing idiot.â
High drama â which, considering the sportâs new ownership, was undoubtably welcome.
Long owned by a European private equity fund, Formula One had recently been purchased by Liberty Media, an American entertainment titan that parlayed its ownership of struggling assets, from satellite radio to the Discovery Channel and QVC, into ownership of the Atlanta Braves. It wasalready planning the all-access Netflix docuseries that would debut in 2019 â less than a year before the pandemic. When the sports calendar ground to a halt, âDrive to Surviveâ became a massive hit that sent each teamâs value soaring.
Sponsors and investors were fighting for a piece of a sports gold rush. Not everyone could keep up, though. Force Indiaâs owner, Vijay Mallya, defaulted on more than $1 billion in loans after his airline failed, before numerous banks accused him of fraud. (Mallya has called these accusations ârubbishâ but, after fleeing India for England, is still considered a fugitive.) He sold his team to a group of investors led by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, who had made his fortune on the threads of Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors. And who happened to have a son, Lance, who drove, if not very well, for Williams Mercedes.
Just like that, it was Ocon being bumped, his dream blown to pieces by his own team. When the 2019 season started, he was out of a job. He blamed âpolitics.â
He joined Mercedes as a reserve driver, and during race weekends, he says, he would climb into a racing simulator and go through scenario after scenario until 4 a.m. On no sleep, he would go to the airport and travel to wherever F1 was because thatâs also where Ocon could meet with potential investors, sponsors and engineers. Then, a week later, he would do it all again.
âI didnât care because I said, âLetâs give it a full go,â show the people how hungry I am,â he says. Failure, he told himself, would mean that his parentsâ sacrifices had been in vain.
âI didnât do all that just to sit on the side,â he continues. âTeams saw how much I was willing to give, how much I was willing to suffer. I wanted to show everyone that Iâm willing to go further than anyone else. No sleep for three straight days, simulator day and night, Iâm going to do it. And, yes, Iâve lost four kilos in that year and got sick seven or eight times, and the reality is, yes, Iâve suffered and it was tough. And I donât want to be suffering forever.â
In late summer 2019, with the first season of âDrive to Surviveâ being filmed, Oconâs phone rang. Renault was parting ways with HĂźlkenberg. The French team wanted the kid from Ăvreux to come home.
âA crazy moment,â Ocon says. âThis was it. The tough times are over now.â
LAST YEAR IN MONACO, something happened that was highly disruptive: Ocon finished third. It was his third appearance on the podium and his best result since he won the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2021. In one of Europeâs nightclub capitals, the 27-year-old celebrated. Hard.
Fatigued, dehydrated and emotionally drained, Ocon again got sick. He was nonetheless due back on the grid in Barcelona four days later. He finished eighth in each of his next two races, then 14th, then didnât finish the two after that.
Nobody weeps for the motorsports rock star, but a life spent in constant motion does take a toll. A year after signing with Renault, which rebranded as Alpine, Ocon was reportedly paid $5 million per year. He put Laurent and Sabrina on the payroll of âTeam Esteban,â he says, assigning his mother administrative tasks and his father responsibilities such as renovating Estebanâs house. He could also hire a performance coach to keep his body and mind sharp â or as sharp as possible in a sport whose schedule features two dozen stops around the globe.
Now, years after Laurent and Sabrina tried shielding their son from many of racingâs pressures, it is Tom Clarkâs job to act as Oconâs conscience. To tell him itâs okay to sleep in on weekends, to grab a nap after practice, to avoid media and fans because more interactions mean more exposure to pathogens.To urge him to eat more lean protein and complex carbohydrates, stay ahead of time zones by wearing sunglasses to simulate darkness, use a light therapy lamp or glasses that emit a bright glow above the eyes. To encourage him to take it easy sometimes, especially when it comes to challenging teammates, and maybe to even think about gearing things down a tad.
âLetâs really just put a bubble around you,â Clark says he tells Ocon.
The problem is this is in conflict with the instincts that got Ocon here. Without deprivation and exhaustion, would he have ever left Ăvreux? If not for aggressive racing and a ruthless competitive drive, could he have even reached the grid? Especially when it comes to challenging teammates, canât he gear things down a tad?
ON THE FIRST LAP at this yearâs Monaco Grand Prix, thereâs Gasly in 10th place. Ocon is 11th. Points are awarded to only the top-10 finishers.
The Alpine drivers have known each other since childhood, their hometowns just 20 minutes apart, friends scratching and clawing for better footing. When they were 12, both were in the same championship race. Gasly overtook Ocon on the last lap to win. âI kicked his ass,â Gasly told the Netflix documentary crew, âand he didnât like it.â
Not long after, the French racing federation had an opening at its sports academy in Le Mans, a kind of Hogwarts for kid racers. It was Gasly who got the invitation, not the mechanicâs son. The friendship crumbled, just one more thing Ocon left behind as he boarded the motor home once more, looking to win races, yes, but also in search of acceptance.
âBut look where I am now,â he says. âThat has helped me to get through a lot of steps in my life. Thatâs what made me so competitive, I guess, from so early on.â
Ocon and Gasly hadcollided in 2023, too, in Australia, with both cars taking race-ending damage. After that, tension between the teammates boiled over when Gasly accused Alpine of coddling Ocon. Before Monaco, the team told the pair to cool it.
And they did, for all of 40 seconds. Now, seeing that narrow opening, Ocon goes for it.
His rear tire connects with Gaslyâs front wheel once, then a second time, sending a bitter cloud of burned rubber into the sea air. Oconâs car goes airborne before turning sideways, and though it lands on its wheels, the impact causes catastrophic damage.
âWhat did he do?â Gasly says into his radio.
Pieces of carbon fiber fly off Oconâs car. The tire is punctured, the gearbox fried, the suspension arm broken.
âThatâs it, guys,â Ocon tells his team. His Grand Prix is finished.
Needing repairs that will cost tens of thousands and with Oconâs car due in Montreal in 10 days, Bruno Famin, Alpineâs team principal, publicly admonishes Ocon and vows âconsequences.â F1âs governing body, the Federation Internationale de lâAutomobile, penalizes Ocon after ruling he initiated the collision.
A week after Monaco, Alpine announces that, in 2025, it will replace one of its drivers. Neither had gotten a podium, and only Ocon had won a point for Alpine. But the team chooses to keep Gasly, meaning Ocon again will be set adrift, the [wanderer] seemingly destined to forever roam.
A FEW MONTHS AGO, Esteban and Laurent went for a long bike ride. The old man still lives near Ăvreux, operating a shop his son bought him. He still likes to work on cars and make music, albeit as more hobby than job, andprefers to traverse the countryside on an e-bike.
Even against his dad, Esteban canât help himself.
âI still pull away,â he says.
First, though,during a quieter moment on a recent ride, Laurent told his son a story.
There was once another boy with talent and ambition, the story went, hoping to someday become a professional cyclist. He was as skilled as anyone, but the other kids had access to training and coaches that this boyâsfamily couldnât afford. So lying in bed one night when he was 16, he succumbed to these economic realities and abandoned his dream, diverting his attention and passion into becoming a mechanic.
So, he went on, when that boy became a man and a husband and a dad, he and his wife agreed to do everything possible to position their son for success. To tell him about possibility, not limitation, and raise him in an environment that would eliminate regret.
âHe had never told that story,â Esteban says. âThat moment, basically, when he was lying on the bed like that, probably changed my life. They clearly gave more than what they could, and without them I wouldnât be here.â
Esteban says he occasionally fantasizes about what it would be like to stay in one place: to stop moving, inhale, feel settled. Maybe someday, he says, but not just yet. In July, after Ocon was two months adrift, Kevin Magnussen announced he would be leaving Haas.
Haas, as it happens, is run by Ayao Komatsu, a former F1 engineer who had met and encouraged Esteban when he was just a teenager. A decade later, Komatsu came through. Haas offered Ocon not only a seat for 2025 but acceptance for all the things he is and is not.
âEsteban, he needs an environment that he knows the team is behind him, supporting him, listening to him,â Komatsu says. âNo politics. I believe we can provide that.â
But what about the suggestion that Ocon doesnât play well with others? That you can never take the Ăvreux fully out of the kid?
âIf I was worried about that,â Komatsu says, âI wouldnât sign him.â
After their bikeride, Laurent and Esteban turned around but kept talking over the wind. Farmland and hills blurred past, same as they did years ago, and a favorite memory of Estebanâs sprung to mind. It was morning, and the 12-year-old awoke in the motor home again with no idea where he was. So he opened the door to see blue sky, the slopes of great mountains, the shoreline of the Mediterranean.
Laurent had parked the van and motor home in Monaco, where yachts are moored and the best drivers live. Esteban remembers the feeling of that moment, the possibility, and his dad stepped out and said there was nothing to stop his son from racing here someday. Whatever came next would be determined by Esteban.
âThere was no guarantee,â Esteban recalls his dad saying. But the boy had a chance to prove he belonged. Picturing the momentyears later, he inhaled, kept pedaling and let Laurent catch up as the two of them headed home.
#used a site to remove the paywall#so here is the whole article for those interested! <3#esteban ocon#f1#btw the things i put in brackets is bc the author used the g slur and while i get the implication#of este always being on the move in the caravan and now as adult as well#i still think it is a bit in poor taste#also be aware that this author has zero wheel knowledge bc he mentions incidents that were simply not este's fault#and feed into the dumb bad teammate narrative
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The Times, 8 October 2017
#noel gallagher#as you were#noel on liam#lyric analysis#others on nl#2017#things#noel on lg solo#well where to begin with this#that 'know what i mean?' at the end there feels pretty loaded#'but i'm dignified now' then one beat later 'DID YOU KNOW MY BROTHER'S OBSESSED WITH ME'#totally believe he'd have started cuing up BE songs for the interviewer#if he hadn't been distracted by the opportunity to gloat over winning the prize of being liam's singular songwriting focus#interviewer: so liam wrote a song about you#noel: 'ONE' song? it's a good thing i'm here to correct you on the scope and depth of his obsession with me#interviewer: ...#noel: me over his ex-wife#interviewer: i wasn't aware it was a compet--#noel: *begins rifling through albums*#i clicked to read this interview in the first place because i was looking for something else entirely#and when i got to the highlighted part i actually said 'WHAT??' out loud in a voice of unadulterated outrage#and the fact that i've had to do that multiple times over the course of the last few months when reading articles about them#is the reason why i'm still here unable to pull myself away from this shakespearean-level insanity#anyway i'm just glad we're being dignified about it
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i CANNOT be the only one who thinks whatever team @ fromsoftware are under some type of crunch. elden ring at launch had unfinished quests and missing items that only got added through updates, but this is largely forgiven / unnoticed . then in sote is when it gets really noticeable. at launch speaking again sote has: art item descriptions in black and white, missing or changed voice lines and cutscenes, poor cutscenes, poor performance, and lore retcons that imply multiple teams were working on it. with nightregin it seems to be a low scale project thats basically just the seamless mod but as a roguelike. something like that is relatively low effort to make, especially considering its a short fast paced randomised spinoff with TONS of reused assess; going as far to have enemies from previous from games. i dont know
EDIT: adding that fromsoftware are a Japanese company, you know, kinda infamous for poor work conditions and crunch. there was also a article on from's (poor) working conditions however this was published years ago, so it's possibly irrelevant today but still worth adding
#text#fromsoftware#elden ring nightreign#worth adding there were more articles on this lol and yes im aware most popular game companies do this#fromsoftware according to a game ign article also raised their salary by 11% so possibly worth bringing up in the tags here idk
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In May of 2021 Maeve Boothby OâNeill was told by an NHS doctor she would âfeel much better if you gave your hair a washâ. In October of 2021 she died. Multiple young women are in situations extremely similar to those that led to her death, right now.
#myalgic encephalomyelitis#mecfs#medical gaslighting#medical misogyny#I wish I was well enough to reread it and post some screencaps of key bits but Iâm not so#maybe someone has already shared this article on here but I havenât seen it#people outside the me community need to know whatâs happening to people with me especially young women#we know of multiple young women just in the uk in very similar situations to maeveâs before her death#edit: I have tried to add a couple of screenshots from the article#I feel so trapped and frustrated that Iâm too severe to do a decent job at making people aware of this illness but anyway
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The average public library is not only a provider of the latest Anne Enright or Julia Donaldson: it is now an informal citizens advice bureau, a business development centre, a community centre and a mental health provider. It is an unofficial Sure Start centre, a homelessness shelter, a literacy and foreign language-learning centre, a calm space where tutors can help struggling kids, an asylum support provider, a citizenship and driving theory test centre, and a place to sit still all day and stare at the wall, if that is what you need to do, without anyone expecting you to buy anything. [...] The trouble comes when libraries â and the underpaid, overstretched people who work in them â start to become sole providers for all these things: when years of cost-cutting mean that the state has effectively reneged on all but the most unavoidable of its responsibilities to the troubled, the poor, the educationally challenged, the lonely, the physically unwell, the lost or the homeless. âWe risk becoming a social care safety net,â said Nick Poole, the outgoing CEO of the library association Cilip, and âour staff are not clinical staffâ.
#i try not to library post on here but god.#this article#captured so much of my experience working in public libraries#the chaos the joy the dissonance the grief#this specific thing that makes me feel complicated things when i see posts celebrating everything libraries are to people#bc yes! yes!#but also the feeling this article describes so well#where you are aware every second of the death spiral of social care and community support in this country#and how needed and how inadequate the library is. as this last tiny bastion of community care#part of the reason i stopped working in the nhs was bc of that constant overwhelmed hopelessness#the awareness of all the systems we use to care for each dwindling more and more every year#man#i don't know#i loved this article a lot#kind of want to send it to everyone who has ever told me my job must be so peaceful
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i really think, when talking about voting/parties/etc, we need to be talking about Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which would undermine checks and balances and consolidate a lot more power under the president if a conservative, Trump or not, is voted into power. Please check the website. It's pretty much a roadplan to a fascist regime.
#project 2025#this isn't a 'why is no one talking about this?' because a lot of people are talking about it#i mean the NYT released an article on it and i think rachel maddow talked about it too iirc#i just....haven't seen a lot about it on here and it's something that i think people should be aware of if they're not already#and i think that it's very important to keep things like this in mind when talking about 'both parties are bad'
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alright who started the trend for fans to call dick just "grayson" and why are they cowards
#whenever I run into this in the wild I'm like âokay are we trying to channel damian?? is this affectionate larping??â#âare we whatever incomprehensible demographic dc was trying to market to with the whole attempted 'ric' fiasco??â#âare we repressed individuals uncomfortable talking about how much we love dick on the internet. is that what we're doing here.â#or is there idk some other context that I'm not aware of#like I'm not surprised to see this from dc themselves or the media#bc they don't want to just call him 'dick' in promos and blurbs and articles and interviews and such.#but still#why would fans take it up the habit :/#COWARDS I SAY COWARDS#you don't get people calling jason âtoddâ#or damian âwayneâ or âal ghulâ for obvious reasons#I do see the occasional âdrakeâ referring to tim đ¤#but he did make it his code name for those extremely embarrassing 30 seconds soooooo idk#dick grayson#dcu#pls don't take this post seriously lol#post tag
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@katkastrofa: *writes a single throwaway line in one chapter of Lost and Found that is never referenced again*
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Me, completely randomly and with no prompting: Alright, betâ
#my art#artists on tumblr#the legend of korra#original characters#as if I donât have enough of those already#I really donât know what possessed me here. I mean. sometimes my mind did drift to this mention of Zaheerâs sisters#because broken bonds is my absolute favourite LaF chapter. but I ever really thought of them that much since Kat never brought them up agai#and then about 24h ago I randomly remembered them again and was like. hey. pâli and ghazanâs sisters play a huge role in our stories#and ming-hua is an only child. so what of zaheerâs sisters? what are they like? do they ever cross his mind? are they aware of his crimes?#and in the afternoon I went digging through my art supplies bc I felt like painting and found my old 2020-2022 sketchbook with 2 empty page#so I thought. why not. itâs been a while since Iâve done traditional art. so I pulled up a reference of rich EK outfits from the artbooks#and got to work. drew this up in about half an hour? traditional sketching is a lot faster than digital for some reason#then took a picture and cleaned up and coloured in procreate. and Iâm really happy with the end result#this was hella fun to do as well so.. win-win?#alright enough backstory rambling. on to the characters themselves#I looked up Zaheerâs name and apparently that particular spelling is urdu in origin. so I went off that#the article I found was written edited and fact checked by three pakistani women so I think itâs about as trustworthy as these things go#summiya means âa woman of proper nameâ and aiza means ârespected high place in societyâ. which I thought were fitting for noble girls#for outfits and hairstyles. like I said. I turned to the avatar artbooks. those things are life savers. I just played around with colours#looks wise I colour picked from zaheer and then shifted around a little so they look similar enough yet not like clones of each other#but theyâre also teenagers here so they wouldnât resemble book 3 Zaheer much anyway#kat never mentioned ages but since their mother was looking for matches I assumed they were older than zaheer#he ran off at 11 or 12 iirc. so I decided they would have been 16 and 14 respectively#though in their community matches are probably made much earlier than actual marrying age. still.#if it was such a pressing matter that their mother was âpreoccupiedâ with it. then they were probably teenagers right#thatâs what Iâm gonna go for anyway since currently I have no information to disprove any of this#oh yeah Kat btw if you did have images of Zaheerâs sisters in mind before this then you donât have to replace them. I just filled a blank#weâve never talked about them so I assume thereâs nothing. feel free to correct me. maybe someday weâll discuss their personalities/lives#all I have is that they probably werenât too close with zaheer. and their lives now are all about husbands kids and status. but weâll see#hope you like them anyways <3
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not to be political but I've seen a lot of people saying that those who call Israel an apartheid don't know what they're talking about and um. As someone who has studied South African apartheid as well as grown up in a Jewish community. This claim has more merit than you think
#this post is brought to you by an article i read âdebunkingâ the claim that israel is an apartheid and their âevidenceâ#included several policies that are the same if not more intense than apartheid era policies against black south africans#there are comparisons that hold weight here#although one thing i dont get and havent had explained to me yet. it looks to me as though both arabs and jews are indigenous to the region#in the way that both the hopewell culture and lenape people are indigenous to my state of pennsylvania#and thats a flimsy comparison i suppose since the hopewell culture (who lived here first chronologically) has died out#but anyway theres a case for indigeneity for both jews and arabs#its so silly to me that we dont consider both to be indigenous? yes many jews that came into israel in the early 20th century were#white europeans and carried the colonial baggage of that with them#but idk why its so hard to believe that an oppressed group can also be an oppressor?? like where's the intersectionality babes#anyway. the original point of this post was that maybe more of yall need to look into what south african apartheid was actually like#much like h*m*s leadership a lot of the ANC leadership was forced into exile and had to live and work outside of their country#(and this comparison is not perfect im aware. the tactics of the anc and h*m*s are totally different. however i think this comparison has#weight in that they are both one of the biggest names in opposition to the government. they do this in different ways at different levels o#intensity and violence. that is not to be ignored. but there are some comparisons that we can make and exile doesnt strike me as a bad one)#the bantustans in south africa were also constructed in a way that much like the west bank makes it highly difficult for an actual real#state to form#and the way that theyre set up invites puppet governments and corruption. this gives a major advantage to the apartheid state#id recommend reading Trevor Noah's Born A Crime if you havent#its a great introduction to what daily life in aparthid and after was like (its a memoir from about 1990-2005ish)#(apartheid was legally ended in 1994 but there are still remnants of it today and there were even more at the time of Born a Crime)#anyway these are my political thoughts of the day#edit: to my tangent about both groups being able to have some sort of claim to indigeneity. that in no way justifies any of the brutality#going on#i think its espeically cringe of israel to claim indigeneity and a sacred relationship with the land then create an environmental#catastrophe like they have in gaza. making the land unliveable is a bit of a perversion of the relationship you have with that land innit#in case it wasnt clear: ceasefire now and free palestine
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ive been binging julia seranos online essays before bed and its definitely v good stuff thats bringing up a lot of new thoughts and connecting some dots in ways that i think i kinda had an understanding of but not rly a concrete and clear framework of, which is cool, but i think its also giving me weird ass dreams
#97#i cant remember what actually happened in last nights dreams i just remember waking up thinking it was weird and related to the essays#one annoying thing is like..#ive mentioned already that my mom has been radicalizing right-ward for the past few years in a way thats a regular source of anxiety for me#very thankfully she has not veered towards transphobia though she has some shitty gender takes#but like. im lucky that my mom loves me enough that she wont turn outright transphobic right#however it has led to this weird thing where every time i read an essay or article on current trans issues#i constantly have like.#idk how to explain it except its almost intrusive thoughts? of imagining how my mother would read it#and specifically how she would read it uncharitably and ignorantly#and it makes it hard for me to read these bc im constantly plagued by thinking about shitty things she would say#crazyyyy like she doesnt even need to be here or aware of it i just have a version of her in my head whos just here to make me feel shitty
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Supernatural Spoonie Side Protagonist (sorry is that cringe...)
OK WRITING AND/OR CHRONICALLY ILL COMMUNITY! (why am I shouting? đŤ˘)
Please kindly repost or comment on this with analyses of how possible/impossible it would be for a teenage character with a (fictional) chronic illness to:
Go to school- mainly curious about absences/field trips/events like prom. Would homeschool be a better option than public school?
Work part-time- how understanding are employees and coworkers with someone not always well enough to get all their hours in?
Travel long distance- she's an international student living with an adult relative with American citizenship, and seeing a doctor who can help with her rare specific illness (oh yeah she can fly so... factor that into traveling somehow đ aaah I don't know what I'm doing!!!)
Fight monsters with superpowers- the character is trying to live a normal life in constant danger of another supernatural race trying to exterminate her own, (which is how she ended up sick btw.) With limited physical abilities, how does overexertion and moderate to severe injury work?
If you need more specifics about the character, feel free to ask me! I know the supernatural element complicates it, so I'm trying to figure out if it's doable and represent chronic illness as best as I can. Thank you so much in advance! đ
#i want to realistically represent chronic illness but still have them be able to be involved in the danger and action#i'm acutely aware that they will not realistically be able to do all of these things consistently without tons of rest#but when everyday tasks are hard enough how should i go about writing them as capable but within the limits of their condition?#without going beyond it and losing the connection with readers of that community that is#i know i used to share my writing on here but now i act all holier than thou and don't like things anymore#but I'd really appreciate some interaction if it's ok#probably got years of research ahead of me but i feel like the tumblr community can give me more relatable insight than research articles#again thanks so much for your input if this gets any interaction at all#lemme shuddup now so i have room to tag this so it actually gets seen lol#writing#writers#writers on tumblr#writeblr#chronically ill#spoonie#spoon theory#writing advice#writer help#tw: chronic illness
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reading an article on how hot this summer was and of course, of Course, the only time the canadian wildfires are mentioned is off-handedly and only says how the smoke affected americans đ like i fuckin hate yall
#the article did focus mostly on climate change in general and the reference to canada was one of few non-american places#that was mentioned to show the heat but its just so odd it was mentioned how the smoke affected another country and not like.#the devastating effects here. like come on now lets be real for a second#bc is rally does feel like oh my god :((( u got smoky for a few days :((( oh no :(((((#bitch my whole damn country is on fire. weve had smoke here for MONTHS and yes it sucks and is dangerous but have u considered:#you are not the centre of the world. like are u aware of that#god..............................#đ.txt
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âCIA Behavior Control Experiments: A Dark Chapter in Intelligence History
CIA Behavior Control Experiments: A Dark Chapter in Intelligence History The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has long been a subject of intrigue and controversy, but few of its programs have sparked as much outrage as its behavior control experiments. Recently declassified documents, highlighted by the National Security Archive (NSA), shed new light on the CIAâs clandestine efforts toâŚ
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#and encourage support for his mission through donations and Patreon.#Here are some relevant tags for the article and call to action: BerndPulch SupportJournalism Whistleblower PressFreedom Transparency A#raise awareness about Bernd Pulchâs work
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the thing about being a morphology fan and having a mom in activist circles is that I might have just accidentally invented a term for autistic pinkwashing and now it's being circulated on autism support groups on facebook by my mom
#like shes explaining the term to people who have podcasts on autism in this country#and I mean I do think it conveys its meaning very smoothly and is absolutely relevant for the specific conversation at play#(conversation being âtv network airing new show where people are autistic on screen!â and how that can either be good or. not good)#and my mom asked me for a term thats âselling things on the prospect of autism awarenessâ and I went âlike pinkwashing?â and well#specifically chose to title it bluewashing bc. yknow. thats not the correct color if you actually ask autistic activists?#unfortunately every single color-washing is also supposedly taken#still dont get why according to wikipedia bluewashing is pretending to be a democrat company. with 0 sources on the article#also no offense but thats so american like thats so 2 parties of yall over here theres like 50 parties so blue is just. a color
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