#and because i can't talk i can't put myself out there to build a network to give me the support i need | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kame-writes · 1 month

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Concerning the media overlords au:

First of all: I love it! Thank you for sharing the idea with us <33

Second: Does Alastor live in the tower with the other Vees? And does Alastor still move into the hotel? If yes, on a scale of one to absolutely how sad/pissed/jealous is Vox after receiving this info?

3. I'd like to imagine Velvette's fingers are constantly itching to get ahold of that handsome deer man, who doesn't know how to dress himself properly or trendy, and give his wardrobe an upgrade. Could you imagine this happening? (Maybe with lots of alcohol involved. So that he would at least temporarily let her experiment with his clothes. Bonus points if she is able to take picture too. Vox would obviously make himself some copies for.. private reasons...) Do you see my vision?? Can you see it??

4. Can Vox convince Alastor to do more audio features within their network? Like podcasts or interviews and the like? Or are they just screams as well? (I recently discovered a podcast about cooking, where each week they talk about one ingredient and explain a recipe with it. I think this would fit Alastor's preferences very well.. tho the ingredients might not be as commonly used now that I think about it... anyhow... now I can't stop thinking about Hannibal and Alastor hosting a food podcast.. oops.. sorry, but not really)

5. You mentioned that Husk still works in his casino, if he isn't needed. Do you have any headcanons for Niffty's whereabouts?

Anyway that's all for now! Have a lovely day/night! <33

p.s. Sorry if this ask is intrusive. For some questions it's pretty clear that I've already imagined something for myself that may or may not fit with your vision of this au. If you feel like I overstepped, feel free to ignore this or send me an alastor_fuck_u. gif :D

Im am very happy to have questions asked! You have no idea how many ideas i have and dont know what to do with xD

I'd love to see other peoples headcanons and ideas for this universe, if anyone does anything for it then please tag me so i can see ^^

This is gonna get long so I've put it under a read more

2: No one is really sure if he lives there or just works there. He HAS his own suite in the tower, but he's not always there when they go look for him, and not being able to find him is very a common occurrence, made more frustrating because he refuses to carry or awnser the mobile phone they forced on him. He hangs around in the common areas like the kitchen and living room sometimes. And if they do manage to rope him into something like a movie night its a huge hassle, because he will insist on a black and white or silent film if he HAS to engage with the tv, and Vel and Val hate those.

The whole top of the Tower is dominated by his large Radio tower though, its slightly seperated from the rest of the building, suspended above it with a staircase/ladder to enter the hatch. Valentino is usually not brave enough to check there for Alastor.

Its the same with the hotel. He does move into his own room there, but goes back and forth a lot, and doesnt have a schedule. Vox tires to pretend hes fine with it at first but often ends up the hotel to be a pain in the ass to Charlie, and getting kicked out by the staff of Alastor. Hes convinced himself that Alastor will lose interest sooner rather than later, and the others just tune out his whining at this point. No one buys it when he claims he didnt even notice Alastor was gone as soon as the Radio Demon gets back to the tower.

3: I may be planning to draw this haha He does let her dress him up ocassionally, he has a few differant suits he's approved of and kept, but does wear his original the most the time. Velvette has a line of 'Vintage chic' clothing that partly started as a way to get Alastor to agree to changing his 'ratty ass old man style' by appealing to clothes that were updated takes on his era. He still very rarely leaves the tower in anything but his own usual attire.

He does on rare occasions allow photos to be taken of him by the vees (and once, later on by charlie, under strict instructions that she keeps it to herself) but no video. And none under any circumstances are allowed on social media. He has blown up a few phones that have attempted, both the Vees and employees.

4: Alastor has agreed to be on a podcast a few times, but its rare, and only if its somehting hes really interested in talking about. It's one of the few modern things he approves of since its just a version of a radio talk show. Same with interviews, he keeps them even more extremly rare, and the mystery of the radio Demon keeps sinners in fear more than him being in the public. Vox always wants him to do more since the ratings sky rocket when Alastor features.

When Alastor has done an interview it is with his back to the camera, and sitting in a large wingbacked stupidly over the top ornate chair, that hides him from being seen, except maybe the top tuffs of his ears and antlers. And he doesnt reveal much about himself when he does. The chair is partly to hide him, and partly to stop the equitment form glitching too much. He likes to pulls faces and makes gestures deliberatly made to make Vox falter and look stupid on camera, since hes the only one who can see him in that chair.

He has teased on his own radio show that one 'lucky' sinner may get the chance to be on both a guest star on his radio broadcast AND a livestream if the mood takes. Valentino had to inform him that what he's referring to is called a snuff film

5: Niffty gets moved to the hotel pretty much full time once Alastor gets involved, Husk is a part time employee, but ends up spending less time at his casino as time goes on.

Valentino is happy Niffty is gone because she creeps him out, she ocassionally hung around his studio during work hours, especially if theyre doing a scene with 'bad boys'. Vox isn't bothered. Velvette is not happy, especially that Niffty is reduced to a maid/janitor for the hotel, and makes that very known to Alastor. Velvette loves Niffty, they are chaos sisters and work on very sketchy sounding potions together, and gang up against the boys.

Niffty is also a great seamstress herself and brings her designs to Velvette like an excited child showing off their latest art project. Almost none of these get used, but Vel has fun forcing models to parade around the studio and work in something Nifftys made, they often include bugs and bodyparts, Velvette finds this halarious.

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lovelessrage · 3 months

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Hi! I've been trying to educate myself on various aro and ace experiences and concepts, and I find your blog really helpful with that. However, I have a question about lovelessness that I wonder if you could help me with?

While reading a post about lovelessness that seemed influential (https://aroworlds.com/2019/07/16/i-am-not-voldemort-an-essay-on-love-and-amatonormativity/) I started thinking about families and the responsibilities of parents. I know someone (not aro or ace) who has struggled a lot in their adult life because their parents showed little emotion/tried to repress bad emotions to protect their children, and who never told their children that they loved them. This person feels unworthy of love today and has been going to therapy for years to try to manage it. Obviously it's very complicated and no one can know for certain where this person's issues stem from, but I was just curious to hear about a loveless person's opinion on this topic.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, do you think loveless parents have a responsibility to show their children love / tell them that they are loved even if they (the parent) does not actually experience love?

Would be very grateful for a response and I hope this does not come across as rude 🙏

Well, I think, at least in my personal opinion, there's many ways to show affection to children beyond saying "love". The thing is, children learn what you teach them. If you teach them love as the final frontier, the wholeness of your care, and then take it from them, they'll notice its absence. So, you... don't base your child's worth on love! You base it on something else.

If you tell a child you care for them, you want the best for them, you are proud of them, etc. from an early age, they can still feel cared for without "love" needing to be said. You can show affection in a lot of ways! You just need to show your child those ways and establish early that you still care, even if you don't use the same language other parents might use. Kids can recognise when they were raised differently, so a parent should be ready to have conversations about why they're different from their peers. It can be a good way to introduce your child to the fact it's okay to be different than people around them, and that they don't need to be exactly like every other family.

The main holding point is the expectation that someone would teach their child that love is absolute and then refuse to give it to them; this just isn't realistic. Any loveless parent who wants healthy kids isn't going to enforce love normativity just to dissapoint their children by not being able to give it. How someone cares for their child varies, and it's a conversation you can have properly when they're old enough to understand. But, in the meantime, there's many, many ways to have a child feel safe and secure without saying "I love you". It's about building their confidence and support network, not establishing love as the most important thing in the world so you can tell your toddler they can't have it. THAT'S how you screw up a baby. When they're older and can understand more complex concepts, you can talk about the word "love" as a family and what it means to you and your child. It'll depend on each and every person what comes of that, but regardless, it's important to reaffirm love isn't necessary for that child to be an important part of your life.

They have an obligation to show their child they are wanted, they are welcome, they are safe with you, and they are cared for; this doesn't necessitate love. All it takes are dedicated parents willing to put in the work required for raising a baby, and make sure their child knows they mean the world to them without using the word "love".

[Plus, from personal experience as someone who did get told I was loved by my family? It didn't help me out. At all. Mostly because the word meant nothing when they did not back it up with anything. Love only means as much as you put into it.]

#loveless #loveless aromantic #loveless aro #loveless aplatonic #loveless apl #afamilial #afam #<- tagging bc this is specifically addressing that side of lovelessness #afamspec #aspec #scowl corner

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thecurioustale · 8 months

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My 6-Week Tumblr Return Trial Period Is Up

Happy Autumn! Today is the Autumnal Equinox. (That is, if you're in the Pacific Daylight Time zone or earlier; it's actually tomorrow, the 23rd. The moment of equinox is 11:49 pm PDT this year.)

I came back to Tumblr six weeks ago (actually a little shy of seven weeks but six is the highest whole number) and said that I was going to give it consistent effort till the Equinox to see how I felt about it. Well, that day is today!

I've decided to significantly reduce my Tumblr presence, but not go back to zero like before. I still plan to post at least once or twice a week, and more whenever the fancy catches me. I don't want to slow-roll you, so there's the bottom line.

For those interested, I thought I would talk about my experience since returning.

Why I Came Back

A few years ago on my birthday I set myself a challenge of posting in my journal every day for a year—which I more or less did, and then promptly stopped because it had been a laborious thing for me with limited rewards.

This year on my birthday I decided to try that challenge again, except this time "soft": no formal public announcement, and no penalty if I missed a day. Good thing, too, because I missed a day right away! 😅 But I definitely was doing more and better writing on my journal than I had been, and I liked that. Maybe there was a sweet spot between the strict artifice of one journal entry every day and the sad default of no entries for weeks.

Then, a few days into the challenge, I got the idea of diverting this energy away from my journal and into social media, to try and begin the long process of building an audience for my creative works. I recognize with some dread that when I eventually do finish my next novel, no one is going to read it—because no one is going to know it exists. But that's not set in stone; this is something platforms can help with! And you can't just build a platform overnight. You have to start well in advance. In this post-mainstream-publishing era where independent artists' only hope is to create their own following, I knew that I would have to at least try, if I wanted people to actually read my work.

Building a platform is something I had done years ago, around the time the Prelude to After The Hero was coming out, and I was hugely successful at that time in creating lots of content and lots of channels—i.e. the platform part. But I didn't actually get anywhere in building an audience. Then my life fell apart from multiple catastrophes in a short period, and for many years I had no ability to pursue "platform growth" at all.

But I have that ability again, at least temporarily, and maybe this time I could do better.

Marketing and being social are very hard for me. They don't come naturally to me and I am not good at them. But what I can do is write about my creative work, my life, my take on the world, and anything else that comes to mind. With any luck, that would attract some eyeballs. It's the same thing I was doing eight years ago in my platform-building work, but I could be smarter about it this time, and learn from my past mistakes, which involved a lot of wasted effort that no one ever saw. This time I could try going specifically where the people are: social media! Social media was a part of my original platform-building push eight years ago, but only on the periphery. This time I could put all my platform-building into it, and not all the different channels at once, but just in one single place. Concentrate all my effort on a single point!

So I chose Tumblr: the only social media platform that still seems to reward long-form, thoughtful content. (Not counting YouTube video content.) Facebook is definitely on the way out as a relevant social media network, Twitter was unusually toxic even before the idiot took over, and TikTok to put it politely is not my jam. But Tumblr...I still use Tumblr! I still read several people's pages, and have done so for many years.

I was never actually active on Tumblr as a creator myself. As far as posting my own content goes, my social media home has always been on Facebook (and, for a while, Google+). My "return" to Tumblr this summer wasn't really anything of the sort. Even though my account is many years old, this summer was my first time making a big effort here.

And here's what I learned.

What Worked and What Didn't

I went in with very low expectations. In other words, I didn't actually expect anyone to see my work. I expected to put in my six weeks, toil away in obscurity the whole time, and leave.

But a couple people did notice my return, and reblogged my early posts, and between them they had enough followers that their reblogs got me a small influx of followers. (Hi!) So there were eyeballs, at least. I wasn't talking to the wall. It was a good bet that anything I wrote would at least have a chance of being seen by multiple other people.

A good start!

I set about trying to learn about the Tumblr algorithm and people's usage patterns. I learned that there is a very strong signal to set apart the content that people enjoy seeing and the content they don't. On the scale of Zero to Fire, a lot of what I wrote was either hard Zero or pretty decently Fire.

In the Zero category: My short-form humor was dead on arrival. So was my Tolkienian vocabulary series. My fat liberation essay—by far the biggest effortpost I made during my six weeks here—attracted a single troll and no legitimate engagement whatsoever. At 7700 words I doubt many people even read it. Cool art reblogs were also pretty much a Zero. The people in my tiny audience don't want to see any of this stuff, at least not from me.

In the Fire category: People liked my hot takes on copyright law, left-handedness, rationalist-adjacent topics and framings, some personal anecdotes (but not others), and—most promisingly—some of my discussion about the mechanics of authoring and writing, including topics such as redemption arcs, body diversity representation, losing interest in one's own stories, and long sentences. To the extent I am going to attempt to build a larger Tumblr following over time, this "mechanics of authoring" area is probably where I will focus my primary aim.

Not everything was Zero or Fire. There were also some posts in the middle. My posts actually discussing my own work, The Curious Tale and Galaxy Federal, landed in this space. They mostly fell flat for my general audience, but did noticeably better than the hard Zero stuff due to the consistent engagement of a tiny handful of fans. (Thank you, especially you Fip!)

In terms of financial support, six weeks of content creation on Tumblr yielded no book sales and no new patrons on my Patreon fund, though I did get one pledge increase from an existing patron! This isn't a big surprise, since I didn't make any push to attract new patrons and have made no attempt to hide that my book is also available for free. Still, zero is a noticeable number.

What Tumblr Feels Like

I'll be honest with you: I don't really "do" social media. I never have. I don't like social media. I am a creature of individual websites, web journals / blogs, and message forums. Facebook is the social network I use most (if you don't count YouTube), and my Facebook is set up more like a walled garden than a social network node—i.e., it is almost completely restricted to the people on my deliberately-short friends' list. I use it to look at cool pictures of clouds and landscapes, learn about things going on in my city, and keep in touch with friends. I've never really been one to use social media the way it is intended these days.

Nevertheless: Of all the social networks, I've always had a comparatively positive view of Tumblr. Tumblr is where freaks and weirdos come to be freaky and weird, and I love it. (Sometimes in principle more than practice, but still.) There used to be a tumblr called "Fuck Yeah Fat Upper Arms," and that was what I would point to whenever I had to explain to someone why I love Tumblr.

I also know there are notorious amounts of drama and pettiness on Tumblr, but in my experience it isn't so hard to just sidestep it most of the time. Also, I don't follow all that many people, so I probably just don't see much of this stuff in the first place.

When I returned to Tumblr I am pleased to say that it was basically what I hoped for: lots of wonderful niche and countercultural stuff; really thoughtful discussions that get a lot more depth here than almost anyplace else I've seen; and amazing art and fanart. There were lots of takes I didn't like, of course. Lots of stuff that rubbed me wrong. And the drama is definitely alive and well. But that's just life, right? As amplified by social media in all its unnuanced might. On the whole, I have enjoyed my time spent browsing Tumblr these past six weeks.

One thing actually did bring down my spirits about this place, though, and it has nothing to do with drama or takes I don't like: Tumblr feels kind of addictive. Like a giant industrial vat full of churning slurry, and if you fall in there's no getting out. I have an addictive personality, not to booze or drugs (as far as I know) but to content sources, specifically "content-firehose" websites that always have new things to read. I was stuck on GameFAQs for years back in the day, long after it had become a net-negative for me. Right now my big content addiction is Reddit, and it's definitely a net negative in my life for all the time it wastes for so little in return. And there have been many other content addictions in the years between. It's very hard for me to leave a content-firehose website once I've gotten sucked into it. And I really, really don't want to get sucked into Tumblr.

Like, this place is genuinely cool, but it doesn't "do it" for me like it did the last time I paid close attention to it. Fuck Yeah Fat Upper Arms is gone, and with it the innocence of my youth. Social media just isn't my scene, and returning to Tumblr has definitely given me the impression that I've "outgrown" it altogether. (I wrote a few days ago about one of the reasons why I think this.) I don't particularly want to spend a lot of time here. I don't have that content addiction to Tumblr yet, and I can feel myself actively straining to avoid developing it every time I'm on here. That's why I've only been reading my dashboard a few times a week.

I'm not saying social media is something juvenile that everyone is supposed to outgrow; I'm just talking about my own preferences and issues. My ideal use case for Tumble is to check in with Tumblr periodically and see new Samus Aran fanart and hot takes on cool things I've never heard about or thought deeply enough about. But, in practice, reading my Tumblr dashboard feels like dipping my feet in that vat of slurry I mentioned: It's very time-consuming and a lot of the stuff I see I don't really "need" in my life.

This six-week experiment has actually helped me to realize that, going forward, I should be looking to use social media less in my life, not more. It isn't just all-consuming and energy-draining; it has become kind of evil over the years. Tumblr isn't nearly as bad as some of the worst offenders, but on the whole we're slowly being pushed to use these services in very particular ways, ways which degrade us, and it's nefarious. Not just the abuse of our personal information and privacy, but the way we spend our time and think about the world. Social media seems to be making society actively worse on the whole, and that's down to the profit motives of the people who make the rules about how these services operate. It's probably not a coincidence that Tumblr, as one of the least-problematic major social networks, is also not particularly profitable.

I have lamented for years that I wish we would go back to individual people's websites and enthusiast–owned-and-operated message forums. I really think that this viewpoint is not just my nostalgia glasses talking; I think the individual websites paradigm was a better way of experiencing the Internet and interacting with each other. But while I can't do much to change society's patterns in general, I can at least be deliberate about how I engage with social media myself. And I think I'm going to be doing less of that as time goes on.

My actual public face is my Live Journal, even though it has languished for years. Either it or some successor blog is likely to be an ongoing constant for the rest of my life. I hope people will gradually find me there.

The Long Game

You're not gonna build an audience in six weeks. I know that. Also, in my time here, I've only done one of the two things that one needs to do to build an audience on social media: I've created content. I think my content has been more or less decent. (You can tell me if you think otherwise.)

What I haven't done is heavily engage with other content creators. I haven't done many reblogs; I've done zero asks; and I don't follow other tumblrs in a businesslike mindset of network—I only follow the ones I think I might like to read.

If I were to continue, the next step in my trial period would be a 3-month experiment. I've had enough success here in the past six weeks to justify dedicating another three months of my life to daily Tumblr posts if I want.

In that time I would need to focus more on the "networking" side of social networking. On the content side, I would continue trying to figure out what people like to see and what they don't. But it's the networking stuff that would be next in line for my full attention.

I'm also aware that all of my data are biased by the small size of my audience and the nonrandom composition of it. There is a danger in optimizing for that, from a long-term scalability and optimization standpoint. My social networking efforts would have to be geared toward diversifying my audience as much as growing it, because the truth of the matter is that I don't know yet who "my" audience truly is. Most of the people here now are people who are here because they like other creators and respected those people's recommendations—not because they necessarily like my art. The poor showing of my posts discussing my art kind of speak to that point.

So the question is, do I have a 3-month trial period in me? Or even just another 6-week period?

And that's a really tough question. I need to be writing my books, and I need to be paying my rent, and when I'm here on Tumblr I'm not doing either of those things. The best-case scenario is that by being here I'm setting myself up to pay future rents and have more available time for future creative writing. But in the meantime there are rents coming due in the immediate future, and my mental bandwidth is sickly and limited.

Is Tumblr even the place to build my audience? It might not be! It might be YouTube. It probably is YouTube. But Tumblr isn't nothing, and writing short essays is a hell of a lot faster than producing videos. A few loyal Tumblr followers might be just the pop I would need to get a future YouTube effort off to a running start.

One of my flaws as an entrepreneur is that I hate thinking like one when it comes to this whole sales / engagement / audience-building / marketing stuff. I like thinking about people as people, not as economic partners whose tastes and needs I must carefully accommodate to in order to hopefully earn a living from this someday. And I don't like thinking about my own content here as "content." I hate that word. But I am under no illusions about why I am here. I am not here for fun. I've done my Live Journal "for fun" for twenty years (as of last month!) and I have no audience to show for it. Growing an audience is not about having fun. Bonus points if you can manage to have fun along the way, but what it's really about is giving people an experience that they enjoy and want more of.

Social media is a hungry beast, a dehumanizing force (in my view), and an algorithmic rat race. I would much rather create content on my own terms, rather than try to play the social media game. This is one of the many reasons why I am so bad at the whole marketing side of building a business. Successful entrepreneurs dive right into it and give the people what they want. Like that "emotional damage" mate on YouTube: He gave an interview talking about how he just tried different schticks, not even comedy per se, until he found something that worked on people.

In an ideal world, when my next book is finished I could just press a button and everyone in the world know about its existence, and everyone who is interested could buy it and read it. But in the real world, you have to peck and scrape your way to attention, and I'm just so bad at this that it discourages me from even making the attempt.

So, adding it all up, what I come up with is that it would be wasteful for me to just abruptly give up on Tumblr as suddenly as I returned to it. I've started a ball rolling here, and I can build on that beginning if I want. But I also don't think that people need to hear from me on a daily basis. I'm probably not doing myself any favors by posting effortful content every day, not just in terms of my own sustainability but in terms of the algorithms of Tumblr and the mental bandwidth of my readers.

So I've come to the conclusion that Tumblr is probably not where my audience is going to be built, if indeed I ever manage to build one. But there is some potential here, and, more importantly, this is where the vast majority of my current fans are.

Ergo, going forward I will be reducing my posting frequency to a target of once or twice per week, plus whatever extras I see fit to add. I will continue to test out different types of content to see what catches interest. And I will start playing that social networking game that I dread so much, and try to engage more with others and hawk myself far and wide without looking like I'm trying to hawk myself, because for all that we claim to live in an age of sincerity we absolutely don't, and we will see where things go.

I will revisit this at Halloween, and see how I feel about it.

In the meantime, I will try to take some of this bandwidth I am freeing up and allocate it to other audience-building work. More on that as I have it for you!

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and for giving me some of your time. Please please please do give me some feedback if there's anything you want to know or want to see me discuss.

#Meta

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nihilnovisubsole · 1 year

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[taps mic] is everybody here? everyone still manning their tumblr blogs after the twitter roller coaster of the past couple of months? cool

so! 2022, huh? it's not new year's eve without one of my soppy, navelgazing year-in-review posts. if you're reading this, you survived. as an acquaintance of mine put it, "i hope 2023 is the year it all pays off for you."

if i seem unusually optimistic about it, it's because this year, against the odds, things started looking up. i had no idea when i stepped out last december 31st and listened to the neighbors' firecrackers what i was in for. i didn't know that when obsidian emailed me on a january afternoon about "a quick follow-up meeting," it would be their offer call. i didn't know what kind people i'd meet there, or the lengths they'd go to to make me feel like a respected peer instead of a gatecrashing fan. i knew least of all how it would affect my state of mind: that i'd finally feel a sense of accomplishment and dignity. i look ahead and i see a viable future for myself. i've been paid to write for years, but now i can support myself with it. i think about the weight that takes off my mother. i remember staying up until 4 A.M., wondering how i'd do the only thing i ever wanted to do. it was a big, dark ocean then. it's still an ocean now, but i've got a boat, a crew, and a lantern. it's hard to overstate what that does to you.

the downside is, there are only 24 hours in a day, and your time feels very different when you're on the clock for eight of them. i knew it'd be a change, and it's gone more smoothly than i thought it would, but i just can't churn unpaid stuff out the way i did years ago. projects that would've taken a long time in college have become interminable now. you wouldn't believe how much half-finished art i have sitting around. it's not lost on me that this is just ordinary adulthood, and even i had to get around to it at some point. laugh all you want! seriously, i probably deserve it, and it's hard enough to find things to laugh about in this decade.

part of me misses that pillowy freelance lifestyle of cramming my paid work into the mornings, then doing fun projects all day. then i remember i was numbing the ache of not having a career that i now have, and the superficial sense of leisure came with a heavy price. it wasn't worth three cents a word and almost no creative input. it wasn't worth being on medi-cal and having my mother keep me afloat. it certainly wasn't worth watching my friends work themselves half to death because they weren't privileged enough to have that support network. i think we all agree that we should have a better world, that artists should be able to just make art, that contractors aren't paid enough. [except for relic, they were very generous, i loved them.] in the meantime, we have to make it through with what we have, and figure out how to look after each other as best we're able to.

i think, when people gain a measure of success in life, they want to fantasize that they did it all by themselves. that's ridiculous. i wouldn't be writing any of this without the people who hyped up my wild fanfic ideas or bought dangerous crowns. i'd never have written anniversary without the other longsummer nights authors building a vivid world for hercule and aida to live in. i'll never forget the colleagues and the industry doors they helped me through, and, you know, i'm not much now, but i hope i can pass that on. even if you only have a little power, you have to use it for good, right? otherwise, that's how you get a chandelier dropped on you.

seriously, though, read anniversary. i want to talk about it more. it's short, i swear!

#long post

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slothsaresleepy · 5 months

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It's incredibly difficult to find meaningful friendships - especially with other men. When you grow older, I think you also know exactly what you like or dislike. You know what you're looking for in others. What's the problem? You have no time anymore. You need to work, you need to raise a family, you need to (oftentimes) handle bills, healthcare, etc.

There's a real cost/benefit analysis later in life. Do I want to potentially WASTE my time searching for connection with other guys to make meaningful friendships when, 1) we might not even like each other that much, or 2) all the work that goes into meeting people now (online?)

This is something that caused me to take a glimpse internally. Why have so many of my most meaningful friendships been with women? Why do I seek out the attention and friendship of women instead of other men? Am I THAT emotionally needy? Hah!

Well, thinking about earlier - there's a niche of what I'm interested in and it's pretty much any article that's about "top ten ways to make new friends as a guy" doesn't include what I want to be doing. I spent a lot of time chasing women and dating, though - I'm good at talking to women (or so I think!) Going back to the cost/benefit - I know how to talk to women, I know where to find them, and I am more comfortable talking about the things I'm interested in with them. I don't give a duck about a football lol

I love the work I do, for the most part. I do have some connections with guys from work. The problem, though? There's that extra layer of WORK! It's my livelihood and I'm the sole provider for my family. What I can't do anymore is shit where I eat - or risk souring my professional opportunities because of bad friendships or experiences at work.

This is a cautionary tale. I know I'm in the risk category despite never thinking about it. There are highs and lows we all go through - I think back at the peak when I was the most social. It was exhausting - it took up pretty much all of my time to grow and maintain a broad network of friends (both male and female). What man in their 30s/40s between work and family has the kind of time to build new relationships let alone maintain existing? I get it!

There's this saying with old military buddies that they can go for years without speaking to one another and then pick-up right where they left off as if nothing changed years later. Is that a good thing? I feel like part of it speaks to guys knowing everything sucks and just be happy someone remembers your name, but what scares me is ... how have you not changed!? I feel like I'm almost a completely different person every 3-5 years. Do people stay the same? I don't want to stay the same - I want to always find ways to grow and change.

My big fear. Your partner should want to be your best friend, lover, caretaker - but what if that want becomes a need? Is there a corresponding increase in codependency, BPD, and NPD that follows the decrease in male friendships? We really set ourselves up for disaster in this society!

The difference between "want" and "need" to me is like the difference when someone asks you to do something versus telling you to do something. I tie this in with the patriotic American exceptionalism propaganda non-sense we're all filled with as kids. "Freedom! Independence! You don't need anyone's help. Live free or die. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps." aka don't do anything anyone tells you!

I've absolutely found myself in a situation where I've been told to do something, I know it's the right thing to do, I know I need to do it, I was even PLANNING on doing it, but the simple act of being told makes me hate doing it. Why are we like that? I hope I'm never a burden!

I guess I have to put in the work to make everyone happy - even me!

Well, that's it.

https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/newsletter/2023-10-10/more-than-1-in-7-men-have-no-close-friends-the-way-we-socialize-boys-is-to-blame-group-therapy

#memes #meme #sad kinda tho #men #relatable

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butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway · 6 months

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I know your life isn't perfect, you speak explicitly about your struggles that you face day-to-day, but you've also lived a lot of life? Like I read your blog, and you've survived a fuck ton of shit. I don't know many older leftists--my family members certainly aren't ones, and talking to people around my age about the state of the world/lived experiences is wonderful, but it can also become so very sad, because we're not sure what to do. I'm a fresh 18-year-old, and I'm terrified of the future. Logically I know that I'm not obligated to complete the world's work, but I can't abandon it either. And that your loved ones, your community is what gives your life meaning under systemic oppression (Experiencing that firsthand where I'm finally making a few friends, and they fill my soul with life). But emotionally, I get so utterly sad, hyperfixating on what's bad when I'm away from my friends. Do you have any advice for living life while you're building that network of friends, figuring out your values, and carving out the life you want in whatever niches you can? Things you wish you could tell your younger self? I hope I'm not putting you on a pedestal, or stressing you out with this ask. I honestly would just like some words of comfort from someone older than me, who's POC, an activist, and also cares about a lot of the same things as me.

I absolutely don't think it's putting someone on a pedastal to ask questions like this! We all have different ways of surviving in this big wild world, and surviving often means different things for different people.

I do want to go ahead and speak to one piece of what you said though, just to make sure I don't wind up appearing to say something I'm not. I'm not a person of color, at least, I have never experienced myself that way. I am many things, including a person in a mixed race family, a person for whom older generations of my family were not considered white during their lifetimes (that doesn't mean that I'm not considered white now though, or even that some of those relatives aren't considered white now), and a person who has a lot of loved ones in a lot of different iterations of global politics. I try to talk about the things that impact people that I love in ways that I have come to understand over a lifetime they often speak of it themselves. If you want to hear from an actual person of color on these topics, you may want to reach out to my wife, @loreofthejungle, who has lived through all of my last ten years or so with me, and has her own experiences with activism and survival politics outside of me.

Something I have learned about carving out space though, you have to really and truly look at that space as if you have every right to inhabit it. Not just that you *should* have every right, or that people generally should have the right to space as needed. You, personally, have the right to inhabit space simply because you have the desire to do so.

Does that mean you will always be able to succeed in occupying that space? No. But the reality of inhabiting it really isn't fathomable until you believe that your desire to exist in whatever manifestations please you is your birthright. How you might navigate inhabiting as much space as you wish while still reasonably allowing space for others requires first knowing what space you want to occupy and not immediately compromising it before ever negotiating that space with someone else. If no one else has given reason to believe that you occupation of that space is a problem, why are you pre-emptively making yourself small?

This is easier said than done obviously, lol, but learning how to ask yourself what you want for your life and understanding what shape you and your world would need to take in order to achieve it are skills that serve us well in life. Some of this is learning to stop acting on assumptions I've made that people haven't communicated, even if I am absolutely sure the assumption is correct. Subtext is one thing (and I still have plenty to say about that on my best days lol) but frankly if someone isn't willing or able to communicate their thoughts and needs to me, it cannot be my job to predict those thoughts and needs on their behalf. Not a fun dynamic, just breeds resentment on all sides.

I have been my most secure, in life, in activism, in community work, when I am able to meet my basic needs, when I acknowledge that caring for myself the way I care for my loved ones is itself a basic need, and when I take the time to think about what is reasonably within my control and what isn't.

Sometimes that looks like prioritizing what issues I get deeply invested in (e.g. dedicating personal time and resources to organizing and understanding it as opposed to making efforts to support other people doing that work). Sometimes that looks like taking space away from the internet and social media because frankly......ugh. I just don't always have the energy to both communicate effective organization strategies and also have literally any time to not be "on" during the day. Sometimes it means taking space from organizing almost entirely because my work itself is community and care oriented, and there are times that is all I have in me. Sometimes it means learning new skills and support strategies in order to continue organizing despite changes in my circumstances. Sometimes it means focusing down to a small local region and not worrying about the whole wide world for a while because my neighborhood or my town is all I can navigate for a bit.

I realize it's frustrating to hear over and over again "connect in person" or "get offline" but like.

The reason for that often has less to do with "oh online activism is worthless" and more to do with "radical organization does not occur online even if its PRODUCTS occur online, because there is no way for us to reasonably protect our members that way. You need to show up to video calls or in person meetings so we can talk with some measure of InfoSec." You're just not going to get a step by step/comprehensive guide of how to organize or how to get involved effectively online because doing so would innately make those access points unsafe and insecure. Beyond that, there simply aren't univeral strategies. There are historic or common methods used within organizing, but every situation calls for tailoring by those doing the work, because organizing will never be one size fits all. You don't get buy in from people when you impose structure top down, but organization is much more effective when those doing the work co-create it together.

The good news is, there are so many groups running organization trainings and groups, and the whole point is to help you cultivate your personal skills in an organizing capacity so you can apply them in ways that work for you. Thus the eternal call to join a union or other organizing body.

I think people forget that the act of community building IS the act of organizing, in many ways. When you make the time to be attuned with the people in your sphere, and talk with them openly and honestly about your needs and the needs of those in your community, you can make great strides, even without the weight of a full campaign behind you. It's amazing what the community is willing to come together and create once they find they pathways and cohesion to do so.

This got rambly, and covered a lot of different versions of my answer to your question. In the end, I think what I mean with all this is just....we're all human, and we're all figuring out this whole "being a person" thing together and regardless of what anyone tells you, no one really has it down. There aren't right answers to the problems that have plagued society for generations, but there can always be the very human intention to help each other figure out a better answer than we had before.

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pugsarecool · 6 months

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it's december now, time to reflect (:

turning 23 this yr was like a shock to my system almost. this year consisted of a ton of growth & reflection.

21-22 yr old me vs 23 yr old me are vastly different kind of.

i'm no longer interested in most of the stuff i would constantly chase after or would indulge in alot. for instance, i've stopped giving people or situations my attention, energy, reaction, etc. because i just genuinely don't see the point in a lot of things, so i shrug it off and pretend like as if it never happened.

i've stopped drinking / smoking as much, i never enjoyed either one of those activities; but felt like i had to bc i would be the odd one out. but i've had many nights so far of going out with friends and not feeling the need to partake in that, i can have fun w/o it lol.

i haven't been engaging in meaningless relations w anyone so far. sure i've had my few hookups this year but it was mostly for all the wrong reasons. whether it was bc i wanted the ego boost of knowing i could get w a hot girl or because i just wanted the temporary companionship from a girl even if it was just for one night. the temptation is still there bc i'm still in college and its not hard to get sex even from girls, but i think about it before even entertaining the idea. i think to myself if it'll even be worth it after its all said and done; usually no. so i've just been keeping myself away from all of that and just enjoying my solitude as i normally do bc i know that if i go back to that phase of life where i was just hooking up w girls constantly and then dealing w the repercussions of it all, i won't know how to get out of that bc i genuinely lost myself in all of that and i don't want to lose myself again.

+ i haven't been genuinely interested in anyone either, i've just been so used to trying to better myself and prioritize myself so much that i just don't have the energy to care for dating, relationships, etc. there are times where i crave romance and intimacy with someone, but that's usually at 3am when i can't sleep and overthinking lol, once i wake up in the morning i just dont care. i've had two-ish talking stages this year, and i ruined both of them bc i refuse to prioritize anyone but myself lately. i just physically cannot commit to anything but me. the idea of a relationship sounds nice, but i'm just not willing to put in the time or effort

my career interests have constantly changed, and i was able to finally rationalize and be honest with myself as to where i want to be in life and where my ambitions are best put to use. i was working in tech this summer in seattle, it was great but i knew i had higher ambitions for myself. i was constantly debating whether to work in tech or finance, and i narrowed it down to finance and was thankfully able to land a banking job. my plan is to work in california for about two years to be able to build my professional network even further, save up $$$ and eventually live in nyc for a bit before coming back to california to hopefully settle down lol.

i started to appreciate my family and loved ones a whole lot more. i cherish every single one of them. i even visited my parents' home country and got to meet one of my grandmas for the very first time. as well as, being exposed to a very different part of the world that made me realize how much of a sheltered / comfortable life i live. i was crying a bit when the plane took off from El Salvador back home bc i felt like i was leaving behind family members and how i wished i could take them out of their current living situations that made my heart heavy. all it took was that one trip for me to get a grip on myself and realize how blessed i truly am and to always appreciate the moments i have with my family members.

#2023 was not a sad year #it was pretty transformative

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heleneea · 1 year

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I really wanted it to work. I really wanted it to be you. I'm still struggling to delete our photos together because they are all memories of precious moments we had together. Is it because we looked so good together? That you can't tell in the pictures we had been fighting or this was before our final altercation when things were "good"? Were they ever good?

I can't bring myself to hate you, even though you got physical. I don't know why I keep seeing you like a lost puppy dog who just needs love even after you hurt me- physically and emotionally. You said that your dog and I were the only things that you had in your life. Why do you make both of us so anxious? How can you just walk away? Why is it so easy for you to walk away when you were the one who abused me? Is it because I have low self esteem and don't think I can do any better? Lost puppies lash out because they don't know any better. I keep feeling like you're just misunderstood and didn't have bad intensions. I still feel like I was the only one who understood you. Someone else told me you might have been intimidated by my success. I walked on eggshells but I cannot make you a man.

I've received a tremendous amount of support after all this. The outpour of all my different networks, people who I speak with regularly and not. People constantly checking in on me and inviting me out. I can't help but think- you have no one. I know you don't openly share how you feel and bottle it all in. I know you're not really close to anyone. You only spoke with me. Sometimes, I hate that I have so much compassion but it's so hard to just forget about you. I wonder how you are.

I've started seeing someone already. I also went on a date with someone new. I don't think I've given myself time to grieve this relationship and fully process. But I'm also afraid to be alone at night. It's so stupid and I don't know why. It's not my first break up, it's not the first time I was in something so toxic and abusive. We weren't together for that long, didn't even make a year. So why it is taking such a toll on me? Why do I keep hoping that you'll show up- even though I know very well there is no going back?

I'm realizing I tolerated too much. I saw it all very clearly in the beginning but you slowly wore me down and I tried to let go of what I needed for you. But that had the opposite effect, building resentment in both of us and causing us to fight even more.

Dating new people has shown me that I don't need to try so hard. People are willing to talk. They're open to going to events with me. They have goals and take steps towards them. They don't need someone to push them and they aren't resentful in the face of my success. You have small energy. You do things for small gains. You try to win small fights with me but you don't see the bigger picture. You're not the bigger person. My friend thinks you realize that your habits are unsustainable and that you ultimately have to change. But change isn't easy, especially not with someone pushing and rushing you. It has to be on your own terms.

I hope this break up does good for you. I hope it makes you realize your own flaws and really forces you to take the time to self reflect. Despite all that happens, I do really wish you the best. I hope you find yourself a nice girl in the future who doesn't have so many activities, who can make you feel secure, who makes a great step-dog mom, who accepts you for who you are at the core, who loves to stay in and play games or watch movies, and who you have loads in common with. I hope you realize how luck you are to find someone who loves you and try more in your next relationship to step out of your comfort zone by doing things you would have said no to prior.

I love you. I will always love you. I will always be here for you but I know you will never reach out. But for the sake of putting myself first, I am moving on.

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lemonluvgirl · 2 years

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3,8, 14, and 20 for the deep fic questions? :)

3. Fic I'm emotionally attached to: I'm kinda attached to all my stories but if I had to choose one it would have to be Golden Cages. Its such a wild ride, and I've put the characters through so much and there's still more to come. It also doesn't hurt that that fic features my most complete world building as of yet.

8. Does anyone in my personal life write fic/ would I tell anyone I write fics? So I honestly do not know anyone personally who writes fanfiction other than myself IRL. And I have told my husband (sometimes he helps me with story ideas) and my close family members know I write fanfiction. My sisters in law, my MIL, and my FIL. They are all very supportive, even if they don't fully understand what fanfiction is all about.

14. Do I compare myself to other writers? I'd have to answer that in the affirmative. I don't know about the other fic writers out there but sometimes I can't help compare myself to some of the more experienced writers and/or popular authors who have been in the fandom for a while. Most of the time its me I wishing I could express myself and the ideas I have of the characters as easily as I see others do. Other times I wish I had entered the fandom sooner to meet others and network during the time the fandom was at its peak. Right now I often feel like the new kid on the block who's still learning about the community and world I've entered and sometimes its hard to talk to established authors who have large followings because they already have their own group of mutuals they chat with.

But then there are awesome writers like @jhsgf82, @heathersaid, @pookieh, @mrspeetamellark, @mega-aulover, and so many more popular authors who have not only befriended me and shown me the ropes but who have whole heartedly made me feel welcome and it makes me remember that being the new kid isn't so bad, especially when there are so many great people in your new circle. <3

20. What is the greatest gift you've gotten in your writing. Oh that's a tough one. I can think of two or three possible answers. The first one being that writing has been a creative outlet for my grief over the past year and a half. As a lot of you know I lost my father during the pandemic and because of that I started writing fanfiction. My father always encouraged my reading and my writing and after he passed I finally got the courage to start publishing my work on the internet. Which led to me making a lot of new friends, which I would count as the second half of my answer. I consider all the new friendships I've formed with so many of the other writers and fans in this community to be one of the greatest treasures I've cultivated in my adult life. There is a wealth of kindness, humor, and beauty in our daily interactions and for that I will always be grateful I decided to take a leap of faith and start publishing on FFN. I think the third greatest gift would be the overall improvement of my writing skills. Before I started writing fanfiction I had been going through a dry spell where I hadn't written anything creatively in years and now I write just about every single day. Its has really helped me sharpen my skills and I consider it one of my biggest assets to date to be able to whip out a drabble or a one shot in a short amount of time.

so yeah, hope I answered everything! :) Thanks for playing! <3 you heather

#deep fic writer asks #answers

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wendystales · 3 years

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Memories - lrh (Chapter Six)

Memories (also on Wattpad)

Chapter Five ※※※※※ Chapter Seven

“Problems in the fairy world: After almost two years, Luke Hemmings and Marnie McGonagall break up”

“The lovely couple of 2020, the model Marnie McGonagall and the singer Luke Hemmings, break up after almost two years of relationship”

“Shaken structure : After an accident and amnesia, Marnie McGonagall and Luke Hemmings puts an end to the relationship for a year and a half ”

After a week in peace and serenity, or something like that, my second one started with the internet breaking at the end of my relationship with Luke.

All the tabloids, renowned newspaper sites, gossip sites. All social networks. All radio stations. Everyone was commenting on.

All articles were based on “someone close to the couple”. Who? I have no idea, since after a slight spurt of distrust, I realized that none of my friends would do that. According to Noah, this was just the media playing, hoping to see if Luke or I would take the bait.

With my good leg beating at a fast pace, signaling my nervousness, I keep staring at the TV in silence, while Noah paces behind me, trying to control everything. The doorbell rings and I watch him go to answer. When Luke comes into view, I get up quickly and walk over to him, hugging him.

I close my eyes, feeling safer. I don't know how to deal with half the Los Angeles media behind me for a statement, or expecting a slip-up to attack me. I release all the air trapped in my lungs, in no hurry to break that hug.

“Are you okay?” he whispers and I just shake my head as if it was okay, or something close to it. “Great, that's what matters.” he leaves a kiss on my shoulder, before letting go and greeting Noah right.

“What's the order?” I see my friend question.

“The usual. They don't want me to say anything, but I won't be quiet while they attack her. I never stayed and it is not now that I will.” Luke replies, decided.

“Are they attacking me?” I ask approaching the two, who look at me without knowing what to say.

Since the headlines came out, Noah planted a lookout here at home, because he is the one who woke me up, and since then he hasn't let me see anything, just the TV and the mute yet. I knew he was protecting me, but I didn't know what.

The two look at each other and Luke approaches me again, sitting on the couch. As he tries to find a million ways to start, I interrupt him.

“Why do I feel like we already had this conversation?” I ask suspiciously.

“Because we already did, before we tell the media.” he scratches the back of his neck.

Once again, before he starts, Noah's cell phone rings and he leaves, leaving us alone.

“So?” I incentive to continue.

“There are a group of people, who like the band, but don't like our relationship and well …”

“They attack me.” I say, shortening for him. Luke states awkwardly. “How and why?” I don't know if I really want to know, but I know I need to.

Luke scratches his forehead. I feel bad for having to pass it on or go over it.

“They say bad things about you, about your job, about us. But nothing, nothing, is true.” Luke stresses "nothing" already knowing that most likely I would have that in my head. “Look, no matter what we do, there will always be people wanting to get in the middle and think they know more than the two of us, so just ignore it. Let them talk to themselves, they stop and go on to another topic. OK?” his face lowers, trying to meet my eyes, which were focusing on the pillow between us.

“OK!” I look at him with a weak smile. Luke gives a weak smile too, before giving me a kiss on the forehead and going after Noah to post his text.

In his tweets, Luke explains what happened between the two of us. He tells about my amnesia and how we both talked, and together, we decided to take a break, until I got used to my life or until I remembered everything. In the sequence, he also made clear all the affection and respect that we still had for each other. In addition to pulling the ear of whoever was attacking me or blaming me.

I don't know where it would be my fault. After all, I am the victim. Not to mention that none of this would be happening if it weren't for the accident. I would probably still be with Luke, together and happy.

I stare at the rug, hoping and praying for some memory to come, but my brain ignores me. I sigh, sinking into the couch. I look at the balcony, seeing the two talking. Luke is too perfect, it is not possible. I wouldn't have all that maturity.

This is not just maturity ...

I close my eyes, trying to silence my conscience. I know what it was, but not talking or thinking makes it seem like it’s not real.

Who am I kidding?!

Soon Luke's tweets were on TV, with several photos and videos of appearances, and everyone was commenting. Apparently the text was well accepted by the media, which changed the focus of the relationship a little and went back to talking about my accident. I hold my breath when the accident video is played again. I get up calling the attention of the two, who return to the living room and turn off the TV.

“Are you OK?” Noah asks attentively. I just nod.

“I need to go. I'm sure someone will show up at the studio to discuss with me. Later I try to stop by or call you.” Luke warns, coming towards me.

I hug him again, feeling safe. I apologize for getting him into this mess.

“It is not your fault and what matters is your well-being. And remember.” he holds my face, making me look into his blue eyes. “Nothing they say about you is true, don't let that take your head. I'll call you later.” he kisses me on the forehead and leaves.

“Oh, it is so difficult to see you like this and know that you are not together.” I turn to Noah, who is sitting on the sofa, looking at me in pain. I throw a pillow over his face and sit back down next to him.

“Believe me, I know.” I watch one more picture of us on the screen. “We are a beautiful couple.” I give a sad smile.

“Are?” Noah comments with a hopeful smile. “Can I start to ship again and create expectations?” he nudges me.

“First of all, did you ever stop to ship and create expectations?” Noah gives a weird smile. “Second, even if you haven't stopped, no. Despite everything, I still don't feel anything for Luke.” I sigh.

Perhaps "nothing" was a very strong word. I have affection and gratitude, but that I also have for Noah, Kyleen, Mike, Ashton, Calum and Leah, that is, it didn't mean much. What I needed was not there yet. However, I still hope to happen.

[...]

“Doesn't he look beautiful dressed like that? You have to see when he uses the overalls.” Calum sits next to me, provoking Ashton who was sitting on the floor, moving in his garden.

“Old Ashton had a farm, ieieo.” I humming with Calum, continuing the provocation.

I take the water bottle from Calum's hand, watching Ash dressed in faded jeans, a dirty T-shirt and a wide straw hat. I give a short laugh, watching Ashton glare at Calum. Apparently, his hobby in gardening was pretty funny.

“I already know what to give you on your birthday.” I get on the joke with Calum.

“You already gave that.” the two talk together, scaring me.

I look at them both with wide eyes as they laugh. This is already getting boring, it seems that everyone has some advantage over me. I see the idea of the garden kit for kids going down the drain. I didn't know what to give, now then.

“Then I will need your help with this.” I whisper to Calum, who just nods.

“So, you stopped when Luke left.” Ash reminds me.

After yesterday, with my name and Luke's in everyone's mouth, today I didn't want to stay at home, I needed to relax, so the two ladies went to pick me up to spend the afternoon here at Ashton's house with them. Especially because they wanted to know how I was doing and I wanted to hear from Luke.

“Well, everything was fine. Everything calmed down, as far as possible, until the intercom rang.” I give a discredited laugh, remembering yesterday. “When Stephen appeared at the door of my building.”

The two looked at me in astonishment.

“You're kidding, right?” Ashton even got up, approaching me.

“Go for me, I would like a lot, but no. He knew about Luke and me and wanted to try the chance. Little does he know that I already know everything.” I comment the last part quietly, not wanting to focus on that.

“This guy is unbelievable. How does he have that courage?!” Calum comments outraged.

“Did you tell Luke?” Ashton asks, after walking around as outraged as Cal.

“No and I don't know if I'm going to tell.” they look at me alarmed. “I don't want Luke to feel like he has to have any responsibility to keep Stephen from me and I know he will.” I confirm my theory when Cal shakes his head, agreeing with me. “Nothing happened either, Noah went down and ran him, it was just an isolated case.” I shrug.

I didn't expect Stephen to show up, not after the hospital, however, if he ever had the courage to show up for the first time after everything I experienced (according to my diary), the hospital misunderstanding was nothing for him.

I can't hide that I was very tempted to go down and break my cast on his head, but Noah was quicker, locking me at home and going in my place. According to him, now was not the time for an aggression scandal. Do what?! He's right.

“I understand you, my love, but as a friend, I advise you to tell.” Ash sits next to me. “This will end up getting to him, like it or not, so it better be for you.”

“Yeah, no need to go into details, but tell him.” Hood reinforces.

“I don't know if Parker's party is an appropriate place, but it may be easier to relax afterwards.” Ashton shrugs, wanting to help.

“Ah, I heard about this party. He's Noah's fling, isn't he?”

“Don't let Noah hear that.” Calum laughs, catching my attention.

But it was Leah who told me about them.

“Noah and Parker resemble you and Hemmo very much at the beginning. Everyone knows something is going to happen, but you guys play hard to get”. Ashton explains. I open my mouth to defend myself, but according to my diary, that was it.

I don't help myself.

“Well, regardless of his status, I won't.” the two look at me surprised and upset. “ I'm not ready for parties yet, sorry, but I don't want to sit all night on the couch without being able to dance or having to drag it up and down.” I point to the orthopedic boot on my foot, irritated by that thing.

“But what are you going to do over the weekend then?’ Cal asks.

“You will laugh and judge me.” I answer with a pout. I may not know them well enough, but enough to understand what they are like.

“Calum quite capable, but I don't.” Calum opens his arms, visibly offended by Ash's comment, making me laugh. “You laugh at that fall of Mike in the London show until today and it has more than seven years.”

It was Ashton talking about this show that Hood started to laugh, agreeing that he was the most likely to laugh at me.

“I still have the video.” he comments after a sigh, stopping laughing.

“Tell me.” my friend asks me, turning my attention to him.

“ I'm going to throw myself on my couch, with a lot of junk food and watch makeover programs and maybe some movies. This is going to be my weekend.” I tell after a sigh.

“This is so depressing that I can't even laugh.” Calum says shaking his head in denial. I look at him indignantly. Come on?! It's not so bad.

“Really, M&Ms? Is this going to be your weekend? On the couch clogging up with food?” Ashton is more indignant than I am with Cal.

“ I'm not in the mood, I'm sorry. But don't worry, Kyleen told me about your birthday party and I will, I swear.” I raise my right hand, as if I were in court.

“You are not even crazy to consider not going. I bring you by the boot.” he counters by returning to the vase he was stirring before.

“Was he always that delicate?” I ask Calum, who spits half the water.

“Oh, Marnie, you need to spend more time with us.” he pats my knee, like an old man telling about his childhood.

“Well, changing the subject a little, and Luke, how is he?” Ashton and Calum look at each other to get my attention.

“He's taking it. He has been busy with some compositions, he has lived in the studio.” Calum replies, going around the mouth of the bottle with his finger.

I look at Ashton, who was still thoughtful. Luke is probably not as well as they try to pass me, or something else is going on.

“He'll be fine!” Irwin reinforces, trying to keep me calm.

I decide not to poke the situation anymore and focus my thoughts on the conversation we were having when I arrived, which was to recall some more facts from the last few years.

“Wait, and you got stuck in the room? And the girl is gone?” I question Calum, very lost in the whole story of how he met Kyleen.

“Yes, the girl locked me there and I don't know where she went, but Kyleen came and released me.” he explains.

“You need to find more normal girls, seriously, you have a serious problem in choosing someone.” I tell them. Serious! Emery, this girl now, my God, what a rotten picker.

“After that we went out a few times and she became part of the team. Shortly thereafter, we met Noah and Leah. That's been six years. Something around there.” Cal finishes.

“Went out?” I widen my eyes. “Have you and Kyleen ever had an affair?” I approached him, shocked, seeing him nod. “ Oh my God!”

“ It's really fun to tell her things, isn't it?” Ash laughs, seeing my reaction.

“Yes, but it came to nothing, it was more fun and in the end, it started to get weird. So, we decided to just be friends.” Hood responds. Once again, I look at Ash with my mouth open, making him laugh.

“She didn't tell me that. What a bitch.” I lean against the wall, indignant.

After the fun afternoon with Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Calum took me home, since today I was having dinner with my father and Meredith for the first time.

“Anything call me, okay?” Hood speaks before saying goodbye. “Especially if Meredith brings that peach pie with homemade whipped cream.” I watch with wide eyes, he close his eyes dreaming of the pie. “I can even taste it.” he finally sighs.

“Do you want me to keep a piece?” he quickly nods, smiling. “Okay, bye, Cal. Thanks!”

I get out of the car laughing. I couldn't ask for better friends.

I keep imagining a million scenarios while I get ready and wait for them to arrive. I know that Meredith and I know each other and get along, but that doesn't stop my anxiety from attacking.

The doorbell rings and I almost cry, regretting not having canceled before. I open the door to find Meredith fixing the collar of my father's shirt, which held the so famous pie. I watch the woman with medium dark hair and a long jumpsuit, opening a warm smile. My father steps forward and gives me a hug.

“How are you?” he analyzes me.

“Well, every day better.” I give a nervous smile. Then the time came. “Hey!” I open my smile a little more to receive Meredith.

She takes a step towards me, shy and extends her hand. I squeeze willingly and give passage to the two of them. We sat at the table and stared at each other for a few seconds, until I realized that I didn't put the dish on the table.

“Sorry.” I mention getting up, but my father takes the lead.

I understand that he wants to help, but being alone with Meredith, even for two seconds, was still not comfortable.

“So …” I start. “I saw that you are going to publish a second book.”

“Ah yes yes. Next week, I can't wait.” she responds excitedly.

Her first book was about toxic relationships and to my amazement, I helped out on some points. The second book would be about the new beginning, the emotional and financial freedom of women. She was not a Jane Austen, because the genres are different, but she is well known.

“I know I'm suspicious to talk, but it looks incredible. Your mother read and loved it.” my father comments the last part in a natural way. However, Meredith notes that I was a little uncomfortable and changed the subject.

I discreetly thanks. My parents' divorce and their friendship is something that I am still absorbing. I accept, but I am learning to cope.

We started talking about my father's trip to Japan and how he fumbled over there. It didn't take long for me to get comfortable with Meredith over there, she's as funny as my dad and very kind.

Meredith must be my mother's age, but she has an energy that makes her look much younger. She wears colorful clothes, always has a huge smile on her face and a contagious laugh. It is good to be close to her. I discover that her first husband was her high school boyfriend, but unfortunately he died of cancer.

Then she started dating an organic food store owner, but he was not a nice guy. It was from this relationship that the first book came out. I admire the courage and strength she had to put an end to it. In return, she had Kendall and Samantha, who look adorable.

“Ah, before I forget.” She takes some papers out of her bag. “The twins made some drawings for you.”

I open those papers with a huge smile. The paintings contained various hearts, flowers, Petunia in various forms and even their self-portrait with me. Everyone wished me well and said that I was the best sister in the world.

“I do not even know what to say.” I am touched. I always wanted to have siblings and since I knew them both, the desire to meet them only increases. The only issue is the fear that they won't like me.

“They are dying to see you, but we said they need to wait for you to be ready. I know there is still a lot to assimilate and absorb.” Meredith says calmly. I am grateful that they do not press anything.

But like everything, I needed to face this. Being afraid of two five-year-olds is not going to help at all. In fact, it will only make me miss them more.

“Yes, you commented on the interview that Meredith will give on the afternoon program, on Wednesday. If they want, I can take care of them.” I suggest nervous, after all, I have amnesia, a broken arm and a leg in the orthopedic boot. I don't know if I'm reliable.

They both look at each other and shrug. For them, I wouldn't have the slightest problem, and certainly not for the children. So it was agreed, Wednesday, I would find my brothers, and may God help me.

“Who's up for pie?” Meredith opens that smile again.

I end up laughing again, remembering Calum earlier. I send a photo of my plate to him, who responds with crying emojis and a huge audio, begging to keep his piece.

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kuramirocket · 3 years

Text

Sonia Gutierrez dreamed of returning to her hometown of Denver as a television reporter for the city's defining news station: KUSA 9News. When she finally achieved it, however, it came at too steep a cost, she says.

Gutierrez says she was told that she could report on immigration, an issue about which she cares deeply, but only if she were to state her own immigration status on air in every story on the subject.

"I was put in a box simply for who I am," Gutierrez says.

She had never tried to hide that her parents had brought her as a baby from Mexico without documentation. But Gutierrez, 30, says she balked at the station's directive. She was told she could continue pitching stories about immigration, but, she says, she was asked to pass off her ideas and sources to other reporters.

Gutierrez is no longer with KUSA. Nor are two other Latina reporters. One had pushed editors to involve Black and Latino colleagues in more decisions about news coverage. The other's contract was not renewed five months after she had returned after having a stroke. She, too, had challenged station leaders on how they cover issues affecting Latinos in Colorado.

Over the course of a year, from March 2020 to March 2021, KUSA allowed each of the women's contracts to lapse without renewal, the way television stations typically part with their journalists.

"It is racist to require a Latino reporter, a Hispanic reporter, to disclose their own immigration status [to viewers] before reporting on immigration," says Julio-César Chávez, the vice president of National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

The outcry has focused an unwanted glare on Tegna, one of the nation's largest and most prominent owners of local television stations, just as the company faces claims of racial bias from a dissident investor.

"9News is the market leader in Denver and has been for decades," KUSA news director Megan Jurgemeyer says, "Having worked at another station in town, it was always viewed as the top competition and who we wanted to beat."

9News is unusually woven into the fabric of its parent company. Tegna's CEO Dave Lougee used to be the station's news director. KUSA's general manager, Mark Cornetta, is also the executive vice president of Tegna Media, the company's local television division. And Patti Dennis, a Tegna vice president and director of recruitment, is herself a former KUSA news director who still works out of the station's main building in Denver. All three are white, as are Jurgemeyer and Ryan.

Parent company faces its own issues with race

Tegna faces its own allegations of racial bias. An activist hedge fund, Standard General LP, recently nominated rival directors, saying it wanted to diversify the company's largely white board.

In an April federal securities filing, Standard General accused Tegna of racist practices stretching back years.

In 2019, a sports anchor at the company's Phoenix station accused its general manager — recently promoted from a job as KUSA's sales manager — of making "loud and unwelcome racist and sexist comments about coworkers" at a baseball game, in a civil complaint reviewed by NPR

Jamie Torres, a Denver city council member, was among the Latina state and local public officials who met twice with KUSA executives following the dismissal of the three journalists. She says the meetings left her unconvinced that there would be real progress beyond some changes in language and style.

"The conversation felt just incredibly transactional," Torres says.

And it renewed long-held frustrations: Torres says the three Latina journalists had been hired after an earlier round of discussions between the station and Denver-area Latino officials about representation at KUSA.

"Why Don't You Pitch It To Telemundo?"

While in college, Gutierrez interned at the local affiliate of the Spanish-language network Telemundo. Back then, it was housed inside KUSA's headquarters. Though owned by Tegna, KUSA is an affiliate of NBC, and Telemundo is part of NBC's parent company, Comcast.

As Gutierrez rose at Telemundo Denver, she also pitched stories to KUSA.

She says she often heard back: "That's a great story idea, why don't you pitch it to Telemundo?" Her response: KUSA also needed to serve Latino families — the ones who speak English.

"After a while, when stories wouldn't get picked up, I would just take it upon myself to do the interviews, write up a little [script] and give it to the anchors and say, 'It's done.' To the producers, 'It's done. You want it or not?' " Gutierrez says it was easier to hand off the idea fully baked.

After a stint at a station in Columbia, S.C., Gutierrez returned to KUSA as a reporter. She says KUSA leaders told her that she could be a defining person for the station, someone who would thrive there. By her telling, Gutierrez ignored the little slights that accreted.

Then, Gutierrez says, she was told she had to disclose that she had been a DREAMer, protected from deportation through the Obama-era policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, before she became a legal permanent resident through marriage. She didn't see why viewers needed to be told that in each of her immigration reports.

Gutierrez says she received no response when she asked for concrete examples of how her status had compromised her reporting. And when she refused to go along, Gutierrez says, she was told she would have to pass her story ideas and sources on immigration to other reporters.

"It's not like there was something wrong with me or my reporting," says Gutierrez, who left last year. "There was just something wrong with who I was — a liability to them."

Allegations of unfulfilled promises

Aguirre, 34, a Mexican-American who grew up near Midway Airport on the South Side of Chicago, says she had been inspired to become a journalist to tell stories about Latinos that were not simply about crime and immigration.

She came to Denver after being an anchor at a smaller station in Flint, Mich.

Aguirre says she believed her pursuit of community-driven news brought value.

"I can tell a story in a much different way than a female white reporter can because I lived it. I know the questions to ask," Aguirre says.

In April 2019, Aguirre suffered a stroke that resulted in a traumatic brain injury and paralyzed her on her left side; as she built back strength and returned in the fall.

After roughly six months, as new newsroom leaders rotated in she did not return to the anchor's chair. Aguirre alleges in a formal amended complaint she filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission earlier this year.

Aguirre left the station in March 2020. Her attorney, Iris Halpern, says the complaint is currently in mediation.

"Because they're KUSA, they can just get somebody else," Aguirre says. "They can get another Latino who fills that Brown category, who's cheaper, younger, greener and more afraid to ask any questions. Although I was recovering [from the stroke], I was still that woman who would push back. So I'd be in those meetings and I would ask 'Why?' "

"I was instructed not to wear my hair in a bun"

After two years as a reporter in Bakersfield, Calif., Lori Lizarraga says, she was told by 9News that she would be an asset and she joined the station.

Lizarraga, whose mother was born in Ecuador and whose father is first generation Mexican-American, remembers saying, "'My voice will never track this [the word illegal] slew of words." She says she ended up shying away from stories involving immigration.

Lizarraga recalls even having her hairstyles vetoed. She wrote in Westword, "After six months, I was instructed not to wear my hair in a bun with a middle part anymore — a style I have seen and worn as a Mexican and Ecuadorian woman all my life. Not a good look, I was told."

"We Would Have Had Reporters On Every Corner"

Lizarraga, who left in March, says she hit an inflection point early last year. Colorado state regulators had just announced a record fine against a Canadian energy giant whose plant had been polluting nearby neighborhoods for years. She read up on it as she raced with a colleague in the official KUSA 9News van to the press conference.

"Ash was falling from the sky onto people's cars and yards and playgrounds," Lizarraga recalls. "Water was impacted."

She was struck by something else: The communities affected were heavily Latino. Yet, she says, state regulators had not consulted with those communities or even put out information in Spanish. And back in the newsroom, she says, producers focused solely on the size of the fine — potentially up to $9 million.

"I was very upset and I said, 'You know, if this were a community in a ZIP code just up the street with a different demographic, we would have had reporters on every corner ' " to interview residents, Lizarraga says. "And because this is a Spanish-speaking, low-income, largely immigrant community, we don't have an interest. We are choosing what is newsworthy based on what you care to talk about, not what is actually newsworthy."

"We have to confront management"

At KUSA, Lizarraga says supervisors resented her for demanding that African American colleagues be consulted on coverage about Floyd's murder and the protests. She thought they had a right to weigh in on questions such as: How much of the video of Floyd's death should be shown? When and if the word "riot" was appropriate? How much coverage should there be of police tactics?

Lizarraga says she rallied colleagues of color to object when the station decided to stage a town hall meeting on race and equity hosted solely by a white anchor. Instead of channeling that fervor, Lizarraga says, it was largely deflected.

"We can't be exhausted, we can't be scared," Lizarraga recalled telling colleagues. "We have to confront management and tell them that we have ideas and that we deserve a spotlight right now."

Meanwhile, she says, she was not recognized for the initiative she showed, such as the data-driven pieces that officials and advocates said (in text messages reviewed by NPR) served as a road map for government agencies seeking to arrange COVID-19 testing in heavily affected Black and Latino neighborhoods.

Life after KUSA 9News

Gutierrez now works across town at Rocky Mountain PBS. Aguirre is a local news anchor and reporter in Asheville, N.C., part of a television market that is about half the size of that of Denver.

Lizarraga returned to her family home in Dallas. In late March, she published her allegations against KUSA in Westword. "What Lori Lizarraga did took a lot of courage and bravery," the NAHJ's Chávez says, singling out Gutierrez and Aguirre for praise as well. "Journalism is an industry where a lot of people are mistreated, a lot of employees are mistreated, and discriminated against, and then people simply go quiet.

"For Lori to actually tell the world how bad the situation was, how bad she was being treated and how racist some of the management policies were, that takes real courage. She put her entire career in jeopardy."

In October, the Colorado ACLU will honor the three women for "fighting discrimination in the newsroom."

#🇲🇽#journalism #news reporters #racism #KUSA 9News #usa #united states #colorado #national association of hispanic journalists #tegna #denver #denver colorado #telemundo #NBC #canada

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shinahbee · 3 years

Text

November Favorites 2020!

Hello!

So as you may have seen I have been uploading a bunch of art all of November, not every week because of my crippling job at the moment taking away my sanity.lol. But i did try my best to update whenever I can. I do have so much more to complete so please look out this December for more digital art being pumped out

How are you all doing? I'm holding up decently, I'm trying to avoid talking about covid since that's all i've been hearing from work and home and it's really making me anxious since i'm not able to work from home due to the nature of my job. I hope you all are holding up hope and taking care of your selves, let's all remember that there is a time after this and we will get through this.

with that being said I will have a lot more time to spend on my art after January since my work term is going to end and I don't plan to stay for an extension, so maybe then I'll catch up on all of my previous art that I was supposed to upload, a.k.a my hero academia ones.lol

also I'm still chugging along reading more manhwa (web toons ) from korean and chinese artists, i'm so disappointed in myself for not discovering these sooner, these stories are really good and so much effort was put into the art panels, as I have said all I've read was manga so i'm used to just seeing black and white panels, so i never really dove into web toons though I have appreciated the work put into it, now that I'm down the rabbit hole I am discovering really good story lines that are different from the manga I've read thus far and I'm really enjoying it!

so i'm excited to share my thoughts on everything I've been liking

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Manhwa/Manga/Webtoon

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so previously in last months recommendations I have talked about a few of the manhwa I've been reading so I'll briefly list those below since they are all still ongoing

1) who's baby is it

2) to be or no to be

3) social temperature

4) salad days

all of them are still ongoing and i'm still in the process of reading them so I can't give a full review till it's completed but so far I am still enjoying them, that's definitely a good sign since i tend to just drop something after I don''t find it interesting anymore at some point in the story. If you have not read my October favorites journal please do so for my initial thoughts on these manhwas. Now i'm actually going to talk about some of the ones that are completed , so you can definitely read all of them without waiting for the an update from translators, lol

this is in no particular order, just fyi

1) Path to you

"When almost college dropout Jensen attempts to drink away his problems, unemployed Nathaniel( Neil ) suddenly pukes on him and ruins his night. As an apology, Nathaniel offers to help Jensen with his studies. Despite Jensen's difficulties in getting along with people, the two become friends and something deeper begins to grow between them...”

this is the summary from one of the manga websites I was able to find, it does not even describes the emotional plot line that goes along with this later, this is ones of my absolute favorites! I love this manhwa so much, its a great depiction of a coming of age story for collage students going through their life journey and slowly getting though life's difficulties and challenges, one character is going though emotional trauma and trying to over come it for years and another character is going through anti social disorder and discovering his sexuality, it's a plot line that portrayed human aspects in life quite well. I love the relationship between the two main character and how their relationship developed over time from being friends to being a couple. there is a lot of relationship building and minimal drama, which is really refreshing from mangas that I've read, so if you are just starting to delve into BL webtoons, please read this first! you will not be disappointed

with that being said, I love Neil, so much.... you don't even know. lol. He's so precious, literally like an actual cinnamon roll. LOL. i'm exposing myself ...so i'll leave it at that, i’m also wondering why his name is neil instead of nathan or nate...? lol.

2) Here U Are

"Orientation of the newcomers is a task for YuYang, and he ends up helping the unsociable and towering LiHuan, the kind of person that does everything to be disliked. But after better knowing each other, he discovers that the giant isn’t that bad of a person at all...”

I really wish I could find better summaries, lol. but it's to the point without giving away too much so i'll take it. This is one of the most popular series and I can totally see why after reading it, this story has every possible human aspect and relationship building between the two main leads, I actually teared in some parts of this manhwa and I've never done that before! such a good story and plot line, if I were to pick any series in a web toon to be animated then I would choose this series hands down. There's also sub plots between different characters as well and how they deal with their interpersonal relationships and relationships between the two main leads, I love it! This is everything I want in a story, so please check this one out

also yuyang looks a lot like miyuki Kazuya from Daiya no ace and that just made me drawn to him.I really liked his personality and in the manhwa he has girls and guys in love with him and dude...I get it.

3) BJ Alex

"Every night at 10, Dong-gyun locks himself up in his room, grabs a box of tissues, and watches a live cam boy show hosted by Alex, a BJ (broadcast jockey). Timid Dong-gyun admires not only Alex’s ripped body, but his candor in sharing his sexual experiences with viewers. One night, Dong-gyun downs too many drinks at a school networking event and passes out. When he wakes up, he’s in bed staring up at a shirtless hunk. A hunk who looks an awful lot like...Alex.”

so um...this is more yaoi than shounen ai cause of all the graphic scenes in the manhwa, if you are veteran you may have already read this one cause its really popular. It also has a lot of comedic elements to it too so it's not too serious, but the relationship developed between the two characters later on is really sweet despite the infinite amount of sex scenes. Not much else to say about this story, it's easy to follow and the only abuse in here is the emotional kind

I'm not really entirely sure how i felt about it in the beginning but the end is really good

4) No way, vampires don't exist

"Four college housemates — Juwon, Eunho, Seongjae, and Gyumin — are in desperate need of a fifth person to fill a vacant room in their place. But their main concern isn’t about paying rent: they’re ravenous vampires, dying to sink their teeth into a fresh, live human! So they can’t believe their luck when Dongha, who grew up isolated from society, eagerly moves in with no idea of what awaits him. To the vampires’ dismay, however, Dongha doesn’t weigh enough for them to suck his blood! As they shower their unsuspecting new housemate with food and attention to fatten him up, have they gotten too attached to their would-be prey? And is there more to sweet, naive Dongha than meets the hungry vampires’ eyes?”

I have to preface by saying that ever since my twilight phase, I didn't consume anything that had to do with vampires for a very long time, for obvious reasons, but this one I just came across after reading path to you and thought I would at least check it out. It started off really comedic and I was like...what am i reading? but it gets really light hearted and wholesome later on in the story. What I like about this is the character juwon, If you look at him he's that type of character that would look like the stoic a-hole of the story and those characters never appeal to me. But turns out he's the sweetest person most decent person of this story, it makes you want to route for him and another thing I like about this story is that it looks like a harem but you can tell that there’s only one person the main character doungha treats differently from the rest and how the two are compatible with one another. in these kind of stories, it’s always treated as every character is a possible route that leads to their own story but in here....there's only one...let's be real. This is one that is an odd ball cause it's technically completed but the translations are not...so i had to read the rest in korean, which makes it a good practice for me since i'm learning korean at the moment, it’s a good exercise...lol

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Anime/ Drama

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Not going to lie this department is lacking...lol. I have only been watching Heavens official blessing as mentioned in the last journal

but I have just found out that there is a remake of Shaman king in the making....and my little girl heart is screaming cause I loved shaman king when i was younger...so I can't wait for that

as for dramas, I've tried watching Start Up but I didn't like it so I dropped it, I might try watching crash landing on you since my best friend was obsessed with it, I watched a little of it but I left it since I was busy so i may get back to watching it from the beginning

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Music

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i'll put together a play list for you when you read these manga/manhwa...lol. cause that's what i've been doing

Playlist

Crush- No words

Sam kim - Breathe

Crush - let us go

Kim feel - falling

Paul kim - Dream

Kim feel - Hallelujah

Davichi - please don't cry

Yoo mirae - say

taeyeon - a poem called you

baek yerin- Here I am again

I wish tumblr has a way to play music on your page, without copy right..lol. I would share all of these songs cause they are so good

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so that's it for the month of November, lets' see what i get up to for December, I will be updating as frequently as possible so please look out for more art from me and follow me on my social media , I will see you all next time

bye!

Sheena

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Social media

Devianatart: she-be.deviantart.com

Instagram: shinb_art

Tumblr: shinahbee

#monthly favorites #november favorites #anime and manga #manhwa #manga favorites #journal #kpop music #kdrama #path to you #here u are #bj alex #no way vampires don't exist

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brokemultidotexe · 4 years

Text

I know of my white privilege...

Lately I wake up feeling like i'm living in the dystopian novels I love to read. Between COVID-19 pandemic and the fight for social injustice for African Americans that is currently sweeping our nation, it almost feels like this can't be real.

I will be honest and say that with my white privilege things like this aren't on my mind constantly. It is something I personally deal with and i'm disappointed in myself that it takes something so inhumane to ignite the need to speak up. If you were to ask me if i support the african american community and what they are fighting against i would tell you absolutely, but it shouldn't take someone asking me. It shouldn't take someone losing their life for me to speak out.

I came across a post the other day that absolutely struck a cord with me and has caused me to look deeper within myself and the privileged life i live. i don't have to worry about what will happen if my family were to get pulled over by the cops. I don't have to worry about someone profiling me or my child. The things i have to worry about as a parent is a lot less than those of another race. I'm not even speaking about JUST the african american community, i'm talking about any and all race whose skin is dark and beautiful. I came across a list of names, many that i had never heard of that faced the same injustice and brutality that George Floyd faced. Many names that were never given a headline or visibility. I will be making a separate post with those names because they deserve to be seen and noticed and validated that they are no less important than George Floyd and the many others we have seen on TV for all the wrong reasons.

Situations like these always sober me up and make me truly look at myself and my privilege and the injustice other people face daily. Huntsville is filled with people of every race, we are diverse, we have many languages, and many different beliefs within a single community. I grew up playing alongside kids of every color, because i was lucky to be born in a time where segregation by law was no longer. I grew up in a family where everyone was welcome and became family, i was taught that every human being has rights and should be treated with respect no matter their skin color, religion, beliefs, etc...

I want my child to have the same privilege i did by having friends of all races and beliefs. I want my kid to understand that while we live in a country that is making the same mistakes over and over it does not mean they should become complacent with how the world is. I want them to realize that while their voice may be small in a vast world, it is still one more voice to be heard.

I know this is a long post but if you have the funds to donate to the Act Blue Fund, which is helping peaceful protestors that are our boots on the group and making the voice of the many that much louder, that would be wonderful. This fund was founded by the group Progressives Everywhere and is specifically geared towards helping any protestors that have been unfairly arrested, I have included more information on the Act Blue Fund below. If you feel that this nonprofit does not align with your views or beliefs i have listed other non-profits below that are helping fight injustice in many different ways.

As for me personally, I unfortunately cannot take part in any protests due to my job. I work for the government and doing so could put my job at risk and I am the main "bread winner" within my family. So everyone who is out there doing the hard work, helping people like me so our voices can be heard...i thank you from the deepest part of my soul. While I wish I could be along side of you, the only thing I can do is donate to various causes that will hopefully help protect you. Stay healthy, stay safe, and WEAR A MASK !

If you plan to protest protect yourself by doing the following:

GRAB A MASK COVID-19 numbers have increased by over 15,000 within the last 24 hours and a lot of government entities are using Facebook and other social media sites for facial recognition.

SET ALL SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILES TO PRIVATE so the only thing available for facial recognition software would be your profile picture (note: odds are they already have your pictures within a database because once you post a picture it's out there forever, but setting to private would block them from a lot of other personal information)

DISABLE BIOMETRICS (finger print unlock) on your phone whole out protesting so police cannot force you to unlock your phone.

If you're like me and struggle to decide where to donate to the Act Blue Fund allows you to donate and it will automatically split your donation equally between all listed non-profits that are taking part in helping post bail to protestors fighting for injustice. Act Blue also allows you to choose multiple nonprofits you would like to donate to and you can input the exact amount you would like to donate to each. The donation website is confirmed to be secure so you can be sure that all your card information is safe. More information on the Act Blue Fund can be found below...

Progressives Everywhere has created a fund devoted to help low-income people, protestors and bystanders who have been unfairly arrested and must post high cash bails (another feature of our unjust system).

Groups include:

Brooklyn Community Bail Fund

Louisville Community Bail Fund

The Bail Project

Massachusetts Bail Fund

Chicago Community Bond Fund

Northwest Community Bail Fund

Michigan Solidarity Bail Fund

Restoring Justice (Houston)

Philadelphia Bail Fund

National Bail Out

NorCal Resist Activist Bail & ICE Bond Fund

Baltimore Action Legal Team

Columbus Freedom Fund

OTHER NON-PROFITS:

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, LDF seeks structural changes to expand democracy, eliminate disparities, and achieve racial justice in a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all Americans. LDF also defends the gains and protections won over the past 75 years of civil rights struggle and works to improve the quality and diversity of judicial and executive appointments

They valude a society that vaules its people, their freedom and recognizes their contribution to the greater good. A society that does not condition pretrial freedom on class or identity, that has ended mass incarceration, and that invests in restorative and transformative injustice.

Equal Injustice Initiative: A nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. They challenge the death penalty and excessive punishment and we provide re-entry assistance to formerly incarcerated people.

Founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, they are winning immediate improvements in our lives.

*if you know of any other non-profits that would fall within this category please message me or send an ask with the name and if possible the URL and I will add it to this post.

People who are looting and vandalizing are NOT protesting for a cause they are opportunist using the current situation to cause havoc.

#George Floyd #the bail project #Act Blue fund #Black Lives Matter #Blm #Minnesota Freedom Fund #Equal Injustice Initiative #naacp legal defense fund #covid 19 #COVID-19 #coronavirus #Corona virus #Protest

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little-dragon-stories · 5 years

Text

Met in an elevator

Fluffy scenario pairing y/n and Jin.

Warning: mention of a phobia, panic attack. But nothing major.

WC. 3831

Note: I still can't believe I wrote this all by myself. What I mean is, I have the impression my english has improved a lot recently.

Ok ok, my friend @aspaceformyself corrected the 4 first paragraphs and she rephrased a sentence because I texted her, asking for her help. What I mean to say is, I am proud of it. Proud of my new english skills.

Well, enjoy ❤️❤️❤️

It’s the cusp of summer but the sky is heavily gray tonight. Normally at this time, the sun is still up, warming the breeze. It’s so unusually dark and cold, you needed to put your sweater on and despite that, you shiver anyway.

«I don’t mind» you say for yourself, «I’m not letting the bad weather ruin my mood. I’m happy, I finally found a nice place to live, my friends spent 2 days helping me with the move. I will love my new town. I will love my new town” you repeat like a mantra «Will I?»

The owner of the building did not lie to you when he rented you the apartment, it’s really close to all the services you will need. Grocery, pharmacy, university, a few restaurants but most importantly the bakery further down the street. You have tasted their bagels and their chapssaltteok earlier today, it was simply delicious.

Lost in your thoughts, you pass in front of the entrance of your apartment building without noticing it. It's only when you notice the hair salon that is 2 blocks away that you realize your mistake. Laughing, you turn around and come back on your steps, a little tired of the heaviness of the grocery bags in your hands and the weight of your backpack. «That’ll teach me a lesson. I should me more attentive to my environnement and live outside of my head for a change… Well, I guess it’s too late for today”.

You almost miss your door entrance, once again, too busy with inventorying things you need to do tonight. “I am a lost cause” you think for yourself, only half joking. You will start your master at the Seoul university the day after tomorrow and there are still a lot of things to do before your first class. That’s what you have in mind tonight.

A nice woman that you saw earlier today hold the door for you as she’s going out. Now in the lobby, crumbling under the weight of your bags, you look at the elevator not sure if you will dare to use it or if you will prefer to climb by the stairs the 10 floors that separate you from your apartment floor. You think of different strategies, in the end the choice is simple. You have 3 options. You carry everything in one go. To decrease the load, you go back and forth leaving half or you bags hide somewhere in the hall. Last but not least, you take the elevator. This monster. Your worst enemy. That big mouth of steel that threatens to swallow you. You must be very tired to even consider that option.

The fact is, you are indeed very tired. It was a rough weekend, even if you had a lot of help, the move was a lot of hard work. Ok. Just once in your life, you will take it. There are millions of people that take the elevator everyday and nothing bad happened to them. Gathering your courage, you walk the steps that separate you from the beast. “Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale”. You repeat for yourself. You hear someone enter the lobby and approach you, talking on the cell phone. You don’t even look at the person, concentrating all your energy on the challenge ahead. The doors open, some people get out of the elevator in silence. The man on your side walks towards the elevator and stops, blocking the door with his arm to let you go first.

Then, your heard him say something. You have no idea what he’s saying. He probably said something like “after you” judging at his expression, now that you dare look at him. He looks at you, clearly concerned about your attitude. Forcing your chin into your sweater, you look on the floor and take a few steps forward very slowly. There you are. You made it. You are inside the elevator now. The man press a button and politely asks you:

“You are going on the 10th floor, right?”

“10th please”. You say, not paying attention to his words.

“Ok, it’s already pressed”. You could hear the concern in his voice.

The weight of your bags becomes unbearably heavy all of sudden. You drop them on the floor. You unzip your sweater because, it’s very hot in here. Is it just you? Is it really hot? In a way or another, you suddenly feel a thin layer of sweat on your upper lip and forehead. On your back too. What floor are we? Noooo. Only third floor…. still 7 to go.

You don’t pay attention to the man on your side. He seems tall. You know his voice is calm and almost soothing. That’s all you can tell. Still 5 floors before you are finally home. You have tried to found an apartment on the first or second level but at this time of the year, everything was already rented. Hopefully, you won’t have to purchase so many things at the same time anytime soon.

Suddenly, a disturbing succession of metallic sounds is heard and you feel that the elevator is slowing down just after the 6th floor. You have no idea what’s happening but you feel like you are shaken and it scares the hell out of you. Finally, everything stops and you hear a calm and soothing voice telling you «it’s ok, it happens very often. Don’t worry we are safe, it's only a lift failure». You feel his hand on your arm and as you look up, you realise you have drop your bags and cling onto the man’s arm, holding it firmly.

«I’m sorry, I’m scared of the elevators. Like really scared» you say with a high pitch voice that you don’t recognize as yours.

«I can tell, it’s ok though. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. Normally, it only takes an hour or two before they come to the rescue».

«Wh..what? 2 hours? I will die before that» you say, not sure at all if you can survive that long inside this monster’s mouth. «Naaaah, you will survive, I know it. Unless you have a real serious health condition. Then, you’re game over...» he said a second too soon, he thought that was a funny joke to make but obviously not to you, not to somebody in your position.

Your breath starts to get heavier, your heart thrums in your chest. Panic threatens to overwhelm you. You really need to calm down but it’s easier said than done. The quickest way to put a stop to this is to reconnect with your breathing. You know it. You’ve been there before. You get rid of your backpack and sit on the floor with your knees up under your chin. Slowly breathing.

The stranger sits down by your side, slipping along the wall and looks at you in the eyes. Forcing you to look back at him. You lift your chin up and look at him for the first time today, like really look at him. He’s so handsome, it’s almost unreal.

«Are you the tenant of 10c? The new girl that lives in front of my manager?»

«I seem to be in a good mood to be introduced?» You sharply ask. You regret immediately your attitude. «I’m sorry, it’s just that I am not feeling good at all. I am panicking. Sorry...»

«Hey it’s ok. I understand. Just breathe slowly. It happens very often. This lift breaks 2 or 3 times a month according to manager nim. They are supposed to replace it soon, this lift is obsolete. It’s ok to be scared but look around, we are safe right now. Ok? We are really safe”.

You stay focused on your breathing. Slowly inhaling and exhaling. He takes his phone and presses on 2 or 3 buttons saying «there is no network» as he pocket it back. «But don’t worry, manager nim knows I am coming, I was talking with him on the phone 2 minutes ago. He will send the intendance soon”.

You stay silent. You know for sure that if you start to talk it will be only to whine and complain and look pathetic. You don’t mind what you look like to be honest but still, you prefer to stay quiet and collected.

«I am Jin by the way»

«Ok» you answer, almost automatically like a robot.

«You know BTS?” He ask, laughing as he had say a joke.

«Ok» is once again your answer. Now he knows for sure you are not listening to him at all. Your answers doesn’t make any sense.

He saw you earlier today, as you were drinking a beer and eating a slice of pizza. He had spotted you, sitting on the little balcony that all the residents of the 10th floor shared together. You were with a friend, both of you covered with sweat, dirt and paint. Nevertheless, he found you were beautiful, probably the most prettiest girl he has seen. He don’t want you to feel that uncomfortable, even under those circumstances. He wants you to calm down and he wants to help you, he want to try to change your mind.

“Hey, listen to me carefully” you hear him say. “Later tonight, you will be happy you made it. Trust me, nothing bad will happen to you here”.

“Thank you for saying that but you don’t know for sure, you can’t know. So many things can happen. The elevator can...”

“Hey, why don’t we talk of something else, to change your mind. Ok?” He interrupt you gently.

«There is no need to panic or analyse all the possibilities. Right now, we are stuck here for maybe a couple of hours. Maybe less. Let’s try to take advantage of this situation». You say yes with a nod.

“My name is y/n, by the way. What’s yours?” He told you earlier but considering your state of mind, he won’t point it out. “My name is Jin. Do you know BTS?”

“Well yes, as everybody I guess. Everybody in South Korea as heard from them. Why?” You ask bim.

“Oh… nevermind”. He’s smiling shyly, he seems uncomfortable. “Wait a minute… no! You’re kidding me, right?”

You look at his face, he’s really handsome. He could be an idol after all. But, not being a big fan of music in general, you never paid attention to the group or their members. You heard your friends mentioned a name or another from time to time but that’s all you can tell about that group.

“Are you perhaps a member of this boyband?” You ask him with genuine interest.

“Yes I am”. He answered, proudly. “Wow! Really?” Is all you can think about of an answer. “Really y/n. I have to say, normally people recognise me. It’s a bit awkward” he said before he started to laugh. The sounds of his laugh is very distinctive, it’s absolutely non esthetic but it’s charming at the same time. Very contagious too. And then, you mention something he did not hear very often.

“It must be a very hard life to live. You have all my admiration. I would never be an idol”.

He looks at you in disbelief. He’s not sure if you are beings serious or sarcastic. Normally, people comment saying «you are living an amazing live», «that must be wonderful to have all that fame and money» or even «wow man, it means you can have all the girls you want». These are the comments he hears frequently. He locks eyes with you and says:

«Yes miss y/n, you are right it’s not always an easy life but still, I chose it so I can’t complain».

You nod and neither of you say something for a moment.

«Jin, I am sorry for earlier, I didn't mean to be rude. I am just very scared of...» but he didn’t let you finish your sentence:

«No, no, no. We won’t focus on your fear. Tell me instead, where are you from?»

That’s how you started to talked to him about your childhood in the countryside, how you started to work at a young age to help your family. How you loved to be the middle sister. How you loved to play the little sister that needs the protection of her big brother and how you manage to protect your little sister at school when she was bullied. You loved that special position in your family, sometimes teaming up in «the old ones», sometimes teaming up with your sis to be part of the «babies». Jin constantly laughed as he listened to you recount the fond memories of your childhood. He’s a good listener, he’s attentive. Hearing you talk about your unruly antics, he couldn’t help himself but found you very seductive and funny at the same time, a perfect combinaison. He loves how you talk, how you make things more interesting than they actually are just by the way you are telling them. On your side, you found his presence very comforting. He’s easy going, very approachable and charming.

“What about you?”

“I have an older brother and now I understand what it really means to take care of an ungrateful younger sibling! I have 6 little brother as bandmates now, these brats are making it hard for their hyung”, he says with a tender smile plastered on his face. You deduce by his expression that he loves them with all his heart and he don’t believe for a second that they are brats. “You love them, don’t even try. It shows all over your face” you tease him. “You know, they are like brothers to me. Annoying little brothers”.

Both of you started to laughed. He’s so cute, when he talk about them, little wrinkles appears on the corner if his eyes.

“I have a question. What do you love the most about being an idol and what do you hate the most?” You ask him, curious about his life style.

“That makes 2 questions young lady… I will answer them both if you share with me one of those coke you have on your bag there” he says, index pointing at one bag on the floor in front of you.

“That’s a very good idea Jin. I also have bbq chips somewhere. Let’s share a healthy snack together”.

He chuckled at your comment, his broad shoulders rising under his laugh.

“If you have chocolate, we’ll have almost the 3 food groups” he said. “Oh man, of course I have! Look, a chocolate bar! Yep, right there!” you answer him, taking the candy in the front pocket of your backpack.

«Wow, you eat all those bad things for your health and you manage to stay so thin? You’re my new hero y/n!»

After opening the bag, he takes a full handle of chips.

«ok Mr, time for you to respect your engagement. Tell me everything» you say handing him the bottle of coke. He take a sip and look at you, serious.

«You really wanna know?»

«I asked, right?»

«Alright. What I love the most is performing on front of the fans. All the love we receive then is amazing. They sing along, they dance with us. Sometimes they plan a trip out of their country when the venue don’t come to their own country. It’s amazing. They placed us in such a comfortable place in the industry. I will be forever grateful for their love».

«You are right, that’s the most wonderful part I guess. From the outside… now tell me, what do you love the less. What do you even hate?»

«There is no such thing as «hate» when it comes to my work. It’s a wonderful work. But I guess the thing that is the most difficult for me is to leave the country and family almost half of the year. Even more now that we are popular in the other continents… yes, I miss my family a lot when I am out of the country» he answer, looking in front of him. «You y/n, what do you do for a living?»

And like that, as easily as if you were talking to a friend, you tell him what is so passionate about your field of study. What you love and what you are scared about when it will be time for you to look for a job. Jin listens to you, smiling at your passionate attitude. You enumerate everything you want to buy when you receive your first paycheck.

«aaah, of course I must look pathetic. These are things you can afford and so much more. But what can I say. I dream of this since I am 16 years old».

«This is not pathetic at all. I found it very cute on the contrary. We all have dreams and I really wish you can buy this things you want before your first paycheck… who knows». He says with a dreamy look.

«I think we are way too serious right now, let’s play a game» he says, all of sudden.

«A game, here, in the elevator» you ask, not too sure where he was going with this.

And with him, you played rock paper scissors, you played “acronym poem”, you made up rhymes, including nonsense rhymes and chants. Most importantly, you laughed like 2 kids, accomplices as if you knew each other for a long time. You completely forgot where you were until the lift started to move again, stopping you from talking in the middle of a sentence. «Yes, I...»

A metallic sound is hear, louder than before. The lift start to shake and you have the impression it goes up but very slowly. Suddenly, the door opens and you find yourself in the lobby of the 8th floor, according to the sign in front of you.

You get out of the elevator, leaving all your bags behind. You completely forget about them. You sit in the big chair that is normally only there as a decoration accessory, if it’s the same here as on your floor. You hear Jin laugh and open your eyes to see he carries your bags and manage to take a picture of you with his cell phone. He has a big windshield laugh, really contagious.

«I will call this picture «the victory of the warrior lady” or maybe «tired after being so close to death». He is laughing at you but his attitude makes is refreshing. Normally people tells you how childish you are, that there’s no danger at all. Jin, he was laughing at you but you can see in his eyes, it was absolutely not in a bad way. He was genuinely trying to enlighten the atmosphere and it was working. Actually, you can say now, he was doing it the whole time you were in the elevator with him. This man is a real angel.

You start to laugh when he stops in front of you. His face is beautiful and he’s still smiling widely.

«Stand up, princess warrior, it’s time to go home. I will help you with the bags since you had such an hard time with me in there». He holds out his hand to help you get up and together you climb the 2 floors that separate you from your destination.

«Oh! My! God! Jin, are you ok?» is the first thing you can hear when you arrive on the 10th floor.

6 pairs of eyes, you assume they are his bandmates, are looking at you and Jin, one after the other. Then a chaotic conversation begins but you can only hear some parts of it «we were so scared for you», «I know how you hate to take that lift», «Jin, did you passed out».

You started to laughed at those comments. He was scared to take the elevator too, is that possible? Did you hear correctly? You hit him playfully on his shoulder.

«You were scared too? I can’t believe it. You were actually really scared?»

His ears turns red, his neck and a part of his face too. He’s laughing but you can tell, this is not a comfortable laugh like he had earlier. This laugh seems fake.

«Hey y/n I’ve told you they are brats, have I? They just want to make me looks like an idiot in front of you”.

“Why would they do that?” You ask him with your fists on your hips.

All the boys stops to talk. They look at each other, you can see some of them restrain themselves from laughing. Lifting up your eyebrow, you look at Jin in the eyes and say.

«You are right, it looks like they are making fun of you. Hummmm, anyway. Thank you for keeping me company and thank you for taking care of me in that elevator. Alone, I would have die from fear». You took your bags from his hands, surprised by their weights, you had time to forget about it.

«You are welcome y/n. It was a pleasure to keep you company».

Then, you look up, straight in his eyes. You cannot support his gaze for a long time, his beauty is surreal.

You wish you could say something like «hey, you know where I live, if you want to talk to me ever again» or «here’s my phone number» but the 3 man alongside Jin keeps you from doing it. It would be too awkward.

Well then, good night Jin. Thank you again».

«Good night y/n, it was a real pleasure».

And just like that, you came in your apartment. You feel like a complete fool. You wish you could have say something. You shared something tonight, right? Did he feel it too? Did you feel it just because he «saved» you by distracting you? It seems like he had a good time too, right?

You cannot think of something else than this stranger’s eyes and smile all night long. You talked on the phone with your mom, telling you how lucky you are to finally have everything done in the apartment. You took a long bath, you needed to relax. And then, just as you are closing the lights to go to bed, you see a fold paper on the floor just in front of the door. Curious, you take it and read the note:

«Hey, it’s Jin. I was absolutely not scared of the elevator. Never trust my bandmates, they are the worse I told you. They keep making fun of me.

I would like to know how the survivor, the miraculous lady is doing… You can text or call me, I’ll be glad to hear from you again. Jin»

You look at the numbers in the paper and hold it against your heart. Yes, you will call him. No doubt about it.

#bts #bts fluff #bts fan fiction #bts ff #bts jin #bts kim seokjin #jin fluff #bts jin x you #bts jin x reader #bts jin fluff #kpop imagines #imagine Jin #imagine bts #scenario #jin one shot #jin scenario

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scullyeffect · 5 years

Conversation

my conversation (through voice message) trying to get my friend out of an MLM

me: I'm really worried this is an MLM even though you say it's not. Are you sure?

friend: Hi, so it's actually called 'affiliate marketing'! If you watch the webclass it explains more in detail but our sales just go over and down the line. Not all the way up to a top human who gets all the money and we do all the work. It's okay to be skeptical. We've all been brought up to believe 'if it looks too good to be true it is', but I've got lots of videos from others in the business and my own personal testimony to prove that we are who we say we are. If you're interested just go watch the webclass.

me: So, it's kind of like the affiliate links?

friend: Yeah, it's exactly like that! And if all you do is purchase that's where it ends but there's an option in it where you can be on my team to distribute.

friend: And so where it's different from MLM/Pyramid Scheme bullshit is that we have a compensation plan that's patented, so no other company can use this. And basically our sales go over and down, like, you...and you create a line, basically. There's no pyramid, no stacking. So what that entails is also we have ranks, and ranks are really important. So, if I sell to my friend Danielle, and Danielle sells a bunch more than I do, or promotes the business really well, or is better at building a team than me, she could rank up higher than me, and then she could make more money than me even though she's below me.

me: *that is literally just a whack pyramid scheme*

friend: So, it's an 8-point payout system, so basically think of a pie chart with eight pieces. If you're a certain level, so if you're a 1A, you just get the A commission, just one piece. But there are obviously ranks that are hella higher than that, like if you're a 4A, you get four pieces. Say you're a 6A, and your 4A sells a machine, and they get their four points of commission, Enagic (the company) only pays out eight points, so even though you're a 6A, you're going to receive four. That's why we're not multilevel.

me: *oh my god that's still multilevel*

friend: I don't know if that was clarifying enough! If not definitely watch this little webclass she's so informative. *sends link*

me: *is doing extensive research about all this shit and doesn't click link*

friend: Also, it's not scary, the only thing that this link does is link you to me, for if you were to join or affiliate. And it only links you to me for three months. So if for any reason within the three months you want to pursue someone else within this business, that's allowed. So there's nothing permanent or scary about this, it doesn't take your card info or anything. Completely free.

me: *doesn't click link*

me: Do you get a steady income with this company, or is it a side hustle?

friend: So for right now it's a side hustle, but I did quit my second job because of it.

me: *SCREAMS*

friend: You do get steady income once you build your team up to the point where they're doing well, but it's a lot of energy exchange and putting time into these people and into your business. And obviously way down the line, like my friend Amelia started Breakaway Movement and she's been doing it for two years, and she's just achieved the rank of 6A2-3, and this is where your steady income starts. SO she got a $30,000 bonus, and she gets $5,000 a month for life, which is super cool because she can pass that residual income on to her kids. And this is on top from the commissions she's already receiving. So that can happen, but you have to work your butt off.

friend: For example, my first sale, I'll make anywhere from $700 to over $1,000, and that's only for one person. I have friends who started last month and have already made $8,000, granted they've had entrepreneurial experience, but it is something that can happen if you allow yourself to receive it.

me: *pulling my hair out and wanting to scream JESUS CHRIST THIS IS A PYRAMID SCHEME YOU DUMMY*

me instead: So like just to be clear I’m 100% just saying this because I care about you, like I know for everyone who’s skeptical about something there are five people who are gonna contradict me and that’s fine I’m just offering my opinion. But I have two red flags about this stuff and I really am just doing it to look out for you.

me: *gently launches into a long bio/chem/physiology diatribe about how alkaline water really just violates BASIC laws of chem/phys and reasons people get results from this stuff is because they think it's so good for them so they drink MORE of it, and water is great for you so your body is like YUM and of COURSE your skin gets better, you lose weight, you feel healthier, YOU'RE DRINKING WATER. Your body is DESIGNED to hustle itself to keep internal pH between 7.3-7.4 and alkaline water won't hurt you but it doesn't really do much. But in developed nations buying a $4,000 water filter system is just...not...worth it.*

me: And I also found something about Breakaway online that I think you should see, but I'm doing this as a friend and feel free to disregard everything I'm saying.

me: *sends screenshot of a subreddit of people exposing the girl who started Breakaway because she USED to be in an MLM with the same company but basically just...in a shady way recreated the same scheme with herself at the top? (link if you want)*

friend: I know you're not trying to like, fight me on any of this and you're doing it as a friend, but we actually have doctors and scientists talking about this since it is actually a Medical Grade Machine. I don't have all of that info, because it kind of flies over my head, but I know people who know about that stuff.

me: *WHY WOULD YOU SELL SOMETHING THAT CLAIMS TO AFFECT PEOPLE'S HEALTH WITHOUT KNOWING EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE SELLING I*

friend: If you want some more scientific information, I could maybe find someone who could help explain it to you. I just read a story recently on our message boards about a girl with a bunch of chronic illnesses who was healed from it, and her husband is a science teacher.

me: *rolling eyes, maybe it'll clear up my bad case of epilepsy*

friend: And as for the MLM comments, as a human on the inside who sees everything this company has to offer, this just isn't an MLM...by definition. But we're about network marketing and affiliate lines, totally not MLM.

friend: *goes off about how there's a HUGE difference between alkaline water and alkalized water*

me: *god i don't care about the water i only said all that to not directly say THIS IS A SCAM YOU'RE IN AN MLM DON'T QUIT YOUR JOB FOR THIS*

me instead: Okay well I'm sure you know more than me because you're more involved! I just skeptical of any type of networking where you have to like go down any sort of line or there's anyone at the top and it's about climbing.

friend: Our platform is super centered on genuine personal connection, like I don't go door to door, I just post my content (she's a YouTuber) and try to make a team and just...I can't think of the words...

friend: To just have this team and platform that's pure. I don't want their money. I want to help them change their life and be their mentor, if that makes sense.

friend: I totally understand your skepticism, but it's not about climbing on top of people or anything, it's just climbing in rank.

me: *christ am i actually trying to teach someone the definition of a word here*

friend: But if you have that mindset, maybe just...sales aren't your calling in life, which is 100% perfect for your journey and your life. But I hold the view that money is energy, and if you want to watch my friend Amelia, when she got her bonus she gave away $15,000 just because she could. These aren't evil people.

me: *she SAID she gave it away in a YOUTUBE VIDEO. give me receipts. also at the moment sales are my life i'm whoring myself out to 5 different colleges*

me instead: Wow, that's amazing!

friend: *sends me a link explaining alkalized water, source is the site from her company*

me: *leaves the chat*

#i'm sorry but #also i'm slightly salty bc the last time i saw her she came to my house after a night of unprotected sex #and asked me to go get her the morning after pill #she has since become a lesbian

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