#from transitioning back to society from the loss of a friend

[bakinbread]

I always believed that the RVT grownups did manage to find purpose again in their lives after leaving the ship. Mollie, Murdock and Orla more or less did find a way to do what they love. It'll never be as good as what they had... But they are strong people, life goes on. It HAD to go on.

[numapompilioi]

Carta Abierta a la Junta Militar / Open Letter to the Military Junta

1. The censorship of the press, the persecution of intellectuals, the raid on my house in El Tigre, the dear friends murdered by you, and the loss of my daughter, who died fighting you: these are among the circumstances that have made me resort to this clandestine form of expression, after nearly thirty years of having freely given my opinion as a journalist and writer.

The first anniversary of this Military Junta compels a measuring-up of the actions of this government, against its officially released documents and discourses, in order to fairly balance the scales between the official version and fact. For what you have named as certified facts are errors, and what you are willing to admit as your mistakes are in fact crimes, and events that you have entirely omitted happen to be calamities.

On the 24th of March of 1976, you overthrew a government that you had formed part of, just as you contributed to its dishonor by enforcing its repressive policies. The end of term of that government was to be determined by elections, slated for 9 months from then. What you annihilated, however, was not merely the transitional mandate of Isabela Martínez: you blocked the very possibility of a democratic process that would allow the people to remedy the very ills that you, ever since the coup, have proliferated and intensified.

Illegitimate in its origins, this government you enforce could have defended its thin claim to legitimacy by reinstating the same program already chosen by eighty percent of the Argentinian population in the 1973 elections, a program which still stands as the sole objective expression of the thwarted general will of the people, the sole possible meaning of this so-called ”national Being” so often invoked by you.

Your inversion of that path has shifted the tide according to the interests and ideas of defeated minorities, groups who stall the development of our nation’s productive forces, who exploit the people and who segregate the Nation. A political rule such as this one, can only reinforce itself as a transitional regime: as it currently prohibits all political parties, busts unions, and cripples free press while sowing the most profound terror the Argentine society has ever known.

2. Fifteen thousand disappeared persons, ten thousand prisoners taken, four thousand dead, tens of thousands landless peasants— together, these comprise the naked cipher of the terror I speak of.

As the common prisons were already full, you used barracks and military complexes for what are virtually the first concentration camps this country has ever known. These are camps–where no judge, lawyer, journalist or international monitor may enter. The martial secrecy of the trials, a secrecy invoked as necessary for the purpose of investigations, has made the majority of detentions into abductions, ensuring for torture without limits, and for executions without trials.[1]

More than seven thousand pleas issued for Habeas Corpus rights met refusal in the past year. In other thousands of cases of disappearances, the recourse of Habeas Corpus has not even been presented in court, either because the effort appears useless, or because of the near-impossibility of finding a lawyer willing to present the claim after fifty or seventy lawyers were, in turn, abducted as hostages by you after they took on these cases.

In this way, you have extricated torture from its confinement in time. As the detainee does not exist, there is no possibility of presenting him before a judge within ten days, as mandated by a law that was respected even by the repressive regimes of previous dictatorships in Argentina.

The absence of a limit in time is complemented by the absence of limitations in the methods of torture, thereby regressing back to ages when torturers operated directly upon the joints and the intestines of the victims—only now they make use of surgical and pharmacological tools, unavailable to the executioners of old. The rack, the screw, the skinning-alive, the hacksaw of medieval inquisitors all reappear in the testimonies alongside the electrodes, the ”submarine”, the blowtorch, among other modern accessories.

In the midst of your rationalizations, as you claim the objective of exterminating the guerrilla justifies the means you use, you have arrived at an absolute torture: it is timeless, metaphysical torture. The barest original intention behind these methods—that of extracting intelligence information from the captives—has by now given way in the perturbed minds of those who mete it out. Those who enforce it, instead succumb to the impulse of mashing up the human substance until it breaks, as it loses the dignity already lost by the executioner, the executioner’s dignity, which you yourselves already lost.

3. The negative order given by this Junta against publishing the names of prisoners, in itself belies a cover-up of your systematic executions of hostages, carried out in deserted areas during the dawn hours. In those locales you harvest your pretexts for murder with the forged battle-scenes, the planted evidence, the fantasized chase-scenes and escape attempts.

You have disseminated stories about bungling extremists, who you allege spread pamphlets in the countryside, who paint over the irrigation channels or who amass comically into exploding cars. Such stereotypes about the resistance are straight out of a propaganda leaflet—but the function of that propaganda is not to be believable: it intends only to mock the international outcry responding to mass executions. Such official accounts are designed to downplay the brutal, disproportionate nature of your retaliations conducted in the same places and dates of the guerrilla activities of the resistance.

Seventy dead in the executions you held in a response to the bombing of the Federal Security building, 55 extra-judicially executed in retaliation for the explosions in the Police Department in La Plata, 30 in your response to the attack on the Ministry of Defense, 40 executions in the Massacre of the New Year following suit after they were blamed for the death of colonel Castellanos, 19 extrajudicial killings of those who were held responsible for the explosion that destroyed the police-station of Ciudadela: these amount to the 1200 executions in 300 purported battles in which the opponent suffered no war-wounded, and the forces you commanded had no war-dead.

Condemned to being the human personification of a collective guilt that is alien to civilized norms of justice, the demonized captives are powerless to carry any influence in those same political trials that produce the planted evidence of the crimes for which they are being penalized. Many of the hostages are syndicate-delegates, intellectuals, family of the guerrilla fighters, unarmed opposition members, or ordinary suspects. When they are killed, it is merely part of your accounting act of “balancing the scales” according to the foreign doctrine of ‘the ‘body-count”, used by the SS in the occupied countries and by the invaders of Vietnam.

The practice of rounding-up, then immediately liquidating wounded or captured guerrillas in actual battles, is evidenced by the military’s own bulletin-updates and press conferences: these report how, within a year, they attributed 600 dead, but only 10 or 15 injured, among the guerrilla enemy. Such a ratio is unheard of in the most berserk conflicts of recent memory.

This impression is confirmed by a journalistic study that circulated in the clandestine underground. The report reveals how, between the 18th of December of 1976 and February 3rd of 1977, in 40 real actions, the legal forces had 23 dead and 40 wounded, while the guerrilla had 63 dead.

More than a hundred of those put on trial were similarly overpowered, as the military provided official narratives of sensational chase-stories—none of them intended to be believed, so much as to sabotage negotiations and proceedings. These performances are intended to prevent the guerrilla brigade and the political parties from enacting any legal process for the release of recognized political prisoners. Such negotiation is prevented from interfering and encumbering the strategy of retaliation used by the Core of Commanders. The military junta’s Core of Commanders want to employ these tactics (of disproportionate retaliation) in the shifting battle-scenery, maintaining the convenience of being able to dictate attacks, while unfettered by laws and in obedience only to the impulses and momentary whims.

That is how the general Benjamin Menéndez, chief of the Third Body of the Army, earned his laurels before the 24th of March with the assassination of Marcos Osatinsky, detained in Córdoba, following the killing of Hugo Vaca Narvaja and fifty other prisoners. All were executed without pity, in varied acts of martial law that officers later attested to without shame.[2]

4. The assassination of Dardo Cabo, detained in april of 1975, liquidated on the 6th of January in 1977 with seven other prisoners in the jurisdiction of the First Body of the Army led by general Suarez Mason, serves as further evidence revealing that these episodes were not occasional excesses carried out by a deluded few, or by the bad centurions who strayed. Rather, these appear to be executions of the same policy planned in your grand assemblies, the policy that you discuss in your cabinet meetings, imposed by you as commanders-in-chief of the 3 Arms and approved by you members of the Junta government.

Between one thousand five hundred and three thousand persons or more have so far been massacred in secret detention, after you prohibited the surfacing of information on found corpses. The news seeped through despite your very best efforts. Word spread to other countries, as international media and communities were shaken by the genocidal magnitude, by the sheer horror these facts have evoked among their leaders.[3]

Twenty-five mutilated bodies flowered forth just this March and October of 1976 upon Uruguayan beaches. Perhaps these were but a fraction of the cargo, of those tortured to death inside the Technical School of the Armada, then discarded as flotsam in the river La Plata by boats of the Armada. Among them was a boy, 15 year old Floreal Avellaneda, his feet and hands tied ”with breakages in his anal region and visible fractures” according to the autopsy.

A veritable underwater cemetery was discovered in August 1976, by a local who was scuba-diving in the Son Roque lagoon of Cordoba. He sought to report his finding to the attention of the police. At the station the police refused to register the diver’s report, until he took it to the newspapers, where the editors refused to publish it.

Thirty and four corpses turned up in Buenos Aires between the 3rd and 9th of April of 1976, eight in San Telmo on the 4th of July, ten in the river Lujan on the 9th of October. These serve as a measure of the massacres of the 20th of August that piled up 30 of the corpses, only 15 kilometers from the May Field and 17 kilometers from Lomas de Zamora.

These revelations put an end to the used-up fiction of the right-wing gangs who we presumed to be none other than the heirs of the Triple A squadron of López Rega. These were able to operate in the major garrisons of the country using military trucks, capable of forming blanketing the entire river La Plata with corpses of their victims, able to throw prisoners hurtling down to the sea from the doors of the First Air Brigade [4].

All this, you allege, could have happened without the general Videla, the admiral Massera and the brigadier-gendarme Agosti ever having known—so we are told. Today, the Triple A organization are none other than the Three Branches of the Junta which you preside over, and not the phantom in your nebulous reports regarding “violent outbreaks, seemingly of different sources”. No longer can you pretend to be the just arbiter between ”two terrorisms” one of the right and the other of the left. Rather, you have become the very same fountainhead of the terror that completely lost is course, while you babble in the turbid speech, in  the very discourse of death.[5]

The same historical continuity links the assassination of the dissenting general Carlos Prats under the previous government, with the kidnappings and murders of generals Juan José Torres, Zelmar Michelini, Hector Gutiérrez Ruíz. Dozens more were made into refugees, as their persecutors sought to assassinate the future of democratic processes in Chile, Bolivia and Uruguay by murdering it inside of those who carried and represented that unborn potential for a democratic future.[6]

The proven participation of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and of the Federal Police, in these crimes conducted by officers who received scholarships from the C.I.A. (through the A.I.D.) such as the commissioners Juan Gattei and Antonio Gettor, themselves subjected to the authority of Mr Gardener Hathaway, Station Chief of the CIA in Argentina. Such involvements will provide the seedbed for future revelations of the sordid kind that today already shake the international community. These revelations will not merely stop the moment the facts are laid bare about the role played by that agency (the CIA) and Army chiefs headed by general Menéndez in creating the Lodge of Liberators of Latin America. The Lodge has replaced and fulfilled the function of the Triple A death-squadron, until its role in the international stage was taken up by the Junta and its Three Arms.

This portrait of extermination by no means excludes the personal settling of scores, such as the assassination of captain Horacio Gandara, who for a decade went about investigating the businesses of high chiefs of the Navy. This does not exclude the reporter of “Prensa Libre” (Free Press)

Horacio Novillo, stabbed to death and cremated after the newspaper denounced sundry connections between the minister Martínez de Hoz and corporate monopolies.

As these episodes come to light, so does the true and final significance of your definition of the war at hand, as uttered by one of your chiefs: “The struggle that we have unleashed knows neither moral nor natural limits; it unfolds in a realm beyond good and evil”[7]

5. These facts that shake the conscience of the civilized world, however, are not the greatest of all torments brought upon the Argentine people to date. These facts are not the worst human rights violations so far incurred by you. It is in your economic policy, where we find not only the explanation of this government’s crimes, but also a larger atrocity punishing millions of human beings with planned misery.

Within a year, you reduced the common wage of the laborers by 40%, diminishing their participation in GDP by 30%, raising work-day from 6 to 18 hours of drudgery required for the income to support a family[8], This is how your program has resuscitated forms of slave-labor that had long gone extinct, even in the world’s last few remaining colonial outposts.

Wages are frozen and knocked down, while prices soar, past the sky-ward pointing bayonets of your rifles. Coercion abolishes all forms of collective opposition, assemblies and internal committees strictly forbidden, raising the unemployment rate to a record 9% [9]. This you have promised to worsen in official forecasts with 300.000 planned layoffs, as you go about reversing the relations of production back to the beginnings of the machine age. Whenever laborers had attempted protest, you have labeled them as subversives, abducting entire delegations, which in some instances turned up murdered, or otherwise simply never turned up. [10]

The results of these policies are smoldering devastation. Within the first year of military government, consumption of foods diminished by 40%, that of clothes by 50%, supply of medicines has virtually disappeared from the social layers of the majority. Already we see regions of Greater Buenos Aires where infant mortality surpasses 30%, putting us in the company of Rhodesia, Dahomey or the Guyanas. Diseases such as chronic diarrhea, various parasites and even rabies are reported in peak numbers approximating the worst global rates according to today’s health monitors, in some cases even surpassing known records. These results must appear satisfactory to you, for you have reduced the budget for public health to less than a third of military expenditures, suppressing the free hospitals while thousands of doctors, professionals and technicians join the exodus of jobless created by the terror, by the plummeted salaries or by the policies of ”rationalizing the economy.”

It should suffice to spend a few hours roaming through Greater Buenos Aires to confirm the speed at which these policies have decayed the city outskirts into a shantytown of ten million dwellers.

Suburban cities are half of the time deprived of electricity, entire districts lack running water. Industrial monopolies plunder the subterranean earth-layers for minerals and cement, leaving thousands of housing-blocks collapsed into wasteland, as you care only to pave the streets outside of the military families’ residences, or to decorate and prettify the May Plaza. The world’s largest river is poisoning all its beaches, only because business-partners of the ministry of Martínez de Hoz pour the residual waste of industry into that river. And in the wake of the poison-pouring, the only response your government has taken is to prohibit bathers from swimming.

When it comes to the mishmash of economic abstractions and objectives that you tend to refer to as ”the country”, it seems you have been equally successful. A decline in the GDP sunk until 3%, while an external debt reaches about 600 dollars per inhabitant, at an annual inflation rate of 400%. Production of printed money within one week in December increased by 9%, with a 13% lowering of external investment which also reaches global lows. Strange fruit indeed, that has come of all your cold deliberations, your crude ineptitude.

Nearly all creative and protectionist functions of the State atrophy, unraveling into the utmost decrepitude. Only one arm of the State expands, attaining an autonomous life.

One thousand eight hundred million dollars, the equivalent of nearly half of all Argentinean exports, were assigned to Security and Defense in 1977, four thousand new placements of agents in the Federal Police, twelve thousand in the province of Buenos Aires with salaries that double that of an industrial worker and will triple come February. These numbers forecast there will be no amount of freezes of stagnation or unemployment in the realm of torture and of death, the only camp of Argentinian activity in which the very gross product grows. In the concentration camps, the fixing of rates per head of smashed guerrilla grows quicker than the dollar.

6. In its fulfillment of the diktat of the International Monetary Fund, according to the prescription to be applied indiscriminately to either Zaire or Chile, to Uruguay or to Indonesia, the economic policy of this Junta serves only to acknowledge the needs of its chosen beneficiaries. Among these are the old cattle-raising oligarchies, the new speculations-oligarchs and a select group of international monopolies headed by Esso, ITT, the automotive groups, U.S. Steel, Siemens, all of whom have personal ties to Martínez de Hoz and all his members of cabinet.

An increase of 772% in the prices of animal produce (meat and leather) in 1976 encapsulates the very magnitude of the restoration of the oligarchical minorities’ power. This follows from the initiatives of Martínez de Hoz in collusion with the creed of land-owning Rural Society organization, as exposed by the organization’s president Celedonio Pereda: “It astonishes, how a handful of tiny yet very active groups continue insisting that food-prices need to be affordable.”[11]

In the spectacle of the Stock Exchange, it is possible within one week for some to profit by a hundred or two hundred per cent without working; where corporations were able to double their capital overnight without producing more output than before, as the mad fortune wheel rolls in speculations in dollars, in signs, in adjustable values, in plain usury that has already pre-calculated its interest rates on loans by the hour. How curious are these results of the self-described anti-corruption government that came along promising to put an end to ”the banquet-party of the corrupt.”

Denationalization of the banks has placed savings and national credit in the hands of foreign bankers. With the indemnification of the ITT and the Siemens corporations, rewards go to the same companies that scammed the State. Even while closing down their plants, the profits of Shell and Esso increase. By giving rebates and free passes from the customs tariffs, they create jobs in Hong Kong and in Singapore and massive unemployment in Argentina. Before the mass of these facts, you, the self-proclaimed nationalists, may ask yourselves who are these “anti-patriots”, those ‘’without fatherland’’ condemned in the blaring official propaganda.

In the light of these facts, ask yourselves: who are the real mercenaries at the behest of foreign interests adverse to those of the country? Whose is the ideology that truly threatens the national being you swore to defend in your solemn cries?

A barrage of propaganda (that deforming mirror of wicked facts) claims this Junta to be a securer of peace, and appoints Videla as a defender of human rights, while praising admiral Massera for his sheer love of life. If that propaganda machine were not in place to pour its noise, silencing all reason and access to the truth, then it might have been possible to ask the Commanders in Chief of the Three Arms that they may meditate upon the abyss they have dug. It is the chasm towards which they are driving this country. They claim to be steering the country towards victory in a war they are winning. That war and its imminent victory are illusions. For after even having killed the last guerrilla fighter, resistance would only be fermented anew in other forms.

The source of what has motivated resistance from the Argentine people, for more than the past twenty years, will not have disappeared after the last guerrilla fighter is executed: their urgency will only be intensified, by the memory of the strife and devastation, and by the revelation of atrocities that you have committed.

The above are my thoughts on the first anniversary of your infamous government, and I seek to ensure the transmission of my thoughts to the members of this Junta, without any hope of being heard. Although I am certain that I will be persecuted, I am also faithful to the commitment I made a long time ago, the commitment to bear witness in the difficult hours.

Rodolfo Walsh. – Citizen Identity number: 2845022

Buenos Aires, March 24 1977

Traducción: Arturo Desimone

[dystopicjumpsuit]

It's not Sunday but I'm sharing my OC Draig anyway.

Charming, funny, and dodgy as hell, Draig has not paid for a drink in fifteen years. He’s the sort of person who will sit next to you in the Corrie drunk tank and laugh about how you ended up there while you wait for Mic to come bail you both out.

In his defense, it was a great story. Art by me 🩵

More info below the cut! Content warning for non-detailed violence and eye injury/loss.

Overview

Name: Draig Birth year/age: 51 BBY (32 at end of the Clone Wars) Species: Zabrak Pronouns: he/him Orientation: bi/pan Home planet: Oba Diah Current location: Coruscant Occupation: “acquisitions” contract specialist (AKA thief for hire); journeyman pain in the ass; professional menace to society and underpants across the galaxy Affiliation: Bounty Hunters’ Guild Alignment: chaotic neutral Family: Oisin (father); Epha (mother, deceased); Mic and Branna Dhorhil (family of the heart)

Physical characteristics

Height: 6’/182 cm without the horns, but he counts them, so he tells everyone 6’2”/188 cm. Mic considers this ridiculous. Eyes: brown, one cybernetic gray Hair: bald Skin: brown Tattoos/piercings/identifying marks: traditional Zabrak facial tattoos; various facial and ear piercings

Personal history: 

Oisin and Epha had given up on having children when Draig came along. Oisin was 48, Epha was 41, and they were ecstatic to finally have the child they had so desperately wanted. Draig was their only child, and they adored him. The family lived happily for fourteen years, until Epha suddenly passed away from a massive stroke just before Draig started secondary school. Oisin was devastated, and Draig, in addition to his own grief, felt the weight of the galaxy on his young shoulders as he watched his father spiral.

When Draig started secondary school a couple months later, he was targeted by an older bully. Small for his age, and still reeling from the loss of his mother, Draig seemed like an easy target—at least, until Mic Dhorhil intervened when nobody else would. Draig and Mic both got suspended. Draig was distraught: the thought of adding to his father’s stress when Oisin was already struggling so much seemed like the end of the world to the young Zabrak. Mic took him to his own home instead so they could try to figure things out.

Mic’s mom Branna was home from work, and she convinced Draig that everything would be all right. She patched up both of the boys, got them a snack, and then commed Oisin to explain things diplomatically. From that point on, Draig and Mic were inseparable. The boys were best friends, and Draig imprinted like a baby duck on Branna as she stepped up to help him and Oisin through the loss of Epha. 

The two families became so close that they stopped considering themselves separate families at all, which was why, when Oisin fell ill, Mic didn’t hesitate to go along with Draig’s plan to steal the medication he needed from the Pyke syndicate. Their plan was a simple smash and grab, and somehow, they made it out alive—barely. Draig’s adrenaline rush from his first heist had barely faded when the bounty hunter showed up at the Dhorhils’ house.

Mic, Draig, and Branna fought back fiercely, but the hunter managed to slash Draig across the face before Branna killed the man with his own vibroblade. There was nothing to be done to save Draig’s eye. They didn’t even have time to apply bacta until they were already aboard the shuttle Branna stole from the Oba Diah City spaceport, in hyperspace on the way to Coruscant. 

The family disappeared into the Coruscant underworld until Branna was able to smooth things over with the Pykes. Oisin, having made a full recovery, opened a mechanic shop in the lower levels, while Mic started working in bars and restaurants and Branna took a position with Coruscant Public Transit. Draig, on the other hand, didn’t find the transition to Coruscant easy or straightforward, and he drifted into rougher crowds. 

Having gotten a taste for adrenaline during the Pyke heist, he started to engage in petty theft, which he rationalized as helping out while finances were tight. Before long, he discovered that he didn’t just like the challenge and the rush of stealing: he was good at it. Really good. He started honing his skills, seeking out larger, more valuable, and more difficult targets, until one day, almost without realizing it, he had become one of the best thieves in the business. Unsurprisingly, this put a target on his back—not only from the Coruscant Security Force, but also from other thieves looking to make a name for themselves.

Out of self-preservation, Draig decided to join the Bounty Hunters’ Guild, where he offered his services to anyone who could pay. He specialized in what the Guild diplomatically called “acquisitions,” but the truth was that he would do just about anything for the right price.

Anything except turn on his family.

Personality:

Charming and irresponsible irresistible. There’s not much in life that Draig takes seriously. He’s laid-back and easy-going to a fault, except when it comes to his work. He’s happy to go with the flow and let other people take the lead—especially Mic. His adrenaline-junkie tendencies cause him to sometimes take unnecessary risks, though he would never intentionally put someone else in danger.

He is uncompromisingly loyal to an incredibly small circle of people. If you are in that circle, he’ll do anything for you, no questions asked, regardless of the legal, ethical, or moral implications. Outside that circle, though, he doesn’t get attached. He’s friendly and approachable, but he’s one of those people who you realize after you’ve talked to him for weeks that he’s never shared anything about himself beyond the most superficial details. You were just distracted by how much he made you laugh and how much fun you had together to realize that he never let you get close to him.

In relationships, this manifests in a string of short-term flings where both/all parties agree to part ways cordially within a few weeks at maximum. He generally goes into a relationship with the understanding and expectation that it will stay casual and light, and he’s up front with his partners about that. Despite that, there have been times when things have gotten complicated and messy, which is why he now refuses to allow anyone outside his family to know where he lives.

Draig completely lacks Mic’s intensity, which is ironic, given that of the two, Draig is far more likely to break someone’s heart. Again, he’d never do it on purpose, but it’s a little too easy to fall for him when he has made a career of not falling. Ever. Which is why it’s the end of the kriffing galaxy the first time he catches feelings.

Taglist:

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@anxiouspineapple99 @sinfulsalutations @arcsimper5 @starrylothcat @clio3kantarella

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@skellymom @pickleprickle @trixie2023 @mythical-illustrator @dickarchivist

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@totallyunidentified @eclec-tech @euphoriacafe @hipwell @yve-barr

@dangraccoon @transactivecybermemory @etod

[joxies]

Tender is the Flesh - Agustina Bazterrica

Cadáver Exquisito - Agustina Bazterrica

Like I've said on my post about 1984, I much rather prefer reading books in their original language (if I speak said language). So I've read this book in spanish. Due to this there will be some quotes in spanish in this post, but don't worry, I'll translate everything.

Well, this has been the second book I've read this year. Had already read it last year, but I really wanted to read it again. I will include some of my first thoughts on it in this review/analysis.

Now, back to the book:

SPOILERS AHEAD

Agustina Bazterrica is Argentinean, which means she uses expressions and words typical of her country. Of course this is far from something bad, but I thought it's worth mentioning it. Lots of non spanish speakers and even some spanish speakers tend to forget how different this language can be from a country to another. For me it's always so interesting seeing these small and big differences.

The plot is frightening, scary and disturbing, tragic and depressing. Because of a virus, which only affects animals and which makes those animals (both dead and alive) deadly to humans, meat can no longer be consumed. The meat industry, along with governments, come up with a drastic solution: cannibalism. Some humans are chosen to be bred for consumption and through institutionalization, industrialization and normalization, it becomes the new reality. This whole process is The Transition. Of course some more small changes had to be done. Things such as calling those individuals "heads" instead of people or humans; calling their meat "special meat"; making them go through different interventions (such as taking their vocal cords out, not allowing socialization or education) to dehumanize them.

Our main character, Marcos, works in this semi-new industry, in a slaughterhouse. He's somewhat of a right-hand man for the slaughterhouse's owner. Marcos has to deal with breeding centers from which to buy heads, tanneries to which to sell skin, butcher shops that will sell the special meat they provide. But he doesn't like it. He is repulsed by this new society he lives in. He hates people who are comfortable with this new norm. He is not a happy person. He's not only depressed by the reality he lives in, but also by his personal life: his father suffers from dementia and lives in a nursing home, that's why he needs to push through his job, to support him; he's going through somewhat of a divorce, his wife having run to her mother's house, due to the loss of their baby; he hasn't really got any more friends or family except from a good coworker and a narcissistic and cold sister. He is like the only sane person left in this mad world, while suffering from a depression that barely lets him keep pushing through. Or at least that's what he seems.

But we will come back to him later. Now, let's talk a bit about world building and the other characters.

Bazterrica's world build is pretty rich and detailed, even tho some quite important questions are kept unanswered. How were the first heads chosen? Where they poor and marginalized people? Is the virus real or is it indeed a way to justify cannibalism and it's "positive" consequences (such as end of overpopulation or reducing the meat industry's pollution)? How unaware are the heads of their situation?How did the Scavengers appear, and are they part or not of that society? If not, where do they live or work? I don't think of those as plot holes, but rather as a way of showing the society's dissociation from the reality they're in (as well as a way to not overcomplicate the story, which would've had most likely taken away from the strong message it sends). But still, they're questions left unanswered and that only makes me more curious about the world this book takes place in.

The other characters seem more like NPCs than any other thing. They're mere objects that the main character needs for his story to advance. That doesn't mean they're not interesting or important. Just that they're not given the enough spot light for them to become more. These characters are also a way to show that the only humans that could not only thrive but basically live in a society like the one we're shown, are those who lack empathy, who only care for their own interests, who are comfortable not only making differences among humans but also not seeing some people as humans due to those differences.

Mr Urami and Urlet are psychopaths who truly enjoy the world post Transition. They seem to have been born for it. They get pleasure from hurting others, even if they're not seen as humans in the society they live in. They're immigrants who've come to this country because (or at least most likely) they've got a bigger freedom to do their activities here, than in their own countries (such as is the case with Urlet, who hunts heads, something that's not allowed in Romania). On the other hand the sister is the perfect example of those who simply accept changes from the power classes, without truly wondering about whether or not those changes are actually good for the population or if they're just a way of controlling the masses. Due to her narcissistic personality, she not only accepts this new reality, but also try to show off through it: she gets a domestic head, that she keeps in a special room at her own home, and that represents a status symbol. Spanel, Nélida, Doctor Valka, El Gringo, Mari, Cecilia, all these characters are the same. They only care about themselves and their interests. As long as they're not the ones being slaughtered, they don't care about how the world works.

And Marcos is the same. Even tho he seems different, deep down he isn't. He keeps calling the heads humans, but then as soon as he gets a domestic head, he basically behaves just like everyone else. He only sees her as a burden, as a problem, keeping her tied, dirty, hidden in a barn. And then he uses her. Maybe not like his sister uses her domestic head (cutting pieces in such a way as not to kill it, something that no one would do to a domestic animal in the real world, now that we're mentioning it) but still using her for his own interest nonetheless. He r4pes her, uses her to feel some sort of warmth, of comfort. Due to her being trated like livestock her whole life, she can't understand or consent to anything he does to her, she's just an animal/object to him. He understands the immorality of his actions, as it'd be more easily compared to bestiality than any other thing. But he justifies his actions reminding himself that she's human, even tho no one has ever treated her like that, not even himself. He also justifies them with the fact he treats her "like a real human" which is naming her Jazmín, letting her inside the house, to watch TV, to eat human food, to wear closes; showing her (tho the correct term would be teaching her or training her) how and where to relieve herself, how to keep entertained while he's gone, how to please him. And then she becomes pregnant. And he cares even more for her, treating her even better, loving her even more. Bur none of those things is true. He doesn't care for her, but for the safety of the baby, HIS baby. That's the only thing he care about, his second chance at fatherhood. And when she starts labouring he calls his almost ex wife, a nurse, to ask for help.

That's the moment I knew I'd be broken by this book. Cecilia (the ex) comes to the rescue and, tho she is repulsed initially by the whole situation, she behaves like a true professional and safely delivers the baby. For a moment she talks to Jazmín like she would talk to any other mother giving birth, like to a human. And then it all goes south. Marcos and Cecilia instantly feel a connection to the baby, completely forgetting about the tired woman who lays in bed, trying desperately to hold her baby. And when they realise she is still there, still existing, still feeling love and pain and sadness over the whole situation, Marcos decides to slaughter her (tho Cecilia thought they could use her to have more babies) because "she had the human expression of a domesticated animal".

And just like that my head was blown. I was left there looking at that last page, that last phrase, and I didn't know how to feel other than disgusted or what to think other than "fuck!".

This book is not only a criticism of the meat industry in this capitalist world we live in, an industry in which living breathing beings suffer and are being mistreated and abused without a second thought. It is also a feminist book, that reminds us that the fight against the patriarchy has to be closely related to other social movements, such as veganism or racial equality. Social movements can't fight against the common enemy (patriarchy and capitalism) on their own or if they're fighting each other; they need to be united.

To end my review/analysis, I just want to say I loved the final plot-twist. I usually find it pretty easy to see in which direction books or movies or TV shows are headed, and thus predict plot twists or endings. But that didn't happen here, I wasn't even close. Marcos is such a good unreliable narator I didn't even realise on my first read how hypocritical he is and what a superiority complex he has. I was so blinded by his "relationship" with Jazmín (his domestic head), I so wanted her to experience love and humanity, that I was unable to even imagine the horror she was gonna experience at the end of the book. Not even when Cecilia appeared did it even cross my mind how the end was gonna work out.

Also as a fun fact, after reading the book the first time I very strongly considered going full vegan. I was so disgusted by the human meat industry (described and inspired in today's meat industry) and so shocked at everything that went through in this book that I couldn't even look at meat without feeling sick to my stomach. After a while tho, it stopped and I went back to my usual diet. I do try to consume as little as possible and as ethical as possible, but sadly meat is a big part of my life, culture and traditions and I can't fully renounce to it.

Here are some quotes that stood out to me:

"Mientras caminan para la salida pasan por el galpón de las preñadas. Algunas están en jaulas y otras están acostadas en mesas, sin brazos ni piernas." - "On the way to the exit, they pass the barn where the impregnated females are kept. Some are in cages, others lie on tables. They have no arms or legs."

"Lo que vendemos está muerto, se está pudriendo y parece que la gente no lo quiere aceptar." - "What we sell is dead, it's rotting and apparently people don't want to accept that."

"Hoy soy la carnicera, mañana puedo ser el ganado." - "Today I'm the butcher, tomorrow I might be the cattle."

"El ansia por la carne es peligrosa." - "The craving for meat is dangerous."

"Dale mamita, pujá, pujá, así, dale que vos podés, más fuerza que ya sale, dale, ma, vamos, vamos." - "Come on, honey, push, push, that's it, come on, you can do this, harder, it's on its way now, come on, love, that's it, that's it."

"Jazmín está en la cama y estira los brazos. Los dos la ignoran, pero ella abre la boca y mueve las manos. Intenta levantarse y, cuando lo hace, choca con la cadera la mesa de luz y tira la lámpara." - "Jasmine is in bed and she stretches out her arms. They ignore her, but she opens her mouth and moves her hands. She tries to get up, and then she does, and bumps into the night table with her hips, and knocks over the lamp."

"Tenía la mirada humana del animal doméstico." - "She had the human look of a domesticated animal."

Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)

[snowviolettwhite]

Fan-Fiction Idea Blurts

---

Maybe let me know what you think or questions you have?

Fan-Fiction Idea Blurts

Suits: Harvey Specter is an omega. He has been pretending to be an alpha to be taken seriously since working in the mailroom by taking illegal suppressants and scent blockers and not being sexually intimate with his colleagues and peers. But suppressing his true natural and side effects of the drugs start catching up with him. He is having parental protective feelings towards his new associate Mike and is catching feels for his tough as stones alpha assistant Donna.

911: In summer 2011 barely eighteen and barely out of high school Buck and Eddie run away from home to California and joining the fire academy and eventually joining the 118. Eddie brings baby Christopher with him. Eddie's parent did not think he was mature and adult enough to take care of Chris as a 20-something year old, so it would be even worse for teenagers, people who are transiting from childhood/teenage-hood to young adulthood and still being treated like kids.

Stranger Things: It is a post Vecna world in the omegaverse with disabled Mike and Max. The Byers and Hopper have moved back to Hawkins, Indiana. Mike is an omega and Will is an alpha. They have been re-building their friendship and it even stronger than before, they kiss sometimes. It gets intense one day when they are alone, Will bits and accidentally bonds Mike. Mike makes it even by biting him back. You cannot remove a claim without a doctor, they hidden the development from their families and friends.

Stranger Things: Need To Update With Chapter Nine: manic pixie dream prince -Michael Wheeler presented on the second worst days of his life but, it is okay because Will Byers his best friend since kindergarten was safe. William Jacob Byers was dreading the day he presents because he was told constantly that he was an omega. He really hopes they are wrong.

911: Lone Star - little boy don't you cry, cause the child in you is still alive: Need To Update With Chapter 7: The fourteen-year-old and ninth grader Tyler Kennedy Strand who goes by Tk was riding high until he was not. His life turned upside down during one short week. It was the 2010 Manhattan school districts homecoming week; everything was good great then it suddenly turned into a nightmare. Now to get away from all the pain his dad is moving him to Austin, Texas. Owen is rebuilding 126 fire-station which recently suffered a great loss, most of the firefighters lost their lives.

Stranger Things: Post Vecna, Mike and Will friendship has been repaired since the Byers and Hopper. Mike has been hiding the fact he is an omega since the seventh grade. Will is the only one who finds out.

Stranger Things: The monsters of the upside-down prefer hunting omega presenting humans but these two alphas presenting humans El and Will have the power to resist the monsters/kill them. They upside-down monsters and Venca specifically hates omega Mike Wheeler because he is always foiling their plans and protecting the alphas. There is a love triangle between Will – Mike- El.

911: Lone – Tk finds out Owen, his dad is bisexual and had a boyfriend when he was a teenager. Or Owen thinks people are attractive regards of their gender and says something very bisexual and proceeds to have an identity crisis in his middle age and get a boyfriend eventually.

911 – A series of one-shots of Eddie Diaz as a baby, toddler, little kid, preteen and teenager in the 1990s and 2000s and early 2010s. Eddie was born in 1992.

911: Lone Star - The higher ups hire Owen to build the 126 firehouse in Austin, Texas because he is a white straight man and thinking he is a dom or switch to add diversity. He is a sub pretending he is a dom or switch to keep his job and taken seriously in the intense kind of work, along with dealing with cancer and taking care of his son after relapsing. (It is a bdsm alternative universe where dom/switch/sub is biological and in society. I enjoy this au because of the world building, it is one of the reasons I love the omegaverse. I don’t know how it is going to go all my knowledge of bdsm comes from fanfiction and erotic fiction. So, I might change it to the omegaverse with omega Owen but then Gwyn would have to be an alpha because when I write omega males and alpha female as intersex, male omega can only be impregnated and female can only impregnate.)

911 – Eddie has started taking anti-depressants after his breakdown and seeing his therapist, one of the side of effects is decreased sex drive and effect his heat cycle and his scent and omega instincts.

911 – Eddie moves to California and joins the 118 firehouse and hides his secondary gender to avoid the stigma and discrimination of being an omega, who is a single omega parent who was abandoned by his alpha which he dealt with in Texas. Buck is an omega who is opened about being an omega and hates Eddie because he thinks he is an arrogant alpha and has a little bit of a crush on him.

911 - Both Eddie and Buck pretend they are not omegas to avoid discrimination plus the trauma they experienced back home but they become best friends and work through that pain together.

911: Lone Star – Tk who is an omega after his relapses and moving leaving New York with father Owen, Tk also has to death with detoxing from the heat suppressants in the omegeverse alpha Alex forced him to take during their two year relationship.

[misfitwashere]

Friends,

I’m glad Democrats are finally hitting back at Trump. Enough with the “high road.” 

They’re calling him “weird.”

They’re mocking him. “Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial,” Hillary Clinton sneered at the Democratic convention. “When he woke up, he’d made his own kind of history — the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions.” 

Barack Obama noted Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes.”

Michelle Obama asked, “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?” 

Trump hates to be laughed at. He cannot abide ridicule. So, keep it up. 

But in addition to the mockery, we must not forget Trump’s treachery.  

The values a president enunciates and demonstrates ricochet through society, strengthening or undermining the common good.  

George Washington biographer Douglas Southall Freeman noted that by June 1775, when Congress appointed him to command the nation’s army, Washington had already “become a moral rallying post.” 

In the 2016 presidential campaign, 240 years later, candidate Donald Trump’s moral squalor was on full display. When accused of failing to pay his income taxes, he responded, “That makes me smart.” 

He thereby signaled to millions of Americans that paying taxes in full is not an obligation of citizenship.

Trump also boasted about giving money to politicians so they would do whatever he wanted. “When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me.” 

In other words, it’s perfectly okay for business leaders to pay off politicians, regardless of the effect on our democracy.

After Trump launched an attack on NFL players who kneeled during the national anthem, Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors, explained that the players were trying to protect a core American value. “They’re protesting excessive police violence and racial inequality,” said Kerr. “Those are really good things to fight against. And they’re doing it in a nonviolent way. Which is everything that Martin Luther King preached, right?”

Before Trump, the peaceful transfer of power was assumed to be a central feature of American democracy. 

As Harvard political scientist Archon Fung has noted, when losing candidates congratulate winners and deliver gracious concession speeches, they demonstrate their commitment to the democratic system over the result they fought to achieve — an important means of reaffirming the common good.

Think of Al Gore’s gracious concession speech to George W. Bush in 2000, after five weeks of a bitterly contested election and just one day after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bush:

“I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country …. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it …. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.”

Consider what might have occurred had Gore bitterly accused Bush of winning fraudulently and blamed the five Republican appointees on the Supreme Court for siding with Bush for partisan reasons. Or if, during his campaign, Bush had promised to put Gore in jail for various alleged improprieties, and then, after he won, accused Gore of spying on him during the campaign and trying to use the FBI and CIA to bring his downfall.

These statements — close to ones Trump actually made — might have imperiled the political stability of the nation. 

Instead, Gore made the same moral choice his predecessors made at the end of every previous American presidential election, and for the same reason: He understood that the peaceful transition of power confirmed the nation’s commitment to the Constitution, which was far more important than his own loss. 

Trump has had no such qualms. When he lost, he embarked on a coup against the United States and instigated an assault on the U.S. Capitol, resulting in five deaths.

At this moment, Trump and his lackeys are installing loyalists in state and county election offices to deny certification to the Harris-Walz ticket and other Democrats down the ballot.

The essence of Trump’s failure as president — and the fundamental reason he doesn’t merit a second term — is not that he has behaved in childish and vindictive ways or is “weird.” 

It is that he sacrificed — and continues to sacrifice — the processes and institutions that undergird America to achieve his own selfish aims. 

He abused the trust we place in a president to preserve and protect the nation’s capacity for self-government.

Trump is a traitor. 

He and the Republican Party — now a personality cult based on Trump’s Big Lie — violate everything America stands for.

We cannot and must not forget his treachery and the GOP’s complicity. It is a despicable blot on America.

[erotic-melancholias]

‎‎‎ㅤㅤJuniper W. Lowell was born on August 22, during one of the most intense storms ever seen in the state of New York. The chaos served as the backdrop for her birth, which took place in her mother’s old pickup truck while she and two friends struggled to reach the hospital. Raised by her two mothers — a Canadian journalist and a French art curator — she grew up surrounded by the serenity of the countryside in Upstate New York. The house she lived in was enveloped by nature, with horses, ancient trees, and the constant sound of the music and poetry that her mothers cherished. Art and literature filled every corner, inspiring her creativity from a young age. Juniper, however, had a special inspiration: her grandfather Wilson, a former military man who, after his career in the armed forces, dedicated himself to writing. Wilson's stories, full of resilience and sensitivity, deeply influenced Juniper's curious and creative spirit. 

ㅤㅤLowell was an introspective and shy girl, and the loss of her grandfather during adolescence deepened her isolation, causing her to retreat further into her own world. At school, Juniper did not stand out. Although she was intelligent and curious, she struggled to find her place in an environment that made her uncomfortable. The lack of direction frustrated her, and she often felt lost. A significant turning point in her life came when she enrolled in advertising at NYU. There, for the first time, Juniper felt she belonged to something greater. The program allowed her to connect her creativity with her passion for storytelling, which had been nurtured by her upbringing in a home filled with art and literature, and by the deep conversations she had with her mothers about the power of expression and communication.

ㅤㅤAfter graduating, Juniper decided to further expand her academic horizons. Fascinated by the power of visual storytelling and its impact on society, she delved into the world of photography and visual arts. This transition led her to study the relationship between art and communication, exploring how imagery can evoke emotion and tell complex narratives. She enrolled in a master's program at the New York Film Academy, where she focused on capturing human experiences and the natural world through her lens. Juniper also participated in workshops and creative exchanges, volunteering with art collectives and nonprofit organizations, always seeking to expand her knowledge and understand the role of visual arts in shaping culture and preserving collective memory.

ㅤㅤCurrently, Juniper lives comfortably in the chaos of the city, where she enjoys a flexible schedule that allows her to travel frequently. In her apartment, she shares the space with her faithful companions, June, her cat, and Diego, her dog, who often join her on her adventures.

ㅤㅤOver time, Juniper realized that her journey has been a bridge between her messy mind and the serene, creative life she now leads. From the chaos of her stormy birth to the calm she seeks through her work in photography and visual arts, her path has always been shaped by a balance between passion and peace.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ• erotic melancholia

I. The character’s sensitivity is transparent, where I treat everything with simplicity. It’s realistic, incense and raw. All the insecurities and desires are on the table, exposed to the eyes of those who really want to see. If there is no reciprocity regarding the interest of the story, don’t even interact.  II. Feel free to create a meaningful bond with the character, from friendship to romance. Connections are always very welcome. III. OOC +21. The Messages will be open for interactions, spontaneous or not, but do not interact if you’re underage. IV. This account is, for the most part, interpretative. Will be a few as exceptions to conversations outside the context of the game. Totally fictitious events. V. There might be some delays in getting back to direct messages or even a few days without activity. However, I would appreciate it if you refrain from reminding me about this. VI. Basic DNI criteria. Do not follow if you’re under 16. VII. I am not very interested in staying on Instagram; however, I do not intend to deactivate my account, just to stay away for an indefinite period (I may log in to check and post a few things). The communication platform I use is Tumblr. If you're interested in reaching out, you can also send an email to takenpolaroid@icloud.com. As a side note, I am looking for strong and willing connections, so don’t be shy—send me a virtual letter!

[maytheoddshq]

At first, it was small; the outer forcefield began to shimmer, and some of the displays of the arena were shuttering and going dark. Then it was all of them, the power shut off in the arena in a resounding whirring sound.

A beat.

Then two.

Then the arena shook, and for once, not due to Gamemaker intervention. The north perimeter of the arena walls crumbled, rubble and smoke filled the air, erasing all of the snow surrounding it. 

Silence.

Then another torrent of explosions rocked the arena like fire and brimstone – shrapnel coated every inch of the arena, raining the holy hellfire down onto the Tributes. From the outside, through the smoke – bodies, uniformed rushed into the arena, instead of Peacekeepers came the revolution, came the Vox Populi. Chaos unfolded as Tributes and rebels alike fled the arena. Injuries are almost assured – the lucky retreat with simple cuts while the less fortunate meet their end. 

Simultaneously, the Capitol is attacked. The Vox rise out of the woodwork; back alleys, sewers, basements, from the borders, and even from the inside walls of the Tower. The Tower is hit with smoke bombs and each floor explodes into violence – Peacekeepers attempt to beat back the Vox Populi soldiers but to no avail. It opens the opportunity for those in the Tower to fight, run, hide, whatever suits them. Wise loyalists would go into hiding, rebels would let their true colors shine. 

Civil war is on the streets of the Capitol, Peacekeepers versus the Vox - there is a great loss of life as many citizens, rebels, and loyalists are caught in the crossfire. During it all, known vocal loyalists are seized and taken into Vox custody; Gamemakers, Sponsors, and nearly every governmental position.

Save one. 

President Nerissa Snow is missing in action with a heavy bounty on her head.

Power in the Capitol flickers in and out for the first handful of days until it is finally cut. Finding rations or food becomes reminiscent of the Dark Days garnering scarcity that brings out the worst of society. The chaos itself lasts for nearly a month before power is restored to the Capitol. During that month, transit between the districts is made completely impossible – the Tower itself is on a harsh lockdown after an attack from the Vox; each floor explodes into violence – Peacekeepers attempt to beat back the Vox Populi soldiers but to no avail. The Tower is taken as a temporary stronghold for the Vox while they sort through the residents for their safety and the safety of the revolution.

 The day after the power returns an announcement graces the screens and radios of Panem with a simple message:

“I would like to introduce myself, my name is Terra Cacus and I am the leader of the Vox Populi. I know you’re all scared, and worried for the future, but be not afraid because peace, safety, and equality for all of this country, and every last district will come. Vox Populi, Vox Dei. Your new leader, your new friend, Terra Cacus signing off.”

[tomatoluvr69]

Sorry you’re experiencing sad events:(

Ah thank you, it is quite alright…I am good at grief, it’s familiar to me…the rest of this got slightly lengthy so I’m putting it beneath a cut because obviously I have no idea who reading this might not care to be reminded of loss.

I’m not lucky of course to have gone through a significant loss during adolescence…but I am very lucky that I took from that experience the epiphany that to begin to heal, you must feel it fully and let it ravage you as much as physically possible…while maintaining as much of a standard of care for yourself as possible. Maybe not “you” so much as me— that’s what I’ve found helps me. I think a lot about Victorian mourning customs, or the practice of sitting shivah, etc. (I know there are more worldwide, these are just the ones I’m most familiar with due to cultural proximity); and how much a period of battening down the hatches and hunkering down and giving yourself up as a tide of feelings beyond your control comes in to wash over you can/should be engrained within both the structures of society and within the way we think about our own emotional trajectories surrounding loss. I live with someone in death care, at an eco-burial cemetery, and something that has resonated with me from him & from other friends who have worked there is that the difference in closure journeys between people who go through a traditional American funerary process (i.e. taboo, compartmentalized, jarring…I have a lot of thoughts about funerals in this culture and the way they injure the living but that’s a long ol thang and I don’t have it in me right now) versus the families and close ones of the decedents at the green sanctuary who are getting fucking down and dirty with the process— they are digging the grave with him, they are picking out the headstones, they are watching their loved ones lowered manually in nothing but a shroud (and sometimes some garments inside it), they are picking up a shovel and placing the earth back on top, they are creating wreaths out of pine boughs and wildflowers six foot in diameter above the mound…these are the ones who come back to the sanctuary months later and speak about how being involved with their grief allowed…something to occur. All of this is secondhand for me, my friends **** and *** could say this so much better but I’m not going to tell them about tumblr lmfao.

This has gotten away from me. Point is that I have accepted long ago the need for grief, (and the concept of grief as the natural continuation of love) and I can look it square in the eye and face it head on. Does it still fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucking suck?? Yes. Is it easier for me if I transition intentionally into a languid state like a brumating lizard…also yes…which is where I’m at right now.

So I am doing alright (all things considered that is) & just must force myself at gunpoint to give myself extreme grace and allow for levels of rest and behaviors that I would not ordinarily indulge in routinely…I’m coming out of the worst of the shock & able to go about some of my normal activities. And also in this particular case I’d known it was coming for a long time, it just happened months earlier than expected, which is a whole nother feeling as well… Mostly I’m just listening to a lot of familiar and beloved comfort music, meal prepping big batches of things when I’ve got some energy so I can just eat from them when I’m feeling really rough, and pouring myself into garden prep which was the most beautiful and profound balm for me when I experienced the last death of a loved one in spring of 2020. This won’t be as difficult, I won’t get into specifics…but I anticipate a lot of garden time as like…stopgap therapy again. Anyways this sort of turned into a diary entry and I’ve done enough oversharing on my blog for the day…thanks for the kind wishes. I will be okay, but part and parcel with that for me is accepting that I won’t be okay for a while and just changing my expectations and standards for myself and my lifestyle into realistic ones, and also just straight up letting myself lie down feeling bad with generous frequency so it can have time to build and then dissipate naturally like it must if i would like to ever move on. If I feel it, then I can process it. It’s in trying to ignore it and shove it aside without confronting the truth of loss and change that the grief gets stuck and begins to morph and malinger into deep spiraling harm, in my incredibly limited (I’m super young and never lost a parent/sibling/partner/child) experience

[pocket-size-cthulhu]

This is so true, so well-put, and so alarming.

I talk about this constantly but one of the greatest things that ever happened to me was the neighborhood where I lived during my elementary school years. You wouldn't call it a walkable area as an adult, but for a kid it was perfect: I lived on a quiet cul-de-sac, within walking distance of most of my friends; the park (with playgrounds and nature areas); the public pool; my family's church; and Baskin Robbins. My parents were also deeply committed to giving my siblings and I reasons to be outside, so we had a largeish backyard with a playset and trampoline, and a treehouse and sandbox my dad built, himself; and my parents kept a garage full of various riding toys (bikes, scooters, skates etc), sports equipment, and stuff like sidewalk chalk and water guns. (When I say they were committed, I mean they were committed.)

So that's how I spent my childhood. I started by playing in the back yard; moved to the cul-de-sac as I got a little older and could be trusted around the occasional car; and by the time we moved away, I had fairly free rein to wander the neighborhood, bike around, visit my friends, go to the park etc, all without a phone of any kind, as long as my parents knew ~generally how to find me. I don't think I could be described as a super confident kid - I've always been a bit cautious as a person and there were definitely other factors that impacted my confidence especially socially - but like, I was always in these situations where I was navigating choices on my own, away from my parents, and where I was fairly self-governing.

And then we moved! Far away from that perfect little neighborhood, to the other side of the country, in a patch of suburbia in the middle of the woods where nobody my age lived and nothing was within walking distance and my parents didn't want me walking through the woods anyway, all right as I transitioned into my teenage years in earnest. There were a lot of things about that move that were difficult for me, but I think the sudden, sharp loss of independence was maybe the worst. All of the confidence I'd built up was gone. I became completely dependent on my parents immediately. it's not really anybody's fault, but I had a lonely several years until my parents put me in online high school, I made friends, and I started to Be Online for the first time in my life (and I've been Online™️ ever since 😬)

Anyway. I guess I've seen both sides of this? And like, my elementary school years weren't perfect and I had my share of small and big troubles. But I was generally happy, navigating friendships and making decisions and spending time outside and around people and getting plenty of fresh air and exercise every day, just playing. Vs being utterly dependent on busy adults and not seeking out opportunities just because I don't know what's out there and don't have the confidence to go for it even if I did.

I don't know where I'm going with this besides that I feel awful for kids. Like actual kids as well as teenagers. They all deserve better; they deserve independence and autonomy to a developmentally appropriate degree, and they deserve time outside and spaces where they can hang out and be themselves in public with other people their age. This situation is unfair to them on so many levels. It's not their fault that they are the way that they are. Kids don't get a choice, nor is it their responsibility. It's adults' jobs to make sure kids have what they need for healthy development, and it's society's responsibility to support parents in providing their children with what they need, and kids have been repeatedly failed by both of these groups since before they were born. It's not their fault.

if pointing out that the age of getting a phone decreasing along with the prevalence of short form video as the dominant form of social media content during the most significant collective educational gap in recent history all of which happened during one of the most significant windows of psychological development in a human lifetime has had a deleterious effect on the attention spans, self-regulation, impulse control, social skills, tech literacy, and actual literacy of zoomers and gen alpha. if pointing out that that is a real and serious problem makes me a boomer and an old crank who has fallen for “kids these days” propaganda someone find me a porch and a rocking chair so i can yell at you to get off my lawn

[thatmittengirl2009]

My friend Chris posted this and he likes to stir the pot on his FB because since he lives in FL, he has lots of people from both sides of the isle on his friends list.

He often awaits my thoughts as usually I always tear apart his one trump loving friend who eventually shuts up when he can’t argue back. But this was a really thoughtful post.

It’s true. People say they want blue collar jobs brought back but the moment they are, no one wants to work there.

Detroit is known for “our grit” because we were traditionally a huge part of the blue collar workforce due to the auto industry. Anyone you talk to here has been in a factory job at least once in their life. It was far more normal for that to be your first job rather than working at a McDonalds. If the jobs came back here, I don’t think Detroit would have an issue as they’ve begged for Ford and Chevy and GM to come back here full time for decades. I will say the auto unions are the only ones excited about the tariffs in hopes it does bring manufacturing back to the city.

What most people don’t get is that takes time though and even then, we didn’t make the parts that created the assembly line. All those robots and machine parts come from other countries still. By the time you think of all the new tariffs, it’s far cheaper to just pay the 25% tariff to bring in a new car than find all the pieces individually and bring it here to be built. And this is where people need to learn how supply chains actually work. I really really want someone who works in supply chain management to go on the news and give a Lesson in basic logistics 101.

Everyday we hear about something urgent coming in that needs to be cleared ASAP because it could mean the entire factory shutting down. I was once assigned to get on a plane at 8pm to go meet someone in Arizona at an airport to pick up an important part in a duffle bag a company needed. The charter flight bringing it in from MX was stopped at customs there and couldn’t fly further for whatever reason but the company shed thousands to ensure it got back here timely. Weirdest side quest I was ever sent on. Then checked it as I landed in Detroit and a company manager picked it up from there. This happens way more than people think just to keep an operation going.

We opened a battery factory not too far from me in 2021. It makes batteries for electric vehicles. They had such a hard time getting people to take jobs there. There’s another auto plant 15 minutes from me and they always have hiring signs. People just do not want blue collar jobs. The pay always starts at $21 an hour but it’s hard work and frankly people are lazy. This includes trump people & liberals equally. Why work when you can make TikToks and get views for cash? Or is it laziness or something deeper?

Chris is originally from NYC so his factory experience was in the Bronx and I can’t say if it’s the same as it was here in Detroit or not but yes most people from other nationalities tend to take these jobs that Americans once say they loved. I think it comes down to the “go to college” narrative we’ve heard most of our lives.

Going to college was always a luxury but 70s, 80s, and even 90s, it wasn’t a hard requirement. You could even be a high school dropout and get a good paying job. Being a 90s baby though, all I’ve ever heard growing up was how important college is and that you need to go. Not by my family but by society. It’s drilled into us at school and started in media too. Most people who graduate want a job in their field. Taking a factory job became this “that’s beneath me” mentality. Everything became about the transition to white collar jobs as more people started graduating. Add in technology and most people were now getting jobs in IT, coding, robotics, etc. Manufacturing jobs started to get replaced with robots which made things more efficient but that also created job loss in that sector.

The issue now is that college is unaffordable for majority but there are no more blue collar jobs to fall back on too. Every job post you look at requires a minimum of a BA or higher. But if you have a masters, you’re “overqualified” at the same time. My best friend has a masters and can’t get a job anywhere because of it. It’s why she still works at an auto dealership as a sales clerk. Sometimes looking down on these people and jobs isn’t the story you think it is.

Look I know people hate China and think communism right away but it’s not. They got it right and why they’re like the Wakanda of the real world. They have a socialist/capitalist economy. Make the rich pay their fair share and that wealth gets redistributed back to society. That’s why there is no homeless and housing is affordable. Food is affordable, basic utilities are affordable. There is always jobs affordable because the retirement age is 50 and they take care of their elderly. Once people retire at 50, it creates more jobs to the younger workers coming in. Now someone clarified that you don’t not have to quit at 50. Many take side jobs for fun to just get out the house and socialize but if they wanted to just stop working, they’re taken care of not left to wonder how they’ll pay rent or anything. They embrace technology and use it in a smart way with humans that makes things more efficient and creates safety at the same time. Their public transportation is next level and they’re doing everything they can to help the environment.

I’m just saying they got it right. Their people are happy, healthy and no wonder they were hidden by the world so the west didn’t try to destroy what they’ve created. Yes it’s law they cannot talk about their government in a bad way but many said “why would we? We’re taken care of.” The thing is they invest in their own people. The US could never because it’s a me, me, me, me mindset. Thing is China was so happy when the Red Note/Tiktok overlap happened and Americans were talking with Chinese citizens. Did you know they grow up admiring us and think we’re a beautiful country?? It’s why their government pays for their people to come abroad here to study or do programs. They encourage the community but it’s Americans who’ve been told to fear them and that they’re bad. Many Chinese students do come here to study but are meant with “go back to your country!!!” Their illusions of how wonderful we are, are destroyed by how mean and selfish we really are. It sucks!! Their government was ready to lift the internet ban so they could freely talk with us more. They lifted the visa requirements to go there and visit on vacation. People explained the internet ban wasn’t to stifle them but to protect them from the lies of western media. Now that Trump has basically taxed their stuff to death with tariffs, the government reversed its decision for American travel and social media usage.

I guess my point is even if they brought back these jobs, who would honestly do them? Hate to say it but Americans in general don’t like hard work. They don’t like innovation. They don’t like new ways of doing things especially if it hurts the pockets of CEOs. There’s so many factors everywhere that have contributed to our downfall over time that we can argue in circles for days. We have a capitalist society that never had rules or regulations. We had presidents and congress give tax cuts to the rich and the other legislation never did checks or balances because all politicians usually take bribes. We’ve been corrupted for a while, it’s just now very noticeable where you can’t give excuses anymore or ignore it. Why do you think all politicians end up super wealthy? They certainly don’t get paid that.

I’m just glad more and more political leaders are becoming independents. Both dems and republicans have started the switch and that’s what we need if this country is ever going to be on the same page and come back to unity. A politician should not be working for their party but for the people they represent no matter what. Honestly both parties have pissed me off for past several years and now hearing what the dems did to Kamala and Tim…..fuck em all. Washington has been corrupt for a while.

This was a long rant and I just have tons of opinions on it all but I guess I just love that people are willing to have honest, open dialogue about all this. These types of questions are needed to make people think and that creates real action and change.

[batmancomicanalysis]

Wings of Redemption: a case study in addiction and the commercialisation of self-destruction

Wings of Redemption/Jordie Jordan: a 38 year old 500+ lbs gaming video content creator. When Jordie started Youtube in 2007/2008 at 22/23 he was apparently 330 lbs, at the beginning of his transition from being an unemployed former steel company worker to a sedentary gaming content creator.

Jordie has unsuccessfully battled obesity since he was a child. Now at middle age (or advanced age given his extremely unhealthy lifestyle) he has failed to overcome his vices (junk food addiction, gaming addiction, internet addiction and porn addiction).

To my knowledge as an on-again, off-again long term observer, his most successful run of weight loss was not the period immediately following his bariatric surgery but the "FPS Bootcamp" which lasted about a month, hosted by his former friend FPS Kyle. This was made into a series of videos posted on Wings' channel. Kyle arranged a workout routine, had Wings' meals prepared for him, recorded him, socialised with him and limited his gaming/internet time. Over this period Wings lost about 40-50 lbs. However, after the bootcamp ended Wings went back to his old ways either immediately or almost immediately.

This proves that some people cannot run their lives without destroying themselves, they require strong external control and can barely function without it if at all. Wings either needs a paid professional, a competent family member, close friend or romantic partner to effectively control his life for him but given his relative lack of money, paucity of valuable skills (further eroded by his years of being an online Jerry Springer-esque freakshow) and toxic traits this seems impossible. He can't own a car (or he'll drive to buy junk food: Wings describes driving 30 minutes to McDonalds late at night, consuming his meal, getting home and immediately feeling hungry again) or a smartphone or a computer (or he will succumb to internet and porn addiction) without doing serious harm to himself. Which means he can't continue to be a gaming streamer and social media personality without remaining morbidly obese and depressed. But giving this up would mean sacrificing his "job" and his "identity" as an internet personality and notorious "lolcow", which he has been unwilling to do.

Making things yet more difficult Wings is simultaneously self-loathing (thus unwilling to make any sacrifices for his long-term benefit, with no belief that anything will work based on decades of failure), highly averse to labour or struggle (breaking easily when the going gets tough, partly due to the severe physical and psychological deterioration that comes with having various addictions for years or decades) and egomaniacal (he feels validated by the fact that so many people pay attention to him as a niche internet figure, even though most of the attention is negative and he intentionally courts controversy to attain it, often saying things which are absurd or repugnant). He is also pathologically opposed to taking any responsibility for his circumstances, blaming his genetics, his parents, his trolls, sugar ("sugar controls my life 110%") or simply Call of Duty for his circumstances ("Call of Duty ruined my life"). This further diminishes any sense of agency and willpower.

The case of Jordie Jordan is a cautionary tale for those struggling with addiction, a reductio ad absurdum of what are very common problems. He is also to some extent a mirror for our society. A culture which produces the likes of Wings of Redemption and worse, turns his life into a grotesque spectacle and psychodrama for the amusement and demoralisation of a sadistic voyeuristic mob, is rife with sickness.

[can-i-make-image-descriptions]

[Image IDs: Series of tweets from Josh Weed (@/ The_Weed) reading: One of the more surprising things I've learned in my years as a marriage and family therapist is that pets are more that just "man's best friend"—most families see them as *actual* members of the family system.

The thing that finally made me see it clearly was grief.

(1)

Time after time I'd be bopping along helping a family (or individual) with transitions or communication or whatever else, and a pet would pass and the work Stopped. Like, full halt, unable to move forward, capital T trauma kind of stop.

The grief was too Real. (2)

I'm not sure why this took me by surprise, but it did a bit. I think I was like most people—we know folks love their animals, and that animals are shown to improve quality of life.

But when pet-grief started to cause major depression episodes, (3)

and when sometimes the death of a pet affected clients just like (in intensity and effect) the loss of primary family members, it finally became clear what should have been obvious all along; our mammalian attachment to our pets Feels like family bond attachments to many of us. (4)

Our doggies and our kitties (etc) actually *are* members of our family.

Not just in a cutesy, fun, meme-worthy way.

In an actual, stability-providing, ventral-vagal-secure, attachment enhancing way that I think we need to do better as at acknowledging as a society. (5)

I have seen pets be absolutely Life-Changing for clients who, for reasons of trauma or neurodivergence, did not have robust social or family networks as they tried to do therapeutic work. (6)

I have seen pets serve as the Only local family some folks have—as the only stable and consistent connections some clients experience in their home-base of nervous system safety.

And clinically? It *actually works*, at least anecdotally in my experience (7)

I've seen clients who feel totally isolated be able to move into a state of stable and secure attachment with a pet—this allows their nervous system to continue exploring broader connections as they shift the internal narrative of their world as one of danger to one of safety(8)

But the grief, again, is the thing that most blew me away.

The way we grieve our pets is identical to how we grieve our closest family ties...

(9)

It debilitates us—the shock of loss.

It upends us.

Successful grieving of a pet is worked through the same way you would grieve anyone close to you: (10)

We grieve a pet by: working through denial; commemoration; building loving symbols/monuments; lots of crying and distress and even anger as we seek acceptance; talking about our loved one/telling stories; tender and gentle rest.

Only, our world doesn't accommodate this (11)

Our world expects pet owners to cry a few sad tears, share a social media post and then rebound right back into life as if what was lost was a stuffy or a family heirloom or a toy—something sad to lose, but replaceable. (12)

We give no latitude for the reality of pet-grief.

We barely even recognize how shocking losing a pet can be—something similar to the shock of losing any other family-attachment we see daily like a parent a sibling or a child—and we rarely give ourselves or others (13)

credit for the realness of the connection, concern for the level of impact of the trauma of loss, or the room and space and validation to properly mourn these significant attachment severances. (14)

It goes without saying that there is likely rarely of ever any bereavement leave for this type of trauma; but what's worse is that there isn't the emotional and social empathy we need when this type of grief pummels us. People don't get it. Often *we* don't quite get it. (15)

So if you are someone who has ever wondered why your heart was so wounded at the loss of an animal, please just know, grief—sometimes at the level of a family member you see daily—is Normal when a pet does, at least from what I have observed clinically. (16)

We really do love these beings that live in our homes. They fill our hearts and they help us feel grounded and attached to the world around us. Grieving them is normal when they go. Real grief. Deep sorrow. Take the time to do so. (17)

It's to the point, clinically, where even in intake, after asking if there are kids in the home, I ask "and are there any animals in your family?

Faces light up when they get to share the names of these beloved beings in their life—when someone cares enough to ask. (18)

And I always write down the names and their ages of these beloved pets, and make special note. Because I know that if one of these members of the family happens to depart during the course of our work, whatever we are doing will have to stop (19)

And we will have to take time—something several sessions, sometimes even more—to process a very real, very tender, very human (on our end) attachment wound at the loss of a connection that is both vivid and life-enhancing. (20)

Because in every way that matters to our mammal bodies:

Pets Are Family: (4 different family emojis; black cat emoji, dog emoji, cat emoji, service dog emoji, guide dog, poodle emoji, pig emoji) (21) /End IDs]

Link to transcript for the Ted Talk

[lgteamoutreach]

Single Again: 7 Key Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Becoming single again, whether after a breakup, divorce, or the end of a long-term relationship, can be a challenging and transformative time. While it brings the opportunity for personal growth and self-discovery, it also comes with hurdles that need to be faced. From rediscovering your identity to navigating the world of dating, being single again presents unique experiences. Below are seven common challenges you might face and some tips on how to overcome them.

1. Rediscovering Your Identity

One of the biggest challenges people face after becoming single is rediscovering their sense of self. After years of being part of a couple, it’s natural to feel a loss of identity. You may find yourself asking, "Who am I without my partner?" or "What do I want now?"

How to Rediscover Your Identity:

- Reconnect with Old Passions: Think about the hobbies and interests you once enjoyed but might have set aside during your relationship. Start engaging in them again.

- Set Personal Goals: Create new personal and professional goals to give your life direction. This can be anything from learning a new skill to focusing on your career or health.

- Explore New Interests: Use this time to discover new passions. Attend workshops, classes, or social groups to meet new people and try things you may not have considered before.

2. Dealing with Loneliness

Loneliness is one of the most common challenges when you become single again. You might miss the companionship and intimacy of your previous relationship, and adjusting to time spent alone can feel overwhelming.

How to Overcome Loneliness:

- Build a Support Network: Reach out to friends and family members. Rebuilding your social circle will help you feel supported during this transition.

- Stay Active: Filling your calendar with activities—whether it’s joining a gym, taking a class, or exploring a hobby—can help keep loneliness at bay.

- Practice Self-Love: Spend time developing a healthy relationship with yourself. Learning to enjoy your own company through mindfulness, journaling, or solo outings can help you feel more comfortable being alone.

3. Navigating the Dating Scene

After becoming single again, the prospect of dating can be exciting but also daunting. The dating landscape has evolved, especially with the rise of online dating, and it may feel unfamiliar or intimidating if you’ve been out of it for a while.

How to Approach Dating:

- Take Your Time: There’s no rush to jump back into dating. Focus on healing and personal growth before seeking a new relationship.

- Try New Platforms: If you're interested in online dating, explore platforms that cater to your interests and goals. Be open to trying different methods of meeting people.

- Set Boundaries: Know what you’re looking for in a relationship and communicate your needs clearly. Being single again gives you a fresh opportunity to set healthy boundaries in future relationships.

4. Dealing with Social Expectations

Society often places pressure on people to be in relationships, and becoming single again can sometimes lead to feelings of shame or failure. You might encounter questions like, "Why are you still single?" or receive unsolicited advice on how to "fix" your situation.

How to Handle Social Expectations:

- Challenge Social Norms: Remind yourself that being single is not a failure. It's an opportunity for self-growth and reflection, and it can be just as fulfilling as being in a relationship.

- Respond Confidently: When faced with intrusive questions or comments, have responses prepared. Statements like "I’m focusing on myself right now" can help shut down conversations that don’t serve you.

- Surround Yourself with Supportive People: Build connections with people who respect your journey and support your choices, whether or not you choose to date again.

5. Rebuilding Confidence

The end of a relationship can often lead to a blow to your self-esteem. You may feel unsure of your attractiveness, worth, or place in the world as a single person, especially if your previous relationship ended badly.

How to Rebuild Confidence:

- Focus on Self-Care: Make an effort to prioritize physical, emotional, and mental health. Engage in activities that make you feel good about yourself.

- Practice Positive Affirmations: Reaffirm your worth by practicing daily affirmations or journaling about your strengths and accomplishments.

- Engage in New Experiences: Stepping out of your comfort zone and trying new things can help rebuild your confidence and make you realize your capability to thrive independently.

 6. Balancing Independence and Vulnerability

After becoming single, it’s natural to embrace independence and enjoy the freedom that comes with it. However, it can be difficult to strike a balance between independence and allowing yourself to be vulnerable in future relationships.

How to Balance Independence and Vulnerability:

- Embrace Solo Time: Cherish your independence by enjoying time alone and making decisions based solely on your needs and desires.

- Stay Open to Connection: While independence is empowering, stay open to emotional connections with others. Vulnerability is key to forming deep, meaningful relationships.

- Take Small Steps: Allow yourself to gradually open up to new people in your life without losing your sense of self.

7. Managing Emotional Baggage

Whether you’ve recently become single after a breakup or after years of being in a relationship, emotional baggage can be a burden that affects your present and future happiness. Unresolved issues from your past relationship may prevent you from fully moving on.

How to Manage Emotional Baggage:

- Acknowledge and Process Your Emotions: Don’t ignore your feelings. Allow yourself to grieve the loss of your relationship and seek closure.

- Seek Professional Help: Therapy or counseling can provide a space to unpack emotional baggage and develop coping strategies to move forward.

- Forgive and Let Go: Forgiving yourself and your ex-partner can help you release resentment and negativity, allowing you to move forward without the weight of the past.

Conclusion

Becoming single again can be a powerful, life-changing experience, but it comes with its own set of challenges. Rediscovering your identity, overcoming loneliness, and navigating social expectations are just a few of the hurdles you may encounter. By focusing on personal growth, seeking support, and practicing self-care, you can turn this phase of your life into an opportunity for renewal and self-discovery. Whether you choose to embrace your independence or start dating again, remember that this journey is yours to shape.

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[erdarielthewhumper]

What is ur favourite dynamic among ur ocs? Either between 2 of them, or a group?

hmmmm... i mean tbh my ocs mostly exist in pairs, anyway, but i'm really bad at picking favorites

like, Anthony and Elias are kinda fun in the way that they transition from like... just kind of coworkers with Anthony in somewhat dominant position in the dynamic (as he owns the Starlady, he's the one with experience in how life and society works in the Outer Sectors, and he invited Elias to join him in the first place) and Elias not quite trusting him, into friends, into... honestly i don't know. I meant to make them lovers, originally, but that was years ago and more recently I don't know what they are, friends or lovers or queerplatonic or what. Probably I just... won't label it, and will let people come to their own conclusions

Meldie and Alyssien, in a way, have two different dynamics. In their backstory, and then in the future when they're reunited.

In their backstory, it's very sweet and romantic, sort of a courtly love-ish deal going on? like, they can't actually be together bc they're of such different social class, and they're kind doing it with the understanding that eventually they'll go their separate ways because Lyss is going to make a politically convenient match and everything, like they fully intend for it to be a temporary thing they'll grow out of. But they do love each other nonetheless, in those little stolen moments they manage to snatch whenever the lord that Meldie serves has business in the palace. It's all cute and sort of innocent, in its way.

I also think that it's because it's cut off and they're torn apart in a very sudden and dramatic fashion, that really cements that relationship in their hearts. Like, if their lives had gone on as they thought they would, I do think they would have amicably ended things in time, and gone their own ways, remembering the relationship fondly but as a somewhat silly thing of their youth that they grew out of. And I think they'd still have been happy. I don't think they would have considered it a huge loss if things had gone like that. But because Meldie is accused of treason and exiled and all that drama happens, they never really get to say goodbye or kind of let things go in that way, and so instead the relationship is left as this hanging thread full of what-ifs and confusion and grief at the way it was ended by outside forces, and while in some ways during their time apart they each start thinking about it as a silly thing of their youth that, like i said, they always knew was not going to last anyway, they don't really forget it or move past it in the same way. It becomes a fond memory of a more innocent time for both of them, and Meldie especially hangs onto it through her long wanderings in exile, as a lonely mercenary who doesn't really know how to set down roots anywhere anymore. And when Alyssien is taken captive, it becomes also an especially important thing to her, a happy memory of something she had for herself, outside of all the political games and calculations, outside of the service to her kingdom

After they're reunited, I think it's a much more complex and mature relationship. They've both suffered a lot, and they're both further into adulthood than they were, they understand the world very differently, I think they're each aware of how much the other could be using them and taking advantage of them (I don't think either of them ever believes the other is doing that, but they're aware they could if they wanted to). They also enter into it from a more equal standing, since Alyssien's parents were overthrown so she's not quite a princess anymore, she can't just go back home and settle into her old life like that. It takes them a long time to like, really figure things out, initially, what they want, what the other wants, whether they really love each other as they are now or just the memory of what used to be, and all of that. But once they do, it's maybe more stable and certainly a lot more committed, not a slightly forbidden amusement they intend to break off eventually, but a full relationship they mean to hold onto through thick and thin, a life shared with each other.

[nulifelinecarerehab]

Finding the right Drug Addiction Treatment near you in Dehradun

You’re struggling with a substance use disorder. Maybe you’ve tried quitting before and relapsed shortly after leaving rehab, or perhaps you’ve tried on your own and are wondering, do I need treatment? You’re not alone. Millions struggle with substance use disorder or addiction in India.

Substance use doesn’t just affect the individual user. Instead, the fallout from drug addiction impacts family, friends, loved ones, co-workers, and peers. Therefore, when looking for drug addiction treatment at NuLifeLineCare Rehab, you aren’t just helping yourself. You help those around you. Contact us at 8958305058 if you’re ready to participate in drug addiction treatment near me.

DO I NEED ADDICTION TREATMENT?

The answer may seem straightforward, but here are some signs that you need addiction treatment:

You continue to use drugs or alcohol despite the consequences

You are unable to control how much you drink or do drugs

You’ve tried quitting on your own and failed

You prioritize using over anything else

You find yourself lying about your substance use

Your drug or alcohol use is hurting your relationships

You probably need treatment if you’re struggling with substance use disorder, especially if it negatively impacts your life or health. Drug and alcohol use can cause physical and psychological harm to your body and negatively impact your relationships, work life, and social activities. Substance use can also lead to legal problems or financial distress due to spending money on drugs or alcohol. Addiction treatment programs provide the necessary support to help you cease using drugs or alcohol and set you up for long-term recovery. Some modalities that help with the recovery process include:

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)

Group and individual counseling

Group support meetings such as 12-step programs

Holistic therapies such as art, music, yoga, or meditation

Contingency management and other evidence-based treatments

Addiction treatment can be tailored to your needs like any outpatient therapy program.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM DRUG ADDICTION TREATMENT

Addiction treatment starts with an intake interview and assessment. An addiction care specialist gets to know you and your needs. Assessment is also when you and the expert customize a treatment program. Typically, you start with detoxification, which allows your body to break the physical dependence on a drug.

Next, you undergo mental health treatments. They help you understand why you use drugs and how to handle triggers. Common mental health concerns that lead one to use drugs or alcohol include the following:

Anxiety

Depression

Trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Grief or loss

Stress management issues

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD)

Depending on your specific circumstances, family therapy may also be needed. Examples include co-dependent relationships that require assistance. Psychotherapy can take the form of one-on-one talk sessions and gender-specific group therapy. At the heart of the treatment is a firm belief that customization makes the modalities work for every client.

Finally, drug addiction treatment provides you with aftercare and transitional living opportunities. You gradually integrate back into your family or society. Therapists help you along the way to ensure a smooth transition. Doing so enables you to overcome a broad range of chemical dependence in the long term.

ADDICTION TREATMENT WITH NULIFELINECARE REHAB FOR ADDICTION TREATMENT

Whether you’ve tried recovery before and relapsed, or you’re dealing with poly-addictions, there’s help. At NuLifeLineCare Rehab for addiction treatment in Dehradun, we understand that addiction is a chronic condition and requires comprehensive care to treat it effectively.

We develop individualized treatment plans that are tailored to your needs. It’s unimportant if you’ve been using drugs for a year or a decade. At NuLifeLineCare Rehab, we offer numerous treatment programs, such as:

Aftercare programs

Intensive outpatient program

Outpatient rehab

Residential treatment program

Transitional living

Thus, you’ll likely find the help you need with us. There are addiction specialists who can assist. Call NuLifeLineCare Rehab for addiction treatment in Dehradun today by dialing 8958305058.

Or visit: https://nulifelinecare.org/