#El is not illiterate stop acting like it

[livv-watkins]

Stop the coolification of Mike Wheeler !! (He is a loser!!!!!! A weirdo!!!!!! He doesn’t smoke cigarettes and wear leather jackets while leaning on cool motorbikes!!!)

Stop the un-bowlcutification of Will Byers !! (it suits him and is cute seriously, I cannot handle seeing people write that his hair grew out or wtv, KEEP THE BOWL)

Stop the absolute bitchification of Max Mayfield !! (People making her the biggest asshole there is I swear to god)

Stop the homophobication of Lucas Sinclair !!!!!!!!!! (seen one too many fics where Lucas is homophobic to Will and blames him for getting them into the ud mess)

Stop the illiteratation of Jane Hopper !!!! (no she would not type like a 1 year old that just got their mothers phone handed to them)

Stop the uglification of Dustin Henderson !!! (bros so pretty seriously, I am so tired of seeing bitches call him ugly)

[lovemyromance]

ELs/GAs: "why do you ship Elain with azriel but not Tamlin when Azriel is a torturer he's also an abuser"

That has got to be the stupidest take coming out of this Elain week shit. At this point I think they're just purposefully choosing to act dumb, because I refuse to believe anybody can be this idiotic.

First of all, Azriel torturing people and interrogating people for his job is NOT equivalent to Tamlin abusing Feyre. That is a crazy statement to even try to make. Azriel has a job - which he DOESN'T EVEN LIKE, HAD TO TAKE BECAUSE OF RHYS's Father - and he reluctantly does it. He's not out here committing crimes for the sake of committing crimes.

Hurting those who are evil and pose a threat to the safety of others does not equal abuse.

Abuse is hurting someone innocent for the sake of your own empowerment and toxicity.

That is so insane. That's like if I said "well Rhys dissolved an army to mist" and "Cassian killed thousand in Hybern's war" and "Lucien killed some soldiers in AOCWAR to cross the battlefield" therefore they are all abusers now.

Does that fucking make sense???

Is Nesta an abuser now, for killing the Kelpie and Lanthys? Is Elain an abuser for stabbing the king of Hybern.

Get. Fucking. Real.

If you don't know the difference between violence for the sake of the greater good and in war and ABUSE, then you shouldn't be reading these books. Go back to magic treehouse or some shit, because ACOTAR is for adults and you're behaving like children.

You hate one character (for doing nothing wrong other than NOT throwing herself headfirst into battle and being uninterested in YOUR favorite character) and you use that to behave like illiterate clowns.

Because only a clown would:

1. Liken a character like Azriel to an ABUSER

2. Then turn around and ship that "ABUSER" with Gwyn, a survivor of SA and witness to seeing her own sisters head cut off.

What the fuck are you doing? Genuinely is this the lengths you'd go to just to say you don't like Elain/Elriel?

You know he's not an abuser. So why are you saying all this nonsense?? And it's literally just anti-Elriels. I have not seen any Elriel go around making such awful claims of Lucien & Gwyn.

These are the good guys! SJM is not going to make ANY of them evil or "abusers". What do you think she would say if you asked her right now "wow so azriel is clearly an abuser right? Just like Tamlin?" Do you think she would pat you on the back and agree with you? Or would she look at you like you're fucking insane ?

It's absolutely batshit crazy how you have to go to such lengths to CLAIM THAT IS CANON (it's literally not) just to try to disprove a ship.

Stop acting like children. ENOUGH. Just go take your ship and enjoy it in your corner of the ship war, you don't have to go around making such vile attacks on Elriel and those who ship it just to make yourself feel better about your ship.

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Laredo Part 2

Week 1

Hey friends,

After a long travel hiatus, as some of you may already know, I am back in Laredo, Texas. I’ll be here for about 3.5 weeks working with shelters to support recently arrived asylum seekers at the US Mexico border. I was here 2 years ago doing the same thing, you can go through the laredo tag on here to get some more background about what is going on here and to read about my experiences in 2019.

I have been here already for about a week and have been so exhausted I haven’t had the energy to write anything, but here is more or less what is going on.

So since Fall of 2019, the border was closed to all asylum seekers thanks to 45’s cruel Remain In Mexico policy, which forced asylum seekers from Central America to wait along the Mexican border for an undetermined amount of time until they could get an immigration hearing. In the past asylum seekers could wait with their families in the US for their court dates (it can be a long wait). Waiting at the border in Mexico, a country they are not from, left folks vulnerable to human trafficking, kidnapping, gang violence, and extortion from the cartels operating along the border. During COVID folks were living in makeshift tents along the border with no running water and were left vulnerable to exposure, flooding, disease, dangerous wildlife, and the millions of other dangers that come from being outside in 113 degree heat with no water. There was no international aid brought in and support was limited to the few aid workers allowed to cross the border, which was very dangerous given the amount of gang violence on the Mexican side. One shelter director in Nuevo Laredo was kidnapped and murdered last year.

When Biden was elected, he reversed the Remain In Mexico policy just a few weeks into his presidency. Meaning that asylum seekers could now enter the US after surrendering at the border and being held for indeterminate amounts of time in ICE detention centers. Once they are released from there they are given a court date in wherever their final destination in the US is, but are left on the street with nothing.

Most folks are illiterate, none speak English and some only speak indigenous dialects. All of their possessions and money have been taken by either cartels or by ICE. Most havent eaten in days and many are seriously ill. None of them know where they are or how to get where they’re going. ICE will drop them off at random towns along the border after releasing them from detention, sometimes hundreds of miles from where they crossed. They just have a name and phone number memorized of a friend or family member in the US that is sponsoring them and who they are planning to stay with.

The vast majority of folks are from Central America, they are fleeing cartel violence , government persecution, extreme poverty, and natural disasters caused by climate change. The instability in these countries (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador) was caused directly by US intervention, but that’s a whole other topic I won’t get into now. Folks must show a credible proof of being threatened or persecuted in their home country to even be granted the status of asylum seeker and to be given a court date.

Shelters in border towns do what they can to support folks being released from detention. They help them make phone calls, provide translation, help them buy bus and plane tickets, give them food, water, medical care, showers, clean clothes, toiletries, and a safe place to sleep until they are able to make travel arrangements to their final destinations.

During the last 2 years under the Remain In Mexico policy, no one was being admitted and so shelters lost a great deal of funding, staff, and volunteers. They turned more towards community work, which was especially needed during COVID.

Shelters are in a difficult position now though, folks are allowed to enter now which is good news but shelters are having to meet even more extreme needs with far fewer resources than they had pre-COVID.

For a long time the shelter I worked with before, La Frontera, was closed due to lack of funding; but only very recently reopened again. I have been spreading my time between La Frontera (run by Catholic charities) and the other shelter in Laredo, Holding Institute Community Center, which is a community center run by the Methodist Church. Both of these shelters have 2-3 paid staff members, a revolving door of volunteers from around the country (the majority of them nuns), are entirely donation based, and receive 200-300 new people every single day.

About 20-30% of each busload of people that ICE drops off are infected with COVID. ICE refuses to test folks that they detain for COVID because if they knew they had positive cases they would have to provide healthcare and a place for them to quarantine. Instead they lump everyone together in cramped conditions and COVID is allowed to run rampant in these detention centers.

In detention folks are kept in overcrowded rooms, communicated with almost exclusively in English, are provided limited food and toiletries, and are kept in refrigerated rooms (65 degrees) with no blankets. These places are called the ‘ice boxes’. Sometimes folks are separated from their families here as well.

Lately there has also been a dysentery outbreak due to the fact that the city of Laredo does not currently have drinkable water, residents are advised to drink only bottled or boiled water, which asylum seekers do not have access to until they reach the shelters.

When folks reach the shelters, they are given on the spot covid tests by a team of nurses and public health officials. There is no room for them at the hospitals, even if there were room hospitals wouldnt accept them because they have no insurance. The city government has offered bottled water to the shelters but thats it.

After being tested for covid, the health team divides folks into 2 groups, positive and negative. Folks who test positive have to quarantine for 10 days in an empty warehouse next door to the shelter or if they’re lucky and the shelter can afford it, a motel. Yesterday the shelter bought out a motel because there were 200+ covid patients who arrived. We have two small classrooms at the shelter that have been converted into sleeping areas for about 40 covid patients. The medical team leaves boxes of food and clothing outside their door, and once a day they are taken to shower and then the entire bathroom is sanitized.

Those who test negative are immediately vaccinated on site, and then taken to get clean clothes, food, and a shower. They sleep on cots outside under the trees in the fenced courtyard of the shelter.

For the first few days I’ve been here, I’ve been working at Holding only because I didn’t know La Frontera had reopened. I was mainly working on sorting and organizing clothing and helping folks find clothes that they need. Last night though 200+ covid positive patients arrived and we had to stop allowing people in the building to pick out clothes, and today we moved to just putting together kits of different sized clothes to give directly to them.

I was feeling a bit frustrated the last few days because the staff member in charge of organizing donations was being extremely critical of me and it was very frustrating and degrading to be around. I was yelled at a number of times by her. For example, I saw a pile of 200 towels on the ground and folded them. I was told that I did it wrong, to unfold them and fold all of them a different way. Or I started organizing toiletries and was just told ‘no, you’re messing it up, don’t touch that’. I understand that I’m new but no one took the time to introduce themselves to me, orient me, or show me what to do and I was trying to be helpful. I also understand that folks are stressed and under pressure but please don’t take it out on people trying to help you. Most everyone there is extremely nice it was just one of the staff members in particular that was acting this way. I was told I wasn’t allowed to give water or shoes to people who needed them because “I didn’t know how to do it” and because “if you give water to one person, everyones going to want it, and i don’t have time for that”. I didn’t come down here to sit inside doing nothing next to a giant case of bottled water and be told I’m not allowed to give it to the thirsty person in front of me.

So I walked out and I left the shelter in the middle of the day to go drive around town and take a breather, because everything I did seemed like made someone upset. When I came back I inserted myself into the kitchen crew and ended up making 200+ sandwiches for dinner. I also had a long talk with one of the nuns who assured me that that staff member is like that with everyone and has a lot of control issues due to the amount of pressure she is under, and not to take it personally. She told me that La Frontera had reopened and so ever since then I started dividing up my days between the two shelters. This has made a big difference and I feel a lot better and more useful.

I also connected more with some of the nuns here and they invited me to dinner tonight which was nice. One of the sisters is writing a book based on narratives of folks passing through these shelters and is interviewing people she meets. It was fascinating to talk to her. She has worked with undocumented immigrants and DREAMers from around the country for 28 years, and wrote another book based on those experiences called Silent Voices In The Shadows (Paula Schwendinger), which I just finished reading and highly recommend.

Oh, also it has been raining really hard for the past day or so with 95% humidity and constant thunder and lightening, which has made things even more interesting.

I will try to keep posting semi regularly while I’m here.

[elmaxheadquaters]

It was 1984... 15

January 3, 1989: The sun had finally slipped past the sky, leaving it’s orphaned hues of orange and violet to be overcasted by the materialized moon's strong shades of lavender and blue. It’s beautifully dark reign casting a shadow across everything it touched, including the small apartment of two employees to a forever standing film store that went, and still goes by the name of Family Video.

This apartment, which had stood idle for countless minutes was now being disrupted. By the opening of a white door of the opposite end. From the now agape hole into the tiny living space came a red headed girl, wearing a uniform shirt with three white stripes that had been stitched into the top sides of it’s dark blue fabric.

The girl had bags under her eyes amongst her abundance of freckles. She had been forced by her coworker -and roommate- to take the night off, by the woman’s words, “you’ve never half-assed so hard… I’ll cover your shift, you go home and relax or whatever you do to not look as dead.” this of course was retaliated by the redhead’s born with stubbornness, but was shot down quite quickly by the previous woman’s debateful attitude.

She kicked the door closed while pulling out the old and faintly colored yellow scrunchie that once held up her burnt orange locks into a high ponytail. She wrapped it around her left forearm as she walked on the creaky wooden floorboards to what presumably would be her room.

This room that sat amongst others, kept the contents of the inside hidden by the absence of luminous energy had this effect stripped away as fast as the speed of light in the girl’s act of flipping the even tinier area’s neutrally tan hued switch.

The room had now been bathed in yellow, showing a bed as the eyesore inside. On top of the mattress sat old and worn rainbow sheets, with many pillows, all covered by white pillowcases. With the acception of one, instead of a pillowcase covering, the one sitting in front of the others’ was covered by an old flannel shirt. Above the bed were pictures illustrating mainly another girl, a few pieces of paper stained by vibrant colored crayon wax to show crude illustrations surrounding the word “MAXIE” or simply “MAX”, and many thin keepsakes that had been collected over the years.

The girl who’s hair that now was draped over her shoulders and back stumbled to the other side of the room, to a dresser. The top had been repurposed into a shelf, holding a frame with the words “Love you Max! -Dad” carved into the wood, inside of it was a picture of a man and a little redheaded girl. The frame held two strips of photos in between the glass and wood, all picturing the girl in most of the photos above the bed acting doltish with the girl that stood before it, the older strip had a piece of tape holding it together across the center and the other that was made much closer to the present day seemed to still be in perfect condition.

She busted the first drawer open before immediately shoving her hand into the contents inside. When she took her hand it had a tight grip on a white tank made of thin fabric. The girl threw it behind her with the intent of it to fall atop the bed covered in rainbow. She closed it with force while advancing to the third drawer. Inside were what seemed to be an abundance of many things from pajama pants to tee-shirts all crammed into the compartment. The redhead pulled out a pair of worn down sweatpants and flung it behind her, the same way as the tank top while forcefully shutting the overstuffed drawer with a push.

The girl quickly stripped herself from the dark blue uniform, revealing to no one, a dark bra covering a plethora of the many scars that dared stain her freckled skin, they came from faint to clear. She paid no mind to them, it wasn’t as if she wasn’t familiar with her own body.

The blue uniform fell to the floor, among many other clothes and items while it was being replaced by the thin tank top. The black skinny jeans she wore -and hated- met the same fate was soon substituted by the sweat pants. The girl looked down, finding her equally thin jacket. Without a second thought, the redhead grabbed it swiftly and wrapped it around her hips.

She flopped onto the mattress of her bed, with her head falling onto the flannel pillow. Letting out a low and stress filled sigh, she grabbed it from under her head and stared at the fibers that held it together, she swore each one held a story from where it came from, each one full of happiness and heartbreak.

Her thoughts trained themselves onto the yellow telephone that had been stained by colorful inks, all coming together to create small illustrations of almost illiterate symbols and small creatures like frogs and lizards. She let the synthetic fabric of the miss purposed pillowcase fall onto her chest as a idea formed in her head..

Her left arm grazed over the flannel patterned pillow before grabbing it whilst she stretched her torso towards the phone. Her reach hit it’s limit as she grabbed the phone. While retracting herself back into the groove she had made into her color filled sheets so long ago. The redhead dialed in a series of numbers that had been pushed so many times that the numbers it included had started to fade.

The familiar hum from the ringer inside the yellow casing made the girl’s smile grow wider, her heart quickened as the thoughts of the one she loves filled her head.

“Hello?” The voice was crackly and hinted with exhaustion, yet it was soft, silky, and sweet as it filled the redhead’s ears.

“Hi El.” The girl sat up in her bed, whilst she visioned the girl on the other end in front of her. Her honey colored eyes that the redhead could swear would be the death of her, her rose colored lips forming into it’s naturally sweet smile, her darkened but golden brown locks of hair that was just long enough to hit her shoulders.

“Maxie!” The voice from the receiver crackled through into the girl’s ear. She felt as if it had body melted. More than anything the redhead wanted the girl she heard to be more than just a vision in her head.

She grabbed the pillow from behind her, wrapping her arms around it as tight as she could. Maybe her wish couldn’t be fulfilled, but it could be compromised.

“Max,” the whisper like sounds of a breath flooded out the speaker of the telephone. Max followed with a curiosity filled hum just before an all to quick response came through, “Nothing, it’s nothing. I just really miss you.”

“I miss you too El,” Max’s heart seemed to have cynical flip with El’s words. She had told Max before, many times, that she missed her. But now it was different, everything was different after the week prior, “But, don’t forget it’s O-“

“Only 42 days,” El cut off the redhead, surprising her in the process. Max had been counting down the days until she could see the brunette again, she didn’t expect her to be doing the same, “I know Max, it still doesn’t stop me from missing you.”

“Well it doesn’t stop me either. But there is not much I can really do about it.” Max’s heart felt as if it sunk deeper than it has in a long time, she loved El. And she would do almost anything if it meant she could see her right then, and right now that anything was to just wait for the days to go by.

She heard a small and crackled, “I know.” Before the redhead let in a sharp yet soundless breath. Max went back to her roots, “Let’s not dwell on such things my girl,” El giggled slightly at the mediocre mix of accents Max had pulled into as she spoke those words.

it was always a joke when things got even slightly heavy. And it always has been, that’s how Max coped with things. Even in others’ darkest moments. As long as she could get a smile on their face, it was a win in her book, “How was your day?”

“Same as always, find a few things in the woods like always.” El loved the woods. Maybe because it was the thing she escaped into on that night, or maybe it was because she had spent so long living in it after everyone thought she died almost 5 years ago.

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Max sat up, the bed creaking with the sheets shuffling before going back down on the opposite end. With her elbows resting against the end of her mattress, one lifting her head and the other holding the phone.

“A lot of things. Little things, big things, weird things, rocks.” Max had rocks, some from her own collection she created when she was smaller. But most of the little treasures were from El. Some had been painted, some were left plain, some were covered in dirt and rugged, while others were clean and smooth. El liked rocks. To the brunette they were more than just a thing you kicked on a road while walking.

One thing is something Max will never forget was the day El showed her collection to Max, saying how some of the rocks reminded her of her friends. How Mike was like a long, skinny, cold, black and white colored slag. Will was like a small pebble, warm, colorful, more than meets the eye. Lucas was dark, strong, rugged, easy to throw and hard to the hit, a good candidate for any rock fight. Dustin was like a boulder large, soft, and warm. Max noticed how she had a lot of one type of rock, before asking why there were so many. Her answer was, “Because they remind me of you, you are not supposed to find them here, but I found one, and bought the others,” El had reached over Max, grabbing one of the biggest out of all of the little pile that sat outside the window. Showing it to Max, letting her hold it in her hands, “They are strong, and yeah they may not be the prettiest on the outside,” She took it back as she started to telekinetically crack into halves of it, holding the two pieces in her hand. On the inside the rock was full of sharp diamonds, they reflected the light from outside the window right next to them. Casting a beautiful sight of light all around them, “But they’re really pretty on the inside.”

She looks at the half El had given her afterwards, the diamonds on the inside of the rugged exterior seem stare back at her, she remembers how her heart fluttered the whole time. How the thoughts of kissing her almost got the best of her that day.

“Oh! Did you get it yet?” El asked, her words clear and curious.

“Get what?” Max asked back, she hadn’t gotten anything besides bigger eye bags since El had left a week ago to go back home.

“You’ll see,” Max visioned the smile on El’s face with those words. She then heard almost a yell through the phone that sounded like a whisper to her, “I gotta go. I’ll call you back, okay Maxie?”

“Okay, Ellie. Bye.”

“Bye bye.” with that, El hung up.

Now silence fills the empty room. It wasn’t unhappy but it still had lingering sense of loneliness. She couldn’t wait until until she could hug El again, she could see her again, she could kiss her again.

Max crawled to the opposite end of the bed, putting the phone back into it’s forever resting place on the bedside table next to the decorated lamp. Whilst through the wall the white door opened once more, with the women who made Max come home in the first place coming through.

“Hi.”

“Hi Robin.”

“You got a package, from El a presume.” The woman threw the small package that originally sat cradled in her hand onto the bed.

Wrapped in a tan orange colored paper, with a string in a small bow holding it together. The insides were of two pieces of paper and a rock. Max smiled as she held the rock in her hand. The first piece of paper was a color filled page with the word “MAXIE!” written in soft shades of pink and yellow, with butterflies and hearts drawn around it. The second was a letter in scribbled words, as she read it her heart melted...

“Max,

I love you…

I love how you always know what to say…

I love how you only let me and now one else play with your hair…

I love how you can always see the good in everything, even when you’re sad you can always find it. Always…

I love how you keep everything I have ever gave you…

I love when you don’t question the words I ask you the meaning of. Yes, the others don’t either, but I love it when you do it…

I love how you listen to my “ramblings”...

And there is so much more I love about you, like your hair, your eyes, and your smile. But this paper is too short to list it all, I can’t wait to see you again.

Love, El”

///

(10-21-19 / 11-2-19)

Colors for Max’s Sheets: (here)

Pixelated 80’s Poster: (here)

Background Reference: (here)

Inspiration: (here)