#and the only other closer gets the privilege of never being on register bcs she simply doesn’t like it so that’s what I gotta do!!!

[beauzos]

Trying not to get mad every time I come into work bcs every fucking day I get put on register for a vast majority of, if not all of, each shift. Im so sick of it. I miss shelving and being on the floor this is lame as fuck

[noctomania]

As Someone Who Didn’t Vote For 10 Years: Your Vote Matters.

Hey. So, let’s chat. Or rather, hear me out.

I turned 18 in 2006. I did not vote until 2016. Bc even I saw through my apathy & prioritized trying to combat potential fascism. You can get an idea of how many elections one sits out of over a 10yr span here. It’s a lot & I should have done my part much sooner. Though I could say “well I was in college from 2007-2012 & &&” no. Not an excuse. I had time no doubt. I was just apathetic. I have reflections for those who continue to abstain from their right & duty to vote.

I remember my parents encouraging me to register to vote. I think it was part of applying for my license or something. I can’t remember if I ever registered with a party, but I think in TX in order to vote you have to be registered with a party. In any case, since I’ve been registered in the north I haven’t been part of a party bc I too felt the whole thing was a sham. I was still remembering the robbery that was Bush’s terms. TWO WHOLE TERMS. I remember seeing my mom cry when he won his first term. I remember hearing about all the awful shit he was doing as president from my dad & stepmom.

But I also remember thinking: “Why isn’t anyone doing anything?”

It can be incredibly disheartening & frustrating & downright angering to hear about atrocities without hearing about the forces fighting back. Death & Drama sells.

I wasn’t eligible to vote when bush was running. Then Obama came along & I was like “Great, surely my blue state I live in now is all for him & I don’t gotta bother - y'all got my order.”

Your. Vote. Matters.

Obama was an incredible victory. I will never allude to him ever being perfect bc he, just like every other president, has had to make tough decisions that do not always work out, or they make decisions you outright disagree with. He’s just part of the spectrum of what we’ve known, but he was the first Black president of a nation that was built & raised on destroying Native communities & enslaving Black people. That was & will remain significant. As you can imagine, during that time of not voting I also was not entirely involved in racial matters as much as I should have been despite what I was actively learning about in college. I sunk into apathy.

Apathy is a comfort not afforded to everyone. It is not an option for everyone as a means of survival. Were Black communities & of color to sink entirely into apathy they would be completely wiped out bc there are organized white supremacists who spend every waking hour trying to find new ways to attack in covert & not-so-covert ways - voter suppression, intimidation, manipulation, propaganda. Apathy is a privilege. A white privilege that even a kid raised on free lunches at school & hand-me-downs from neighbors could afford.

Your. Vote. Matters.

Let’s talk symbolism. “My refusal to vote is symbolic of my disgust with how this nation is run, how our elections are corrupt, to show my hatred of the electoral college, my vote doesn’t matter anyway bc ...”

You’re right. Your vote is symbolic. But not for what you think.

When you don’t vote, that is like not replying to a message. The nation poses a question to all voters: Who do you want to represent you? If you don’t reply to the email, your input isn’t counted at all. There is no footnote to say “I didn’t vote bc of such-and-such reason.” You might have been unconscious. You might have forgotten. You might have not cared. You might care very much.

But there is literally no job in the entire election process who’s responsibility is to sit in an office & contemplate why Jared in Oklahoma didn’t cast a vote.

“Gee, I sure hope Jared is ok. Is he mad at us? I guess he might want change...”

No. The way you show that you are not happy with how things are going is to vote. THAT is how you send the sentiment of “Hey so this isn’t great I’d like to try moving this way.” But we can’t really make progress without continuing to push. Even when things look like they’re going well (”Hey, we got a Black guy in office, we’re doing great with the racism stuff!”) you gotta keep pushing - which is why you need to be able to realize the ones you do vote for need to be criticized as well. Obviously, there will be myths & the ones about Obama probably hit a record tally on that with how angry a Black person as president made the racists in this country feel, but there are valid criticisms as well that should not be overlooked if we want to know how to push for a better tomorrow, or to avoid accidentally electing a new nightmare bc you aren’t getting immediate results from who you thought was going to change the world. It’s a lot to put on one president. It would take multiple terms, beyond 2, to really see a shift considering they may be combating an opposing congress or supreme court. 

The only reason your vote matters is because it is symbolic. If we all had esp we wouldn’t need to vote. Writing on a form that looks different depending on where you are yet all cumulatively results in the tallying for ONE election is entirely symbolic. That’s not an argument against voting, it’s proof as to why you should vote. Symbolism is not without consequence. Look at every book-burning that has ever happened. Our ideas are symbolic until they are put into practice. Your vote is your idea. We can’t read your mind. And the government isn’t reading your blog being like “GiantD0ngB0ng really said it best when they said ‘Fuck politicians’. That really change our perspective on how we had been running this nation. You’re right GiantD0ngB0ng, you’re right.”

If we had elected Hillary after Obama, we wouldn’t be so fucking bad with corona bc she wouldn’t have dismembered the pandemic response Obama had built due to swine flu, we wouldn’t be nearly as worried about ACA, we would still absolutely have criticisms bc no matter Woman, Black, Hispanic, Immigrant, Trans, Disabled, Homeless, or any combination of intersection of minorities, nobody is perfect. Nobody knows all the answers. Thus a decentralized government model that will only remain anywhere near as such if we stop letting fascists & bad faith actors get power by using our symbolic vote to say no.

Most everyone HATES group projects. I certainly do. If any people enjoy them, there are still likely aspects of it that rub them the wrong way like having a partner that doesn’t contribute. Guess what.

Elections are group projects.

I believe it was EvelynFromTheInternets who made me realize that, & echoes much of the same sentiment I have written in this.

And at 5:55 she says: What Are You Going To Do On November 4th bc We Are Still Fighting For Suffrage. We have to keep pushing & working towards a better tomorrow, today. None of it will amount to much if people are not voting. You can campaign & fundraising & educate all you want. But if people don’t vote it’s all for nothing. You need both.

“ As of June 2020, the United States had the highest number of incarcerated individuals worldwide, with more than 2.12 million people in prison “ This is absolutely part of the bigger problem & yet another way people have been disheartened. It’s on purpose. They don’t want disenfranchised communities to be able to vote. So we - those of us who don’t have to wait in lines for hours, those of us who don’t face racial violence, those of us who can choose apathy & laziness for a decade with little to no personal consequence - must vote symbolically for them.

If you want your vote to mean something then vote for them. Vote for the people who are still ineligible to vote even though they aren’t in prison anymore. Vote for the people who despite working more than you do, harder than you do, for less than you do, still have to pay taxes & still denied the right to vote. Vote for the people who can’t vote bc police murdered them. Vote for the people who wait 10 hours in line to vote & are turned away when they finally get to the front of the line. Vote for those who don’t have the right to relinquish in the first place. Hell you can even vote for those who do vote anyway but have been misled by propaganda. Bc if you don’t, eventually we all will sink. You may be in the upper class of the titanic but in the end the whole ship is going down & you may just have the opportunity to slowly freeze out in the dark ocean on a lifeboat with all your rich strangers with the slim chance at survival rather than swallowed immediately by the sea like those who were locked in the lower levels to keep them from access to rescue.

At 7:24 Evelyn hits another really important part that I think drives my whole point home: as a Black woman her actual life, & those who share her experience, is on the line constantly in this country & much of this world. It is not entirely as symbolic to some people as it is to the more privileged populations.

Sure, your vote is symbolic, & sure you not voting is absolutely symbolic. But the only thing not voting is symbolic of is your apathy, your own privilege to choose that & think you’ll be fine & that it’s other people who need to “wake up”. No babe, it’s you. Wake up to the wider consequences of symbolic gestures.

Your vote matters whether it’s electoral college or popular vote. Your vote matters to getting closer to an admin that will enable popular vote as the determinant & eradicate the electoral college. Your vote matters whether you’re in a “blue” state or a “red” state or a battleground state. A state is only red or blue until it’s not. I come from TX I know about that shit. The only reason “battleground” states are a focus is bc they fluctuate more often than others, that doesn’t make others ineligible to change. Your vote matters bc you may be only a portion of the overall grade, but the overall grade affects everyone. It will impact others more harshly than you.

Your Vote Matters.

I want to add one last note: voting doesn’t happen once every 4 years, & it’s never JUST about president. If you don’t go vote at all, you are neglecting the more local stuff as well which is what affects the bigger elections. If all you do during a group project is read one line during the presentation in class, the grade will reflect you lack of effort elsewhere throughout the project. If I showed up & only voted for president & nothing else it would be for nothing. Racist & bigoted GOP will vote all red all the time up & down ballot. It’s not about age either. If your vote didn’t matter then they wouldn’t sink so much money & effort into trying to prevent people from doing it.

[iridescentwinters]

elevators

— prompt: hi, could u write a prompt where daniel and grace used to be bff but grew apart and now they get stuck in an elevator together, grace calms him down bc has claustrophobia (which he hasn't told to anyone) and eventually confess their feelings for each other? thanks you!! Ps: your writing is amazing 💘

grace remembered the day she met daniel.

as cliché as it sounded, they were both kids, playing at the park.

daniel had slipped off the swing’s seat and fell pretty harshly on the ground, which caused him to just sit there and cry his heart out. while everyone else only crowded around him and laughed at his misfortune and also for being a ‘crybaby', grace was the only one who helped him up, and also yelled at everyone to ‘piss off’ (her vocabulary was already getting pretty colourful from that age). even though she was only a tiny 8 year old, she knew that daniel needed a bandaid for his bruise, and luckily for him, she always had one with her, also because her mom made her carry it around. while the two sat at the bench, they exchanged names, and that was only the beginning of their friendship.

once daniel hit high school, some people from his batch started to change for the worse. and unfortunately, he was one of those people. he had gotten a lot more good looking over the years, and his arrogance and ego had inflated as well. he started making popularity his priority over grace. and eventually, he ditched her, saying that he couldn’t ‘hang out with little kids’ anymore. which was incredibly stupid, since she was only 2 years younger than him.

grace remembered feeling a lot more hurt than she had expected herself to feel. it was definitely because of the unspoken feelings she harboured for him throughout their friendship. how could she have not? daniel was the epitome of prince charming, both inside and out. unfortunately, it only turned out to be only on the outside.

other than becoming a complete asshole, daniel also became a large playboy. grace was sure that was the only reason he started talking to her again after she reached high school, because all he ever did was just hit on her. and that made her even more miserable about their failed friendship.

the last time she properly talked to him was when he had publicly called her beautiful (which embarrassed the crap out of her), and she was sure she’d never have to talk to him again.

until her dance team was invited to represent the football team at one of their games at another state, and that they had to stay at the same hotel.

even then, though, she managed to avoid talking to him at all costs.

it was their last night at the hotel and of their trip, and grace had to make a quick stop at her hotel room to get her wallet, which she had forgotten.

she dashed towards the elevator as soon as she saw it almost come to a close. her friends were waiting for her outside, and she didn’t want to make them wait for too long. “hey!” she called out to the person inside, who heard her, and pressed on the open button.

she let out a breath as she entered and pressed her floor number. “thank y-“ she stopped as soon as she caught sight of daniel. he smirked, while she immediately scowled. great.

“nice to see you too, gracie.” he greeted, and grace rolled her eyes. “don’t call me that.” she snapped. it was a ridiculous nickname he’d given her years ago, and he still insisted on using it, although he lost all privileges to.

her eyes shot towards the number displayed on the elevator’s screen. 3. grace was on the 6th, while daniel was on the 5th.

okay, just 2 more floors… she coaxed herself.

“come on, talk to me, gracie.” daniel took a step closer to her, “i want to-“ the elevator suddenly staggered and made some kind of noises, before completely coming to a stop. the lights in the elevator also flickered, before completely turning off.

when the situation registered in daniel’s mind, he took a step back from grace, his eyes flashing a few emotions all at once. he was shaking with worry, and in terror. he started hyperventilating.

grace immediately knew what was going on. his claustrophobia had been triggered.

she immediately grabbed ahold of his wrists, yet kept a safe distance away from him, and made him sit down on the floor. “hey now, daniel, listen to me.” she gently coaxed the shivering boy. “listen to me, okay? breathe.”

“i-i can’t, gracie.” daniel stuttered. this time, he really meant to say her nickname. it wasn’t to make fun of her, but rather, to seek comfort in her.

“yes you can. listen to me count, and breathe, okay?” she asked. when he gave a frantic nod, she started counting. “1, breathe in,” when he inhaled, she continued to count slowly, “2, 3. breathe out.” he exhaled. they repeated this process a few more times, before daniel found his middle point, and was now back to his normal breathing pace. his eyes were still shut, and grace knew that he was visualising the park. it was the greenery of that place which always helped him calm down.

“how’d you remember what to do?” he asked softly. grace snorted, but had a smile on her face. “we’d been friends since forever. no one forgets things like these. not when your friend needed it for a pretty long time.”

daniel was silent, and felt sandbags of sadness fall on his shoulders. of course his idiotic freshmen self had to leave the only person that mattered behind for stupid things that didn’t matter anymore. he wished he never betrayed the only girl that he loved. she was the only one who made him feel loved, cared for. she made him feel human. and now, he had lost her. and he had no one to blame but himself.

“i’m sorry.” he blurted out, making the girl look up from the floor. “if i could, i would go back to the past and fix my mistakes. you have to believe me, grace. i would give up anything to do it.”

grace was still silent, so he took that as an opportunity to continue speaking. “and i mean what i say to you. you’re fucking beautiful, grace. inside and out. and i really, really want you, more than as a friend. i always have. but right now, i just want to be your friend again. i need you back in my life.” he had plead laced to his tone.

grace looked deep into his eyes, and he knew that she was analysing him for any lies. she always did that, and somehow, she could detect any lies just by looking into your eyes.

but she couldn’t. she couldn’t find nothing but honesty in his hazel-brown eyes. so when daniel pulled her closer and placed his lips against hers, she didn’t stop him.

the sense of nostalgia hit them both hard as soon as their lips met. it reminded them of the first time they kissed, and it was both their first kiss, when grace was 11 and daniel was 13. similar to their current situation, daniel was the one who initiated it, but grace had slapped him out of embarrassment after that. fortunately, this time, she didn’t.

it’s not like she had time to, either, because the elevator suddenly started to move, and had brought them down, back to the lobby. the doors opened, and suddenly, they were face-to-face with all of their peers, and coach henry.

grace froze. “erm, this was his fault!” she yelled out of defence, as she got up from the floor and pointed at him. daniel only laughed, not even bothering to argue with her.

all he cared about was that grace was finally giving him a chance, and he was going to make things right. he was going to do things the way he should’ve years ago.

TEARS. i miss grace and daniel