#but those families seem rather to be in control of the school... theyd be the puppetmasters essentially

[everythingsinred]

Family and the Institution of Alice Academy

Was thinking about this ever since someone (I forgot specifically who, sorry) posed a question like this in the GA discord, asking about (I think) Natsume's extended family or something like that. It was a really interesting concept that I've been thinking a lot about since it was brought up, so here are the thoughts I've accumulated. I'll try to be concise but I have a LOT of thoughts and my brain is messy.

My general opinion at the end of all this thinking I did is that I don't think Academy students typically have very close familial ties after graduating.

I think the most apparent reason for that would be that students are expected to graduate when they are twenty years old. Our main four are exceptions to the rule, coming to the Academy pretty late in life. Most children are taken early, as toddlers or even babies. Natsume, Ruka, and Hotaru's families did all they could to avoid Academy scouting. Mikan was entirely accidental--if she had never met Hotaru, she might have never even found out she was an Alice to begin with. That being said, most kids were separated from their families at a very young age, only to be allowed to reunite with them once they're already adults. For many students, they've been away from their parents for close to two decades.

On top of that, the Academy doesn't allow visitations or phone calls and severely restricts letter communications. Only one child from each class is allowed to return home for one week each year, and that one week does not do much to make up for all the time spent at school.

My point is that by the time students are allowed to see their families again, that familial bond has already been severed, for all intents and purposes. That feeling of closeness and protection no longer exists. Students will feel more closeness and connection to their classmates and even to their teachers than to their parents or siblings, and as a result, I can imagine many graduates not even bothering to visit their families.

While I was pondering this, I made the connection between Academy students and the real life example of a similar situation with Janissaries from the Ottoman Empire. Basically, Janissaries were children stolen from the subjugated people under Ottoman rule. They were taken for the purpose of a "child levy", also known as a "blood tax." Some children were even willingly given by their families due to the possibility of socially advancing, and because the children were promised first class status (sound familiar?). Essentially the children were taken, forced to comply with Ottoman standards and traditions (including forced conversions and circumcisions), and then trained for military service. These soldiers would actually end up being incredibly loyal and efficient, despite likely never seeing their families again.

(Edit: forced circumcisions are particularly heinous when you consider that the children were typically at least 10 years old at the time they were taken.... so.... uh.... not pleasant.... But also interesting that the Janissaries were typically much older than the Alice children at the time of being taken.)

That level of separation doesn't endear ties; it severs them. These Janissaries--very often forcefully taken from their families--ended up growing up with very little connection to their parents or siblings. The feeling of belonging to their previous communities was gone. Absence does not always make the heart grow fonder. This was done as a means of creating a strong military force but also to disillusion subjugated communities and tear away their hope. Their children could always be taken; their communities could always be crushed, even without the use of physical force. It's a very effective tool to oppress a group of people.

(There's actually a lot of similarities between Academy children and Janissaries beside the separation of children from their families. They were also paid for their service and were high ranking; the Academy students are given an allowance and many of them, despite being stolen from their families, have a sense of superiority over non-Alices. They feel like they are treasures, and are of higher value and rank. Additionally, Academy students, especially in the DA class, are highly trained and efficient child soldiers, much like the Janissaries. Janissaries are actually a super interesting historical topic and are worth looking into!)

We can even see the effect of this distance when Yuka escapes the Academy and runs away to her family. Yuka was essentially sold to the Academy, with her parents trading her in exchange for money and status. She was very young, far too young to really understand that her parents had abandoned her. As a result, she romanticized her bond with them, and the longer she was separated from them, the more that bond became fantastical. She made many attempts to escape the school to reunite with her parents and she fantasized about seeing them again. When she finally is able to, it's nothing like she imagined. They're cold, and unfamiliar. They don't recognize her. She doesn't know her brothers. They're related, but there's no real connection.

"I shouldn't have come here."

Yuka's is an extreme example, but I'm sure she's not an exception. For most Academy students, the almost 20 years of separation from their parents would be too much to ignore. They would not recognize each other, or be close. I'm sure many parents did not sell their children like Yuka's family did, but the bond between child and family had not been nurtured the way it should have been, resulting in coldness and distance.

Because of that, I doubt most students even bother seeking their families out, or even if they do, it's to visit a few times before starting a new life with a career. That familial bond, now broken, is difficult to repair. The connections people often feel with their families or hometowns is something Academy students instead feel with each other. They are all Alices, all in the same boat together. That feeling of superiority that many kids feel means they view each other as on the same level, and I'm sure that could interfere with family connection as well.

Thus, I don't think there's many multigenerational Alice families out there with close bonds. I don't think families like Natsume's have strong ties with grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Even the sibling bonds at the Academy are stunted, with the Imai and Shouda siblings being the prime examples of that.

The Imai siblings have a significant age difference, yes, but additionally the Imai parents had a very different approach to Hotaru after seeing what happened with Subaru. They refused to hand her over as easily, wanting to show her important things in life and build happy memories for as long as they could. Even when Hotaru does enter the school, it's more than six months before she even comes across her brother, since the high school and elementary school are not integrated with each other and they do not belong to the same ability class. Similarly, the Shouda siblings are in different ability classes but they have a much smaller age gap. Despite this, Sumire refers to her brother very respectfully, indicating that there isn't a particular closeness.

The Imais fight against this divide, and put in genuine effort into rebuilding their relationship, but it's a difficult process, and one they struggle to admit to for a long time and for various reasons. Familial closeness is not encouraged, not even within the Academy.

(Though Natsume's bond with Aoi is exploited and the school does rely on him caring for her to take advantage of him, but ultimately he is kept from seeing her. Thus, that bond is also severed despite being exploited.)

Additionally, it would make sense to me if many Alice graduates decided to, upon having children, avoid scouting, like Natsume's parents did, and thus ended up moving around a lot to escape Academy notice. Moving around like that and laying low means that you're not going to be hosting huge family reunions or inviting relatives over often, even if all the other points were moot.

Finally, I think all this creates further obstacles for Yuka's wish to "have a family." At some point she says that, for normal people, the desire to settle down with someone and start a family is a pretty modest goal, but for Alices it's almost impossible. Escaping from the school, or even graduating, is a struggle. And you can have a kid, but it's likely that child will be taken from you, just as you were taken, and by the time the child graduates, they will have no connection with you. Wanting to be a potential grandparent, for example, might seem like a definite impossibility, since being a real parent is impossible.

It's even more proof that the Academy exists as an institution to subjugate and undermine Alices, as children and then as parents. Ultimately, an Alice never has control, not as a child and not even as an adult. The pain doesn't end once you've graduated; in fact, it never does.

[floatingpetals]

Peace and Quiet?

Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: Angst-ish, language, the reader makes a poor decision, fluff as well  

Word Count: 5900+ 

Request: “I seriously love your longer one shots! Could you please do a Cap (or Bucky) + reader, where the reader is kinda loud/outgoing because of not wanting to be forgotten or something? And the reader figures they make him uncomfortable and shuts everyone out, leading to him confessing he likes the reader? Fluff please?” @homeybadger

A/N:  Wow so uhh, this has been a request that’s been sitting in my inbox for sooooo looonnng. No seriously, like super long. I feel so bad that it’s taken me just now to get to it. I wanted to do something nice with it, but I just couldn’t get it right, then I forgot it was there and then I remember and scrapped the whole thing. I hope you enjoy this story and I hope the length makes up for it! I did not mean to take so long on this! I hope you all enjoy!! 

**I’m also debating on doing a second part, but it all depends on the feedback I get. So please let me know what you think! ❤

Gifs not mine, credit to the creator!

“Oh, bad luck. You landed on Boardwalk,” Sam smirked, a giggle beginning to bubble in his chest as the rage that was settling on Y/N’s face across the table. She glared at the double dice, a freaking snake eye, that had been against her the entire game. “And if my math is correct, with my three houses you owe me $1400. And from the looks of your very sad pile, you’ll have to sell everything on top of declaring bankruptcy.”

“I hate this game!” Y/N screamed, throwing down the $300 hundred she had left.

“Hey, don’t hate the game!” Natasha shot back, grinning behind her beer bottle. Y/N shot her glare.

“Oh, shut up! You and Clint have been cheating the entire time and you know it!” she growled. Clint gasped but was cut off by a sharp jab in the ribs by Bucky. He grumbled and pulled out the chance cards he had stashed away, and nudge Natasha to pull out the money she had hidden away. “See! This game sucks!”

“Now, now. No need to go all green on us.” Tony grinned. Bruce made a noise before letting out a puff of air. Irritated with both the game and how smug everyone was acting, Y/N exploded with a primal battle cry.

“Fuck this game! You people are all cheaters!”

Everyone had enough time to grab their drinks off before Y/N flipped the table, the pieces flying everywhere. Bucky and Wanda both doubled over in their seats, howling when Y/N began to scream at Tony, who jumped up and was yelling back at the same volume. Clint and Natasha were grinning like idiots as the mayhem grew. Bruce rolled his eyes when Sam jumped in, normally the tone the room shifted would set him on edge, but this wasn’t unusual. The only person that wasn’t reacting, save for Vision who had no idea why tensions were so high over a silly game, was Steve.

He had decided to sit this game night out. After the Mario Party debacle, he wasn’t ready to jump back in the ring. Thor spun a wheel and tossed a dart to cut someone’s stars in half. He landed on Y/N’s. While she was once in the lead, that cut her stars in half and she was suddenly in last place. That was fine. It was when she was hit by Bowser, who Tony was playing as when they managed to let him loose of his little prison that she flipped her lid. The team got a kick out of her raging at the games, and all banded together to see how quickly she could snap. Steve, however, didn’t see the charm in it.

To put it lightly, Y/N was a lot to handle. She was everywhere all at once to begin with, her voice carrying through walls. There wasn’t a single mean bone in her body, aside from her intense competitive streak. She seemed to win over anybody. Steve still wasn’t sure. He’d admit, she was sweet and everyone else seemed to love her. Steve thought she was cute too, sometimes she would fall asleep on the couch and he’d find himself taking advantage of her stillness to stare. But she never stopped to breathe once it seemed. He couldn’t recall a time where she wasn’t talking loudly about something or practically bouncing off the walls from excitement. She was a lot more than he was used to. Y/N made his head spin. It wasn’t terrible, but it was a bit exhausting after a while around her. It also didn’t help that sometimes her power manifested with her growing emotions. Which is what was happening right now.

“You’re the one who wanted us to play this stupid game!” Tony accused, rolling his eyes.

“Did not! I specifically said that I thought it was a stupid idea because I always end up flipping a table! You’re the one who then said we had to play it since learning that bit of information.” She countered pointing a finger at him. Tony stopped, a sly grin spreading across his face.

“Oh yeah.”

“Ugh!” She grumbled. “You people are so frustrating! Why do you do this to me?!”

“Because it’s fun.” Tony grinned, his eyes flashing with glee. That was the wrong thing to say. Now Y/N really was angry. She grits her teeth and balled her fists at her side. If this was a cartoon, she’d have steam coming out of her ears she was so angry. Unbeknownst to her, her powers started to manifest with her mounting fury, afflicting the others in the room.

Y/N’s power was special and even a bit strange considering how specific it was. Since she could remember, Y/N always had the gift to control the aura around her to suppressed others authority and leadership skills. It was a power that had come handy in her life, but also hindered her more than it helped. She had a rather strong grip on it at all times, but sometimes that control slipped. Tony’s face paled, and everyone else around her started to shift uncomfortably.

“Uh-Y/N.” Wanda reached out, her fingers gently brushing against the back of Y/N’s arm. Wanda flinched, the contact enough to send her the full force of Y/N’s strange power, but she fought to stay strong. Y/N blinked, quickly realizing the shift in the room was because of her. Her shoulder’s dropped and the suffocating aura surrounding her disappeared. The room sighed collectively in relief.

“See. This is why you shouldn’t poke the bear.” Y/N huffed, crossing her arms against her chest. Tony chuckled and shook his head.

“It’s nice to know you’re aware.” Sam let out a laugh as well, grinning widely at her. She grumbled under her breath and turned to sit back in her seat. As she did, she scanned the room and noticed a spot empty. Standing straighter she glanced around the room.

“Hey, where did Steve go?”

The group collectively turned around, just now noticing the empty seat their Captain once took up as well. Bucky frowned and shot a look to Natasha, who seemed on the same page. Slowly, he turned to back to Y/N.

“Uh... Maybe he decided to turn in early.” He tried. The team seemed to take it, albeit skeptically. He had been doing this a lot lately, getting up at disappearing without a word. No one wanted to say it aloud, but they all noticed it happened around the time Y/N came to the team four months ago.

Y/N stilled, her eyes hardening for a split second before they seemed to glaze over. Shaking her head, she heaved a sigh.

“I’m gonna turn in early too. Sorry, this little outburst just took a lot out of me.” She said, stepping over the discarded pieces and was out of the room before anyone could argue. The room had shifted into a subdued atmosphere, everyone thinking the same thing.

“Someone needs to talk to him.” Wanda murmured. Bucky nodded, letting out a sigh.

“I’ll talk to him.” He said. The rest all murmured in agreement, slowly trickling out the room since game night clearly was done for the evening. They could only hope tomorrow would end on a better note.

~~~~~~~

Y/N sat on her bed, clinging to her favorite stuffed animal wondering just where she went wrong. Since she joined the team a few short months ago, she had been trying her best to get close to the rest of her teammates. Naturally, she was a bubbly person. But her gift made it harder for her to get close to anyone. Her parents thought it was odd, the power came from nowhere when she hit the age of three. It took them time to figure out that it wasn’t because she was incredibly intimidating and that she was unintentionally suppressing their confidence level.

They spent years taking her to doctors and specialists that might be able to help her control her powers. It wasn’t without consequences. Because she struggled for so long to control her powers, she spent a lot of her life unintentionally hurting those around her.

Her classmates didn’t know what exactly, but they knew something was wrong with her. She spent the majority of her school years alone in the corner, shunned from taking part of anything in her classes. If anyone tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, something always went wrong. They were terrified of her. The fear turned to indifference and eventually, they paid her no mind. No one wanted her in their lives. But for Y/N, she wanted nothing more than to be accepted and included.

Which might explain why she was the way she was today. It took years to master her control, but she did it. And now that she was an Avenger, she was surrounded by people who were like her. Special and unique. Nowhere else could she be herself as she could here. This was her last chance of being free and she never wanted to be forgotten.

It didn’t take her long to win over the others. They were more than aware of what she could do. Not a one batted an eyelash, no one shrank away in fear they’d be subjected to the smothering fear she could plague them with. If anything, it fascinated them. She was the one who they’d send in to interrogate. Whether on location or in a holding cell, it didn’t matter. Her power was a gift to get the tightest of lips to talk. For the first time in her life, Y/N felt as though she had finally found her calling.  

Y/N was proud of how far she had come. It was years of uphill battles and year left in the shadows. But now, she had it all, friends, her family and a job she loved. All except the acceptance of Steve. He was polite, but he always had an air of discomfort around her. Not with anyone else, just her. Y/N hated to admit it, but it hurt.

Since the day she met him, Y/N fell hard. Who couldn’t though? He was charming, cared for his friends and protective of his family. But for some reason, he just didn’t seem like he enjoyed being around her. Perhaps, she thought, it was something she said to him. She couldn’t recall anything that might set his teeth on edge, but she was at a loss.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Y/N set her stuffed animal down on the bed and swung her legs over the side. She knew she shouldn’t dwell too much on it. He could very well be in a bad mood, and it could confidently only be when she’s in the same room. She snorted. Yeah, that was it.

No, she thought, there was something more about it. Thinking back all the times she noticed he’d got running, realization hit her like a freight train. Every time he ran, it was because of something she did. It was her. A broken sob crept it’s way up her throat. She was the reason, that was the only thing it could be. Steve Rogers, the man who unknowingly held her heart in his hands, was uncomfortable with her. She clenched the sheets of the bed and held back her tears.

Y/N had to change. Her behavior had always been a problem, she knew that. She was so terrified of being left alone and forgotten again, she let her eagerness go too far. Falling back on the bed, she stared at the ceiling and came to a life-altering decision.

~~~~~

“Hey! There you are!” Natasha grinned motioning Y/N over to her mat. “I was wondering if you’d ever show up or if I’d have to go up to pull you out of bed.”

Y/N didn’t respond with her usual quip, just sent her a tight-lipped smile and a soft apology. Natasha blinked her lack of typical response slightly off-putting. Where was her boisterous hello and never-ending pouts of energy? It was one of the fun things about working out with Y/N first thing in the morning. This wasn’t usual of her at all.

“Okay.” Natasha drawled, looking over Y/N to try and decipher her new attitude. “Well, let’s get started on stretching you at, then we’ll get on the mat to spar.”

Y/N wordlessly nodded, moving over to where the yoga mats were laid out waiting for her. Natasha took up the spot next to her, keeping her eyes especially close on Y/N. Aside from her uncharacteristically quiet demeanor, it didn’t seem like there was a hair out of place on her. Although, her movement seemed a bit on the robotic side. Y/N was just going through the motions, getting done with her stretches before wordlessly making her way over to the mats without a glance to Natasha.

Natasha sat up and watched Y/N leave without a word, flabbergasted. Things seemed fine last night, aside from Steve’s abrupt disappearance. As far as Natasha knew, Y/N had gone straight to her room to sleep. And everyone was either here in the gym or Tony and Bruce in the lap. So, what happened to Y/N?

“Hey, you okay?” Natasha asked, catching Y/N’s elbow.

“What do you mean?” Y/N tilted her head to the side, brows furrowed.

“I don’t know,” Natasha said slowly, her gaze narrowing the longer she stared at Y/N. “You just seem… off today.”

“Oh.” She uttered simply. “Yeah. I’m good.”

Pulling her arm away from Natasha, Y/N wandered over to where Sam was now standing with Bucky. Their smile grew at the sight of her, both unaware of Y/N’s new behavior.

“Good morning sunshine!” Sam beamed at her, wrapping her up in a hug. Y/N let out a faint giggle as she hugged him back. Bucky grinned and tilted his head in greeting.

“Morning doll. You sleep okay last night? I didn’t hear your snores through the paper-thin walls last night.”  He teased, nudging her with his shoulder. Y/N huffed but surprisingly bit her tongue.

“Morning Bucky. Yeah, I slept fine.” Y/N shrugged, her face showing little to no emotions. “We ready to get started.”

Both men were stunned, completely thrown off by her sudden change. They shot Natasha a startled look, who could only shrug. She hadn’t the faintest idea either what happened. Y/N wasn’t supplying them with anything either, so all they could do was continue as if nothing was wrong. It didn’t mean they weren’t going to question her later of course.

Getting done with their training was odd, uncomfortable even. Y/N didn’t speak unless spoken to, and even then they were short simple answers. There was none of her usual spunkiness that fought back with each quip Sam sent her way. He even tried to rile her up, he almost pulled out all the stops in a hope to gain a reaction from her. But she didn’t move an inch. Bucky tried to get her to react when he threw a punch harder than necessary her way. They thought they had her, there was a spark of fury in her eyes after she picked herself up, but she quickly wiped the expression on her face.

In the end, Y/N went through the motions, doing what needed to be done without her usual flare. At one point, Wanda had even commented on how unusually quiet she had been. When Y/N left to head to the locker room, she cornered Bucky and Sam.

“What did you two do?” she hissed, jabbing a finger in Sam’s chest. He made a noise in the back of his throat offended at the accusation.

“What the hell makes you think we did anything?” Bucky crossed his arms across his chest. Wanda turned her narrow gaze to Bucky.

“Well. Something happened to her. And I know Natasha wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”

“Oh and we would?” Sam snapped, shaking his head. “We didn’t do anything to her Wanda, she was like this when she came in.”

“He’s right.” Natasha interrupted, siding with the two men. “She’s been like this all morning. I have no clue why.”

The door the locker room opened, Y/N walking freshly out of the shower and a new change of clothes. She stopped short when she saw all four eyes locked on her across the room. Awkwardly, she waved to them before heading to the exit. Right as she reached it, Steve swung open the door, towel in hand. His steps faltered and a tight-lipped smile passed on her face.

The group couldn’t see her face from where they stood. All they could see was her nod her head once before stepping around Steve with a wide berth to head out the exit. Steve was left stunned. It wasn’t normal to not have his ear talked off when it came to Y/N. Blinking rapidly, he wandered over to Bucky, brows furrowed in confusion.

“What she say?” Wanda asked. Steve’s mouth fell open to answer but couldn’t find the right words.

“Uh… Nothing.” He shrugged.

“And you don’t find that strange?” Wanda asked the group, pinning each of them with her stare. Bucky bristled at the insinuation, his hands balling into fists.

“We never said it wasn’t. We just have no idea what’s wrong with her.” He snapped, stepping up with his back straighter and shoulders set. Wanda glared right back, red seeping into her eyes. Natasha wiggled her way between them, grumbling under her breath.

“Alright. Alright, enough.” She held her hands out to both, pushing them back. “Wanda, we have no clue what happened. Y/N walked in like this. It’s probably nothing and she’s just having an off day. Why don’t we just let whatever happened run its course and see how she is through the rest of the day. No point on biting each other’s heads off when we all did nothing wrong.”

The group grumbled their agreement, still not at ease with how the morning had turned. Steve was just as concerned as the rest. It was odd that she didn’t greet him with her megawatt smile when he walked in the gym, and it was odd how her face seemed to tighten at the sight of him. All he got this morning was a tight-lipped smiled before she ran out the door. What was even odder was the fact that she seemed to give him as much space as possible. As if she didn’t want to get too close.

Steve turned to the door, his brows creased and mouth in a tight line. Something was going on with Y/N, but who was he to worry about her?

~~~~~~~~

Things hadn’t gotten much better with Y/N over the next few days. She had stopped taking part in the loud discussions that always managed to start up in the kitchen or the living room. Her words were short and few in between, but she didn’t seem upset. Just much more subdued than usual. When someone would speak to her, so would she. But it was never the same volume as before.

Sam and Clint both made it their mission to get her to snap. They did everything from switching her sugar to salt in her coffee to going into her room and putting baby powder in her hair dryer. Nothing worked. She would just sigh and turn her back to them, shoulders tense. They thought she’d give up and go back to her old ways, but nothing worked. Not even Natasha could get her to admit what was wrong.

Steve, however, was taking her attitude change harder than the rest. Don’t ask him why he didn’t even know. He thought he’d prefer her at a lower decibel, he assumed she would be more manageable and easier to get along with. But this, this wasn’t what he thought it would be like. To him, it almost seemed creepy. This wasn’t the Y/N he had come to know. The wasn’t the same woman in the slightest. It was as if someone else swapped personalities with her.

Y/N hadn’t shown any improvement in her attitude in the field either. Actually, she seemed to be less productive now. One of the ways she managed to get people to confess was using her power and then releasing it. There she’d act like a good cop, bargaining with them for information and if they didn’t give her what she wanted, she’d switch her powers back on again. Now, she just threw herself into it. There was no build up, no false sense of security.

Just last week they needed information about the next hit Hydra ordered. They apprehended one of the agents and sent in Y/N to get out the information when he wouldn’t fess up. The team assumed the old Y/N would come out now that she was in the field. Instead, she walked in and used the full force of her powers on the man. She was already so powerful, but she had a strong grip on her control. When her power flared to life, even with the thick walls it suffocated everyone.

The agent instantly started sobbing, blubbering like a small child before it grew to mindless screaming for mercy. As it turns out, her power can actually break the human spirit and shatter their sanity into a thousand pieces. It only affected the man in front of her, but it still rattled the rest of the group. Steve was furious.

“What the hell was that?!” He snarled, dragging Y/N into a conference room. She blinked, her face unmoving despite the rage rolling off him in waves. Tony, Fury, and Maria both sat around the meeting table, their mouths pulled into thin lines. She tore her gaze away, refusing to look at anyone in particular as Steve raged on. “You ruined any chances of getting information out of him!”

“Actually Cap, she ruined any chance of him being a normal human being again,” Tony interjected, pulling up a hologram of the doctor's report. The mental status report had been sent in a few moments before Steve dragged her in. The poor man couldn’t remember his name let alone the information they needed.

Y/N pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and let out a heavy breath. When she opened them, their faces hadn’t changed a bit. Settling on a point at the table, the brief glimpse she caught of their expressions was burned in her mind. Steve was livid, Tony seemed borderline irritated with a hint of amusement, while Fury and Maria both had a hard expression that told her she was in for it for the next few weeks.

“Look. I’m sorry. I let a few personal matters get to me and clearly, I didn’t handle it well.” She said calmly. Steve flinched at how lifeless she sounded when she mentioned her personal matter and shot Tony a concerned look. Tony tilted his head in acknowledgment, he too aware of the pain she seemed to be suppressing. “I can’t promise it won’t happen again by accident, but I’ll make sure to put more training in to ensure it doesn’t.”

Fury shifted in his seat, folding his hands on his crossed knee. His single eye narrowed as he looked her over and gave her a curt nod.

“See that it doesn’t agent. Dismissed.” He said curtly. Y/N’s eyes fluttered shut for a spilt-second before she jerked her chin and spun at heel to leave the room. After the door shut behind her, Fury grunted.

“What did you people do to her?” He accused, leveling Steve and Tony with a stare. Both men frowned and glanced at the other.

“We didn’t do anything.” Tony snapped, narrowing his eyes. Steve set his hand on the back of a chair and sighed.

“She’s been like this for almost a week now. This is the first time she’s actually admitted something wrong.” Steve replied, his brows furrowing at the tightness in his chest at the idea. It wasn’t like Y/N to keep everything bottle up inside her like this.

“Well, whatever’s wrong with her, fix it,” Fury ordered. “She needs to be in complete control and that can’t happen when her minds on other things.”

Pushing back the chair he stood, Maria right behind him. Not waiting for a reply, he grabbed the folder off the desk and briskly left the room with Maria following. Steve flinched when the door snapped shut behind them. Tony scoffed.

“You can get rid of that sad puppy dog look, Captain.”

Steve frowned, his head snapping up to Tony.

“What’s with the tone, Tony?” He asked. Tony rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat.

“We all know you don’t like Y/N, you put up a good front though.” He waved a hand absently. “But when you dart out of a room anytime she comes in, or you won’t sit to talk with her when she comes to find you, it gets pretty noticeable.”

Steve stood taller, his mouth drawing into a tight line. He opened his mouth to argue, but it dawned on him. He hadn’t been the most welcoming person to Y/N in the few months she’s been here. Was that really how everyone perceives him? Tony smirked and shook his head.

“To put it simply; you’ve been an ass to our Y/N, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something you did.” Groaning softly under his breath, Tony stood and grabbed his tablet. Steve’s face fell, the notion her change might have been because of him made his stomach turn. Tony clapped a hand on his shoulder, his mouth pulled into a tight line. “Like Fury said, we’re going to fix this. But don’t worry. We won’t waste your precious time.”

At that, Tony left Steve alone in the conference room, the sting of his words lingering behind. Steve’s shoulder slumped. Maybe this had been his fault. But when? How? He really didn’t think it would have been that big of a deal to leave early after the game. Maybe he thought wrong and she did take it wrong. That wouldn’t mean this complete 180 though, would it? It wasn’t the first time he escaped a game night gone wrong, and she didn’t seem upset them. Perhaps it was something else. That had to be it. He really hadn’t done anything wrong, at least he didn’t think he did.

“Hey FRIDAY,” Steve called. Immediately, the AI system responded.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Go back to the last game night, the one with monopoly, did anything happen to Y/N between the time I left, and she went to bed?” He asked. Silence met him as the computer searched the data.

“No, it doesn’t seem like anything happened. She never left her room once she entered either.” FRIDAY replied. Steve frowned, even more, confused than before. So if there wasn’t anything that happened to her then what was with change?

Clenching his jaw, Steve knew he needed to get to the bottom of this. Not just as a Captain to his team, but as a way to make up for being such a shitty housemate. And maybe even as a way to start an actual friendship with him. Now that he’s seen this side of her, he realized how judgment and close-minded he was. He needed to find her and talk with her.

~~~~

Y/N had just stripped out of her suit and into her PJs when there was a hesitant knock on the door. She frowned. She wasn’t expecting anyone tonight, especially not after she just got her ass handed to her. Reluctantly she went to open the door and was surprised at the person on the other side.

Steve stood there awkwardly, his hands in his pockets. She blinked and took a step back.

“Uh… hi?” she greeted cautiously.  Steve smiled hesitantly and shifted from foot to foot.

“Hey. Can we talk?”

“W-Why?” She clutched on the handle and shifted behind the door in an attempt to hide behind it. Steve noticed and his smile fell. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

“I know I’m the last person you want to talk to. I’ve not been the most welcoming and I want to apologize. Can I please come in?” He asked earnestly. Y/N was caught off guard at his sincerity. Nodding numbly, she pulled the door open and let him in her room.

Steve glanced around the room, noticing the number of pictures she had hanging up on her wall, pretty fairy lights cascading down the walls illuminating each photo. Her comforter was a light lilac with stuffed animals on the bed. He eyed the little knickknacks matched the rest of her décor on her desks and shelves adding to the warmth and homey feel her room had. Realization hit him that he really hadn’t taken the time to get the real her.

“Go ahead and have a seat.” Y/N waved to the bed before sitting on the other end. Steve sank into the plush mattress, taking a moment to look over Y/N. She refused to make eye contact, to busy wringing her fingers together to notice him staring. Once again, he was struck by how beautiful she was, and how poorly he handled everything.

“Look Y/N, I don’t know what happened the past few days and why you’re acting different, but somethings changed. We all can see it.” He said. Y/N opened her mouth to argue but thought better of it. Steve continued on. “I don’t know what happened, but it hurts all of us to see you like this. It’s like you’ve lost a huge part of yourself and we’re seeing this empty shell. I mean, Sam and Clint both are losing their minds because what ordinarily would work on getting you riled up is doing nothing. And Bucky’s beside himself, Natasha and Wanda are worried sick, and Tony is pissed because-.” Steve stopped short, his face twisting into a pained expression. “He thinks I’m the reason.”

Y/N tensed, her breath catching in her throat. It was minuscule, but Steve caught it. He sat taller and his stomach sank.

“It is because of me.” He whispered sadly. He tore his eyes away from her to stare blankly at his hands. Y/N closed her eyes but didn’t deny it. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve not been accepting. I didn’t mean to hurt you though.”

Y/N nodded slowly, biting her lower lip as he kept talking.

“Truth is, you intimidate the hell out of me. I’ve never met someone who was so sure of themselves and so incredibly proud about it. You held nothing back and you’re so willing to put your heart on your sleeve, I kind of envy you a little. People loved you right of the bat and your just so sweet inside and out. I mean, you didn’t let anyone tell you to chill out before. Which leaves me to ask, why now? Why did I affect you so much that you changed everything about you?”

That caused Y/N’s face to heat up. No way was she going to admit it aloud! It was already embarrassing enough Steve knew he was a reason why she changed, but for him to know what the full reason was mortified her.

“Y/N.” He gently took her hand in his, the corners of his lips turned up. “You don’t have to tell me. I just want you to know that no matter what you think, I don’t hate you. I never did. Matter of fact, I really like you. More than I thought. It didn’t hit me how much I’d come to admire and appreciate your take on life until now. I miss hearing you bicker with Tony about the best brew coffee first thing in the morning or when you and Bucky gang up on Sam. I know Natasha and Wanda miss having their best friend. And game nights will never be the same without you threatening and then following through with flipping a table.”

Y/N giggled and ducked her chin. His grin grew, finally seeing a glimmer of her former self.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me for how I’ve behaved. I can only ask you’ll give me a chance to make up for being such a shitty person.” He grinned.

“Language, Captain.” Y/N teased.

“Is that ever going to die?” Steve groaned and rolled his eyes. “Wait you weren’t even there!”

“I know but hate to break it to you, it’s here for the long haul.” Y/N giggled and shook her head. Steve’s laughter joined hers, his smile stretching from ear to ear. He titled his head to the side after a beat before letting out a sigh.

“So, are you going to be okay?” He asked hopefully. Y/N let out a deep breath, for the first time all week feeling lighter. She was so drained from keeping her emotions in check, it took every ounce of her strength not to react to the attempts at making her snap. She knew it was ridiculous trying to change, but she really thought it was for the better. Turns out, it not only damaged her but everyone she loved.

“Yeah. I think I’ll be okay.” She spoke confidently. Steve patted her thigh and quickly stood.

“Good, because Tony discovered some new game called The Jackbox Party Pack or something along those lines.” He extended a hand and waited for her to take it.

“Wait, right now?” She asked surprised. He nodded and took her hand.

“Yup. Come on. Team bonding time.”

Y/N laughed, letting him pull her up and drag her out of the room. He looked at her over his shoulder, his breath catching in her throat at the way her face lit up from her grin. Turning back quickly, he hoped she didn’t notice the way his ears turned pink. He was an idiot for not taking the time to get to know her. He wasn’t going to ruin his chance with her a second time. Maybe it wasn’t going to easy, but for Y/N he knew it would be worth it.

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[adambstingus]

Gentrification X: how an academic argument became the people’s protest

In the first of a special series on the impact of gentrification on cities around the world, Dan Hancox meets victims and beneficiaries of this highly emotive issue and finds that the anger is real, and resistance is coming to a head

When Amal had stopped crying, she apologised. I wake up so sick, you know? I have to go to study but I feel so sick. A victim of domestic violence and now a single mother, she lives with her three young children in grimy temporary accommodation in Tooting, south London. She was telling me that Wandsworth council, which has a legal obligation to house the family, tried sending them to a rented flat on the outskirts of Newcastle, then suggested West Bromwich. Shed never heard of either place. I said to them, I already told you, I have a job interview in London, I am studying in London, my children are at school in London, my ex-husband visits every week to help with the children.

West Bromwich, the council insisted, was her last chance. Otherwise she would be declared intentionally homeless, and be put out with her young children on the street. They said, just one option: West Bromwich. If I said no, they wouldnt give me another chance.

This was one London councils response to the housing crisis to spend £5m on properties for their poorer families, hundreds of miles away, while across the borough, the Meccano scaffolds rose up for the £15bn development of Nine Elms, where most flats will cost more than £1m.

The same year I met Amal, in 2014, on the other side of London the now notorious Focus E15 Mums were stepping up their campaign to remain in the city where theyd been born. Nine billion pounds on the Olympics and theyre telling us and our babies we have to go live in Hastings, lamented 19-year-old Adora Chilaisha during their occupation of East Thames housing association offices, as the hokey cokey played out in the background. Theres no way Im going anywhere, she said. My boy Desean is one, and I dont want him to grow up away from his family, from his home. I dont know anyone in Hastings.

An elderly man walks past a regeneration project hoarding in Elephant & Castle, London. Photograph: Richard Baker/In Pictures/Corbis

Two years later, both Amal and Adora and their children are still in London after a long and exhausting struggle against the authorities to simply stay where they are. Meanwhile, those same authorities prostrate themselves before luxury property developers, Chinese business conglomerates and buy-to-let rentiers.

Gentrification is an intensely emotive issue with almost endless potential for argument. That shouldnt be in the least bit surprising it speaks to fundamental questions of home, identity and community, how those places define us, and how we define them. The process of displacement of societys poorest members is, of course, not a new thing. You can trace it back centuries, to a time when there was a literal gentry responsible for social cleansing; when the bailiffs were on horseback and artisanal was a descriptor of a pre-industrial social class, rather than vogueish hipster branding.

Nonetheless, there is something of the zeitgeist about gentrification. Until a few years ago, only academic geographers and housing campaigners used the term. In recent years, however, the subject has entered the mainstream, and the word has become increasingly ubiquitous in what seems like almost every city across the world. But it is not only the debate that has intensified: opposition to gentrification is rapidly becoming less marginal, and more organised. While it is easy to locate historical rent strikes and neighbourhood uprisings to what you might call gentrification avant la lettre, for the first time, gentrification itself is a serious point of political contention and resistance.

The tipping point in the UK came last autumn, when members of Class Wars so-called Fuck Parade, flaming torches in hand, daubed SCUM on the windows of east Londons quintessential hipster cafe, Cereal Killer. The restaurant was already castigated by Channel Four News for serving £4 bowls of cereal in a borough in which thousands of poor families cant afford to feed their children. Although several people, myself included, argued that the bearded cereal entrepreneurs were hardly gentrifications true villains, the news was reported around the world not just as a riot that launched a thousand hot takes, but as the expression of a rising tide of anger. The issue had leaped into the mainstream.

The Cereal Killer Cafe in protest in Shoreditch, London. Photograph: @jamieosman

Last month, the pre-Christmas episode of This American Life featured an astonishing segment about a San Francisco dad going to see his six-year-old daughter in her school play, and discovering that the entire show was a fierce polemic against the malign influence of tech companies making the city a sterile playground for the rich. The play culminates in a huge demonstration outside city hall, with the young children holding placards reading resistance = love of community and singing that the city is not for sale.

So why now? The short answer is demand and supply: demand for well-positioned urban space is higher than ever, while the supply of housing options for the urban poor, and the strength and willingness of the state to provide them, is weaker than in decades. In urban policy, we are witnessing the triumph of the market and the capitulation of the state. If an area becomes desirable to those with money regardless if it was hitherto undesirable or dominated by public housing then sooner or later, the wealthy will get what they want. The problem, said Yolande Barthes from Savills estate agents at a Guardian Live debate last month, is the area of London that people want to live in hasnt expanded at the same rate as the population.

As Londons affordable housing crisis deepens spurred by the collapse of new social housing construction, and the sale of hundreds of thousands more social flats under right-to-buy the galvanisation of the British capitals local communities has been astonishing. This customised Google Map, created by Action East End, drops pins on the map for each hyper-local campaign. From Save Chrisp Street Market in the east to Save Portobello Road Market in the west, the campaigns many formed only in the last year range from demands to protect existing social housing, to protests against new luxury flat developments or against the destruction of community assets such as much-loved markets, nurseries, pubs and small businesses. At the time of writing, there are 53 different campaigns.

Focus E15 Mums fought eviction from the Carpenters Estate. Photograph: Jess Hurd/Guardian

One is Reclaim Brixton, who formed in March 2015 in opposition to the rapidly accelerating gentrification of the south London area. Co-founder Cyndi Anafos mother used to run a Ghanaian grocery in the covered market that has recently been rebranded Brixton Village, a target destination for food tourists and wealthy Londoners. Via social media, Anafo and friends arranged meetings, leading to a carnival-cum-demonstration in Brixton town centre that drew thousands and attracted widespread national media attention. For about 20 years its been on the edge of gentrification, Anafo says. But the last five or six years its all come to the fore Reclaim Brixton came about chiefly through frustration.

While the transformation of Brixton is visible in the proliferation of more expensive shops, bars and restaurants, and the influx of a non-resident, affluent demographic visiting places like Champagne + Fromage, Anafo is clear that the cultural and commercial changes are not the main event. It all comes down to housing, she says. Being a kind of accidental activist, and getting to know all the existing housing groups, made me realise the severity of the situation on the ground in Brixton, meeting people who are on eviction lists. People moan about particular types of businesses or shops, or estate agents like Foxtons, but my feeling is that rent stabilisation is something that could help everyone.

Last June, Berlin made headlines when it began enforcing rent controls for all, limiting landlords to charging new tenants more than 10% above the local average. The previous year rents had gone up by more than 9%. We dont want a situation like in London or Paris, said Reiner Wild of the Berlin Tenants Association. Such strident legislation to protect poorer citizens does not just drop out of the sky, of course. It emerges from a history of equally robust civic campaigning on housing, gentrification and the right to the city.

The Tacheles in Berlin was formed in the 1990s as a squat by artists seeking to save the building from demolition. It closed in 2012. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty

Nottingham University geographer Alex Vasudevan, author of a recent book on the subject, Metropolitan Preoccupations, says Berlin is in a sense diametrically different from London its a very poor city, where wages are one-third lower than its western German neighbours. In the wake of unification Berlin has seen waves of gentrification, while remaining very poor by German standards, says Vasudevan. Before the fall of the wall, there were subsidies given to squatters to renovate buildings, and they would be legalised as a result a kind of compromise. But that programme ended in 2002, and since the wall came down Berlin has become this laboratory of neoliberal urban governance.

As in London, Vasudevan says, funding for social housing collapsed, and simultaneously thousands of what used to be social housing properties were privatised. Berlin tried to become a financial centre. It failed. So then they went with the whole creative city agenda, or at least a version of it, connected with touristification and this kind of Airbnb urbanism. Theres a great Aibrnb map of Kreuzberg: until recently there was only one property in that neighbourhood that was available on the normal rental market everything else was Airbnb.

Grassroots resistance in Berlin has revolved mostly around very local geographies, such as saving one particular building, park, housing project, or even fighting the eviction of a much-loved Turkish grocery store. Nonetheless, Vasudevan explains that each victory has galvanised the city as a whole, and made gentrification even more of a common talking point than it is in London. The challenge now has been scaling up, making connections, and sharing information between neighbourhoods, and even internationally.

Theyve managed to get the rent cap by just being incredibly well-organised, and absolutely dogged and they are also good at talking to each other. You have local working-class Germans who remained in Kreuzberg, and Turkish migrants collaborating; so everything is written in both German and Turkish, theyre all networked.

The gigantic crocheted tribute to Wes Anderson which appeared at Bushwick Flea Market in Brooklyn. Photograph: London Kaye

Theyre also talking to the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) in Spain, the grassroots group whose phenomenal success of blocking thousands of evictions propelled its spokeswoman, Ada Colau, to become mayor of Barcelona. Spains housing crisis has been so destructive that the PAHs use of community self-organisation and support, and direct action to block evictions, has been copied across the world. Ive seen Spanish parents in tears in PAH meetings, being comforted by their foreign-born (often Latin American) neighbours, before rallying to take on the banks trying to evict them. Ive also seen Sí Se Puede, the PAH documentary, screened to housing activists in London. The international sharing of both tactics and inspiration highlights globalisations double-edged sword: property developers and investors may be operating simultaneously in Berlin, London and Barcelona, but the people resisting gentrification in these cities are beginning to network themselves, too.

What remains to be seen is whether campaigning against gentrification will grow into any city-wide protests. Certainly, the G word has been tapped as the new culprit for a lot of urban tensions emerging from the influx of younger, whiter, wealthier people into city cores. After a yarn-bombing artist, with the support of the hipster Brooklyn Flea market, put up a 15ft crochet homage to Wes Anderson on the exterior wall of his family home in Bushwick without asking for permission, New Yorker Will Giron wrote: Gentrification has gotten to the point where every time I see a group of young white millennials in the hood my heart starts racing and a sense of anxiety starts falling over me.

***

The argument that gentrification represents a kind of urban neocolonialism is hard to miss. Spike Lee made it clear with his viral rant against Christopher Columbus syndrome in Brooklyn. Indeed, after decades of white flight to the US suburbs, since 2010 American cities have seen increases in white populations. Protests in 2014 targeted Microsofts corporate shuttle buses in Seattle; not only did they raise rents, went the argument, they didnt integrate, adding to social tensions in a city where working-class African-Americans were being pushed out. That same year, a video went viral of (older, whiter) Dropbox employees trying to get rid of mostly Latino young people from a football pitch in San Franciscos Mission district. (The Latinos protested, and won.)

It is surely the higher-profile, less sensitive invasions that get the headlines, but they speak to a deeper malaise of newly arriving communities with no interest in connecting with the existing populations they are displacing. Dont let the door hit you on the way out, they seem to say.

The Strata tower in Elephant & Castle, London. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Inevitably, the rise of anti-gentrification sentiment and action has provoked a counter-attack, either to defend the process or deny it exists. Critics of gentrification romanticise working-class poverty, goes the main line of argument. They hate change, and fetishise urban decrepitude. Dont you want the area to look nice? Dont you want poor people to have better lives? Giles Coren characterised anti-gentrifiers last year as middle-aged, middle-class dinosaurs who are determined to keep London shitty. Why? A mixture, he said, of aesthetics, nostalgia and condescension: Snobs [who] like the thought of people less well off than themselves scoffing rubbish [food], so they can keep on looking down at them for it.

This shit but real versus polished but soulless dichotomy was borne out in Hackney in London in 2009, when the boroughs mayor, Jules Pipe, condemned opponents of regeneration for wanting to keep Hackney crap prompting a tongue-in-cheek campaign proposing to do exactly that. The sad irony is that local community groups calling for positive state intervention to regenerate a local area for example, to make a local park safer, improve litter collection or fix transport will often have to wait for the area to become more affluent and desirable before those changes will take place. And in a grim example of the law of unintended consequences, where urban communities dosucceed in changing their neighbourhood for the better, the result is often higher rents, more interest from developers, and the gradual displacement of the very people who forced those changes into being.

Another argument used against anti-gentrification campaigns is that they are fighting a force of nature. Gentrification is a process as old as time itself, and you may as well just protest against the changing of the seasons. There is a tendency, as with anything, for older, more experienced commentators to take a puff on their pipe and remark, Oh you hot-heads, do you think any of this is new? This kind of response, while containing some truth, is often used to stifle action. This has all happened before carries with it an unstated corollary, … and is thus an organic, inevitable and inexorable process and, presumably, since we are both standing here today having this discussion, with all of our limbs intact, and roofs over our head, not an especially harmful one.

It is true that the feared mass exodus of poorer residents from inner London since the Conservatives introduced the bedroom tax and benefit caps has not occurred. Anecdotal evidence from charities and food banks suggests many are staying, paying more rent and just getting poorer. But the numbers of those forced out are still increasing substantially. Many people who are placed in temporary accommodation in outer London and deal with some horrendous conditions, jars of bugs and all are travelling enormous distances to work or school. Perhaps the most dramatic single visualisation of how gentrification is changing our cities is this map of the displacement of former residents of Elephant & Castles substantial social housing project, the Heygate Estate.

As the critic Jonathan Meades wrote in 2006: Privilege is centripetal. Want is centrifugal in the future, deprivation, crime and riots will be comfortably confined to outside the ring road.

The architects of gentrification are extremely careful not to talk about it. Given the word was coined by a Marxist, and is most often used by opponents of the property industry, this is good common sense on their part. When in 2014 I was asked to interview a property developer about gentrification, I worked through seven or eight before I found one willing to return my calls. Though I was careful not to scare them off by uttering the G word, their PR departments were too good at obfuscating until someone at property giant Bouygues Development agreed to speak.

Richard Fagg, deputy managing director, was neither hostile nor evasive, but still chose his words carefully. He denied that their building of expensive new blocks of flats would lead to any displacement. Instead, he suggested that poorer areas would benefit from becoming blended communities.

In the poor parts of London where weve been working in the past, they have been and I use this term politely but they have been social enclaves, Fagg said. No one buys homes there, because your money will probably depreciate. But thats changing. So hopefully, the likes of where were working in Barking, people are taking their hard-earned cash, investing it in a mortgage, buying a property because there youre getting good capital growth over time in the future. Yes, its starting at a low base. But youre going to get good growth, because the whole area is changing. Its not gentrification. Its just becoming a more balancedcommunity.

Fagg was not factually wrong about the demographic composition of London areas such as Barking, north Peckham or Elephant & Castle. In fact, many are concerned that whats happening to the Heygate Estate in Elephant & Castle will become an example that is replicated in the years to come. As the 1950s and 1960s tower blocks reach the end of their life a decline hastened by years of disinvestment and failure to address poverty one popular development model says they should be demolished and replaced with mixed use developments. Social problems are supposedly reduced if you dont have enclaves.

Simon Elmer from Architects for Social Housing points to Andrew Adoniss report City Villages: More Homes, Better Communities, which is the basis for Conservative housing plans, embodied in the housing bill currently going through parliament. The report recommends recategorising all social housing estates as brownfield land. In greater London, that amounts to 3,500 estates, 360,000 homes and more than one million people. The concern, says Elmer in a paper entitled The London Clearances, is that these ageing estates will be demolished and replaced with the same mix of luxury flats and affordable housing that have cropped up in Elephant Park, the new private development being built in place of the Heygate, and in which a two-bedroom flat will set you back £659,000. This past weekend David Cameron gave further shape to this plan when he announced a blitz on poverty, suggesting the demolition of sink estates in favour of more homes for private rent.

A protester smashes the front window of the Foxtons estate agency in Brixton. Photograph: Pierre Alozie/Demotix/Corbis

The property industry, meanwhile, has become markedly more sophisticated in how it readies the ground for demographic transformation, by engineering the change in atmosphere that will draw in young creatives to a new area. (Again, the colonial language is always bubbling just under the surface.) Sometimes this is called place-making, and amounts to extravagant marketing exercises that seek to brand (or rebrand) an area, to follow in the footsteps of the advertising industry and sell not just a product, the bricks and mortar, but an entire aspirational lifestyle.

We dont think its good enough to build a lovely flat, anyone can build a lovely flat anywhere, Fagg told me. From the very first moment, even before seeking planning permission, marketing is at the heart of your strategy. What are you offering over and above every London borough, every other developer? Particularly in London, when everyone is competing for your hard-earned capital to invest in their new location? In some cases, place-making has meant going to extraordinary lengths: in poor parts of Harlem, estate agents bought up vacant street-front commercial properties and opened four trendy coffee shops, in an unabashed attempt to instigate gentrification themselves.

Newham council released a promotional video, Regeneration Supernova, to encourage development in the borough.

It isnt the most flashy cultural manifestations of gentrification, the cereal cafes and the hipster baristas, who are the most influential actors in this process. Indeed, they are a distraction from where the most important decisions are taken. It is often the less glamorous and headline-grabbing developments, such as the granting of planning permission, the cynical redefining of affordable housing to mean 80% of market rate (it used to be more like 50%), the payment of cash to struggling councils by developers wishing to avoid their legal section 106 requirement to build affordable housing, or the eviction of poor families with no access to the media, that go under the radar, and where the real pain of gentrification resides.

Saying that, the cultural manifestations of gentrification do matter. It is partly about symbolism, about a change in atmosphere that tells poorer residents that, soon, they will no longer belong. Or, in areas with an explosion of attractive bars and clubs, it is about the behaviour of the new arrivals; where that sense of belonging is indirectly seized from poorer families by revellers, students and nightlife tourists who drunkenly smash their beer bottles on the pavement.

A new independent boutique coffee shop may be benign in itself, but does it help usher in a new clientele to the area, even as a bridge-and-tunnel, just-visiting crowd? Will other hipster businesses follow suit? Will this surge lead to a buzz, to press coverage in newspapers aimed at middle-classes with the money to buy property, or help to entice buy-to-let landlords, property developer interest, and estate agents revaluation? Does this then entice bigger chain shops and cafes, lead to small businesses closing and rents rising? As the hugely telling place-making videos make abundantly clear, for the money-men, a proliferation of art galleries, hipsters and small independent businesses are a great sign. Indeed, for the sharper investors, by the time Starbucks arrives, youre already too late.

***

Last year I saw standup comedian Liam Williams tell a joke which went broadly as follows: Everyones talking about gentrification at the moment, and I can understand why. But its a difficult one, isnt it? There are so many pros and cons. On the one hand, your local area is nicer, safer, cleaner, there are cool new shops and cafes and bars to go to. But on the downside, you have to feel guilty about it.

A man makes coffee at a boutique cafe in Brixton. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images

It was delivered sardonically, undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek, but was also a useful pointer to white, liberal, middle-class feeling. It was also an unintended guide to what we talk about when we talk about gentrification that the filter for the media conversation remains depressingly narrow. The rise in volume of media coverage of gentrification in Britain has not been accompanied by a rise in awareness that minority citizens are more likely to be victims of displacement. The neighbourhoods on the receiving end of racial profiling and stop-and-search by police, or aggressive raids by border agents, are the same ones transforming into places ready to have the word village added to their name. For every story about the Focus E15 mums there have been two more along the lines of Im middle-class and even Im being pushed out of London.

Hard though it clearly is for them to believe, gentrification is not about newspaper columnists who want a bigger garden having to move to zone three. It is about people like Maria, a single mum of three forced out of Westminster into damp, cold, asthma-inducing temporary accommodation in Haringey. Although she is pregnant and has back problems, when I met her Maria was taking her kids on the 90-minute, three-bus journey back to their school in Westminster every morning, just to retain a modicum of stability. She would then spend the day sitting, penniless, in Westfield shopping centre, to keep warm.

At other times there is a risk of chauvinism and outright xenophobia. Anti-gentrification artist Gram Hilleard had his sardonic postcards featured in the Observer last year, and in an accompanying interview lamented that his family had been in the same area of London for the last 200 years, but now the indigenous Londoners have been moved out. Its not only suspect to talk about indigenous people in a major cosmopolitan city, its also a misunderstanding of what a city like London has always been.

Today, more than 300 languages are spoken and 36.7% of the population were born overseas; the proportion of people who can claim their family have been in the same area of any major city for 200 years continuously must be microscopically small. Legitimate coverage of super-rich Qatari, Chinese or Emirati investors buying up high-end properties in London and then leaving them empty can easily be taken out of proportion, and spill over into the misguided notion that the problem is wealthy foreigners, not wealthy investors. But what about our plucky homegrown rentiers, not to mention those granting planning permission to luxury flats and hotels rather than concentrating on building genuinely affordable homes?

Gentrification is a viscerally emotive subject. People take it incredibly personally. As the debate grows louder, fingers will be pointed wildly in every direction. I think I first noticed gentrification, before Id ever heard the word, when the branch of the discount supermarket Iceland in Balham, where I grew up in the 1980s, closed and was replaced by an organic supermarket called As Nature Intended.

In my childhood, this part of London wasnt particularly one thing or the other; neither particularly posh nor poor, central but not that central, mixed by race and class and age, the kind of area that thrived precisely because it didnt have a particularly clear identity. A couple of years after the organic supermarket opened, I saw a property advert on the tube that had created annoying alliterative couplets out of different London place names. Balham was Bankers Balham. I have rarely felt so ashamed. But I also know that none of this is at all important, in the scheme of things that places change, and they should change, and getting a bit sentimental about the fact you cant go home again is part of growing up.

The challenge for the citizens of the 21st century is to decouple this kind of personal sentiment from the generally unheard or ignored stories of displacement and suffering, from the resounding triumph of private profit in civic life over everything else trampling, in particular, the idea that shelter and the right to the city ought to be fundamental human rights. Gentrification is becoming one of the defining issues of our age.

As rich and poor people alike continue to flock to cities like London, Berlin and San Francisco, either for work or a better quality of life, the controversies will only intensify and multiply. Apologists for gentrification can continue to pretend a city is a force of nature, and displacement of poor people from their homes just ripples on the tide, but the rising popular sentiment against social cleansing is not merely a fabrication of leftwing activists, academics or journalists. The anger is real, and the determination to resist is growing.

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/gentrification-x-how-an-academic-argument-became-the-peoples-protest/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/181391054767

[erlgaytea]

Reasons to kill myself

1. I'll never be able to keep a job: i cant keep a job because i burn out too quickly. I can only work for so long before i lose momentum and start slipping. I start being late for work, i stop looking presentable, etc. Also my anxiety although i seem like i can keep it together im panicking on the inside. Everytime i have to face a client im silently dying to run away. My heart races and i get cold sweats and shortness of breath. Every. Single. Time. People think im so cute and awkward but its not cute at all its debilitating. I look like i can function in the workplace but i really cant. And if i cant work than whats the point? I wont make money and i wont follow my passion. Ill have to stay on social assistance forever and in turn thats not good for me either. When i have nothing to do i feel overwhelming emptiness and the realization that nothing in my life is right and probably never will be. Ill never be able to work and that is a huge problem that will affect my other reasons for living making them reasons to die 2. I wont be a good mother: all i want to be is a good mother that provides everything for her children that i didnt get from my parents. But i wont be able to do that. My mom neglected me my whole life. Sure i got the bare necessities, but i didnt get enough love. She looked at my scars and didnt say a word. Shes just absorbed in her own problems that i will and do inevitably have as well. I look at how far shes come in her life and i dont want to end up where she has. Four kids who dont want anything to do with her, a shitty boyfriend, a string of shitty abusive exes and no work or passion. My biological dad was never there. I kinda want to see him so he can just be proud of me. Have someone anyone be proud of me. I probably wouldn't be able to feel it anyways. My step dad abused me for 16 odd years and i watched him abuse my siblings and mother. So with all that given to me...how can i be a good parent if i dont know what a good parent is. I dont. Have the emotional compasity. Also i cant even take care of myself. 3. I cant take care of myself: i cant even shower regularly. I cant eat properly, i smoke like a chimney, my room has mould...ill be destined to die a painful early death like my grandmother who was also depressed. Thats what i have to live up to. A life of sadness and pain only to end it in pain. The only way i can be taken care of is to spend my life in a hospital 4. love doesnt last: all i want to be is loved and to give love. But whats the point if it doesnt last? Love isnt even really real. I look at my happily married peers and think to myself: how long until they divorce? If they cant find a partner that will stick with them and theyre mentally healthy...how would anyone want to stay with me? Ill never get better im permentantly emotionally damaged. They dont want a broken person. Even if i got married theyd leave and i dont know how much more abandonment i can take 5. I cant feel anything good: nothing feels good anymore except drugs and sex. And those are fast dying pleasures that leave you feeling emptier than before. A compliment goes through one ear and out the other. I cant absorb any good because im so full of the bad. People have helled me while i cry but i cant feel their arms pulling me back together, or rather trying to. I cant feel any love that is radiating from them. I feel all horrible. Maybe they dont truly care and thats why i cant feel anything good. 6. Probably every boy ive slept with: each of my partners have taken away from me and never given anything back. I give my all only to have it thrown in my face. Am i not good enough? 7. All the trauma ive lived through: watching my mother get beat by my step dad...knowing if my mom died that it wasn't an accident and it would be my step dads fault. Knowing if i died it would 've been by my step dads hand. I feared for my life and my siblings and mothers life. My step dad sexually assaulting me. Being sexually assaulted by many other men. A counsellor once told me: "you must have an idea of what every man is like" and i do. Every man is a potential threat to me. Whether its to use and ditch me or to beat me up and rape me. I am deeply fearful of men. My ex asked me why im so scared of his dad. Well if he'd listened to stories of my past maybe he'd know why. Summary: all i want in life is to have my job that i love and have a beautiful family that loves me and i love them and i can care for THEM instead of my children having to care for me like i had to for my mother. But i wont have it. I know it. I watch my mothers path and i see it paved all out for me. I try to be the functional human i want to be but its a fucking joke. Going to school, dropping out and going back only to find my anxiety and depression will probably keep me from doing anything. Keep me from keeping my job and from keeping a spouse. No one wants a damaged fucked up human. So many have left me because of my depression. No one wants to stay with my mother either unless its to control or take advantage of. Thats all im good for too. And even if i got all that and was able to (by some fucked up miracle) keep it all by the skin of my teeth, would i be happy? Could i feel the love my family had for me? Is it worth trying so hard to find out its all false? And then i just put off my inevitable suicide until i have a child. Then i fuck them up too and they live the same life i did? Is it worth it really? I always knew i would die by my own hand. I just wasn't sure exactly when it would be. Im still not sure, im terrified of death...but i know that i dont have much to live up to...

[viralhottopics]

The ‘Something To Wrestle’ podcast sparks nostalgia for old-school WWE hilarity

By conventional podcast standards, Something To Wrestle with Bruce Prichard should not be a hit. The episodesoften shoot past the three-hour mark. The topics sometimes are the kind of minutiae only hardcore wrestling fans from 30 years ago would remember. And the hosts arent household names—Prichard was a memorable WWE, then known as WWF, character in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but spent most of his wrestling career behind the cameras. Co-host Conrad Thompson owns a mortgage company in Alabama.

But somehow, the two have sliced open a vein in wrestling fans conscience, and though the podcast is only eight months old, close to a million people are downloading Something To Wrestle every week.

There are no stars. There are no guests. There are no short shows. Why, then, does this podcast work so well, even when it probably shouldnt?

People arent as interested in star power as they are in content, Thompson, who owns 1st Family Mortgage Company, told the Daily Dot. Maybe its enough to start a podcast. But is it going to be enough to bring them back? Contrast that with our show. Weve involved our listeners. Its because of our inside jokes, its because of our chemistry, its because of Bruces storytelling. Its as close as anybody is going to get to being inside Vince McMahons head.

The mind of the WWE CEO is still real estate people want to explore. Pro wrestling is that way, in general, especially if you grew up watching Hulk Hogan or Andre the Giant or Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rock, or John Cena. Prichard and Thompson have no problem feeding listeners with oodles of information—some of it arcane, some of it absolutely essential—about a variety of topics in yesterdays world of pro wrestling.

Its a world the two have been obsessed with for decades. Thompson grew up watching the WWF in Huntsville, Alabama, and he continues to be a fan. He also co-hostsWhat Happened When, a podcastthat is focused on the disbanded NWA/WCW promotion with former commentator Tony Schiavone.

Prichard is a lifer in the business. He started selling posters for the Houston Wrestling promotion when he was 10 years old, and as he says, if something in the company needed to be done, Prichard was the one to do it. By 12, he was the assistant director of the promotions local TV show. By 14, he was announcing matches. Two years later, he was a referee, and by 18 years old, I was running the place, he said.

Prichard was passionate about the business and hungry to learn as much as he could. He listened to the stories of old-time wrestlers. He asked questions. He learned something new every day. He wasnt interested in becoming a full-time in-ring performer. He wanted to stay in the shadows and have a hand in controlling the entire thing.

You can go out and be one character, or you could be behind the scenes, create many characters, and develop all of them, Prichard told the Daily Dot. I got to be everybody.

By his mid-20s, Prichard had joined the WWF, and eventually, he would become one of the most important people in the front office, helping write storylines, produce promos, engage in talent relations, and run the TV shows. Oh, and he got to perform in front of thousands of people as Brother Love, the fake televangelist with a bright red face who had a penchant for telling everybody (in his smarmy way) that he loved them.

Perhaps the main reason Something To Wrestle works so well is because Prichard has an uncanny ability to remember most everything that happened around him during his 22 years in the WWF/WWE. Thompson asks him a question about minor details from a match that happened in 1997, and most of the time, Prichard can answer him with precise description.

Still, Prichard originally wasnt sold on participating in a podcast. He didnt think people would care about the memories of an old wrestling hand, and he didnt realize the appetite fans had for nostalgia. He met Thompson through wrestling legend Ric Flaira few years back, and they became casual friends, then co-workers in Thompsons mortgage business. Prichard would tell Thompson old wrestling stories, and one day, after Prichard recounted the tale of how a group of WCW wrestlers, known as the Radicalz, jumped to the WWF in 2000, Thompson looked at Prichard and said, This is a podcast.

Prichard laughed it off—he wasnt keen on sharing his stories, because they were his stories and because he didnt think anybody would care.

I guess I was wrong, Prichard said.

The first podcast, which told the tale of Dusty Rhodes in the WWF, garnered about 60,000 downloads. Eight months later, on theWrestlemania 13 episode, it scored400,000 downloads in the first 24 hours.

Thompson thought a podcast could work, because instead of recapping the latest WWE TV shows and storylines, this would be a longform discussion on a singular topic from the past. The podcast has stayed true to that initial idea, but its also morphed into something more.

Theres an undeniable chemistry between Thompson and Prichard—they yell at each other and insult each other, though its also clear the two are great friends with a bevy of inside jokes that seem to never stop being funny—and Prichard has a talent for impersonating the wrestlers and characters with whom he worked. Those caricatures have become a highlight of every episode, especially when Prichard goes into an impression of McMahon, Rhodes, Macho Man Randy Savage, or former wrestling promoter Jerry Jarrett. (Prichards impersonation of Jarrett explaining to a waiter how to make chicken salad might be the top moment in Something To Wrestle history.)

Thompson and Prichard want to make their listeners feel like part of the family—as Thompson said, its not unlike the way Howard Stern built his enormous fanbase—and for pro wrestling fans who already are trained to love these kinds of insider gags and lingo, its a godsend.

I realized there was an appetite for it, Prichard said. That people were interested in the business. They love the business, and they wanted more. They wanted to feel more a part of it. They were longing for an opinion from someone other than somebody who had never been there and who had never done it.

And people stay and listen. Though Prichard and Thompson were told they shouldnt run over 90 minutes on each podcast episode—that the audience would lose interest and hit the stop button—the opposite has happened. If a podcast is less than three hours in length, Prichard and Thompson hear complaints. Not only that, but they said their research has shown that 86 percent of people listen to the podcast all the way through, a statistical anomaly in the podcasting world.

Said Prichard: Weve broken the rules on everything.

Theyve also introduced innovative marketing ideas. Whenever a fan buys a shirt from Prichard on Pro Wrestling Tees, Prichard makes sure to give that person a phone call to chat for a few minutes and to say thank you. But even more inclusive is the fact that the podcast listeners get to choose the topics of the next show. The show posts new episodes every Friday, and on that same day, Thompson and Prichard unveil a poll to the @PrichardShow Twitter account. Whichever topic gets the most votes wins for the next week.

Said Thompson: Its sales 101. In sales, you should ask the buyers, ‘What are you in the mood to buy?’ Rather than us playing darts in the dark.

The two also implemented a strategy to procure iTunes reviews—which has helped make them one of the highest-ranked and best-rated wrestling podcasts around. If they could get 1,000 reviews, they tell viewers theyll post a bonus show. For 1,500 reviews, theyd post another bonus show. And for 2,000 reviews, theyd post a show detailing why and how Prichardwas twice fired by the WWE. As of this writing, Something To Wrestle has nearly 2,500 reviews.

Vote Houston Wrestling @PrichardShow NOW http://pic.twitter.com/3lTsPEyQy6

— #LoveToKnow (@PrichardShow) February 12, 2017

Hearing lots of haters debate our numbers this week. Someone says we do 300k per week? Try 991k. Look at WM13 from Friday, 502k. #RollTide http://pic.twitter.com/oXrV0FUZWo

— Conrad Thompson (@HeyHeyItsConrad) March 28, 2017

But the podcast also eats up plenty of Thompsons time. One reason the show works so well is because Thompson asks such probing questions about the tiniest details. The reason Thompson knows to ask is because he spends about eight hours per episode researching the topic, which involves re-watching old pay-per-views, reading archived wrestling newsletters, and skimming through wrestler autobiographies.

There are no restrictions on what Thompson can ask, and unless the query is about the amount of money earned by specific wrestlers, Prichard answers just about everything. That kind of honesty on this kind of show has also led Prichard back to the wrestling ring. He was released by the WWE for the final time in 2008, but after seeing the impact of Something To Wrestle, Impact Wrestling (basically, the second most important wrestling promotion in the U.S. today) hired him last month as a consultant (probably in part because Prichards show attracts exponentially more listeners than Impact does for its TV shows).

On Sunday, the WWE will present Wrestlemania 33 on its biggest day of the year. Prichard and Thompson will have already completed their first live show, an event in Orlando, Florida, the night before that sold out within a few weeks of it being announced. Fans will watch the current-day wrestlers win titles and take crazy bumps and try to make themselves legends.

But next week, when the wrestling world goes back to normal, nearly a million people will download the latest episode of Something To Wrestle and journey back to a time when Hulk Hogan ruled the world and when fans chanted for Austin and the Rock all night long. Prichard and Thompson will trade insults, gags, inside jokes, and impersonations. People will listen for three hours.

Then, theyll wait hungrily for more.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2o2cxXz

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