#it just occurred to me that a lot of my followers are european so i'd just like to remind everyone that this is a very real and genuine

[actualbabe]

Can you do a "I thought you were dead" ness dialogue? I feel like there aren't a lot of dark new girl fics and I think you'd do an interesting take on this one.

Content warning: discusses the aftermath of a school shooting. Main characters were not harmed, vivid details about blood/gore are not included. May still be triggering to some.

It’s all over the news.

LOS ANGELES, CA

BREAKING: Ten people (6 students and 4 adults) were shot and killed Monday morning at Coolidge Middle School in Los Angeles, California. Five people (all students) were wounded and are currently being treated at the local hospital. One teacher is in critical condition. An armed individual forcibly entered school grounds approximately two hours after the school day began. Details continue to emerge about precisely what happened.

Her hands are still shaking. Jess knows that she’s sitting in the hard plastic chair at the local fire department, but her head is still stuck in that classroom. The classroom where she teaches 7th grade English, with the door locked and lights shut off, an extra desk pulled in front of the door to barricade the entrance. She’s still crouched underneath her desk in the back corner of the classroom, counting and recounting the number of students, her grip tight around the emergency preparedness kit, and trying not to cry.

Her classroom is on the second floor, tucked away in a back hallway that always makes it hard for new students to find on the first day of school. The intruder didn’t make it past the main corridor before police arrived. She’s fine. She’s safe. But no matter how many times she tries to reassure herself, her heart is still racing and her teeth are chattering and her damn hands won’t stop shaking.

They evacuated immediately after the police gave the all clear. All students and faculty were escorted to the firehouse across from campus. For the past hour it’s been a constant stream of parents showing up and frantically searching for their children. By now all of the students have been picked up, pulled into the arms of relieved parents with tears streaming down their faces. Jess keeps glancing over to the small circle of adults huddled around each other, either staring numbly into the distance or hysterically sobbing. The parents of the children who didn’t walk out of the school. It’s terrifying that she knows the students and teachers who were…

She doesn’t want to think about it. Not yet.

“Jess.”

Her head snaps up at the sound of the familiar voice, and there’s Nick running towards her. She instinctively rises out of her seat. He crashes into her, the full force of his body slamming against hers as he pulls her into his embrace. Nick holds her like he’s never going to let go. His grip is iron-tight around her middle, squeezing her tighter than he ever has as he tucks his head against the curve of her neck. Jess’ eyes fall closed, her arms wrap around his shoulders, and she presses her face against the soft fabric of his flannel shirt. He smells like cheap detergent and Schmidt’s shampoo and booze and it’s so familiar and normal that she starts crying. She hasn’t cried since the whole disaster started, either trying to stay calm in the crisis or too numb in the aftermath. But the magnitude of what happened is suddenly sinking in and she’s terrified and relieved and distraught and a hundred other things she can't quite put a name to.

“God, Jess.” His voice is rough and his hand is in her hair with the palm cradling the back of her head. It’s something he does a lot. When they’re kissing, when they make love, when he’s playing with her hair as they sit on the couch during movie night. “I thought you were dead.”

Jess lets out a choked sob. She remembers sitting in her classroom and wondering if she would ever get to be in his arms again, wondering if their kiss goodbye before she left for work would be their last one. “I’m here,” she whispers. “I’m fine.”

“I know.” The shoulder of her shirt is damp and she dimly realizes he’s crying. She tightens her grip around his neck, pulling him even closer to her.

“We’re fine,” she says again, even though she doesn’t quite believe it.

Her hands are still shaking. But when she presses them against the solid weight of Nick’s body they don’t tremble any more.

send me a prompt?

[sou-caio]

Mammoth, time, memories and fantasies

Questions about the time in these last days are occurring me with a high frequency. Not much because of me, but because of what I'd been reading, watching and listening. Recently a friend has indicated me a movie to watch, a trilogy, actually: Before's trilogy. I watched it in the last Friday night and Saturday, and had actually enjoyed. It's far away to be a masterpiece or a such damn movie, but it's good and sweet in the most part of it. It's weird because the three movies are about a same couple but in different periods of their lives (youngers with 20yo, adults with 30yo and 40yo). So, this movie is little ambitious in reflecting questions about the time, the choices you make, the consequences and these things that can make you feel too nostalgic, like I'm felling until now. The fact this friend of mine had indicate to me, actually have been forcing this my nostalgic situation, because she in somehow put me closer of my teenager's life, and of my problems of this period of my life through this movie. It’s funny because this movie tries to reflect about what love is, and if love really exists in our relationships. When I was watching the movie was actually thinking of my lovers, those girls that I kissed and that I don’t had courage to start anything. I guess the nostalgia mood has started over this situation, on this source where a 21yo boy starts to perceive that he’s not a boy anymore, but actually he is still a boy. The first movie (Before Sunrise) was that the most shake me, the one that most put me in love with the life and, at the same time, put me in depression. Some quotes like “I like to feel his eyes on me when I look away”, “Isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?” and “I wish I'd meet you earlier. I really like talking to you” are some examples of how this movie is too sweet and then everything you want to do is being in love with someone. The nostalgia comes when you realize that these sentences could be, or better, should be to people of your past and in events of your past. Every time I watch lover movies I automatically remember of my life in High School. I started my High School at 14yo and finished with 17yo. My first experiences in love had started at this period: first kiss at 14yo with a friend that used to say she loved me. After our kiss, she never wanted to talk with me anymore. The second girl, a friend of this first had a crush on me, but I used to say by the time that I would kiss just those or that girl I really liked. After a lot of insistence of her to kiss me (really), I kissed her on a birthday party. I was 15yo by the time. After this, at 16yo, another girl had told me how she felt about me, and we had become lovers. After a few months we started dating and had become a couple. These three girls are my all experiences with relationships at the High School. That discourse of mine “I’ll only kiss that girl whom I fell something” it was a lie. I never told to anyone about how I feel and that is the point I converge my memories with the movie narrative. The fact is the girl that had indicated me this movie is talking with me has been 3 years and I never told her what I fell for her.

Celine: You know, I've been wondering lately. Do you know anyone who's in a happy relationship?

Jesse: Uh, yeah, sure. I know happy couples. But I think they lie to each other.

Celine: Hmf. Yeah. People can lead their life as a lie. My grandmother, she was married to this man, and I always thought she had a very simple, uncomplicated love life. But she just confessed to me that she spent her whole life dreaming about another man she was always in love with. She just accepted her fate. It's so sad.

Jesse: I guarantee you, it was better that way. If she'd ever got to know him, I'm sure he would have disappointed her eventually.

Celine: How do you know? You don't know them.

Jesse: Yeah, I know, I know. It's just, people have these romantic projections they put on everything. That's not based on any kind of reality.

Another friend of mine, had indicated that I should take a chance for Proust. So, I took her suggestion and started the first book of "In Search of Lost Time". Well, the heavy of memories in this book, and his melancholic expression is too deep, so real and so intense that I actually cannot not to think in my past, remember my stories, feelings, harms... This book is one of the most beautiful things that I will have seen in my life, with no doubts on it. Just like if a strong punch had beaten me, putting marks in my mind forever and forcing me to remember my dark memories and bad feelings, this book will target me for ever since now. The fact I started read this book a few days before I watched Before’s Trilogy had certainly changed the way I see all of it. The memories from Marcel aren’t clear and are too far of memories of our lives, but something like memories of our fantasies. And, in the same way I watch a movie and remember of a specifically form of my high school life, Marcel, by the moment he takes a cup of tea, starts to remember of his childhood. After this book, I'm starting to think that life is too bad to be a constantly line of veridic facts, and fantasies are too good to be continue as unreal things.

Remembering of my dark memories, especially those from the period of my high school, I had recovery either from one band that I used to hear by that time: Mammoth Indigo. This band have a sound pretty close of these my memories, I mean, in a synesthetic way. Their lyrics and their sound are bridges to my memories and my memories had shown, in this occasion, as bridges to their music. I don't know much things about this band. All that I know until now it's they are a European alternative band (I think). For this text, I searched them on Instagram and saw that they had only 1K followers. In real, I don't want to know more than I know about this band and some others. I just prefer stay with their songs and that's all. Don't know anything about their members, their fans, their activities... and I think that if I discover these things the bridge will just falling down. The fact is my memories are fantasies of a boy with his desires and indifferences. For a 21 yo like me, a thing that I can perceive in everything that I wrote until now is that the past is both the winter, you're afraid and the winter you hope to come. The present is a nostalgic bridge to nowhere, and the future...The future is the taste that we never have tried but that we certainly can force our body and mind to imagine it.

[inktae]

You made me super curious about that veganism essay, if you ever feel like sharing, I'd really appreciate it (no pressure though!). I gave up dairy recently because it gave me almost daily headaches and I'm considering going fully vegan (I never really ate a lot of meat to begin with), but I find it really hard to make up my mind. I feel like a lot of the information out there is very us-centric too and doesn't really apply to me, so I'd love to hear a more European/international approach ^^

I did end up translating it, so here you go! :)

a few things I need to point out: I wrote this for a middle school student, so I didn’t delve too much into scientific facts — so please take everything I say with a grain of salt and do your own research if you’re curious, because these are things I learned after reading a lot of studies from certified nutritionists and medical researches.

I also most likely got a little preachy at times (sorry) but please remember that I’m not judging anyone because that is never my intention. I wrote this while keeping in mind that this girl needed it for a school debate where she needed to try and convince people of veganism, which is exactly what I tried to do. ^^” if you are still curious after reading and want to know what kind of documentaries to watch, let me know and I’ll be happy to lead you in that direction.

There are plenty of reasons to approach veganism, or to at least adopt some of the vegan principles into your everyday life; but the most important ones are health, the industry and the planet, and ethics.

Although a healthy diet does not necessarily need to be vegan, a plant based diet can be very beneficial for your body, especially for people with certain chronic diseases, deficiencies or to simply improve your overall health. It has been long since proved that nutrition is tightly linked to the reduction of particular symptoms and the improvement of the quality of life, and a plant based diet definitely carries these benefits. Personally speaking, veganism got rid of my migraines and stabilized my (otherwise disastrous) hormonal situation. It is also proved by nutritionists that a balanced vegan diet, based in real and varied foods, can cover almost every deficiency (except B12, which I will talk about in a second).

One of the myths that worry non vegans the most is the supposed lack of proteins in a plant based diet. This does not suppose any issue at all, as plant based foods are abundant in proteins and it is quite easy to reach the necessary daily intake as long as the diet is varied. A great example are grains — chickpeas, beans, lentils (these in particular are not considered complete proteins as they don’t carry all the amino-acids, but they can easily be completed by including another food that has said amino-acid into your diet, like rice, for example), tofu, tempeh, soy, etc. Plant based proteins are even of higher quality than animal based.

When it comes to supplementation, the only one that is absolutely necessary is B12. This vitamin comes from a bacteria which animals obtain from the ground and the food they’re fed (animals do not have the ability to manufacture vitamin B12), and we would obtain it if we did not wash our vegetables (which we obviously have to do), so it is not necessarily a bacteria that comes from the animals themselves. In some cases they’re even supplemented with said vitamin.

Plenty of people might argue that taking B12 supplements means that it is not a “natural” way of living or that we are not “designed” to be vegan, but in a world where we’re surrounded by technology, where we use phones and cars on a daily basis, what is natural is very relative and what is unnatural does not necessarily mean it’s harmful. The 21th century allows us to be vegan quite easily and that’s what truly matters, not that we were carnivores in the past. It may have been true that millions of years ago it helped us evolve, but we live in a time when we can lead a completely normal life without eating animals, especially if we take into account how harmful and dangerous the industry (industrial farming) has become.

Which leads me to my next point: the industry and the planet. The industry has definitely worsened over the years, as the more it expands and the more its production grows, the quality of the food gets worse and a piece of meat of one hundred years ago is completely different to the one they might sell you today, which is filled with chemicals, antibiotics, hormones… just so the animals grow faster and bigger and taste better. All of this is harmful for the human health (which is a longterm process you might not notice until you’re of adult age. After all, deficiencies take a long time to show up) and it also affects the quality of life of the animals. Unfortunately, there are very few regulations in the industry (both in America and in Europe), which continues to destroy natural landmarks and plays a huge part in the deforestation of the planet. This occurs because the industries need insane amounts of land to be able to grow the crops that serve as food for the animals. If you think about it, it’s quite illogical to destroy so much land to feed the animals that people will then feast on as processed meat full of hormones, instead of directly giving those crops to all the poor people around the world who have no food to get by.

At the same time, it is proved by diverse studies that animal farming produces more greenhouse gases than all of the transport clumped together, which has a huge effect on the planet and global warming. It is also a completely unsustainable system, as the demand continues to rise towards insane levels that the industry can’t even keep up with, which only worsens the deforestation issue. We have reached a point where every second more than three thousand animals are killed in inhuman ways, which only gets worse overtime. All of this is proved and studied through statistics (I really encourage everyone to do their own research on this), but most environmental organizations do not raise awareness as they are sponsored by the same powerful industries (Greenpeace, for example, is sponsored).

(now I get a little graphic on the following paragraphs, please avoid if you’re too uncomfortable about animal torture. Carry on after the *)

When it comes to ethics, I believe that everyone (or most people) would recoil if they saw the living conditions of these animals. As I mentioned before, there are not enough regulations in the industry that look out for the way they live, and the abuse and mistreatment of the animals is quite normal all over the world (even though I did my research through american studies, I was surprised to see that here in Spain it is actually way worse).

These industries only care about selling meat, not the animals. They’re beaten up, tortured, locked in enclosed spaces where they can barely move, they get so fat that their legs break under their weight, the hens get their beaks cut off (they are crammed so close together, they try to peck each other due to stress), and the chicks are gotten rid off by crushing them alive or getting thrown in the trash, where they asphyxiate due to lack of oxygen. It is quite cruel, and there are plenty of videos and documentaries where you can see that this is in fact very real. Earthlings is the most famous one.

*

Another discussion is related to organic meat, and if it is a good option when faced against veganism. Though it might be true that some companies treat their animals better, it is hard to be 100% certain as the regulations (and advertising tactics) can be quite confusing and ambiguous. In some places of the world it can be legal to say a product is organic just because the cages of the animals are just slightly bigger. From an ethical point of view, veganism is still the better choice. When it comes to health, I have to recognize that experts accept that there are lesser risks by eating high quality meats (except red meat, which is still unadvised by nutritionists) but if you compare how much you would spend a month eating organic meats against a whole foods plant based diet (without any processed junk or vegan substitute meats - they tend to be quite expensive, and that’s where the myth of veganism being expensive comes from) then the latter option is way cheaper and more comfortable.

One last argument I have to acknowledge is that veganism is said to be too “extreme”. In my opinion, it should not be considered something extreme or negative to do something good for your own body and for the planet, where the pros definitely outshine the cons. Meat should not be considered an essential staple into your diet, or something you need to be happy — if anything, it should be something additional, and it is crazy to think how so many people view vegetables that way when it should be the other way around. It should not be extremist to base your way of living around plant based sources, not when our society has forced people to believe that meat is essential for a healthy, happy living when it is far from the truth.

It is true that each case has to be treated differently, because each body is different and certain foods will suit some people better than others, but it is something relatively easy to delve into as long as you do your extensive research and are aware of what you’re doing. Veganism is not extremist at all as long as you have the knowledge and the support of a professional, as any changes in your diet (not necessarily related to veganism) needs to be monitored by a doctor.

Veganism should not be perceived that way — because in my opinion, it is mainly focused on reducing animal suffering in the best way we can. It is not absolute. It is not giving up everything in your life. We cannot solve all the problems of the world, but we can make an effort into supporting one cause and having a positive influence in it within our possibilities. We are only human, and just because we are defending one cause in particular (in this case, animals), it does not makes us hypocrites nor insensitive to human issues. There will always be unjust situations we will not be able to solve, and it is in our hands to choose our own battles.

Being vegan does not mean torturing yourself for it, it does not mean to stop enjoying life or getting obsessed with food just to “live a few years longer”. One argument I always see is that we will die sooner or later, so we have to live the way we want to and in the best way possible without worrying too much about those causes or the way we nourish our bodies. But if you truly want to lead an optimal, happy life, and leave a good print before you leave this world, should it not mean giving your body good, delicious and healthy foods that affect positively both your health and the animals, so you can lead an even better life? it is quite disappointing to see that veganism and a healthy plant based lifestyle are so related with “unhappiness” or “obsessing yourself” when it is the complete opposite. When it is done for the right reasons, when it is done right, it does not suppose any major struggle and it can turn around your life for the better. A well balanced plant based diet can even give you a better emotional wellbeing (scientifically proved), which inevitably comes with more happiness.

It is not extreme, it is simply making an effort (which can obviously be hard at first, but easily becomes natural as long as you do it right). Even just going to a restaurant and ordering the vegetarian menu instead of the one with meat does so much good, because you’re creating demand for those kind of products and are showing the world that there is growing interest in this kind of lifestyle.

And I have to add that even though I do defend veganism, I also defend small steps, and that being conscious of these situations and trying to approach some of the ideals of veganism (like meatless mondays, for example), is already beyond incredible in itself, and it is something anyone could easily do. I am sure that a lot of people would genuinely consider the entire transition if they at least tried some of these small steps and saw how easy and fulfilling it is. The sensation you get when you know you’re doing something good (for yourself and for the planet) when there is no meat on your plate is quite indescribable, even more pleasing than the act of eating meat. There are just too many advantages to this kind of lifestyle, and I promise it is truly worth it in the long run.

[taco-calamitous]

Ha-HA! Have THIS long-ass shit on your page!