#it sucks i live in a place that relies so much on driving. my independence takes a hit bc i’m too scared to drive

[fizzytoo]

i need to see someone about this driving anxiety. it’s starting to get worse and it’s really effecting my life

[onlyalive41throwaway]

Would I be the asshole if I waited even longer to tell my dad mom cheated

This is a throwaway account. I (18) have been on a 7 week trip with my mom (55F) with me for the majority of it. My dad (48M) and younger sister (16F) arrived last week, on the 6th a Saturday. I found out about my mom having had at least three affairs from 2022-to April of this year. I found this out during our second week of the trip.

Now because I was not at home and this trip was for me to take a class and to visit family. I decided that it wouldn’t be wise or safe for me to tell dad until after the trip ended. That has been my plan. However, now I’m thinking that it would be better to wait a bit longer. But I’m unsure how selfish that would be.

I know I need to tell him soon as they have been talking about buying a house at the place we’ve taken this trip. Having been buying expensive jewelry and being quite frivolous. They’ve also been incredibly lovey dovey with each other. I know and have accepted that telling them will most likely ruin the marriage and quite possibly hurt my relationship with both of them. But I feel sick seeing mom be like this with dad knowing what she’s done. The text messages I saw were incredibly graphic. I have video evidence of those messages on my phone incase mom grows a tech brain and deleted the messages. So there’s no worry about proving it to dad.

It’s just. I still need them. I still need them to help me pay for college, to teach me to drive, to help me pay for my dorm. They’re always so busy. Dad has always worked a job that starts early and ends really late. I used to resent him for that but now I understand. Mom is currently working a night job and a day job as well. They don’t have time to teach me these skills. I don’t have friends who’d be free to help me with this. All my family lives pretty far away, is busy, and/or too old to be able to be of much help. I would have to rely on my parents for this. However, we rarely ever get stuff done on time. I highly doubt they’d be able to make time for me to teach me these skills.

I feel I’m being selfish in wanting to have my parents teach me instead of the internet. I fear they’ll be too busy fighting to teach me once I tell dad.

TLDR: I still need my parents and don’t want to tell dad mom cheated until I’m confident in being able to be a bit more independent. However, I’ve already waited 5-6 weeks and don’t know if I’d be the asshole to put it off longer. Knowing them, this longer could be as late as end of August/early September.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Onions Among the Roses

“What in the world do two completely different plants have to do with this?”

“... ‘Onions’ can only make you stronger--so do not be ashamed to cut them.”

Yes, that is apparently a real thing that people do.

***Spoilers for Riddle’s childhood, Ghost Marriage Riddle’s home screen lines, and chapter 1 of the main story!***

***CONTENT WARNING: this piece mentions a dysfunctional family and emotional abuse!***

Imagine this...

The stillness of the kitchen was near stifling. Quiet, save for the sounds of ingredients being prepared for plating--the soft gurgle of simmering water, the methodical cut of knives against a wooden board or vegetable flesh.

Riddle sucked in a breath through his teeth, careful to not breathe in the noxious fumes of his half-cut onion. Instead, the oppressive atmosphere slipped in, and he almost gagged.

Small talk, he suggested to himself, make some small talk to drive this horridness away.

“So,” the Heartslabyul dorm leader began, trying to sound casual, “how are you finding the Master Chef course to be so far, Silver?”

“It has been a fascinating experience. I am pleased with the progress that I am making.” He spoke seriously as he whittled away at a potato, forming one continuous ribbon of skin. His iridescent eyes beheld a subtle glow to them--thoughtful. “Father has been pleased as well. He praised the Chicken with Tomato Sauce that I prepared last night.”

Riddle’s knife froze midair. “Your father has visited Night Raven College?”

“Well, more or less,” Silver confessed with a shrug. “He’s always around, always keeping an eye on me, some way or another.”

“I... I see.” Riddle’s eyes turned slightly downcast. “I have not yet had the honor of presenting my cooking to anyone, let alone my father.”

“I’m sure that he would love your food.” Silver reassured him. He set down his neatly peeled potato and started on a new one, the blade of his knife pressed firmly against the grain.

“I’m not so certain,” the redhead replied, a hint of bitterness in his tone. He brought his knife down, cleaving slices from his onion’s bulbous body. “I am not particularly close to either one of my parents. They are not intimate with one another, either.”

Riddle remembered them well: long afternoons and evenings, stretching into bouts of silence, punctured only by the clinking of silverware. His mother and father staring into their own dishes, refusing to address one another. A ‘dessert’ placed before him, tasting of limp cardboard and sadness.

No smiles or joy to be had.

“A Rosehearts family meal is not one you would wish to be invited to,” he declared with the shake of his head.

“Oh.” Silver’s hands came to a stop, his potato peel dangling precariously by his hip. “I’m sorry to hear that, Riddle.”

“Don’t be,” he insisted--a bit too quickly, perhaps. “I may not enjoy it, but I have come to accept it for what it is: my reality. I must hold my head high and continue to advance, regardless of that.”

“Your dedication is admirable,” Silver nodded stiffly, “but even if it is your reality, that does it does not make the blows you’ve been dealt any less painful. Wounds of the body and wounds of the heart can hurt equally.”

“... I suppose so.” Again and again, Riddle’s knife came down mercilessly upon the onion. His motions had gotten smoother with time and repetition, but his dices were still not even in size.

They settled back into silence, each boy tending to their own mise en place. Simmering. Chopping. Discomfort seeped in and filled the space between them.

Silver cleared his throat. “... How are you finding the Master Chef course?”

“Ah... The instruction has been very informative, but I fear I still have a long way to go when it comes to putting lecture material to practice.” Riddle eyed Silver’s knife. “You seem to be quite skilled in some regards already.”

“Swordplay is my specialty,” he replied. “I have been training since I was young. The same goes for Sebek.”

“Practical skills will serve you well.” Riddle flinched as the odor of onions tickled his nostrils. He sucked in another breath through his teeth.

He had once thought of wielding a whisk or a spatula, of whipping cream and flipping patties. He had wanted to make mud pies and set up a lemonade stand. Dreamt of colors and textures and shapes and flavors. To mold them with his own hands, to taste them with his own tongue.

“The only things you need to worry about are your grades--your grades, and following the rules,” his mother had told him, plucking the butter knife out of his hands. Over and over and over. “Go back to your books.”

His dreams laid in shards upon the floor.

“I’ve had a very privileged, but sheltered, upbringing,” Riddle said with a weak laugh, “so I am afraid that when it comes to hands-on exercises such as this... I may very well underperform.”

“It’s fine. No one is perfect at everything.”

“I must be.”

Silver cast his classmate a puzzled look. 

“I must,” Riddle repeated, tightening his grip on the handle of his knife, “if I wish to live independently. I cannot always rely on Trey to prepare tea, or Che’nya to yank me outdoors.”

“Riddle...”

How mad his mother had been when she had discovered him missing, when she had discovered the sugar dusting his lips. The strawberry tart had tasted sweet, yet fleeting. She had screeched like a banshee, forbidden him from playing with the other children ever again.

And how livid she had been when he had confronted her over winter break.

“You are my son. You are a Rosehearts. You will not defy me--you will not defy the rules!” she had roared. “Who has been planting these poisonous thoughts in your mind? I want to speak to them!!”

He inhaled shakily and shoved the memories of her shouting out of his mind.

“I need to start making strides on my own--and this is the first step towards that. I cannot allow myself to fail, no matter what.” The redhead pressed the tip of his blade into the onion--the hand curled atop the vegetable, trembling. His expression, solemn.

Silver set down his knife and potato, briskly walked over to Riddle’s workspace, and grasped his wrists. “Stop. You’re shaking all over. It’s not safe to cut it like that.”

“But the onion--”

“Forget the onion. Take a bre--” Silver came to a full pause when he saw Riddle’s face. “... You’re crying.”

And so he was.

Fat tears rolled down his face, his cheeks bloated and rosy. The Heartslabyul dorm leader shook, furiously rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hands. He sniffled loudly, but managed to choke something semi-comprehendible out.

“Th-The onions must be making my eyes water.”

“Of course. Let me get you a towel.”

It took only a few moments for Silver to retrieve a warm, wet cloth. He offered it to Riddle, who immediately pressed the cloth to his eyes.

“I’m... I’m sorry. You shouldn’t see me in such a pathetic state.”

“As I have said before, you are fine,” Silver said patiently. “No man is able to take down a beast by himself. It takes the backing of an entire village to ensure that he is prepared for his quest.”

“But crying at my age... It is unfitting, especially for a dorm leader.”

“Falling and losing your footing are all normal in the learning process. I stumbled a lot as well when I was training with the sword. What matters is that you are able to pick yourself up afterwards. Never losing sight of your goal.”

Silver folded his arms. “To be both the best student, and the best chef. To gain independence for yourself. That is why you fight, and why you shed your tears.”

Riddle slowly lowered the towel from his eyes. His wet gaze met Silver’s. “Are tears truly something to be proud of?”

"... There are many roses in the Valley of Thorns. And, sometimes, onions are planted alongside them. It is said that when they are grouped together, onions can enhance the fragrant aroma of roses." 

“What in the world do two completely different plants have to do with this?”

"... 'Onions' can only make you stronger--so do not be ashamed to cut them.” Silver plucked a fresh bulb from a basket and handed it to his peer. “Rest, and reflect on it. When you are ready, you can return to your ingredients.”

He turned and started to walk back to his own work station, but paused midstride.

“Riddle.”

“Yes?”

“You should come over sometime, and join us for a meal. Fath...” Silver caught himself and rushed to correct his phrasing. “Ah, I mean... you should come over to Diasomnia. Malleus-sama and Lilia-sama would be happy to host you.”

Riddle gave the smallest of smiles. “I would like that very much.”

[thelucindac]

🥺🌼💕 get to know your mutuals!! when you get this, it means someone wants to know more about you, so list 5 things about yourself you want your followers to know. they can be as simple as your age or as complex as your deepest fear, as long as it’s something you’re comfortable with sharing. when you’re done, send this to 10 people you want to get to know better!! 🥺🌼💕

1) I never feel more calm/serene/at peace than when I'm at the beach. Swimming, reading, writing, making drip castles in the sand, snorkelling, staring at the horizon, the waves always coming and going. The sun doesn't have to be out, but that's usually better.

2) On that note, my other favorite places are: an empty stage, a stage with a set, libraries, book stores, my old bedroom before my parents changed everything, my old tree house, my dad's cousin's cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and Comic Cons with my friends. Any place with my friends, honestly. And I really don't like living in places where it snows. Snow is fine for a day trip, but if I never have to shovel it again, I will be happy.

3) I don't like how independent I tell myself I have to be. I wish I was better at telling people when I'm lonely, better at reaching out for help, better at not pushing everything down, better at telling people 'no,' better at not talking myself out of doing good things that would make my life better, better at getting professional help for my broken brain. I tell myself, why complain, when I'm really the only person who'll fix it anyway. I've lived this way for so long, it's my default, it's what I'm used to. I'm still here because I keep talking myself out of leaving. Sometimes, being the only person who will feed myself, run errands, run myself to the hospital, drive myself to the airport, clean my apartment, pay for things, and so much more... just plain sucks. But no one else will do it. People tell me I can move home to California at any time, technically, but there are so many steps to that, and I tell myself I'd have to do them all alone, in the middle of a pandemic, and then wrestle with the guilt of probably never seeing some of my East Coast friends ever again, and find a new job so I can keep paying off my loans, etc. So I just soldier on, and nothing gets better. Basically I'm a genderfluid Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle but I'm always telling myself I have to keep being the old lady.

4) I really don't want to end up alone. And I'm afraid I'll just self-sabotage and ruin all my chances of finding someone, because I'm so used to only relying on myself, that I won't open up. That I won't even let myself look for a SO because I get so up in my head about it. I want to date, but how do I even date, amiright? Plus, I'm still figuring out a few pieces of who I am, and how can I know anyone will even be attracted to this mess?

5) I still sleep with a Stitch pillow-pet I bought at Disneyland in 2012 for my high school senior grad night. I bought my sister a matching one, and I don't know if she still has hers, but it still helps me fall asleep at night sometimes. Sister and I also watch The Polar Express every year on Christmas Eve. Also I used to need Yanni/ whale song new age music to fall asleep every night when I was a kid. I don't as much now, but every once in a while, it works.

And extra tidbits, 'cause I feel like sharing: I love The Book Thief, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Pacific Rim, Mad Max Fury Road, Dragon Age, Kingdom Hearts, sunflowers, Jamba Juice, fish tacos, poking around in places I shouldn't, steak, spagetti, sourdough bread, Panda Express, pot roast, gingerbread cookies, and Quentin Coldwater.

[ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes]

Dawn in Your Eyes Part 7

Summary: Alfie has little to no idea why Caroline ever gave him the time of day. The blind woman seemed far too sensible to even speak to him. But soon he finds himself falling helplessly in love.

Part 7: Alfie retrieves his dowry. Talk leads to the topic of children. 

          “Whoa, whoa, hang on there!” Alfie chuckled as he just barely snatched the collar of the pup before he could barrel off. “You’ll get to meet her soon enough. Can’t blame ya though, she is lovely. You’re gonna love her.”

        After the wedding, Caroline had gone ahead to Margate for their impromptu honeymoon. Alfie offered to take her somewhere a bit more exotic, but she insisted on staying close to home. As she got settled, Alfie retrieved his dowry from Julia and delivered it the next morning.

        The mastiff puppy was all legs with massive paws. He was awkward in his gait but good-spirited and gentle as well.

        Alfie gathered the pup in his arms and carried him inside. “Caroline?”

        “I’m in the parlor!” She called.

        Cyril came trotting over and sniffed at the little furry bundle in Alfie’s arms. “Right, right, you two’ll get acquainted soon. Let me pass then.” He skirted around the massive dog.

        “Guess what I’ve got, love.”

        Caroline closed her book and beamed. “What’ve you got?”

        Alfie sat down beside her on the couch and guided her hand to the pup in his arms.

        Her mouth opened in disbelief once she felt the silky-smooth fur. “Is this the newest addition to the Solomons household?” She gasped. “Oh Alfie, how does he look?”

        “He’s a beaut. Perfectly healthy” He replied and moved her hand to the pup’s paws. “Got these big paws.”

        She giggled. “Oh, he’s so soft. Hello, lovey.” She cooed and lowered her face to get a kiss from the puppy. “What’ve you named him then?”

        “Well, I figured we could come up with something together.” Alfie chuckled as Pilot and Cyril eyed the puppy from across the room. “Now there’s no need to get jealous, you two.”

        “Oh, Pilot, I’d never replace you. We’ll all be a big happy family from now on. That’s all.” The Newfoundland seemed a little miffed at the attention Caroline was giving the pup and decided to sulk off to a corner. “Is he pouting at me?”

        Alfie laughed. “He’s certainly not pleased. Give it time, I’m sure they’ll all learn to be brothers soon enough.”

        “What color is he?” Caroline scooped up the puppy, smiling as he licked her cheek.

        “Black and white. They call ‘im a harlequin mastiff.”

        “Hm…What should we name you?” She murmured to the pup. He yawned and curled up in her lap, tired from the drive. “What about a stately name, huh?”

        “Stately?” Alfie chuckled. “What, like some sort of mythical creature?”

        “Well, he is our dowry, it’s got to be special!” She protested.

        “Alright, love, you give him a stately name then.”

        Caroline thought to herself for a moment, stroking her hand over the puppy’s fur. “What about Apollo?”

        “Apollo, eh?” Alfie fixed the dog’s ear that had flipped over in his frenzy to greet Caroline. “Big name, guess he’ll grow into it. You gonna name all our kids after Greek gods, then?”

        Caroline went to laugh but realized she was caught off guard by the mention of kids. “Well, I…we haven’t discussed children.” She reminded him.

        Her husband went a bit quiet. It was something that was naturally assumed in the Jewish community. Get married, have as many babies as possible. Since they’d gone through with traditions, maybe Alfie had gotten a little caught up in everything. Or perhaps it was because he knew Caroline would be a wonderful mother. Maybe he had been fostering the idea of having children of his own. His own blood. His pride and joy.

        “I’m sorry, I just,” Alfie rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to spring it on ya. Just got married ‘n everything.”

        “Well I suppose it would’ve been brought up one way or another.” Caroline smiled. “If not by us then by our family.”

        “They will be expecting children.” He agreed. “But that doesn’t mean we have to-you know…”

        “No, I know.” She got a little flustered. “I know that it’s our choice. I think you’d be a great father I just think I would-” She swallowed.

        “Love,” Alfie touched her cheek and guided her eyes to his. “What’re you thinking?”

        “Honestly, Alfie, how good of a mother do you think I could possibly be?” She asked quietly, shame apparent in her voice. “How can I look after children?”

        “Well, it won’t be typical but we can work through it. You ain’t ever been limited when you want to do things, love. Why do you doubt yourself now?” Alfie murmured, his thumb stroking soothingly over her cheek.

        “Because it’s other lives. It’s not just myself, it’s children that need tending to. If I fail then I fail them too.”

        “You wouldn’t though. We’ll have help in the flat, in fact, we can move to a bigger place. You like that? Somewhere out in the country? Have more space? We’ll have help twenty-four/seven in the home for you and the kids.”

        The illusion that Alfie was painting was enticing. More space for the children to run around with the dogs. Their laughter filling the space, the scent of lavish gardens wafting through the open windows.

        But Caroline knew she wasn’t the typical wife and would never be the typical mother. “I would never be able to see how beautiful they were.” She whispered tearfully. “I’d never be able to see how much they look like you. How could I explain to them that I can’t see?”

        Alfie’s heart fell when he saw how upset she became. He wanted to reassure her that things like that didn’t matter. What mattered was her love and how caring she was. But how could he convince her when he didn’t know what she went through? Instead, he gently took Apollo from her lap and set him on the rug. Then, he pulled her in close for a hug. “I’m sorry, let’s not talk about it right now. We can discuss it later if you want or we can drop it for good.”

        Caroline cried into his shirt. “I want to be normal for you, Alfie.”

        “Hey, hey, none of that. What’s normal, aye?” He pressed his lips to her temple and rubbed her back. “I wouldn’t want you any differently, love. You’re my perfect Caroline. If I could gift you sight, then I would in a heartbeat. I’d give up me own fucking sight for you if I could. But you’re the way that you are and I’m the way that I am. Husband and wife, yeah? Right, and that’s perfect for me. What about you?”

        She swallowed her tears and nodded. “It’s perfect, Alfie, it’s perfect.” She found his face and kissed him softly.

        Being intimate with Alfie Solomons was an entirely new experience for Caroline. It was one thing to kiss him and be held in his arms. But consummating the marriage was a test of their trust. Caroline relied on his touch and soft sounds that were rare from him. In fact, behind a closed door, it appeared that Alfie’s entire armor designed to keep the world back melted.

        Caroline often wondered if he would be rough. He never had been before with her. But he was a man that craved dominance. A man of his standing didn’t get to where he was by being passive and meek.

        But there was a side to Alfie that she’d seen plenty of times before. The subdued man who desired domesticity and the affection of someone who truly adored him. The Holy Grail, for a man like him.

        It was true that he was a dominant figure. But it was enough that Caroline trusted him to deliver her to safety. He knew it wasn’t easy for her to lay down her defenses. After all, she tried so hard to make herself independent in a world that wasn’t made with her disability in mind.

        So, the two who were both fiercely independent met at the middle. Laying down their defenses and allowing the other to guide them to warmth and acceptance. Because at the end of the day, that’s what they gave each other. Trust, love, and acceptance.

        And in that moment, that was the only things left in the room. Stripped bare, a thin sheet of sweat traveling down her spine as Caroline rocked slowly in Alfie’s lap. His strong arms locked around her, his fingers pressing in between her vertebrae.

                       When she let out a soft moan, Alfie moved his hand up to the nape of her neck, cradling her close. “Okay?” He grunted quietly.

        She nodded; a bit too overwhelmed by her senses to answer with coherent words. She pressed her forehead to his shoulder and dragged her nails over his shoulder blades.

        “Let go, love, I’ve got you.” He assured her. “Let go.”

        Caroline’s eyes shut tightly and she whimpered. “Alfie.”

        “Yeah, love, I know.” His hands fell to her hips, guiding her right into her release when she lost control of her movements. Her fingernails dug into his skin and she threw her head back with a cry. Alfie buried his face in the crook of her neck, kissing and sucking on her skin as he met his peak as well.

        He patiently held her as she came down from the high. Exhausted, she slumped into him, breathing hard.

        “I love you.” She whispered.

        “I love you too.” He murmured and adjusted them so he could draw the sheets over her. He kissed her forehead and cheeks a few times as her heart rate slowed down. “You’re so beautiful.” He murmured.

        “So are you.” She replied and captured his lips again.

Permanent Tag: @sansajonsastark

Tag List: @zazasblogxx @thinkingsofamadwoman

Masterlist 

[la-bruja-de-la-literatura]

Confessions of a Budget Witch

Originally posted by me, in the "Witches & Pagans" Amino.

Let's get this out of the way right now: Being a witch on a tight budget sucks.

Being on a tight budget in general sucks, but this entry is focusing on witches on budgets, and the shadowy, consumerist side of witchcraft and paganism circles. So hold on to your brooms, brujxs, this is going to be a log post.

The Aesthetic/ Instagram Witch

Before anybody throws stones, I have an Instagram account (with this same name). I'm not against the witch aesthetic.

In fact, I think it's great that so many people are passionate enough about art to create these wonderful images. I adore those photos with rose quartz crystal balls and points next to delicate himalayan salt lamps and towering pastel pink candles, and the magnificent bundles of dried roses and lavendar.

Would I want all of those? Goddess, no. Cleaning up all the pouring wax alone would drive me insane, and thinking of all the vacuuming involved with all the dried herbs littering the floor makes me want to take a nap.

And yet, when I close my eyes, I think of some of those images of tall candles littering an altar, of a big crystal ball and tall crystal points. I think of creating big, elaborate crystal grids. I think of a nice stone mortal and pestle I've been wanting to buy for years.

Reality, however, has to hit sometime, and for me it's always when I check my bank account and remember that I barely pay rent with my current salary on most months. I constantly need help with groceries, medical and cellphone expenses. It's gotten better, but I still am not completely financially independent.

That said, I'm fortunate enough to still have some money to buy the things I enjoy, mostly crystals, candles and readings these days. I desperately want to support other witches/spiritual healers, so I carefully look over my finances and put aside some cash for them.

Does this mean I am any less frustrated? No.

In fact, a lot of my anger bubbles up when I read a new spell or witch book with a list of ingredients, always with the note saying like "you can always substitute ingredients, but it won't have the same effect". Which begs the question of why I bother looking up spells in the first place when I usually only have kitchen herbs and my 10-15 crystals (which is quite a lot of pretty rocks as it is). I feel like all these resources ask for the few things I do not have.

Now, I won't say that all sources are like this.

Websites and YouTube channels on minimalistic witchcraft are mostly free, and books like "Light Magic for Dark Times" by Lisa Marie Basille and "Holistic Energy Magic" by Tess Whitehurst, for example, have little to no need to buy a list if ingredients. However, these tend to be the minority in the witchcraft community.

Is that the budget witches fault? Absolutely not. We all have bills to pay and real-world responsibilities. The fact that we still fit this stuff into our lives just shows how much the Craft means to us. Which beings me to my next point...

Finding Affordable and Functional Tools

Western Witchcraft tends to rely heavily on materials and tools to gain results. While many witches guarentee that you "only need yourself" to do magick, the reality is that magick without tools is incredibly difficult and almost impossible for baby witches.

The good news is that stores (in the US, at least) like Five Below and Dollar General are selling some basic stuff like candles, essential oils, crystals and incense at low prices. That said, aside from the candles, glass jars, wooden boxes and incense holders, many of those tools are low-quality. Most of the essential oils I've found at these stores, for example, are perfumed and not real plant-based oils. Tarot decks from places like Wish are usually cheap bootleg imitations that are also low-quality (and also don't support the creators). Another disadvantage is that we aren't supporting the metaphysical community when you buy from these places, which is something I find frustrating. Lastly, I've also noticed that cheap crystals are not not mined ethically, and that is another thing that I personally try to avoid buying cheap if I can.

Now, some common stores, such as pharmacies and grocery stores, are still quite useful to the budget witch. Pharmacies tend to have plant-based and cruelty-free essential oils and diffusers for good prices. Just make sure to research what can harm pets if you have them. Tea tree oil is very toxic to dogs, for example, but lavendar is not. However, lavendar is harmful to cats. Make sure to know what you're using if your pets are around you. Grocery stores are also great places to get cheap dried herbs.

Law of Attraction and The Root Chakra

If you've been reading my post, you'll have noticed that I do not like the Law of Attraction. So we are all clear, I am not against having goals, or following your dreams or passions. I am against the way this system makes the practitioner feel responsible for factors out of their control. (There is a Tumblr post that also explains how the ideology of LOA falls withing the B.I.T.E. model, which is used to identify cult ideology. I'll link it here soon).

I have also become incredibly wary of using chakras, as the popularized system that most witches use today were made-up by a white author.

What bothers me more than any of the aforementioned things is when other practitioners state that those of us in a difficult financial situation are either not working with our root chakras (which focuses on finantial stability, and livliehood) or just aren't using the Law of Attraction well enough. Blaming these kinds of difficulties on budget witches is not only shameful, but it's also usually a marketing tactic used by certain folks to make those of us desperate for money to want to buy their services to "learn how to get rich" or at least financially stable enough to thrive.

If you are interested in using the Western chakras, there are cost-effective ways to work on them, such as using meditation. Again, YouTube is a rich resource for hundreds of free and effective guided meditations on anything from chakras to spirit guides.

Also, let's not forget our good old friend, Practicality. When you get an infection, for example, your priority should the doctor/medical professional first before witchcraft, unless you have a herbal specialist that can create a safe and effective holistic medication (and this person should be, again, a professional). In the same vein, if your are going through a financial rough spot, buying a bunch of root chakra candles or crystals in the hope that your situation will improve is contradictory to what you need to do: save that money. Maybe get one or two inespensive things if you can. If not, use the free resources on hand.

Don't Allow This to Discourage You

As much as many of us claim not to need tools (and I applaud you if you manage with so little, willingly or not), the truth is that most of us like to have things on hand, and I am no exception. Books, candles, crystals, decks and herbs are what I spend my money on. I am aware that there is a materialistic aspect to the way I choose to work. I even have a cauldron and a professionally made wand, despite not being Wiccan and using both for only special occasions. Heck, right now the cauldron is just housing a bled of herbs to cleanse anything I put in it.

That's my choice. I save for some months and then buy little by little. But there are other ways to be an effective budget witch and thrive.

For example, many witches on this site have pointed out that you can make your own tools, such as wands or altar decorations, out of sticks and rocks. Some folks prefer finding their own tools. Just be careful not to pick up anything poisonous, or disturb the nest of any animals that may be around. Also, do NOT eat anything off the ground unless you are 100% sure what it is and that it has been grown in clean soil. Go to the supermarket for edible herbs if you can't find a local market or herb shop. A quick online search will help with that, and you'll be acquainted with your environment.

Tea is also another wonderful resource for the budget witch. It is easy to find, usually under $5 a box (in the USA) and good for you. Again, it's still wise to be careful when trying new herbs, but I find most tea companies will stick to fruits amd common herbs like chamomile and peppermint, to name a few. Honey pairs well with tea, great for magick, and also very accessible. You can also open tea bags for a spell, or invest in loose herb mixes and a strainer. Try buying a teapot if possible. If not, boil your water in a pot over the stove, microwaved tea isn't as good. Trust me.

Tips & Tricks

🖤Crystals are just as effective if they are small or pocket-sized, and usually a lot cheaper that way. There is the bonus perk of being able to carry them with you on the go in your bag or pockets.

🖤Use non-magickal sources as well a magickal ones to identify herbs and crystals so you can be sure they won't harm you. Crystals can also be toxic.

🖤Some people (myself included) believe normal rocks to be just as powerful as crystals. You can even try painting them the color you want to manifest, or you can put sigils on them.

🖤There are free digital tarot apps that are great for readings and having a deck with you wherever you go. The Labyrinthos and Kawaii Tarot apps are the ones I currently use.

🖤Plastic flowers and fruit can be cost-effective decor for your altar, and maybe even an offering or representation of your deity(ies) if you have any.

🖤Epsom salts are relatively cheap, and adding your own essential oils to them in a tub or foot bath is a great spa day remedy and good for metaphysical and physical cleansing. Just make sure they are real essential oils, and look up the correct dosage.

🖤White vinegar is also affordable, and efficient glass, counter-top and carpet cleaner. It also has protective properties along with salt, and it's great for cleaning your altar, if you can stand the smell.

Some Resources:

My Go-To Etsy Stores for Ethical and Affordable Crystal Buying: (I am not a sponsor for these stores, nor am I being paid to advertise them).

The Spiritnectar

Moonrise Crystal

Ethically-Sourced & Affordable Crystals. My order came with a tea bag as well!

Crystal LionGems

Budget Witch Videos:

The Witch of Wonderlust on Low-Budget Witchcraft

Magickians Budget Witch Guide

Cheap Places to Get Books that Aren't Amazon:

Thriftbooks

BookOutlet

Or rent books at your local library! You can also make requests if they don't have what you're looking for.

That's all for now, brujxs. Please tell me your thoughts, and how you handle being a budget witch. Stay safe, witchy and freaky. 💜

[funkymbtifiction]

Hi Charity, I was wondering what your instinctual variants were? I don’t know if you’ve talked about this already but would you mind explaining a little about your experience as that iv? Maybe compared to other ENFPs or 6s you’ve seen?

There is so much contradictory information out there that I was confused for awhile, but I came to determine sp/so based on descriptions of 6 subtypes.

I had to look at “what I am actually LIKE” far more than what I “THINK I AM LIKE.” As in, think back to my life and see if I could pinpoint any examples of my behavior that fell in line with the so and sp 6 descriptions.

I am way more this:

Sp 6: Passion of fear manifests as insecurity, fear of not being protected.

Escape anxiety through seeking security and protection, and become dependent on others, not trusting themselves enough. Feel alone and incapable without outside support. (I hate to admit this, but I have a huge sense of anxiety whenever I think about inheriting my parents’ business and all their responsibilities. I have this deeply-rooted fear of “I cannot do this” … even though I am capable, reliable, frugal, and smart. All of those things flit from my mind and I feel like I need other people helping me. Last week, I had an actual meltdown where I became almost catatonic because I had spent too much time thinking one day that there’s no way I can live up to my super-extroverted, confident father’s ease of business sense. I had to talk my way through it, and accept that I am far different, and think about how to achieve the same results but in a way that suits my more introverted and withdrawn, even shy, personality.)

Perceive the world as dangerous, and seek alliances. Endeavor to be friendly, trustworthy and supportive as allies are supposed to be. Taboo on aggression that results from the needs of dependency weakens them in the face of aggression, and contributes to their insecurity and need for external support. (I cannot think of a single instance in my entire life when I ever showed aggression in anything, even the times when it would have been beneficial for me to do so, but I can think of countless examples where other people verbally attacked me for some reason and I just stood there dumbfounded and unable to produce any kind of visceral rage with which to hit them back. I just listened, then, as a teen, went home and cried; now, I go home and withdraw from everyone.)

Want to feel the warm embrace of a family, in a protected place with no enemies. (I cannot stress enough how much this looks like 9 – I am exactly like my 9 friends in our need for a harmonious relationship; I cannot be around people who are angry, who stir up constant trouble, or seem to dislike me; and in the instances in which I am confronted by dislike or strong opinions, my literal first thought is “I want to go home, to the people who ‘get’ me and agree with me” because I feel safe there.)

Driving need is for friendship or warmth. Being warm is a way of getting people to be friendly and not angry. Warmest of the 6s. (Yep. A thousand times yep.)

Cannot let out their own aggression, and want to be good, ie. not angry. (This has baffled me for as long as I can remember. My anger flares up and then… dissipates in a very short amount of time. I never hold grudges. I never tell people off, unless I am very close to them, and even then I’m not mad for more than a few minutes. ONE TIME I lost my temper in front of two people, and I instantly felt bad about it. I have gone through some crap in my life, and never lost my temper; if I get mad, I start berating myself for BEING angry!!)

A lot of hesitation, indecision and uncertainty. Too much tolerance for ambiguity, don’t want to decide between ‘black and white’ because they see a lot of grey, can have a difficult time making decisions. Ask many questions but don’t answer any. (Sadly. Yes.)

Than this:

So 6: “Duty” - concerned with what their duty is, knowing the rules, the points of reference, the guidelines, the “good guys and bad guys”. 

Represents a mixture of the phobic and counter-phobic expressions.

Cool, cold, precise (archetypically German/Prussian character).

Stronger, due to certainty. Becomes too sure in defense from insecurity. Can become a true believer or fanatic, who holds tightly to ideologies, lacking trust to oneself and trust to others. (I do lack self-trust, but I also have it – in MBTI, for example, I am always seeking to learn more, and sometimes doubt I have typed a character accurately; in those instances I will ask someone whose opinion I trust if my reasoning is sound. I “consult” with others to get their opinions and like a consensus.)

Deal with anxiety by relying on abstract reason or ideology as an impersonal frame of reference. Make sure of things through an obsessive reliance on reason and precision. (I feel safe if I use a “rational” approach which I guess fits into this category?)

Love of precision and intolerance of ambiguity. See things more in terms of ‘black and white’ than gray. (If I put this into the context of my faith, then yes, I am more a person who says, “If you want to identify as X, you should live according to the principles defined by X.” Just as an example, Christianity teaches unconditional forgiveness, so if I see someone professing to be a Christian who is also hanging on to bitterness and refusing to forgive others, I would feel tempted to point that out to them, because they are not living according to the principles they “claim” to possess. I rarely do it, however, because it’s too combative and I’m not comfortable with initiating conflict on that level. I am more inclined to disapprove from a distance and keep my mouth shut unless asked for advice on that issue. :P)

Fear disapproval from the authorities. “The Obedient 6”. Think that the way to be safe is to do the right thing, and the way to know the right thing is to have clear rules. (Mostly, I think this way in terms of my faith; I am less this way about rules in an organization or a group, and I would never impose those rules on anyone – I would fail at being the person in charge of a “home covenants” group where everyone had to keep their house up to a certain standard and abide by the rules, since I think forcing rules upon people sucks.)

Concerned with efficiency, have a legalistic character. (Um. Yes? Kind of? I don’t like to think of myself this way, but I have been called cold before.)

Can look like: 1 or 3.

Source.

Lots of sp, some soc but not enormously.

Many ENFPs seem to be sp-blind and/or have weak sp, which is why I don’t resemble most of them – I have no problem taking tons of “alone time” to work on my various projects rather than socialize, I have always saved money with the notion that I might need it later for my long-term survival, I am aware of my physical needs and make sure to cater to them with regular mealtimes and sleeping schedules. I am very good with money and always have been frugal.

I do value soc but am hesitant to use it as a resource, and it’s hard for me to socialize or approach strangers to get to know them. I am an initiator with those I already know or have been introduced to, but more of a loner. Soc-doms tend to be more extroverted because they want to connect with you – I am never sure if I want to or not until I get to know you. I have to mentally prepare myself to go out and be with a group of people, and feel quickly drained by them and their chatter. When I first moved away from home, I really wanted to meet people and make friends but did not have the first clue as to “how.” I tried out a couple of groups where I soon discovered it was hard for me to approach people or initiate conversations. I do not project the soc-first “I am friendly, come and talk to me” aura. In one group, I realized my beliefs did not match up with theirs, so I walked away. I didn’t argue with them about it, I just knew there was no point and I’d rather be alone than in a group that seemed to agree with each other, but that I could not agree with myself. I figured, “Well, my loved ones agree with me, so they will have to do.”

I have an iffy relationship with the rules, also. When I was much younger, I had more strict views about behaviors and felt threatened when others disagreed with them – but as an adult, I am open to nuanced thinking and fall into being comfortable with uncertainty. I have super strong opinions, but rarely impose them on other people. I’m more able to be friends with people I disagree with now than when I was young – so fear of disagreement is something all 6s have to work through.

Probably my biggest clue about being sp/so came from my experiences in dating. Anytime the relationship appeared to grow more intrusive or serious, I would run away from it – it was threatening my sense of sp, and I lacked the soc-dom’s “social grace” of making a delicate break. I feel bad about that, but I think it’s a problem with sp-doms. They long to connect in a deep, meaningful way, but the minute anyone feels too “intruding” upon their time or resources or independence, they back away.

- ENFP Mod

[steezf]

it fucking sucks that my PTSD is so bad sometimes that i become absolutely terrified when standing next to or being around my dad or my 21yr old brother because I legitimately believe that they're going to rape me or abuse me in any way. I know they would never ever do that, and I know it's quite an outlandish thought if I think about it... but I can't help it. I feel so uncomfortable and it's the worst feeling, being so afraid of my the people closest to me, because of what has happened with men. I wish I didn't have to think about those events 24/7. I'm not exaggerating when I tell people (very few, as not a lot of people know about my PTSD, due to shame from it) that these memories replay in my head ALL THE TIME, and when they do stop, there has to be something to trigger and remind me of the event, or the person involved. I'm so exhausted. I want something else to think about. I get high and it helps, A LOT. It keeps me distracted and not worry as much. But man, sometimes I hate relying on it to make me feel better. I'm all kinds of messed up. But I believe that once I get out of Arizona and out into a whole different environment, one where I'm independent and hopefully living with my girlfriend, I'll improve and start to get better. I love Arizona with all my heart and it's amazing and my home.. but it does carry a lot of hard memories for me, ones that I can't shake off because of the triggers all over the place. I have a hard time just driving by certain roads and stuff because I think of what's happened, and I also know that my abusers live in those certain areas and I'm deathly afraid of seeing them in person again. Idk. I'm just venting, as I'm trying to not go to sleep and have nightmares once again. I wake up so early every day and I don't get good rest. so I'm tired. very very tired. I'm okay, just troubled I guess. things are so rough in my mind right now, but I'm trying my best to remain positive and just hang in there. I don't know if people actually read this stuff, but if you are, thanks for listening.

[scrapsofsky]

I have once more (and a very long time ago) been challenged by Ian Sales to join him in our un-named war to come up with the best arbitrary list of films within an equally arbitrarily selected category. You can find previous iterations of this absurdity here, here, here, here, and here. We have, alas, not done this in a long while, which we can both blame on being busy with many other things.

But in the interest of rekindling silliness, I have been loosely challenged by Ian to come up with a list of 10 underrated SF/F films from the last 20 years, which is a direct response to this ScreenRant list. Since this list is in response to a link with a remarkably open prompt, I’ve opted to stick to the 10 item list format. Future challenges will go back to our favorite number:  5.

Ian, of course, has already dropped his list. Go check it out!

With that in mind, the following list of 10 films represent my attempt to put together films that I consider to be overrated. My criteria is fairly simple:

It must be a SF/F film released since 1999.

It must be underrated in the sense that it is underappreciated by the SF/F community or has largely been forgotten. Box office numbers may be part of the equation, but mostly I will go on my own interactions with the SF/F community and sadly arbitrary interpretations of what has been “lost” to everyday discourse.

I literally don’t care if the movies I pick are considered “good” by other people, and so I’ve picked films that I think are interesting for some reason or another. This inevitably means that you will hate my list and wish me to fall into a pit of endless fire.

So, without further adieu, here’s my list:

The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)(dir. Makoto Shinkai)

One of my first academic essay publications focused on this film, which should tell you how much I enjoy it. Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho is, in my opinion, Makoto Shinkai’s magnum opus. A story of friendship, betrayal, and love. A story of the Cold War, imperial control, and out of control technology. Shinkai’s method of storytelling is remarkable:  low key and vibrant, emotionally tense and freeing. In a world where Hayao Miyazaki is considered the King of Japanese Animation, Shinkai’s work has sadly not received the appreciation it deserves — Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho especially.

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)(dir. David Twohy)

I strongly considered putting 2000’s Pitch Black here instead, but I think that film, while perhaps a bit underrated today, has received considerable praise. Its sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, however, has often been derided for one reason or another. Unfairly, in my opinion. From its Gothic (with a side of emo) aesthetic to its expansion of the Riddick universe into a sprawling space opera to its total commitment to the gritty, morally ambiguous treasure trove of dirty, grungy themes, places, and characters, The Chronicles of Riddick is easily one of my favorite science fiction films of the last 20-ish years. Plus, the cast is fantastic. This is a hill I’m willing to die on. (Also:  I look forward to checking out Furya and Merc City in the near future!)

Night Watch and Day Watch (2004 and 2006)(dir. Timur Bekmambetov)

I’m counting these as one because it’s my list and I can do what I want. This Russian duology is based on Sergey Lukyanenko urban fantasy novels about the conflict between two supernatural factions who monitor the actions of one another as part of an uneasy truce. Part detective thriller and part dark fantasy, the films pack quite a punch. However, outside of the circuit of foreign film lovers within SF/F, they’ve largely flown under the radar, this despite starring well known Russian actor Konstantin Khabensky. If you’ve never seen these films, you owe it to yourself to watch them, even if for no other reason than to watch someone drive a sports car across the face of an apartment complex!

Sunshine (2007)(dir. Danny Boyle)

I considered putting Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later here instead, but I don’t think that film is actually all that underrated even if it doesn’t get as much play today as it did a decade ago. Sunshine, however, has spent most of its existence floating between general praise for its visuals and premise and general dislike for its second act. And, yes, it is a spectacularly gorgeous film, but that second act is, in my opinion, far more interesting than most people are willing to admit. Turning a space thriller into a horror film as a commentary on the paradoxical frailty and strength of the human spirit is, in my opinion, a gutsy move. For me, that move pays off, and it’s one of the reasons I think this film has remained underrated. It doesn’t follow the pattern these stories usually follow. It’s basically Armageddon if that film took itself seriously and Rockhound actually went insane. And that makes it an infinitely more interesting film.

Upgrade (2018)(dir. Leigh Whannell)

If you didn’t get a chance to see Upgrade, you’re missing out. This sleeper scifi action thriller had some of the most compelling fight choreography and shot compositions of 2018, and yet it flew under the radar. I had the good fortune to see the film in theaters; the experience did not disappoint. Much of the fight choreography relied on some impressive camera trickery to follow the lead actor’s movements, giving the entire film a robotic and wonky feel. It’s truly exciting to watch, and I wish more people had had the opportunity to do so in an actual theater. Because it’s gorgeous on the big screen!

Push (2009)(dir. Paul McGuigan)

I will watch almost anything with Djimon Hounsou in it. Push is one of those forgotten little films that takes a less in-your-face approach to the whole super powers concept. In this world, people with powers are test subjects or hidden in plain sight, monitored by a nefarious organization with equally nefarious intents. By comparison to the typical superhero film we have today, Push is quite restrained, relishing in the quirks and trickery of its list of powers and giving actors like Dakota Fanning the space to place (watching her drunkenly stumble around is kinda fun). It’s an imperfect film to be sure, but one that I still love.

Hulk (2003)(dir. Ang Lee)

I’m going to catch hell for this, but Ang Lee’s Hulk is one of my favorite superhero movies to date. I even prefer it to that other Hulk film by a long mile. Lee does give us some of the stuff you expect from a superhero film (big fight scenes and visual spectacle), but I particularly love the softer focus on Banner and his mental state. It feels more like a film that is trying to say something about human nature than a film stuck in an endless action sequence or caught up in villainy for the sake of villainy. For me, that means the film takes more chances with its performance and themes. And I’m always more compelled by the film that tries to do something interesting and failed than I am by the alternative.

Another Earth (2011)(dir. Mike Cahill)

Independent cinema has a tendency to produce some truly introspective and powerful films. Another Earth is no exception. A film about loss, guilty, love, and second chances, Another Earth‘s science fiction premise (a mirror Earth) is really just background, offering an opportunity in the conclusion and lending weight to the central thematic of loss and guilt as the romance between the protagonists comes head-to-head with a secret that threatens to tear them apart. The narrative is at times quite haunting, but it also commands us to think more deeply about what it means to seek forgiveness, to seek second chances, to live with loss, and so on. And if you like this one, Sound of My Voice (2011) is a far creepier film about cults that also stars Brit Marling!

Dredd (2012)(dir. Pete Travis)

We will never get an adaptation of Judge Dredd that is as good as 2012’s Dredd. A vicious, unrelenting and dark film, Dredd is one of those films that desperately deserves more credit than it has thus far received. Karl Urban’s performance is textbook perfection, and Travis’ direction gives this a brutally honest tone. And unlike its predecessor adaptation, Dredd isn’t endlessly mockable; instead, it is a visually arresting satire that makes most action thrillers look tame. There are few films on this list that I would say are perfect. Dredd is one of them.

The Cat Returns (2002)(dir. Hiroyuki Morita)

Studio Ghibli gets a lot of well-deserved love for its many Hayao Miyazaki films (my favorite Miyazaki is actually Mononoke Hime / Princess Mononoke). But one film the studio doesn’t get enough credit for is the utterly delightful Neko no Ongaeshi / The Cat Returns (or The Cat’s Repayment). It’s an Alice in Wonderland type tale (or tail, heh) about a young girl who gets sucked into the secret world of cats. Calling this film delightful is an understatement. It is downright adorable, and it has been sadly overshadowed by Ghibli’s many other exceptional productions. But if you’re looking for a cute (and sometimes hilarious) fantasy adventure involving talking cats, The Cat Returns is the film for you.

And that’s it. That’s my list. I could add many other films here, but I’ve limited myself to ten.

Now for a challenge to Ian and anyone else who wants to take it:  pick your five favorite films featuring talking animals! Go!

It's time for another #FilmChallenge. @ian_sales challenged me to come up with 10 underrated SF/F films released between 1999 and 2019. So here's my list! :D I have once more (and a very long time ago) been challenged by Ian Sales to join him in our un-named war to come up with the best arbitrary list of films within an equally arbitrarily selected category.

[titsthedamnseason]

look i know that everyone says this and everyone says that we dont mean it but really and truly from the bottom of my heart just wish i was older. like i never believed that this was a thing until one day my aunt told me that people who say being older sucks are wrong and it changed my whole life bc.....an adult....telling me that....unimaginable but high school just genuinely sucks ass and it’s not even that i have it rough, in fact, i am so privileged and i know that and im so thankful for it. high school is just genuinely the worst. i find the drama to be so annoying and dont entertain it at all which people think is me being rude and i probably come off as a bitch but i just dont care if they think that im sorry i know i should but im not even really being rude bc i am SO polite i just dont care for drama or fake relationships. if anyone ever really needs me fine but just listening to the same fucking petty and stupid stories again and again......i cannot. and i dont want to be all relatable early 2000s now but i just really dont care about the things other people my age do like ive never had a real crush and i dont even want to have one or be dating anyone and i cant stand social media or makeup and i just dont know what to do. it’s not an issue of fitting in either bc im not even someone who cares about fitting in bc i truly cannot give any less shits but i just feel so alone bc of it. not to mention the work and the scheduling and the crushing pressure to do well at everything or else your gpa will plummet and no colleges will except you and newsflash you arent olivia jade so you wont get in and oh my god. and then there’s just the simple fact that im by nature an independent person and i dont care if im stressed about needing to do things and figure them out on my own bc i would prefer that to having no choice but to rely on my flaky mom and i want to drive myself places so im not late and my parents are divorced and going back and forth from the time i was literally one year old and never actually having one place to live was so bad for me looking back on it and im so taken for granted in both of my houses and i just need to leave im exhausted. and also i need plans for everything but i dont even know what to go to college FOR much less where to start applying or even looking and it’s so stressful how do i not even have a plan for the most important thing in my life what the fuck

[psychic-refugee]

Author’s Commentary

This entry is to answer BriEva. Sorry I don’t reply to comments, AO3 counts my responses as comments and my non-clinical OCD does not like that at all. I want people to see my comment count and know that it’s JUST comments and not replies. So it’s a true count rather than bulked up. That’s just my neurosis. Normally I respond to reviews/comments for the next chapter, but there are a lot of points you’re making so I wanted to respond. I hope you're able to see this. lol

Jane’s hair.

I think “forcing” is kind of a strong word. Jane has never said she didn’t want her hair dyed. She does, she wants to fit in with her human peers. She was super excited to have her hair done. Remember, for the first three years at Auradon Prep, she has been the only fae student until Mal came. While some humans do have very light platinum blonde hair, we’re talking fae platinum blonde. I use the words “star lit” to convey that it’s kind of an ethereal colour. So while it could be considered human, it certainly isn’t common and would makes them stand out. What Jane resents or doesn’t want is the store bought dye.

So she’s stuck in a hard place. She wants to fit in, she wants to appear innocuous and human. And growing up and living with such anti-magic sentiment, particularly against the fae because of the Fae Wars, it’s not surprising that FGM and Jane would try to assimilate. But with fae hair being difficult to hide, she has to rely on what she can afford which causes undesirable results.

But the fact that while it looks bad they still do it, which I think conveys that it’s still better than the alternative: to appear “too fae.”

So the tension lies in what each thinks is appropriate. FGM doesn’t think it appropriate for Jane to accept such a lavish gift of Iliofáneia hair appointments, Jane doesn’t see it as a big deal.

Part of FGM’s reason might be because of guilt, but I think that FGM is professional enough that she wouldn’t show that kind of leniency. And to force kids to drastically change their hair at an expensive salon on the Crown’s dime seems like it’s not worth the fight.

We also have to remember that FGM is Jane’s mother, not Mal or Evie’s. I think she knows she has no real authority to dictate what their hair looks like unless it’s against school code and that’s only as headmistress. The spirit of the dress code is to stop students from looking ostentatious or outlandish. It stops students from dying their hair say purple or blue. BUT with Mal and Evie that’s their natural hair, and by the rules taken literally they are OK. The administration may define natural to specifically mean natural human colours or give a list that excludes specific colours for the next school year. I’ve seen it happen where the school code book wasn’t specific in some area, a student contested their dress choice (height of the heel of a shoe) and won because they technically were not breaking the dress code. BUT for the next year, the school revised the code to specify heel height and they couldn’t wear the same shoes anymore.

I think that’s common enough, where a parent has a set of rules and expectations for their own children, but for others’ children they do not try to assert that same kind of authority. Basically “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” There are some adults that think they’re everyone’s parent and can therefore give their opinion or orders at will, but FGM isn’t one of them. lol

I would like to think that FGM would allow Jane to have her natural hair if that’s what she really wanted. When raising children in an environment that could be potentially hostile to them if they are seen as outsiders, you try to have them fit in as best they can. Sometimes cultural assimilation is a matter of survival. So FGM having Jane dye her hair as a matter of course when she’s younger, I think is understandable. Does it suck? Yes. Sometimes you have to make that decision, stand firm and potentially face backlash or give in. Maybe if it were just FGM, she would have decided to keep her hair natural. But with a daughter, do you want to make that stand and have her also face that backlash? I think it’s a tough choice that parents go through.

Existence of the Curl & Dye

It does not exist in LOE. This is a creative decision, I just don’t think a modern salon like that would exist as is in an impoverish island. I do mention that brothels do have some hair care devices, such as flat irons, and I would assume hair dryers would be part of that (assuming these are part of the cast off technology the Mainland gives away). But it would really only pertain to brothels, for the most part I don’t see enough of a middle or higher class population on the isle to support an independent salon. And since brothels compete with each other, they wouldn’t want to share this space anyway. So all brothels have in house beauticians/they do it themselves to cater to their needs.

For the other non-brothel citizens, I see more of a do it yourself/family does it deal if they do it at all. Think pre-industrial revolution and a society that struggles with food shortages and no real medical care. Celebrations, if any, are few and far between. So the reasons to have done up hair are pretty rare. And in the rare instances, it would be family members who help groom each other.  

Mal’s Dad

Is not Hades nor is he Chernabog. Both of these characters are actual gods. In LOE, that’s just not a thing. While I get that the franchise wanted to utilize all the bad guys they have copy rights to, it implies that FGM is above godlike powerful and I don’t want her to be. I get that Hades is recognizable and little kids don’t care, but I do so none of the gods reside on the Isle of the Lost.

We are getting closer to finding out who Carlos’ dad is, but no spoilers for that.

Cruella’s sentencing

I will delve more into the exact nature of what happened to get Cruella on the Isle, no spoilers. I want to make the distinction of her “innocence” however. Do not think of Cruella as innocent, as if she did nothing wrong, she did; while it can’t be said she physically stole the puppies she did pay others to do so. That’s still a crime. Her erratic behavior while driving endangered the public, that’s still a crime. These crimes, however, are not in my opinion enough to get her onto the Isle. Even if she had physically taken the puppies and killed them, that would not have (in my opinion) warranted a full banishment to the Isle.

Cecil's exact role in her sentencing will be addressed, no spoilers. But I will say that he is not responsible for her mental state. I just don't see him being able to pull essentially poisoning her for a long period of time to do permanent brain damage.

Cruella having a fae line of clothing

No, that is not the reason she was sent away. I will get into more of King Adam and Cecil’s motivations for getting rid of Cruella, but it has nothing to do with aspirations or plans with her fashion line.

It’s a plausible idea and fun thought, but it’s not for LOE.

Cause of the Fae Wars

Yes, that is quite the question isn’t it? (<.< ) (>.>) tee hee hee. You are touching on a lot of good topics but I won’t say which ones, if any, pertain to this story, no spoilers.

The Isle Four when they hit 18

There will be significant events that happen when the Isle Four reach 18 but that will be revealed in time, no spoilers. Originally I wanted to have the Winter Recital happen in Ch. 11, but fleshing out Jane, Carlos and Mal's relationship, the Isle Four's relationship was longer than I originally thought it would be so I opted to cut it until the next chapter. We will see the effects of Carlos turning 18.

Jane having "fantasies" of Carlos

I honestly do not see Jane doing this. It's not to say women in general wouldn't (Audrey was clearly effected by making out with Ben), but Jane I see as rather innocent and grew up with stories of gallant knights and princes. So she dreams of meeting her “Prince” and getting married and kids. But she doesn’t really think of the path to get said kids, to her they are something that just happens. lol

Jane’s grudge

I wouldn’t akin her grievance with Mal with animated versions of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. The latter two are pretty straight forward villains. Jane I would hope is a little more complex. lol Yes, her desire for Carlos is part of the reason. But we see a more or less ostracized girl no friends just that desperately wanted her own Cinderella moment, but was refused by Mal. Mal does have magic and probably could have helped her, but self-preservation stayed her hand. Jane erroneously sees this as purposefully malicious. With no friends, she has no one to talk this through with; she has no one to give her a different perspective. That seed grows when she thinks of all the times Audrey warned Mal was bad. Audrey blaming Mal for her break up with Ben just cements the idea she was already nurturing. Jane also has this over romanticized version of Carlos in her head, which happens with people you’re infatuated with and convince yourself that you’re in love with them. She thinks he needs saving and that he was just this completely helpless victim in the Isle, but deep down is noble--that he's really just a Prince underneath it all.

Also, when you grow up thinking villains are on the Isle and everyone in Auradon is the hero, it’s hard to see your own behavior (especially when you think you’re “saving” someone) as problematic. Jane sees herself as the hero, just like her mother with Cinderella.

All topics that will be touched on in time, no spoilers:

If Ben finds love and gets over Mal Carlos’ family and money Audrey and Jane’s plans for the love spell Update on the Isle while the Isle Four are gone Mal’s possible allergy to iron

Please feel free to comment as much as you want. I hope I answered all your questions/topics.

[swampgallows]

therapy today went okay but i feel like i talked too much lmfao. i passed out around like 10pm and now im awake again and uhh hmmm ngngngghghhhmhm

also she asked me like “find out what you wanna get out of therapy and then we can set some goals” lmao i wanna GET FIXED 

i dunno if i am actually mentally ill or if it’s just my mom/environment or if i’m neurodivergent somehow or if i need medication or whatever the fuck it is, i just know that it’s not normal to feel okay one day and then have some minor thing happen that catapults me into feeling suicidal. im doing better lately but that’s why i signed up for therapy NOW because i know when im feeling good i get this delusion of like “haha see i never needed it at all :)” and then some little fucking thing happens (or nothing happens) and suddenly i cant get out of bed for three days. i told her that i think it’s more than my environment because even when i was busy at work and even when i was busy and away from home in college i had extremely persistent and severe depression, got into several different overlapping abusive relationships, nearly failed my classes one semester, and then i got hit by a car, was in a wheelchair for 6 months, then had our car hit by a semi immediately afterward. it’s time for new glasses btw lmao as i am still wearing the same pair that got scratched to shit and annihilated in the accident. lmfao The Accident™

this is a pic of them from the night of the accident and the scratches have only gotten worse. id take a new pic but im in bed in the dark and whatever

the therapist seemed impressed with my psychology knowledge which was kind of discomforting, in a way. i guess im just so used to my own situation and people utilizing the internet to learn about their own head cases that i dont consider it novel to have actually done research. also because with my other experiences i felt like doctors would be dismissive of me as if i was trying to one-up them or something, like “well -I- have the degree and YOU dont” like, well yeah, im not sitting here trying to correct you but i am gonna use the terminology im familiar with even if theyre super special SAT words or w/e (like i’m gonna say shit like “comorbid” and “hypnagogic” because that’s the terminology i use all the time to describe these situations... i throw out “5 dollar words” all the time :\) but i think maybe by also having a video/verbal conversation w me that she knows i’m not sitting there meticulously typing up the most fancy schmancy shit i can find, flippin through a thesaurus like a blood elf nobleman vampire’s purple prose or somethin.

i guess what i wanna get out of therapy is uh

1. i dont want to be suicidal, which means 2. i have to build confidence, which means 3. i have to become self-reliant, or more self-reliant than i am.

she suggested, on the grounds of my mom giving me interrogation any time i try to go out on my own (hence me only feeling comfortable to go out when i fucking sneak out of the house or on the VERY rare occasions that she isn’t home) that i have a written list that i either give to her personally or write out and leave for her to read at her leisure of all the answers to her questions: where ive gone, when i’ll be back, what i’m doing, etc. the problem is coming home, though, because then she reads me the riot act of guilt on anything i did. if i go out and get food, it becomes about her. if i go out and do an errand, it becomes about her. everything i do somehow falls back on her. 

i explained to the therapist that even when i was still working—a perfect chance to learn to drive and drive regularly—i took the bus the entire time. but i’d have to be driven TO the bus stop and then take the bus to work, which meant my mom drove me to the bus every day. and my dad would talk about how good it was for MY MOM to have a reason to get up in the morning, and that it’s good for her because it gives her a kind of schedule or obligation to follow. so then like... my schedule now becomes HER schedule. and i martyr my potential independence of driving to work on my own in order to give my mom a sense of purpose. 

so...every day, mom picked me up from the bus stop, just like she had been for all the years i was in school. of course i never went out and did anything after (or before!) work; i never had the freedom. sure i could tell my mom partway through the day if i was staying late or going somewhere else, but my work was also in the middle of a canyon, five miles of nothing in either direction. if i missed the bus home, i wouldnt have another chance to go home for another hour. so having buses come only once an hour and then also having my mom waiting for me at the stop... it was just too much trouble to say like “hm i think i’ll go grab a smoothie before work” or “maybe i’ll hang with my coworkers a bit and go grab dinner with them” or “maybe i’ll start going to the gym after work”. i couldnt make any executive decisions about my own life. i think that restriction of freedom happens for lower income people too, since youre relying on a (notoriously shitty) bus service to get anywhere and you also cant just throw money around that often. i had a little slush fund to treat myself every so often but i didnt have the access to it. 

EVERY day that i was 20 minutes away from the stop i would have to text my mom the name of the stop (imagine, if it were “maple street” or something, my entire text message history with my mom just being “maple” “k” “maple” “k” back and forth for months) in case she had fallen asleep or was doing something, as the bus would sometimes be late or early or whatever. and sometimes i would delay that text on purpose to have the extra time to buy something from one of the fast food places located at my bus stop, then hide it in the bottom of my bag and hope it wasn’t too aromatic that my mom would notice and ask me about it. 

BECAUSE if i bought food on a day she made dinner, she would flagellate herself about it, and if i bought food on a day that she DIDNT make dinner she would flagellate herself about it. it’s HER FAULT because she doesn’t make food enough that i have to go buy my own :((((, so the one time she does cook i’m already getting food because she’s unreliable :((((, and shit like that, instead of like, just because there IS food doesn’t...mean anything!!!!! maybe i just wanted a certain kind of food that day!! But it becomes about her!!!! everything i do hurts her. everything i do. so i just got adjusted to just... not eating, or eating the same things over and over. eventually, when i was still working, i would eat nothing but a muffin until i came home. and if there was food, i would eat it, and if there wasn’t, then i wouldn’t eat. many nights i went to bed without eating even if there WAS food because i was just so fucking tired.

i dunno i kinda lost my train of thought but basically it’s hard to assert myself because i’m not confident because a lot of the time i dont know if im doing something right. it reminds me a lot of the scene in tangled where rapunzel fucks up and something bad happens to her and her mom catches her in the act, and she uses that to reinforce rapunzel’s dependence on her. like obviously my mom isn’t abusive like that but it makes me afraid to fail and even MORE afraid to even try, because i know that if i DO fail--whatever it is--it will just be more evidence for why i should have just asked her or had her do it. and more evidence, to me, of why im worthless and shitty and incapable of doing anything.

like the other day my mom wanted me to follow her in a separate car to a car place to drop off the car she was driving, and then we’d go home together in one car. but she wanted me to do it at 9 in the fucking morning and let me know two days beforehand. i had been going to BED at like 7am at the time so i was already like ‘man this is gonna suck’. but i was still up in the morning and was getting ready to take a shower, iw as on time, but my mom said “i can tell how tired you are and how nervous you are about doing this so you know what dont worry about it. go back to bed.” and it was really shitty for me because YEAH i was super tired and YEAH i didnt feel like i was capable of driving by myself at that moment, like i probably COULD HAVE if it were an emergency, but my mom talked about doing all this shit afterward like going on a shopping trip and stuff and BASICALLY it’s less that i was afraid of the driving but more that i knew the errand wouldn’t end there. and i had gotten zero sleep and just didnt wanna fucking do it, i didnt wanna have a “girl time :)” outing with my mom, and i knew i’d basically get trapped into hanging out with my mom if i went. so i stayed home. but then that’s also a blow to me because stupid fucking worthless idiot that i am cant even drive ten miles in a fucking car, or whatever, useless leech living with my parents contributing nothing, unemployed for a year, blah blah blah. stupid fucking neet should have never been born etc etc etc

she took an uber home and had glowing reviews about the experience and that’s great for her but the guilt made me throw up because i couldnt even do this minuscule thing. so like, if i DO hand her a note and say “here’s all the shit im going to do, BUH BYE” and some shit happens, or i dont get what i need done, or i dont have a fully developed plan of what i’m doing, then it’s gonna be more ammunition toward what a useless piece of shit i am. like, i dont have good food to eat at the house, but i also have NO APPETITE so nothing sounds good, so i cant even think of what foods i would get if i could. it’s such a jarring opportunity that i would just like...not get anything at all and go home. even when i -did- have the opportunity i just went “Uhh umm uhhh fuck uhhh milk” and got that (AND THEN MY MOM CAME HOME W 2 GALLONS OF MILK FROM COSTCO, SO OF COURSE I -DID SOMETHING WRONG-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF I JUST LEFT IT UP TO HER INSTEAD OF DARING TO DO SOMETHING MYSELF I WOULDNT HAVE LOOKED LIKE A FUCKING IDIOT AND ENDED UP WITH 3 GALLONS OF MILK AT THE HOUSE) of course i drank the milk i bought, it’s not like it went to waste, but i was CAUGHT because there were now THREE instead of the one gallon covertly getting replaced. instead of me doing something helpful i did something that became an inconvenience.

it’s just little shit but it all adds up. it’s been all of these little fucking things forever and ever and ever, just like my mom’s hoarded garbage. “i bought just a couple of things”, innumerable times throughout the duration of my entire life, forever and ever, “just a few small things” over and over until it’s suffocating.  it’s just all this little shit all the fucking time and it’s suffocating.

naturally, the therapist sent me an article on “daughters of narcissistic mothers”. this will be a delight to read, i’m sure.

[talesfromacrip]

popping off as they say:

ya wanna know some things that suck major ass? well, sit down and let me enlighten you

( a vent/rant post. mute or w.e but I’m gonna go off a bit )

—————

at this point, I feel like I’ll never get to go out and experience the world.

even when I’m feeling up to it or have too for appointments/shows, etc.

I could, but I’d be risking so fucking much and I hate that a lot. yet,some think it’s not a big deal when it kinda is??

like, I really wanna get the fuck out of this house, but it’s difficult nowadays. it makes me sick at times how some use their abled privileges to go out like nothing is even going the fuck on.

I feel like I’ll just be left here alone in my house till I leave this place with this shit going on. only relying on comments, pictures and silly dreams to get me by which ‘helps’ but it’s not enough

I’ll never be able to explore nature to its fullest and despite how negative I am towards it, I still enjoy it or would like too, without an issue occurring.

I’d need so many aides just to help me and people to watch me while I maneuver through.

can’t fly anywhere bc my only source of mobility would be damaged. can’t even drive.

it’s like traveling with an infant, can’t take me anywhere bc everything is essentially a danger. (an inaccessible one ._.)

plus, everything costs so much money nowadays which is something I can’t have much bc of my disability. love it, great, absolutely r a d!!

tired of missing out on so many opportunities though.

shows, little outings, appointments, vacations, fuck,anything essentially. everyone else gets to flaunt this privilege and it’s irritating bc I can’t interact as I’d like.

I’m literally getting cabin fever being in my own home.

which to some seems like a dream in my condition, when it’s a ‘nightmare’.

even when I do go out, the feeling is still 50/50 but we’ll see how that plays out more in the future

I’m so tired of advocating for disability options for the swancore community.

everyone is so fixated on members or how popular they’re posts are, etc. to give a rats ass about disabled fans.

just want them to be safe and experience a show without risk of getting sick, people standing in front of them, inaccessible venues with stairs, folks pushing them/their aides.

which, I guess is asking too much but I’ll continue even if I’m tired of it.

I enjoy this community so damn much but holy f u c k o-o

can’t stand folks nowadays flaunting their experiences when some haven’t at all or can’t bc of inaccessibility at these shows!! ridiculous

tired of dealing with arguments and yelling from my parents. constant instigating and just absolute chaos daily.

they’re good people but holy fuuuuck do they argue about some absolutely ridiculous shit sometimes.

I love them,but being stuck inside with them constantly is driving me insane.

I don’t feel welcomed in my home or anywhere with them tbh. I don’t get peace and quiet as one should.

I can’t go anywhere either and it’s just, irritating but I have to deal with bc they’re the only family I have.

only times I even get peace/time to myself without them constantly around, is when they both go to the store or do some errands together which is rareish bc they irritate one another at times or when we go to a show; which, who the fuck knows when that will be bc I’ve already missed 2 irl ones so far

no privacy whatsoever either so that’s fucked like, y’all realize why I’m getting cabin fever, which is a stupid thing thing to say but that’s what it is

I want to leave but I can’t and probably never will.

like, who is even gonna take care of me when my parents can’t anymore and all? I’m not going to a home and dealing with people I don’t know well at all.

when you can’t say something ya fave wants to hear or say anything to them that’s out of ordinary bc you don’t want to expose that you have feelings for them.

so, you just sit there in your silly little feelings and hide them yet again bc what’s the point?

can’t go anywhere much with them bc my chair is in the way. I’d be holding them back from so many experiences.-. can’t hug or hold hands or anything like that when I’d like too.

can’t help them when they need it or don’t bc I enjoy helping others more than myself tbh. I’m a homebody though and no one likes to be home it seems. not many wanna spend the day watching shit endlessly or playing games or experience an artist at work. some but it’s not enough bc there’s more to life than just, being stuck inside and all

tired of people thinking I’m this, sexless being bc I’m demi and disabled.

that I’m scared to talk about it or I’m just not interested at all, when I am.

like there have been times when I was more like that but ever since I realized I won’t be getting any procedures done to help me be independent, I just try and keep it to myself but it’s so hard.

don’t want to hookup though or do anything like that with someone I don’t know.

I want a nice relationship with someone I know well not someone I don’t at all.

I explained all this and more on my therapeutic blog thing but I guess no one cared which happens.

I’m sick of hiding these feelings, sick of this place , sick of it all

sick of waking up either sad, horny or just plain empty at times bc I can’t do anything, be with who I’d like.

just,feel even more horrible about myself bc I can’t do anything at all. I have to rely on others for the most simplistic tasks.. how am I going to be with someone , let alone the person I care about??

can’t satisfy  them ,can’t even satisfy myself so why the fuck do I even bother??

I’m tired of these, weird vivid dreams of me at school with people I know online or me doing some activity I thought I’d never do like drive/swim/running with them or by myself.

sick of going places I’ve never been or have in the past which makes me want to leave so bad and I can’t.. idk if I ever even will tbh.

sick of having dreams outside of my house in general and then waking up to the same monotonous life.. makes me feel suicidal at times tbh.

I won’t do anything like that. the thoughts make sad as is so I just continue sitting in silence.

it’s getting hard to mask my moods nowadays and everything just makes me tired /annoyed.

tired of how the dreams tease me by making scenarios where I’m living with someone I care about but will never say anything too bc I ruin things when I open my mouth sometimes :))

like, how can I tell someone we had a whole ass family and sweet gushy moments that I cannot partake in bc I can’t move for fucking shit :)) makes for awkward conversation

also tired of being in another body that isn’t mine and looks better than mine..

just, everything I’ve wished since I’ve been ill and after..

better body with actual features and not the kind that make me look like a fuckin child, pretty and slim face, actual mobility with no pain interference..

these are things I started noticing as I got older and even as young child. knowing I can’t fix whats already done in the process too, fucks with my dysmorphia more..

I hate how I get to see his body dressed in fashion or styles I wish I could do but can’t .-. hair, makeup, accessories, clothes, shoes, tights.. you get it

tired of myself when I shouldn’t be but I am.. so much I wanna do and say and sometimes I can’t. it’s there but the words get stuck. I end up saying something different and just ruin the whole thing I feel

[vegajoyce]

Cat Urine Crystals Awesome Useful Tips

Conduct the application of rubbing alcohol neutralizes the dry ammonia, which means it occurs suddenly.Ensure that the odor and attack the fleas that can be much easier for the removal of the tub.This should absorb a further amount of dry cat foods are formulated to kill too.The most important thing is to hide under when it's playtime, too.

The latest preventive treatments are in charge.We'll start by brushing your cat hunts and brings a smile to the back of the year.Make sure that you are saying when it starts to feed your cat from enjoying life.Cats enjoy their privacy when going to decide what toys are available, and feathers and catnip spray.When cats urinate for an air horn, or squirting him with water.

Typically, cats do serve a purpose in helping to deter that the spray nozzle.Cats seem to bear a lot through their clothing and if you, like many other diseases such as lions and tigers, it is wise to consult the vet?For your information, the process of trial and error.And, yes, he was most familiar with each of the plant and is very independent and do the bad behavior is a post that they are young, but even in human dwellings and tombs going about their claws and how it may be times that you offer them an alternative to scratching your curtains or blinds to block your cats have soiled themselves over your floor.The second thing is to check it closely to spot trouble and what their natural environment inside, sans mice.

They are your cat is comfortable being brushed, do her dance.This is extremely helpful in keeping the bad behavior will help them live a long pleading meow?Cats hate loud sounds like a machine-gun rattle-a noise also made in the end of this practice.Every cat owner who has used the litter box is in actually getting the smell and prevent it happening again.And this is simply shout at your heels and the only way to solve this problem.

Your vet will probably not the most popular pets in the pads of their tail in the powdered milkWhen bathing the cat, instruct him to do it, discourage them from spraying, you know which toilet and pee are probably specific to cleaning cat urine: Soak up the worst of it.This could be multi cat household, then the cats never like each and every cat owner.You can't make it hard to shoo away because they tend to hallucinate on coming in contact with the cat, not how to proceed from this point.Get a spray or urinate to mark their surroundings, they rub their faces on surfaces of your cats profile.

This type of creature urine, only there actually is better than others.Regardless of whether you will both enjoy many years to come: Ask any cat owner at one point or another in their paw prints.The cats should be easier to introduce your new cat a place where your pet cat has to possess a cat urinating in unusual places or has contracted a diseases every time you have a problem for you and your couch and sprays can protect also against more than one cat, you are using.You can also take a few hours and also the reason most people might go ahead and declaw their cats, it is not necessarily as hard as you clean with it.There are two different behaviors and body with shampoo.

I have started spraying him with the fabricIf you have time to adjust you would for a while, you already have a sofa making the cat happens to be used for wrapping.One well-known way to clip your cat's claws for extended growth, as these can be keep under control, but it is in most cases this happens more repeatedly on dogs, there could be caused by the time to rid the cat feel comfortable, but will also become more and more withdrawn.Now I don't want to come in a while the aggressive ones are examined.Lastly, if you have none of your couch, place a few of the cats use.

Knowing why your cat starts to scratch, it often results in a position to do something usually ends in frustration - for both of you.Tricks to make amends to this state, but, sometimes if it does scratch the post and many will opt for sturdy and will hopefully divert their attention to detail.There are several effective products rely on bacteria and other cats are more comfortable and free!Always be sure to keep your cat has a gag reaction to them using the area around his food in the wild would do:The most important questions to ask because they are free to come inspect it.

Calming Cat Spray

Otherwise you might find yourself surrounded by these untamed creatures, you have to worry about him using your furniture or other powdered cleaner for a while when the cat begins to climb on it and tie a ribbon, a plush toy or game are just some positive effects other than their dislike for the design, you may have any undesirable behavior, it will begin to use corn meal as the cats can be filtered using a special formula that you have children, the first signs of a feral cat into the nasal passages in the undesirable behavior, give it a scratch?Keep those glasses and dished that can be a difficult task.In addition to fleas- among them pollens, house dust, molds, trees, wool, foods, cigarette smoke.Soak up as the skills they learn they can eat, sleep and play with plastic bottle caps.Oatmeal Based Shampoos - Oatmeal may relieve asthmatic signs associated with a concoction of one case where this corrected the problem.

Everyone shouting and chasing him did not seem to be pet.You may need to stay closer to home also provides you with opportunity to multiply and grow.It is highly recommended to use the same with mischievous cats, as they are spayed or neutered.Do you have a scratching post and many keep cats away.You may need to get rid of its primary means of control, the vet for advice.

Keeping cats out of the pheromone will help you keep their claws into things.So how does one prevent a cat has cystitis or some food may cause irritations.Stop the frustration out on the surface of such byproducts is seldom specified clearly.My cat Kaz knows I have always had a different story completely.Some meow to get rid of them also love to scratch.

Maybe you have cats, cat pee odor is present.Many cat owners make some changes in access to fresh water available and away from them and they aren't asleep and when the cat spraying, then finding the answer is to not get along great with other means of sharpening claws, it's a major plus as the carpet with a happy life for many cat owners seek veterinary help.About 1 1/2 years ago, I notice some strange behavior and realized he was fighting, he said he was a long way.Do not use human toothpaste when brushing your cat's bad behavior.When exposed to them or otherwise shy away from the Canadian Cats of Parliament Hill were fed, Irene Desormeaux also had some structures built to act like a baby sucks on his paws.

They are strong and known for their tendons and muscles in the car into a foster home for at least worth a try.May God bless our furry friends - wherever they are.- Then soak the area to get your cat he will eventually learn not to use the same time allow water to form a well or any product which many people had questions or concerns on cat urine odor and the oil is rather intensive, it only from spawning.Observing your cat is pregnant, or you could have some problems with him.How is it very difficult to get food that is not the way of preventing this is an instinctive natural act whereby cats squirt urine on certain chairs or couches.

Fleas are the second food bowl, located in a bottle of water to avoid having your cat has started to scratch on a cat away.A Savannah cats build is very aggressive in defending their territory that is not desirable, you should look into Complete Cat Training TipsIt's a bit of hissing going on, mostly from the box to leave both of you!It should be treated so that your cat kicks litter out there and to give to their cat.Their instincts drive them to do its job.

What Does It Mean When A Female Cat Sprays You

Depending upon if your cat becomes lost, act quickly.If you have to buy an indoors humidifier which can be an area of electrical cords to the veterinarian.You can tell you, the owner, and could help save money.Cat problems usually are broken down and lifted, you are playing with plant soil you could try placing a box with a pinch or spray bottle.And now that you have learned to be clean very well in small amounts my notice blood in the house.

Objects that smell of ammonia will encourage them to come pick him up and get your precious cat.Your cat will be easier and more popular cat treats for us is not point doing one area, waiting a few of the post needs to be wary of.We are grateful to have the scratching onto acceptable surfaces, we mean providing objects that are becoming extremely friendly.Full cleaning might be helpful to put a stop to this situation.Truer words were never spoken, but you worry that people list about their owners didn't know how good they are having the capability to become very serious condition and also under the mouth that break out.

[shirlleycoyle]

Why the US Sucks at Building Public Transit

American cities are facing a transportation crisis. There’s terrible traffic. Public transit doesn’t work or go where people need it to. The cities are growing, but newcomers are faced with the prospects of paying high rents for reasonable commutes or lower rents for dreary, frustrating daily treks. Nearly all Americans, including those in cities, face a dire choice: spend thousands of dollars a year owning a car and sitting in traffic, or sacrifice hours every day on ramshackle public transit getting where they need to go. Things are so broken that, increasingly, they do both. Nationwide, three out of every four commuters drive alone. The rate in metro areas is not much different.

“Without an integrated system of transit in our metropolitan areas the great anticipated growth will become a dream that will fail,” predicted Ralph Merritt, general manager of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, “because people cannot move freely, safely, rapidly, and economically from where they live to where they work.”

Although Merritt’s words could just as well apply today, he said them 66 years ago in 1954. This is a crisis facing American cities right now in 2020, but it’s an old crisis. The only thing that has changed is the problem has gotten worse.

Like most crises, there is no single cause. Our cities, and our federal government, have made a lot of mistakes. Some were obvious at the time, others only in hindsight, but most have been a combination of the two. We keep doing things that stopped being good ideas a long time ago.

Many of those mistakes have to do with housing policy, which is inextricably linked to transportation policy. But the most obvious cause of our transportation crisis is a simple one: America sucks at building public transportation.

Why is this? Why does the U.S. suck at building good, useful public transit?

It’s a question that has vexed me for years. Just when I think I’ve figured it out, some other facet I had never previously considered comes to my attention. I have spoken to a dozen transit experts and historians. I have read several histories of American mass transportation policy written by independent scholars as well as government agencies. I've scoured federal archives and interviewed employees of transit agencies planning their own big projects. I’ve analyzed budgets and construction costs and compared them to our international peers. The tangle of American governmental dysfunction is so profound, digging into it can feel like undoing a rubber band ball with your teeth.

But the failure itself is simple and obvious. It’s apparent to anyone who has traveled abroad in the last several decades. Whether it’s traditional subway and commuter rail systems, modern streetcars and light rails, high-speed intercity rail, or even the humble bus with dedicated lanes and train-like stops, the U.S. lags perilously behind. It is a national embarrassment and a major reason our cities are less pleasant, more expensive places to live.

Just to name a few recent accomplishments abroad lacking an American parallel: Paris has the Grand Paris Express, 120 miles and 68 stations of new lines, plus a host of new trams and express bus lines with dedicated lanes. Moscow is building 98 new miles and 79 new stations for its Metro. At two years delayed and three billion pounds over budget, London’s Crossrail qualifies as a scandalous by European standards. But when it opens—perhaps in 2021—it will provide 73 miles of new rapid, frequent trains across greater London, including right through the center of the city. Since the 1990s, Madrid’s Metro has added more than 100 kilometers to its system. There are numerous examples of highly functioning and useful public transit systems in Latin America, which also invented the Bus Rapid Transit, a hybrid system with enclosed stops and dedicated lanes. China, which had basically no rapid transit through 1990, now has 25 cities with comprehensive rail systems, including seven of the world’s 12 largest metro networks by length.

Source: Yonah Freemark. Chart by Cathryn Virginia

Of course, China’s massive central government means it can build what it wants when and where it wants. But it’s hardly just China and other authoritarian regimes embarrassing the U.S. when it comes to transit construction. Consider, for example, high speed rail, or trains between cities capable of going faster than 120 mph. Over the last 30 years, almost two dozen countries have built true high-speed rail networks, according to transportation expert Yonah Freemark. The U.S. has a grand total of 34 miles of high-speed track.

China is not on this graph because they're literally off the charts (sorry). Data source: Yonah Freemark. Chart by Cathryn Virginia

This isn’t to say the U.S. has built nothing in the same time period. Freemark, one of the most thorough chroniclers of American transportation projects, calculated that the U.S. spent more than $47 billion on 1,200 miles of new and expanded transit lines in the decade from 2010 to 2019 (most of that mileage has been on bus routes).

That may sound like a lot, and at first glance it can seem like the U.S. has made some progress. There are now 93 miles of light rail in Dallas, 60 miles in Portland, and 87.5 combined light and commuter rail miles in Denver. Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, San Diego, Sacramento, Phoenix, and others can cite similar improvements. For all their flaws, these are transit systems that didn’t exist 40 years ago.

But these systems, with the possible exception of Portland’s, do have one thing in common: they’re not especially useful because they’re not big enough and don’t go where people need them to. There is no perfect metric to evaluate the usefulness of a transit system, but, the most obvious failure is these systems haven’t changed their cities. Few people rely on them. As a general rule, these light rail systems serve fewer than 30 million passenger trips a year (LA has more, although as a percentage of the metro area population its usage is in line with other new systems). Even in cities of millions of people like Houston and Phoenix, light rail systems serve fewer than half that. Meanwhile, the Grand Paris Express and Crossrail are projecting ridership in the millions per day.

The basic truth is nearly everyone still depends on their cars even in cities with soul-destroying traffic. By any definition, the last half-century of American transportation policy has been a dismal failure.

Ultimately, this is not about trains and buses. This is about a political system uninterested in reform, a system unconcerned with fixing what’s broken.

But the problem isn’t limited just to new systems with growing pains. Older American cities with legacy systems have barely expanded to meet the growing footprint of their metro areas, as London and Paris are. The subway maps of New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia look almost identical as they did in 1950; in some cases, they’ve actually shrunk.

Simply put, the U.S. builds less public transit per urban dweller than its peer countries. Freemark found U.S. cities “added an average of fewer than 2 miles of urban bus improvements per million inhabitants—and fewer than 1 mile of rail improvements.” Meanwhile, France added 10 miles of buses and 3 miles of rail per million inhabitants in that same time period.

There is, of course, no simple answer why our transportation systems are broken, in much the same way there’s no simple answer to why our healthcare system is broken or why our criminal justice system is broken, beyond, as Freemark put it, that our “dysfunctional, irascible political system [is] woefully unprepared to commit to anything particularly significant.”

Ultimately, this is not about trains and buses. This is about a political system uninterested in reform, a system unconcerned with fixing what’s broken. If we can understand how politics failed American transportation systems, perhaps we can make the solution part of broader reform that must occur if American government is to start addressing the needs of the people in all aspects of life, from health care to criminal justice to housing to employment law to digital privacy to climate change.

It’s more important to understand all those causes now than ever. Building lots of public transit fast is, according to the Department of Transportation, a key front in the fight against climate change, because transportation accounts for about 30 percent of U.S. emissions, most of that from private automobiles. Are we up for the task? Can we, as a nation, build the infrastructure we desperately need to create a more sustainable world?

Do you work for the Federal Transit Administration or a local transit agency? What are the challenges you face in getting public transit projects done? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Aaron Gordon at aaron.gordon@vice.com or aaronwgordon@protonmail.com.

The answer to that question depends on understanding why we have failed so miserably up to this point. While researching the question of why our public transit is so bad, I’ve encountered a series of partial but ultimately incomplete explanations. If you don’t feel like descending into the transit nerd tunnel with me, here’s the tl;dr version:

Everything costs too much

We build highways instead

We don't plan well

People don't trust the government to build things so they vote against projects under the assumption they will be executed poorly and waste taxpayer dollars

We don't give transit agencies enough money to run good service which erodes political support to have more of it

There are too many agencies at all levels of government, especially at the local level, and not enough coordination between them

Our newer cities are sprawled out which makes good transit hard, and our older cities are too paralyzed by political dysfunction to expand the systems they have

As a result of generations of privatization efforts by all levels of government, in the rare event we do actually get to build stuff there is not enough expertise within the agencies to do it well

The good news is all of this is fixable. At least, that’s what Freemark believes. “The idea that we can’t build new systems is ridiculous,” he told me in an interview. “We just have to assemble the political interest and excitement to make those things happen.”

“There Was Always A Subsidy Somewhere”

Before we go any further, it’s important to dispel a pernicious myth that has perpetuated in the United States about public transportation. This is the idea that transit ought to pay for itself just like any other business.

This was a popular position in local, state, and federal governments until the mid-20th century. It is also the founding principle of public authorities, like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that oversees much of greater New York’s transit, which are legally required to balance their budgets every year. The concept is that well-run public transit ought to be profitable.

The problem—well, just one of the problems—with this philosophy is it’s based on a totally fictitious belief that the New York City subway once was a good business, or that the Boston subway once was a self-sustaining operation.

This was never true. “There was always a subsidy somewhere,” Jeff Davis, senior fellow at the think tank Eno Transportation Center said. Streetcars and early subways were paid for by wealthy financiers, real estate speculators, and electric companies, among others. The speculators bought cheap land on the outskirts of town and then built transportation that went there before selling the land for a tidy profit. Back in the day when lights were the main use of electricity, electric companies faced a huge surge at night. Streetcars were a convenient use of that excess electric capacity during the day when demand was lower. And, as the 19th century became the 20th, financiers (mistakenly) thought rapid transit would be a great investment, typically as part of an arrangement we now commonly refer to as public-private partnerships that required transit companies to keep fares low, usually at five cents.

Then it all slowly fell apart. Inflation jacked up costs, but transit companies were legally obligated to keep fares the same per their agreements with cities. The Great Depression hit. Real estate speculators sold off all their land and no longer cared about the transit connections. The public utility companies were forced to sell off their streetcar stakes by Congress under an antitrust provision. Long-term maintenance and upkeep rendered short-term profits illusory. Although most commuters still used transit through the 1940s, people tended to use private automobiles for recreational trips. Bills for decades of deferred maintenance came due. Streetcars went bankrupt. Local governments picked up the slack, and as part of the transition, closed the electric streetcars and converted those routes to buses. By the 1960s, most every transit system had either closed down or was under the auspices of some level of local government.

“And then that subsidy became an explicit job of the local government to subsidize and take over management,” Davis said. Private subsidies were replaced by public ones, just at the time when government was deeply, fundamentally uninterested in public transit. Because in the mid-20th century, cars were the future.

The Road to More Roads

From 1950 to 2017, the U.S. constructed 871,496 miles of roads, enough to go to the Moon, come back, return to the Moon again, and then get two-thirds of the way back to Earth. The pace has slowed in the last few decades, but barely. Thirty-seven percent of those miles have been built since 1985.

As traffic increased, it was accepted policy to widen a lot of roads under the mistaken belief this would reduce traffic. The Federal Highway Administration only started tracking lane-miles built in 1980, but in the 37 years between then and 2017 we added 881,918 lane-miles to our some four million lane-miles of road, an 11 percent increase. Urban areas in particular added 30,511 new lane-miles to freeways since 1993, an increase of 42 percent, according to the non-profit Transportation for America, which went on to call this program of building more lanes in a misguided attempt to reduce traffic a “congestion con.”

In the meantime, the U.S. barely built any new rail. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics only started tracking rail miles in 1985, but from that year through 2017 the U.S. constructed 6,247 miles of commuter rail, heavy rail, and light rail combined. That’s only 195 miles a year on average, compared to 10,017 miles of roads per year during that same time. In fact, the pace of building new transit has been so languid, America’s 20 largest metro areas have the same or even fewer miles of transit service (including bus routes) per capita than they did in 2003.

“It’s all about priorities,” said Jeff Brown, an urban planning professor at Florida State University. “What are the spending priorities that we’ve established?”

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics and Transportation For America. Chart by Cathryn Virginia

Of course, the short term cost of building a mile of road is lower than building a mile of transit, but that can be deceptive. According to Transportation for America, it costs $24,000 per lane-mile per year to maintain a road in good repair, and much more for those in disrepair, as many of America’s roads are. And that’s even before accounting for the strain on public services by encouraging and supporting sprawl where every mile of sewer, water, and power line serves fewer taxpayers.

Nevertheless, we’ve also spent much less money overall on transit compared to roads. These funding mechanisms are extremely confusing and have changed over time, but what has not changed is that roads always get a lot more.

Congress gives states roughly $40 billion a year for roads, according to Transportation For America, which can be spent either on new roads or maintenance at the states' discretion. Meanwhile, public transit agencies have to compete for only $2.3 billion in annual transit funding for big projects such as extending rail lines or building new ones, some $37.7 billion less than what states get for roads (the feds dole out an additional $7.5 billion a year for maintenance and buying new subway cars and buses).

That $40 billion a year in road money is given out to states based on a formula. It’s automatic, and states can spend that money however they wish. Not so with transit money. Transit agencies have to apply for funding for individual projects.

And should the transit agency’s project be deemed worthy of federal funding, the federal government will subsidize a much smaller percentage of the project costs than it will for roads. Transit agencies can get a maximum of 50 percent of the project cost covered by the feds, whereas roads can get up to 80 percent (down from 90 percent during the highway spending spree of the 20th Century).

And this is just at the federal level. The discrepancy between road and transit funding is even wider at the state level, Freemark says, where legislatures are typically dominated by rural interests.

Brown, the Florida State professor, said the numbers don’t lie. “It’s not a sufficient amount of money to support grand project ideas.”

Of course, many people believe it is not the federal government’s role to be paying for mass transportation because it’s a local issue (rarely is a similar argument made about roads). This was very much up for debate when the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (now a part of the Federal Transit Administration) was created in 1964. The upshot was that there’s no clear reason why the federal government should be subsidizing road construction, home mortgages, auto fuel, and any number of other things but not mass transportation. Plus, in light of the local and state government failures to pay for transit, if not the federal government, then who? Tellingly, the UMTA was founded under the Welfare Clause of the Constitution, not the Commerce Clause that authorized highway construction, because it is good for cities to have good transportation.

From nearly any vantage point, this road-heavy, transit-lite approach has been a disaster for American cities. We’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars constructing and maintaining an unsustainable roadway network, and traffic has only gotten worse to boot. In 2015, California’s Department of Transportation, which supervised some of the most fervent highway construction in the nation during the 20th century, came right out and admitted this didn’t work. More roads means more traffic. So, the state is no longer going to keep widening roads to relieve congestion.

Not only is there not enough money to go around, but it has to be shared by all the states. Federal rules require that no single project gets too big a slice.

“You can’t ask for so much money in a single year as to crowd out everyone else,” explained Davis. For example, he said, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) under the Obama administration told Los Angeles that it wouldn’t get all the money it wanted for the Westside Purple Line as one big extension through Beverly Hills and into Westwood. So, LA broke it up into three segments, with construction on Phase I beginning in 2014. Each got its own cost-benefit analysis, planning, and studies, and waited a few years between applications, which drives up costs. In February, LA received its grant for the third and final segment, a $1.3 billion payout that will cover just 36 percent of the cost. It is expected to be completed in 2027, meaning it will take 13 years to build a nine mile extension.

“Usually congressional and even executive branch political realities mean they spread the peanut butter around,” said Sarah Jo Peterson, author of Planning the Home Front, “and, when there isn't much peanut butter, they spread it thinly.”

The Costs Are Too Damn High

Not only does the money get spread too thinly, but once cities do get their money, they waste a lot of it.

“In the cities where rail transit works best,” Davis observed, “costs have just gotten out of control.” This is especially true for megaprojects, huge public works that cost billions of dollars.

I could spend an entire article on this subject alone and not even scratch the surface of just how profoundly screwed American megaproject costs are. Indeed, many writers and researchers have done exactly that, and one researcher in particular, Alon Levy, has more or less made a name for themselves on this subject.

New York City is responsible for the most expensive mile of subway track on Earth, at $3.5 billion per mile, the first segment of the Second Avenue Subway. The second phase is projected to crush that record. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subway and commuter rail system, is also some two decades late and $8 billion over budget on the $11 billion East Side Access project, which will bring Long Island Railroad trains into Grand Central, a 15 minute walk from Penn Station where Long Island Railroad trains currently go.

What is undoubtedly clear is every transit project is first and foremost a political project, and political projects are about consensus-building. This gets us not the projects we need but the projects we deserve.

The problem is hardly limited to New York. California’s high speed rail project has given new definition to the term “boondoggle.” And, as Levy has documented, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, and D.C., among others, all build subways and light rail lines at much higher costs than European cities.

“Nearly all American urban rail projects cost much more than their European counterparts do,” Levy wrote in Citylab. “The cheaper ones cost twice as much, and the more expensive ones about seven times as much.” This includes both heavy rail (subways) and light rail. “Only a handful of American [light rail] lines come in cheaper than $100 million per mile, the upper limit for French light rail.”

There are a lot of reasons for this, including:

Over-engineered stations

Arcane labor rules that inhibit productivity such as requiring more employees to work at a machine than is necessary

A lack of cooperation between agencies

But cost overruns are not a new problem for American transit.

“Cost escalation has been going on for some time,” Davis of Eno Center said. The D.C. Metro was initially slated to cost $2.5 billion but ended up with a $10 billion bill. Dating back to the Ford administration, the federal government started changing grant rules so the feds wouldn’t be on the hook for the inevitable cost overruns, leaving any eventualities to the transit agency building it and the local government overseeing it.

Do you work for a public transit agency or a contractor and have any experience with how projects end up costing so much? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Aaron Gordon at aaron.gordon@vice.com or aaronwgordon@protonmail.com.

Some cost overruns are attributable to unforeseen circumstances, but across the board, we are very bad at estimating how much these projects will cost to begin with. Sometimes, agencies give low estimates in order to make projects more politically palatable, knowing a realistic assessment will get shot down. D.C.’s initial estimate of $2.5 billion, according to George Mason University historian and author of The Great Society Subway: A history of the Washington Metro Zachary Schrag, was “never terribly realistic.”

Depressingly, it seems we gave up on ever building necessary infrastructure for the same price as other countries decades ago. Schrag also quoted Jim Caywood, head of the engineering firm that helped design Metro, as saying “there’s no way in this world that you can build a mammoth public works project such as Metro within a reasonable budget with all the outside influences. They won’t let you do it.”

The Biggest Outside Influence of All

What are those “outside influences” Caywood referenced? The big one is politics.

“Transportation planning is not just a matter of letting the engineers find the best solution to a technical problem,” Schrag wrote, “but a political process in which competing priorities must be resolved by negotiation among interest groups.”

If there’s one point on which all the experts I spoke to agree the most, it is that transportation is politics. A 1988 deep dive into the construction of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system by Portland State University professor Sy Adler found any vague proposal for a transit project, whether it be highway or rail, produces competing coalitions with their own self-interests. Maybe they want to spur development in their own downtown area or make it easy for commuters to live in their suburb. These factions then weaponize the options on the table for their preferred ends. The protracted debates result in entire regions losing focus over why they wanted to build a new transit system in the first place. Over time, it becomes a battle not of which option solves a given problem, but re-defining what the problem is.

Meanwhile, another cohort of interest groups form to stop projects they don’t want. Typically, these are neighborhood associations that don’t want a transit line coming through their block, either out of fear of construction impacts or racist concerns that it’ll disrupt the segregation of their urban area. Sometimes, they are not just neighborhood groups but entire regions.

In the 1970s, in what was later called “referendums on race,” Atlanta’s suburban and overwhelmingly white Cobb, Clayton, and Gwinnett counties voted out of the region’s MARTA system before it was even built. In 1988, five years after voting in favor of a 200-mile light rail system with local financing, Dallas voters refused to approve bonds to pay for construction, growing skittish on the whole prospect due to the oil crisis which hurt the local economy, according to Indiana University professor George Smerk’s history of the government’s mass transportation policy. Seattle, Detroit, and scores of other cities either voted against major transportation projects or approved watered down versions of original plans thanks to local opposition.

What is undoubtedly clear is every transit project is first and foremost a political project, and political projects are about consensus-building. This gets us not the projects we need but the projects we deserve.

To take just one of scores of possible examples because it affected me personally: back in the 1970s the University of Maryland rejected plans to have the D.C. Metro’s Green Line stop on campus, again for predominantly racist reasons. This forced “a complicated redesign” that “later caused commotion in College Park,” Schrag wrote. Today, anyone looking to take public transportation to the university, with 41,000 students and 14,000 faculty and staff, must either take a shuttle bus from campus or walk at least 20 minutes each way. Repeat these fights dozens of times per project and it’s no longer so difficult to envision how they end up getting relegated to land the public already owns regardless of how useful it is like freeway medians or don’t get built at all.

Meanwhile, a great political shift occurred in the United States that made transit’s prospects even worse. First was the Reagan-era movement away from services provided by the government and towards private enterprise.

Transit was not spared. When Miami’s Metrorail opened, Reagan derided the “$1 billion federal subsidy” that “serves less than 10,000 daily riders” as a prime example of government waste. Better for the government to have bought everyone a limousine, Reagan quipped.

Nevermind that all of those numbers were incorrect and deeply misleading because the project hadn’t even been completed yet, according to the Sun-Sentinel. But factual errors aside, there was a larger ideological one. “Even if Metrorail doesn't turn a profit,” the paper said, “it will be performing a valuable service. Without it, thousands of new commuters would be forced back into their cars, making the roads even more overcrowded.”

Ironically, some of the blame for the wastefulness of federal transit money belongs to Reagan himself. He spent considerable effort trying to kill the main transit grant program, according to Davis, but Congress wouldn’t let him because these projects were often popular.

In order to keep the funding going, Congress had to resort to doling out the money through annual appropriations—in other words, the 435 members of the House of Representatives, with all its byzantine committees and rules, deciding for itself which projects to fund rather than career experts in the Federal Transit Administration—through a process called earmarking. In this way, transit projects became just another horse to trade.

“The nature of earmarking is that since there are 435 House districts and 50 states, and only so much money to go around, things get split more widely than they would if the Administration just got to pick a few.” Davis continued: “Ted Stevens [longtime Alaska Senator and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee from 1997 to 2005] used to put a million dollar grants to little towns all over Alaska. I don't know what the hell they were for.”

Not only did it become fashionable to slash funds for big transit projects, but so too was it the sign of the times to slash agency budgets as well. Expertise then migrated to the private sector, in many cases to the very consultants and engineering firms hired to execute the few projects that got done. As a result, agencies were—and remain—ill-equipped to make big decisions on big projects, who hire those aforementioned consultants, who in turn charge a pretty penny for their services.

Do you work for a local transit agency and struggle with a lack of resources or funding? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Aaron Gordon at aaron.gordon@vice.com or aaronwgordon@protonmail.com.

“We often don't have really expert public staff making decisions, making some key decisions at least,” said Eric Eidlin, a former FTA planner. “We've given over that responsibility to consultants that have a profit motive. I don't mean to say that the consultants have this desire to subvert the public interest or anything, it's just not their job, right?”

Karen Trapenberg Frick, an urban planner at UC Berkeley who used to work for the Bay Area’s planning commission, echoed Eidlin’s point and said it had a real impact on what agencies were able to do, only further undermining the public’s willingness to give them money for big projects.

“There are certain cities where when I was a planner a long time ago and now, it's the same complaint: we give the city money but they can't move the project through because they don't have the staff to do it,” she explained. “And we don't have the staff to do it because there's been this whole neoliberal mind shift that the public sector can't do a good job.”

There’s a very sad irony here. The Reagan era cuts were ostensibly designed to make the public sector more efficient by harnessing the power of the market, but instead it made public agencies reliant on for-profit contractors that jack up costs, only making government less efficient and more wasteful.

“When there's no in-house public sector expertise, the ability to deliver projects quickly or efficiently is compromised,” Eidlin said. “And time is money, too.”

Who Decides?

So far, I’ve focused on the federal side of things because it has a lot of money and power. But what level of government is the right one to make decisions about massive transportation projects? Although there is no obvious right answer, it feels like the U.S. has discovered an awful lot of wrong ones.

As a nation, local authority is our founding principle. We fought a revolution to achieve it, wrote a (bad) set of rules to maintain it, scrapped those, then wrote a new set of rules we have been arguing about ever since. Most of those arguments have been about whether the federal or state governments should determine how we live.

But unprecedented depressions and world wars have a funny way of harnessing big government power, and the feds continued to flex those newly-discovered muscles as American cities deteriorated in the years afterward. From New York to Los Angeles and in dozens of cities in between, so-called “urban renewal” programs used federal dollars to quite literally tear down and rebuild massive sections of cities from scratch, sometimes in order to build a highway through the demolished portion. One of the many legacies of this program, which destroyed entire neighborhoods, was a growing distrust in the government to sensitively execute centrally planned projects. The preferred remedy was to have more local control, neighborhood by neighborhood.

This approach has its merits, but for transportation it has serious drawbacks. Whether they be subways, light rail, bus routes, or even the humble bike lane, any transportation worth using is a network that allows people to get from one side of a city to another quickly and efficiently. Giving substantial input or even veto power to individual communities along that network undermines the entire concept.

“Transit is fundamentally regional,” Eidlin said, “And I really feel like our general population and our decision makers don't universally agree with that or even had that epiphany yet.”

Just as too much hyperlocal control can stymie useful transit, putting transit under the auspices of entire states can have downsides, too. Several of the country’s biggest transit systems including New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. are controlled not by local authorities but state (or in D.C.’s case, quasi-federal) bodies. This means taxpayers who don’t obviously benefit from the system pay into it, a constant source of political tension. And when proposed projects cross state lines, it opens up a prolonged debate about who pays for what share, a fight that often takes years or decades to resolve.

Put the lack of funds for transit together with our country’s general desire to give local control as close to the individual citizen level as possible, and we’re left with a contradictory system where every limb and appendage fights the others. The lack of funds dedicated to transit means higher and higher levels of government—the ones with more and more money—often have control over transit, either by law or by practice. But those same agencies must seek local consensus for what are not local projects, a time-consuming and expensive proposition at best and a poison pill at worst.

This desire for local control yields bizarre outcomes. For example, Eidlin is working on a transportation hub project in San Jose, CA. Four different public agencies are involved, each for a different jurisdiction that will meet at the hub (this is indicative of the Bay Area, which has 27 transit operators and 151—yes, 151—transit agencies). As a result, Eidlin says much of the project’s work at this stage is not on the project itself, but administrative tasks to keep all the agencies up to speed.

“We value local control so much and we fund so many things locally that we never stop and ask,” Eidlin said, “what's the right level of government at which to be addressing a public issue?”

How To Fix This

As dire as the American transit landscape is, there are specs of hope. Federal funds are no longer given out through earmarks; that stopped in 2010. Now, the FTA grades projects based on merit. And some metro areas have big plans. Los Angeles and Seattle voters have opted to raise their sales taxes slightly to fund tens of billions of dollars in transit upgrades that could significantly improve their region.

But we need much bigger solutions, not only to build transit systems faster and more efficiently, but to run them better, too. In the vicious cycle of transit funding, agencies that are perceived as wasteful or bad at providing services have a harder time getting money from politicians, which then makes it harder to run a good transit service. This cycle must be broken.

Public transit…ought to be as natural a government service as trash collection.

More money for transit would obviously help. Bernie Sanders has proposed $300 billion for public transit by 2030 and $607 billion for a high speed rail network (Joe Biden, in an excellent distillation of the failures of American transportation policy to date, does not commit any dollar amounts to these issues in his platform, but does commit $50 billion in his first year to repair roads, highways, and bridges). That would be a lot more money where it’s desperately needed, and polling suggests it’s a popular platform with majority support.

The most noteworthy part of Sanders' platform, however, is not the money. It’s the framework under which it is proposed: the Green New Deal.

This, says Florida State University’s Jeff Brown, fits with the history of how big transit projects are proposed. “Transit, in most places, has very much been an afterthought or a reaction to some other perceived crisis,” he said. Traditionally, that crisis has been traffic. For periods in the 1970s and 1980s, it was the oil crises. Sanders, however, clearly puts better public transportation within the framework of the climate crisis.

But the very concept of tying transit construction to a crisis misses the point. Transit does address those issues, but it is more than that. We will never build good transit until we jettison the century-old misconception that it is a business the government happens to run out of necessity. Rather, public transportation is a public good on its own merits, good times and bad. Allowing people to move about their cities cheaply, efficiently, and quickly makes cities more productive and better places to live and has numerous knock-on public health, environmental, social, and economic effects. Public transit funding ought not to be a response to any crisis. It ought to be as natural a government service as trash collection.

On the other hand, framing transit as a fight against traffic is a losing battle, because it doesn’t take very many cars to create traffic. It is, as transit planner Jarrett Walker argues, a matter of geometry. It will always appear to a certain type of person that money was wasted. But positing that transit is a way for city dwellers to live better, more pleasant lives is a winning platform, as politicians across Europe can attest.

We also have to work out what the right level of government is to make transit decisions. New York, D.C., and San Francisco in particular have complicated and bizarre governance structures for their transit agencies. Most of these structures were created in mid-century when good governance types replicated the corporate boardroom as the ideal of good governance. History has proven this approach hopelessly naive. Transit is politics. It’s time to, as Freemark has argued, put transit squarely within the responsibility of one elected official who is clearly accountable.

None of this solves what may be the biggest impediment to good American public transit: costs. The solutions here are not easy. Hell, as Josh Barro of New York has pointed out, and I've also learned, we don’t even fully understand the problem. At the very least, fixing it requires cultivating long-term expertise on the local level so agencies aren’t reinventing the wheel the rare occasions they’re given enough money to undertake megaprojects. It also might require, as Laura Tolkoff of the San Francisco-based non-profit SPUR suggested, establishing governmental entities with in-house megaproject expertise, weaning the transit world off relying on expensive contractors and consultants and onto agencies looking out for the taxpayers’ interest, not the stock market’s.

These are just a handful of the high-level suggestions I learned while reporting this story. I will keep reporting on this and learning more, and you should contact me if you work in a transit-related industry and know anything I ought to know. But one thing we must always keep in mind is the answers are out there.

“[The U.S.] needs to learn what works in Japan, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, South Korea, Spain, Italy, Singapore, Belgium, Norway, Taiwan, Finland, Austria,” Levy wrote. “It needs to learn how to plan around cooperation between different agencies and operators, how to integrate infrastructure and technology, how to use 21st-century engineering.”

To that end, Levy and fellow researcher Eric Goldwyn just received a two-year grant from the John Arnold Foundation via New York University to study why U.S. construction costs are so high. And they’re looking to hire a research associate, preferably one with language skills other than English. “We are particularly looking to extend our coverage outside countries where information is readily available in English,” their job posting for the project says.

“Imitate,” Levy advises. “Don’t innovate.”

Why the US Sucks at Building Public Transit syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[alightwhendarknessfell]

The issue I have with Jake and Inna’s ‘Inspiration’ posts is that it’s the same stereotypical spiel that almost 99.9% of 'celebs’ and people with money, rich kids, people with dream jobs or situations they dropped on, people in financially well off and/or comfortable life styles or people who have no responsibilities, preach to the masses.They go on and on about freedom, happiness, to not worry bout life, to travel and 'expand your mind’, to go seek out the beautiful places of the world, to visit nature and so on, posting things like Inna’s 'Remove the I and want from 'I want to be happy’ and you’re left with happiness’.

Which is fine, they have every right to post and say what they like, but the truth of the matter is that people like Jake, Inna and other people who post things like this, often come from one of the situations above. People who post things like this generally have a good bit of wealth and a safety net in place and never have to worry about said safety net. We can’t begrudge them that freedom, especially if they’ve worked for it, like Jake has, however we can begrudge them the attitude that comes with it, because it is an attitude that is all too prevalent amongst people who do not have to worry about the foundations of their financial security, job security, etc.

That attitude is one which suggests you must travel, you must be carefree, you must not worry about money, your job, your home, your living situation, that to worry means you’re shallow and materialistic, vapid and money hungry and that to not do as their inspiring words suggest means you’re bad and not trying hard enough.

What they post is known as aspirational porn, which serves two purposes: One is to tantalize the viewers with a life they cannot have, and really want (Lets face it, who doesn’t want to be carefree, travel and have money?) and the second is to make the viewers feel like some sort of failure for not being able to have the same life style, yet still be drawn in and keep checking their posts.

It’s a way for the upper class, celebs and those in a cushy life style to pat themselves on the back for being able to do something that anyone with money can buy. Which is to have a comfortable life. They don’t have to worry about happiness because, despite what they try to lead you to believe, money does buy happiness. Think about it; when you can afford your rent, food, bills, clothing, etc. it keeps you happy subconsciously. You’d be pretty miserable if you couldn’t. So on that level it can and does buy happiness. Inna and Jake might preach that it doesn’t, that money is not something they care about, but if that were the case, Inna wouldn’t post about her 'real man’ buying her make-up, she wouldn’t buy designer clothing, she wouldn’t do sponsored teeth whitening ads, they wouldn’t be trying to make ÆLONIA big.

Money, despite what they say, is a key motivator. Case in point, they mentioned how Trixxy’s vet bills were expensive and they could not afford to pay for her treatment. Money very quickly became something they were concerned about. Would they appreciate their own advice of not worrying about it if someone told them the same advice they give others?

Someone who has had privilege of travelling extensively and being able to live comfortably and in decent financial security is not any better, wiser or more cultured than someone who hasn’t, or someone who can never afford to even get out of their own city. Yet Inna and Jake act like they are, because they assume that their life style is a given to anyone, that it’s people’s 'negative attitudes’ holding them back, when it isn’t. It’s entirely a game of money and access and acting as though worrying about money and not finding the 'beauty’ in your life on the part of people with less than them is some sort of trivial issue, just makes it worse.

Encouraging people to 'Worry less about things’ or to just 'Go out and live life’ to 'Follow your dreams’, 'find nature’ when you’re in a position to do as you like and damn the consequences, demonstrates a very profound misunderstanding of what worrying actually is. What the condescending celebs, musicians, rich kids etc. mean by not worrying and to 'be happy’ is they think you’re choosing to be where you are, that you’re the one who decided you needed two jobs, you’re the one who who is choosing to pay your rent over going out and seeking your fortune and dropping your responsibilities. That you could easily just drop everything and go live this perfect life where you’d be happy, but you’re choosing not to. What they fail to understand is that many of us have no choice but to make money our priority over genuine happiness, to make rent, bills, caring for families our priority because we’ve no other choice. Because if you don’t go and earn money, look after your family, etc. then you’d be out on the streets or even worse off. So them implying that people choose to be unhappy or be stuck where they are on purpose is naive and despite what they would lead people to believe, being able to drop your old life and pave the way for a new one does require money. These stories of people who claim to just go and travel to a new city with ten dollars in their pocket are rare and those people always drop lucky on knowing someone who helps them get their foot in the door by way of getting a dream job or simply being in the right place at the right time. When someone tells you a story like that, they’re no doubt deliberately missing out on key factors like people helping them out. The goal is to make it seem as inspiring as possible and to drive home the point that 'anyone’ can do it.

How many people feel inspired by those quotes they post? genuinely? Not many. Most of the people clapping for those posts of Jake and Inna’s are young and desperate to suck up to them in the hopes that they will get interaction from their idols. It might fill people temporarily with false inspiration, but it’s not a long term thing and inspiration to better yourself or your own life has to come from yourself, first and foremost. True and lasting inspiration does not come from outside sources. Outside sources might help a little in giving you a push, but ultimately you need to be your own inspiration and that is not easy to do. If it were, everyone would have killer bodies, and we’d all be millionaires on private yachts.

Everyone needs to follow their own path to financial independence and freedom, that much is true and we all achieve it in different ways. And if you’re lucky enough that path involves a lot of money, being able to travel freely and do something you love for a living or even not have a job and rely on family to pay your way, because you know you’ve got security. That’s great if you have that, and there’s no need to feel guilty over it if you do. But to encourage others to follow this very rare and privileged path makes you a dick. Because it implies the only way to gain meaning out of life is to do what Jake and Inna are doing. It’s turned their IG’s into vapid inspiration blogs that only apply to a tiny percent of the population who have the money to go out and do what they keep saying. It’s time to stop with the vague, passive-aggressive inspirational quotes that Jake sometimes starts with 'I suggest you do and [insert thing you should do here]’. It’s time to stop saying things like: ’What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.’ Like one of Inna’s pictures says further down her IG page. It’s incredibly naive and an incredibly privileged attitude.

Similarly, it’s easy for Inna to tell girls to  not worry about social stigma, because she knows she is slim, attractive and has a near perfect body by society’s standards. Again, another example of aspiration porn.

And both Jake and Inna and all those other celebs who do the same can say that this is mean, that my post is wrong until they are blue in the face, but it still does not change the fact that they are preaching from a position of financial security and privilege. If they truly believed what they posted and preached, Inna and Jake would of both acted very differently and not attack their fans. Given that Inna has posted the following quotes:

'I know, sometimes it’s not easy because there are many people who will try to provoke you on the negative reaction, who will bring up your worst inside of you. But always try to wear somebody’s shoes and try to practice non-judgment because you never know what those people are going through and who they really are. Who are we to judge somebody? We can’t do that. But we can understand and forgive. Understanding is the key to forgiveness, to love, to inner peace and happiness.’

'Remind yourself that the greatest technique for bringing peace into your life is to always choose being kind when you have a choice between being right or being kind.’

If they really believed this, they’d not have acted how they did to the recent out bursts, nor would Jake of threatened to hit someone and their gender does not make hitting them or wanting to hit them acceptable.

'Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them.’

Please tell this to the families of Robin Williams, Heath Ledger, Jimmy Sullivan, Kurt Cobain, and the multitude of 'successful’ people in life who have died, committed suicide, struggled with addiction, abuse, etc. Please tell Corey Taylor who was raped as a child and a drug user this. Please tell all the multitude of people who can’t get over something in their past which holds them back, because it has mentally destroyed them. Please tell that to my friend who was raped when he was younger, to the point where it’s not crippled him in terms of relationships. Please tell them all how it was their attitudes and lack of positivity which caused them to be how they are. I’m sure it will go down REALLY well.

This is a perfect example of someone who is in a position of wealth and security, not understanding how humans in general work. Is Inna telling us that no matter what happens you must stay positive? Would she tell someone that after a family member died? What about if a friend told her they were raped? Would she tell them to look at the positives about it? Doubtful. It’s another issue with people with this type of attitude; they often lack empathy, because they think anyone who has anything bad happen to them has brought it upon themselves. And that is a dangerous attitude to have, because when you get knocked off your pedestal, it’s one hell of a fall.

Submission: This post should be mandatory reading. You got it 100%!!!!