#my grandparents' house who got sold

[echo-s-land]

That moment where you remember a random place from your childhood you'll probably never go back to

[jajanvm-imbi]

You know there's actually something I really appreciate with how Lucifer is depicted in Hazbin.

Everyone thought he was gonna be this intimidating king who crushes Charlie's dreams. We all thought he was gonna be a sadistic rebel or something.

Instead, Lucifer is just a brokenhearted dreamer who's heart is too big for his own good. Just like Charlie

He wasnt a "rebel", he wasn't "evil", he didn't want to harm anyone. He just wanted to share the beauty of being truly alive with mankind, and he was cast out. He was cast away because the angels feared what they couldn't understand.

When Charlie tried explaining to her father her dream, he said everything he could to discourage her not because he didn't believe in her but he really just wanted to protect her from the soul crushing rejection he experienced. He was afraid for her

And there's something so painfully realistic about that fear.

As someone who's grown up in the church, and who's parents eventually became the pastors of the church they grew up in, I cannot tell you how terrifying the idea of being rejected by those you love is.

All of the most important people in my life are at this church. They paid for my Sweet 16. They were there when my grandparents died and my parents had to go on emergency trips to Costa Rica. They were there when our house got flooded and my family was homeless for 3 months. They threw my parents their 50th birthday parties. They went to my brothers highschool graduation. They went to mine. I'm grateful they're in my life.

But being the type of person I am, someone who isn't afraid of interacting and being friends with those the church deems as "dirty sinners", someone who would charge headfirst into spaces most "good Christians" would be too afraid of touching with a stick, I'm terrified of what I think is the inevitable future.

I've always know I wasn't meant for ministry like everyone expects I should be. I'm not meant to work in exclusively "Christian" spaces, and I have no desire to. My parents keep trying to tell me to use my career for Christian specific projects and I know that's not my purpose in life. They would never say it but I can see it on their faces that they fear I'm gonna "stray from the path of God" for pursing the career I've dreamed of since I was a kid.

How do I begin to explain to them that this is God's path for me? I know it is with all my heart. One day I'm gonna move out and fulfill my purpose in life and ultimately be rejected by the people who I consider my family?

I know there will be people in my life who will never understand who I'm meant to be, and my heart breaks thinking about it because I don't want them to be afraid of me. I haven't "changed", I'm just finally who I was always meant to become. I know there are gonna be people who think I've sold myself to "the world" or something, how do I make them understand?

Luficer says: "Heaven never listens. They didnt listen to me..." and my heart clenches

Charlie says he cant know that and Luficer says with tears in eyes: "I DO" and my own eyes fill with tears

Lucifer sings: "My dreams were too hard to defend" and I feel that deep in my own soul.

Some of us were meant to be rejected for what we're meant to do, and rejection is the biggest fear of every kid who's grown up in the church.

Hazbin isn't perfect, I will never claim it is, but GOD is this depiction of Lucifer something special. What other character can perfectly show what kids who grew up in the church feel?

[blackopals-world]

Maid!Yuu: I been wondering something. No one really knows much about you.

Onsen!Yuu: There isn't much to say.

Maid!Yuu: What about your past?

Onsen!Yuu: That's...well. I came from a small village in the country. After a fire destroyed much of the village a man came to our house. He offered a contract to my parents and I and my sister were sold to a brothel.

Maid!Yuu: What! Thats horrible!

Onsen!Yuu: It could have been worse. I wore nice clothes and ate good food. I didn't serve clients because I was too young. I was a darling kamuro, treasured and spoiled by the people and the courtesans alike. We were meant to represent innocence. We got to play when we didn't run errands for our courtesan sister. But we were educated well. Costumers believed they could use us to get to our Mistresses but we knew how to manipulate them into spending more money or learning their secrets. We were her little spys and kept her rivals in check. My sister didn't care for that life. She wanted to be free of it. I on the other hand wanted to stay. I had dreams of rising through the ranks and becoming the next Tayū, the crowing jewel of the district. But I was held back by my appearance.

Maid!Yuu: But you're so beautiful. Everyone knows that.

Onsen!Yuu:(laughs) I wasn't a matter of attraction. It was of gender. I was young and cute but I was still a b-male in origin. My time as kamuro was limited and the owners knew it. There would be no more silk dresses for me and I'd never get to use white makeup. It was for the best that our contract was traded and we were sold to a bathhouse/teahouse. We became a Snacha and a Yuna respectively. I learned the ways of the bathhouse and my sister the teahouse. Singing, dancing, music, spa treatments and food. That was my life and I finally finished my transition. All who looked at me saw a beautiful girl who could have been a Tayū but was now the future manager of the house.

Maid!Yuu: You still wanted to sell yourself? After all that.

Onsen!Yuu: No, my body is my own. I wanted the fame and parise of it. But I had learned my lesson and why my sister hated that life. She saw what I didn't. She too wanted recognition and earned it from our owners. We called them our grandparents and they took us in even after our contracts ended. They couldn't waste educated children like us who knew the red light district. But none of it matters now. Like when a girl enters a brothel for the first time and her past is erased so was mine when I entered this world.

Maid!Yuu:But you're sister-

Onsen!Yuu: Will be fine. I wish her happiness and know Grandmother will care for her. I must take care of myself now. I have the skills to do so and I have my own bathhouse now. So there is not much to tell about myself.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

I have a light one that’s kind of dumb.

🐶🐱

AITA for wanting a dog even though my sister/housemate does not?

To start, nobody is allergic to dogs or has a fear of them, she just doesn’t want it.

(if ages and gender are important, we’re both f in our early 20s)

I grew up on a farm with lots of animals. There were always cows, I had goats, there were chickens, ducks, barn cats and of course, 1-3 livestock guard dogs at a time.

When I was 16, I had a senior spaniel who had to be put down due to heart problems. Ever since I have been asking if I can have another dog but my parents have said no.

Around a year ago now I sold my goats and moved out of my parents house into an apartment. The apartment didn’t allow any pet bigger than my little gecko.

Then, about January, my older sister started messaging me with images of houses on a realtor site. So we looked at houses. I agreed to buy a house with her 1) so she could move out of our parents house and 2) because being by myself in the apartment with no real friends wasn’t really that good for my mental health.

To her credit, she did get a kitten from our farm and let me keep it, although I didn’t really want a house cat. The main reason I wanted a dog was for the amount of exercise it would need, and I would have to take it for long walks. Not to mention litter boxes aren’t my favourite thing to deal with. Still, I am glad I have a little animal to cuddle.

Additionally, most of the times when I bring up wanting a dog or getting a dog, it’s either in a jokey matter or it’ll be in contrast to something (for example there was a shady guy hanging around our street the other night and we don’t have an actual alarm for our house, so I went “yknow if we had a yappy little chihuahua it would be an alarm enough” or something like that) to which she will reply something short and growly along the lines of “you’re never getting a dog in my house”

Her reasons she gives for not wanting a dog? Number one, it’s “her” house. (It’s in both of our names, I paid half the down deposit and I pay half the mortgage and bills, and I pay for the Wifi. I’m not paying her rent, we both own it) Number 2, her friend is allergic to horses. (A friend that never comes over to our house anyway, and I understand fur allergies are complicated but it’s a dog. We aren’t anywhere NEAR horses! We live in town!) (this one is also BS because sister wants to buy a farm and have Clydesdale horses) Number 3, it sheds. We have a cat. The cat sheds more than the breeds of dogs that I really like or want. One of my favourites are the Xolo dog. Which has no hair. At all. Number 4, the cat is scared of dogs. (She isn’t. She’s never seen one in her life. I can get her used to having a dog around easily, even if she starts afraid. I’ve done it before when our parents have gotten new dogs around new cats.)

I’m not going to go behind her back and bring home a dog (even though there have been opportunities to get a free puppy multiple time) but I’m not going to stop wanting to have a dog or wanting to get one or talking about what dogs I like.

Our grandparents are moving to town and selling their farm next year, which sister wants to buy with me. I told her I’d like to move out of town into a farm, but only if she let me get either a dog or a donkey to protect our property against coyotes. (Especially considering we both want chickens if we get a farm)

She got really pissy at me about that, and stormed off. AITA here? I think she’s being a little unreasonable. I’m not a bad pet owner at all, I work with my animals as much as possible. I had my billy goat following me around the farm without a lead before I sold the goats, for pineapple’s sakes!

What are these acronyms?

[rederiswrites]

Well, today I had the entertainment of having a dental hygienist schedule me for my next cleaning to make sure that she was the one doing the cleaning, so that she could hear "the end of the story". It was definitely a uniquely entertaining tooth cleaning.

You see, I got a message from Jacob while I was in the waiting room, telling me that... Well, the situation with my mom, who lives in our basement and is causing us problems I don't really need to get into, had deteriorated even further. So when the hygienist went to take my blood pressure, I was like, "oh actually, it might be really bad right now, cuz I just got upsetting news, don't worry about it." And then it was, in fact, fairly terrible. It's always been great before, and was great in their records, so we called that one a scratch.

But naturally she was curious to know what had my blood pressure through the roof. Presumably if I'd brushed it off she'd have respected that, but I was like, hell, why not, it's some pretty wild gossip. So I told her the basic outlines, and actually it was good for me, because at some point I'd really started to give my mom a little too much credit, trying to keep the situation peaceful. The hygienist gave me a fresh perspective of like, "wait so why is that even a problem for her?" And at a couple points there seemed to be surprising parallels with her life. So when I was done, and hopefully less likely to pop a blood vessel, I said, "Well I gave you the goods, I think you'll agree, so fill me in on your story!"

Because after all I was about to have her hands in my mouth for fifteen minutes, so my turn with the talking ball was definitely over.

She's like, "Alright, but fair warning, this might be more uncomfortable for you than me." And naturally I say something to the effect of, "Oh nah I'm cool with most things", and she gets to work.

"So ten years ago," she begins, "my husband died."

Me: *indistinct noises of shock and dismay* What's that one Twitter thread--"I know, classic start to a funny story."

Anyhow, short version, her husband died, she had a two year old to take care of, and she was working as a social worker and feeling like she couldn't take another day of it. So she quit her job, sold her house, moved back in with her parents (she got space in the unfinished basement, the baby got her old bedroom) and trained to become a hygienist. It certainly hadn't been her plan to still be there ten years later, but hey, she had help with the kid, he comes home to his grandparents every day instead of her scrambling to find a situation for him until she gets off work, and she feels spoiled to have her mom cooking for her. It's not perfect, but the way she sees it, it's been much better this way for her son.

So now she's gotta wait six months to find out if we get a mediator and how we settle the situation. Which I guess means I gotta actually settle it. God I hope.

As we were saying goodbye, I said, "Wait, I didn't get the punchline. Are you happier as a hygienist?"

"Oh. Oh yeah. Absolutely."

[bangtanhoneys]

Grace & Places

SEOKJIN - LONDON

“So this is where your eomma comes from,” Seokjin stated as he looked at the house before him on a random street just outside London. He had no clue where he was and he honestly had no clue what day it was, he just knew that they had landed in the UK two days ago, they had just done Britain’s Got Talent and they had one day before they performed two sold-out nights at Wembley Stadium.

“Born and bred,” Grace proudly stated as she looked at the house. It was nothing when you compared it to some of the expensive property inside the city of London and it was nothing compared to what her mother was currently living in just outside Seoul, but this was Grace’s roots all the same. “My grandparents bought the house off my grandmother’s parents who had lived there before them and my great-great-grandparents lived here as well,” Grace explained as Seokjin linked their fingers. “So it’s home in a weird way.”

Of course, Grace had been born and bred in Manchester and until there was an opportunity to show Seokjin as well as the rest of the boys her hometown, London would have to do for now. Being a mixed Korean-British idol, the first of hopefully many, and performing at Wembley was a big dream come true and the fact she could show off her heritage to her boyfriend was just another spoonful of sugar added to the cup of tea.

The bodyguard near the car looked unimpressed just as Seokjin had. 

“Hmm, I hope you don’t expect us to find something like that in Seoul,” Seokjin mused as they turned away from the house after sending a picture of it to her mother. “I don’t think the security on it would hold the world away.”

“I think Taehyung has his sights on us all living together until we’re eighty,” laughed Grace as she took the keys from their bodyguard. “And I’m pretty sure he’d marry all of us at once if he had the chance.”

Grace was glad she got the opportunity to return home, albeit briefly. And maybe one day she would come back with her parents, then with the rest of the guys and maybe, just one day, with a family of her own.

YOONGI - LAS VEGAS

All Yoongi had heard the moment they stepped foot on the Vegas strip was ‘Yoongi marry me.’ 

It had been a running joke for a while now, appearing in various live videos either of Yoongi on his own or the group. And then the boys had started running with it and it only got worse after their live video they did when they had returned from the Grammys, empty-handed once again.

“How do you know so much about marriage in Las Vegas?” Grace questioned the next morning, all of them meeting in the suite to have breakfast together. Yoongi and Grace were the first ones to arrive, Seokjin had been the first awake but he had been taken by the medic to get his bandages changed.

“You know I look up everything about where we go,” Yoongi shrugged as he poured his coffee. “Plus, I wanted to know what the rules were in case you and Jin-hyung decided to surprise us all and get married at one of those chapels.”

It was hard to hide his grin when he heard his twin scoff, knowing full well there would be a slight blush on her cheeks. It had been five years now since Seokjin and Grace had finally got together and while it was old news, no one had stopped teasing the two eldest members.

“Do I look like the type of woman to be married by an Elvis tribute act?”

Yoongi paused and glanced over, taking in their female member with a serious expression. “Maybe if the tribute act belonged to Beyonce but definitely not Elvis.”

“See if you ever get invited,” Grace mumbled as she took her plate to the table.

“I have to be invited. Who else is going to know the rules and regulations and do all the legal bits for you? Who else is going to be able to stand there and help?” Yoongi followed Grace to the table, taking in great delight in where this train of thought was going.

“My Dad,” Grace replied with a grin, ignoring the put-out look that was tossed her way.

HOSEOK - LOS ANGELES

It was difficult to get time off during concerts, especially on a world tour and it was even harder when you were in the middle of celeb central, Los Angeles. But there was a need to stretch the legs and enjoy the California sunshine, which is why Grace was being cajoled into going on a trip to Melrose Avenue to get some ice cream, maybe do a bit of shopping and just enjoy themselves.

“You only dragged me along so I could do all the translating,” Grace sighed after she handed Hobi his ice cream, another bowl of ice cream to their bodyguard and lastly she took her own little bowl of banana ice cream which was covered in whipped cream and sprinkles.

“Noona! I’m offended,” Hobi dramatically gasped then pretty much squealed when a big bumble bee flew past.

“That’s karma,” Grace pointed out with a grin as she stuck her spoon into the ice cream and followed their bodyguard down Melrose Avenue. 

“Well, the translating is a bonus point but no, I just wanted to spend time with my noona. It’s not often we get to just come outside, and be normal for an hour before we’re locked away or on our way to the concert,” Hobi said as he kept his ice cream close in case any other insect decided to try.

“You just had to pick Los Angeles to do it in.” And she had a point because there were plenty of people milling around and Hollywood was just abuzz with news of whatever gossip was going around and it didn’t help that the biggest band out of Korea was in town.

“But at least we got ice cream.”

NAMJOON - SEOUL

Namjooning - the act of living as Kim Namjoon, including taking walks through parks, admiring nature, and feeding your mind and soul by doing the things you love. 

That was the definition that Google gave and it perfectly describes the situation that Grace currently found herself in. It was hard to say no to dimples when they flashed briefly and that innocence that was there when Namjoon came knocking, asking his noona if she wanted to go out for the day.

It was just damn hard to say no.

Which is why she found herself climbing up Inwangsan Peak, on a warm day, in not so suitable clothes. Maybe shorts had been the wrong idea and certainly the sneakers she had worn were going to give her blisters when she got down but listening to Namjoon talk about nature, the wildlife, how the plants grew in this particular region of Seoul and how he just thrived in being outside - whatever discomfort she was feeling or suffering with, Grace kept her mouth shut and simply enjoyed her time with Namjoon.

By the time they got to the top, Grace was more than ready to fly down and get herself an iced coffee and Namjoon…well, Namjoon had the biggest smile on his face as he took various photos of the view. She couldn’t help but laugh at how excited he was, even if this wasn’t his first time up the peak and that he was sweating just as much as she was.

“Joon, next time you want to do something like this, think of your poor Noona and pick an easy hike because these thighs can’t handle a peak like this,” Grace sighed as she rested her hands on her knees.

She couldn’t help but laugh along with Namjoon who took one look at her and started laughing, reaching into his bag to hand over a bottle of water. “Sorry noona, next time I’ll make sure we hike towards a bookshop.”

JIMIN - JEJU ISLAND

Hearing her phone alert her of an incoming facetime, Grace paused what she was doing and reached for the phone that was vibrating against the material of the desk. Seeing Jimin’s name flash up as well as the photo he had put as the profile picture, Grace chuckled to herself and answered the time.

“Noona!”

“Jimin! Where are you? Oh you're in Jeju, aren’t you? Are you enjoying yourself?”

Jimin turned the camera slightly, showing the Snoopy figure next to him. “My friend and I are having an amazing time.”

Grace snorted to herself as she took in the statue and shook her head, wondering not for the first time why Jimin had decided to go to Jeju Island in the middle of winter and from what she could see, there were some snowflakes on his coat.

“You must be crazy to be going there at this time of year,” Grace mused and frowned to herself when she realised her mug was empty. “But at least you're enjoying yourself and having a great time. Are you bringing me back anything?”

It had become a long tradition that if any member of the group was travelling abroad or even in Korea for work, vacation or just for a day away, they always brought their noona something back. The only two people who often forgot were Yoongi and Jungkook but Jimin always remembered.

“Of course! I’ve got it already in my suitcase for you and I’ll be back home in a few days so we’ll have to make arrangements to meet up. Don’t work too hard noona and I’ll see you soon.”

“Stay warm Chim and have a lovely time.”

TAEHYUNG - PARIS

Paris. The city of love, music, food and architecture. 

A second home to Taehyung who suited Paris with every fibre of his being. If there was a city that suited a person, it would be Taehyung. 

Grace could see that as they both journeyed to the Eiffel Tower, the final pit stop of the day before their concert. Yet there was a bit of concern as the cold affecting Taehyung had hit his voice badly and she was worried about him, she knew what he was like when it came to his health and how he would try and push himself to breaking point to achieve what ARMY wanted.

But for now, the two of them were exploring the city to see much of it before they had to leave and go onto the next city.

For Taehyung, having his noona there meant an extra layer of security, an extra layer of comfort as well as someone translating for him. He knew enough French to get by but having someone who could speak English better than Namjoon was even better, especially when his voice was starting to give way.

He tried to thank her when she handed him a drink as well as a small figurine of the Eiffel Tower, which probably cost enough euros for someone to blink rapidly at, but Grace just smiled and opened the bottle of water for him. It was a silent journey through all the sights but no words were needed to be said, as the two of them strolled arm in arm around the city that would welcome back Taehyung time and time again.

JUNGKOOK - BUSAN

It was odd that this would be the last time that all eight of them would be on stage together and that it would be another three years before the eight of them would be fully reunited. And in two days the announcement would come that seven members would be enlisting in the military, Seokjin going first.

Jungkook quietly watched everyone go about their business as normal - there was still that chaotic energy, the staff were still on stress tenterhooks, the band were excited and the group known as BTS were a mix bag of emotions. They would be seeing ARMY one final time and then would come their solo albums and then the military.

And all that would be left was Grace. 

His adopted mother would be the only one left holding the flag while also preparing for her own solo career. 

It seemed as if she knew what he was thinking as their eyes met and Grace made her way over, taking her place next to Jungkook. No words needed to be said as his tattooed hand reached over and gently took hold of Grace’s fingers, holding them tightly as they both watched time tick down before they would be called on stage.

Yet to Come in Busan would be the closing of chapter one and the start of chapter two. And the woman who Jungkook had known from when he entered Big Hit as a small teenager would start her own chapter in two years, ready to take the world by storm. 

[homosexuhauls]

Diane Clarke was just 10 when she went through two life-changing losses. First, she lost her mother, who was stabbed to death in her own home. Then, she lost her father – the person who had killed her mother.

Pauline Benton, 32, was killed by her husband in 1978 after she told him she was seeing another man. Her death followed a “loveless” marriage in which she was allegedly controlled by her husband, who treated her as though she was a “possession”.

“When we got to the top of our street and there were blue flashing lights, I knew something was up,” Clarke tells The Independent. “All the neighbours were outside the house. There were ambulances and police cars there.”

The now 56-year-old recalls trying to go into her home in Cannock, Staffordshire, but being sent to her neighbour’s instead. Frustrated that nobody would explain what was going on, she had to wait until the next day for her grandfather to tell her news that no child should ever have to hear.

Clarke’s father was charged with her mother’s murder, which he denied, but he admitted manslaughter. He was sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court to three years in prison.

Clarke visited him in jail while living with her mother’s parents. Then, when he was released, she and her brother went to live with him again. As a child who could not fully understand the magnitude of what had happened, Clarke wanted to live with her father again, but now desperately wishes she had remained with her grandparents.

While Clarke’s situation may sound deeply shocking, she is not alone. Men who kill their partners in the UK automatically hold on to parental responsibility for their children – even if they are in prison. It means they remain in control of their children’s lives – including choosing where they live, and deciding on their healthcare needs, for example – unless a court removes parental responsibility.

Jade’s Law

With families up and down the country facing this situation, Labour has lent its backing to Jade’s Law: a proposed piece of legislation that would withdraw parental responsibility from a mother or father found guilty of murdering their child’s other parent.

In its current form, the proposed law – named after 27-year-old Jade Ward, who was stabbed and strangled in her home by her ex-partner Russell Marsh as their four young sons slept – would not cover a situation like Clarke’s, because her father was convicted of manslaughter, not murder.

But the mother of two, now a domestic abuse campaigner, is calling for the law to be broadened in order to cover both crimes when domestic abuse is involved.

‘Play fighting’

Clarke tells The Independent that her mother met another man, which she saw as her “way out” of the toxic relationship with Clarke’s father. It was when she finally plucked up the courage to tell her husband the truth that he turned violent.

A newspaper cutting about the case describes how Benton’s husband – “incensed” at hearing of her six-month affair – “plunged a bread knife into her chest”.

“It was sold in the newspapers and in the court as she asked for it because she had an affair,” says Clarke.

Court reports said Clarke’s father was a “normally placid man”, but a social enquiry report used in the case, seen by The Independent, quotes Benton’s father describing him as a “jealous man” who tended to treat his wife as “a possession”.

Clarke remembers how her father, who was married to her mother for 15 years, would physically fight with his wife until she would go into the bedroom crying. Her father would refer to this as “play fighting”, she says.

“My relationship with my mum wasn’t good, because my dad was getting me to mock her and abuse her as well,” she recalls. “So when he killed her, I missed my dad more than I missed my mum.”

While her father was in prison, Clarke spent her time looking after her mother’s parents, who were “wrapped up in their own pain”.

“They were on Valium. They were drinking,” Clarke recalls. “I was looking after them. They’ve lost their daughter, their daughter has been killed, you know – they’re devastated.”

She says nobody checked to see if she was coping when she started at a new school, and recalls the “traumatic” experience of sitting making a Mother’s Day card, which she addressed to her grandmother.

“I was getting bullied at that school by this time, as well, because I was getting more and more vulnerable. I didn’t tell anybody I was being bullied.”

‘I was having nightmares’

Living with the man who had killed her mother wasn’t easy. Describing the situation after he was released from prison, Clarke says she played the role of mum, doing the cleaning, washing and cooking, and feeling “desperately, desperately alone” while doing so.

“I was having nightmares,” she adds. “Somebody was trying to kill me in the dreams. I’ve always thought ‘I’ve got to be careful what I say or do, because what if he kills me?’ And even though he’s an old man now, I still have that fear.”

After leaving school, she “hit rock bottom”, getting into a relationship with a violent boyfriend and making an attempt to kill herself. Clarke is still vaguely in touch with her father, but effectively considers herself an orphan.

“If I saw him in the street, I would try and avoid talking to him,” she says. “But if I came face to face, the inner child would just be happy and pleasing and say hello and be respectful towards him, because that was the way I survived when I lived with him.”

Speaking to The Independent about Jade’s Law – which was debated in parliament at the end of last year – Ellie Reeves, the shadow minister for prisons and probation, urged the government to take action.

The Labour MP for Lewisham West and Penge, who leads on violence against women and girls in the justice team, said: “It is shocking that, as the law currently stands, killers retain parental responsibility after murdering their child’s mother – enabling them to continually abuse and assert control over their children even from prison.

“Labour has called for Jade’s Law to automatically suspend parental rights for fathers who have murdered their child’s mother. This will put the rights of victims above those of perpetrators, and work to end violence against women and girls. That is how we will prevent crime and protect families.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice told The Independent: “Judges are required to put the welfare of children first, and can effectively remove all rights and powers from a parent who has murdered the other.”

Responding to the Jade’s Law petition, the government said it recognises that in situations where a parent is convicted of the murder of another parent, the process can be “onerous”.

Dr Adrienne Barnett, who specialised in family law while practising as a barrister for more than 30 years, told The Independent it is “incredibly rare” for a father’s parental responsibility to be withdrawn, “even in the most heinous and harrowing circumstances”.

Hazel Mercer, of Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse, says the families she supports after domestic homicide find the fact that perpetrators still have parental rights “highly traumatic”.

The national domestic abuse helpline offers support for women on 0808 2000 247, or you can visit the Refuge website. There is a dedicated men’s advice line on 0808 8010 327. Those in the US can call the domestic violence hotline on 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

[greatwyrmgold]

The elderly antiquarian looked through the trailer I brought, full of my late great-aunt's furniture. "Looks nice, decent condition. I might be able to give you a couple hundred bucks for that."

"Just a couple hundred? That's it?"

He nodded. "Antiques don't sell like they used to."

"Well, why not?"

The antiquarian looked back at his store. "Generations of consuerism and wage stagnation, I think."

"Huh?"

"Back when the baby boomers were babies, anything fifty or sixty or seventy years old was made in the nineteenth century. There was probably some cheap factory-made furniture back then, but most of it was still handmade, and most of that was assembled by someone who wanted their work to outlive them. Or someone who barely knew what he was doing.

"Point is, in the old old days, furniture was either shoddy or robust. Any table that survived two World Wars, the Great Depression, and generations of kids hitting it with hammers or whatever was a good damn table."

"Hammers?"

"Was that just my kids? Anyhow, most people with a table like that weren't gonna sell it. It was probably a family heirloom, after all, and it was hard to accumulate more tables than you needed. So antiques were rare, and they were tough, and they probably looked nice. They sold for a lot.

"Nowadays, anything that's fifty or seventy years old was made in the seventies or fifties. They'd figured out how to make decent chairs in a factory, and consumerism was taking off, so us boomers could buy all the furniture we wanted for our new homes. More than our parents and grandparents, I'd bet. Some of it was crap that fell apart in the eighties and nineties, but a lot of it is still around. Like this stuff. I'm guessing it's from an older relative?"

I nodded.

"We boomers bought a house of furniture, and so did our kids. When I die, my family won't need any of the stuff I've got at home, never mind all the stuff in my store. Maybe Generation X has some room for their parents' stuff, but you millennials don't have enough space for your own stuff.

"Which brings me to another problem. When I bought furniture, I could afford to splurge on a nice old clock. When you buy furniture, you don't care about history or aesthetics. Your generation just wants to keep enough cash in the bank to pay rent, yeah?

"With less people looking to buy old furniture because it's nice, and more people looking to sell old furniture because they've got too much, most antiques don't sell unless you sell 'em cheap. If something's really nice you might be able to sell it to one of the few people who can afford nice old furniture...but normal old furniture only sells if it's cheaper than new stuff."

[whumpsmith-participates]

Medwhump May 2024

Day 17 - Forced to stay awake / Scars

TW: guns mention i guess

@medwhumpmay

Living with and working for your kidnapper can get pretty lonely, pretty isolated... But sometimes Erick got a little break from that isolation, getting to hang out with other teens his age. Like the one time they spent a summer in Jaime's hometown in Kansas and he got to meet all her friends.

It was a sleepy town, small enough for everyone to know each other, and not quite big enough to have its own high school. The townspeople mostly consisted of someone's aunt, uncle or grandparents, with a few exceptions. During school semesters, kids of all ages were crammed into a schoolbus or two or three and shipped off to the next town over to attend school. Their parents and neighbours worked hard to keep their little economy running, leaving the shops on main street relatively succesful, but not offering a lot of leisure either.

To Fetch, it was the perfect place to hide out at when he had to lay low, while also giving him the chance to be a little bit closer to his daughter. They'd done it once before. It was a coincidence at the time. Jaime needed to be brought home, and Fetch could pick up a job in the next town over. For the sake of keeping up appearances, he allowed Erick to get closer to Jaime and her friends, putting a temporary end to his isolation.

It only lasted for the summer, though. After that it was back to either San Diego, or touring the country from one job to another, and back into isolation for Erick...until next summer when Fetch conveniently pissed someone off again and they had to lay low someplace.

"Are we staying at the same place as last time?" Erick asked, excitedly peering at the sign indicating it was only fifteen more miles until they reached the town.

"No, it was sold apparently," Fetch said, "damn house flippers...no we're staying at an old friend's house."

"You have friends in that town?" Erick asked, raising a brow.

"Not really," Fetch admitted, "but he was the only one who didn't side with my ex in the divorce and he has spare rooms, so."

"So...an acquaintance?"

"Don't get smart with me," Fetch grumbled, "walk me through the ground rules."

"Keep location tracking on when I go out, stick to the curfew, don't tell Jaime and her friends about your work, avoid suspicion at all costs," Erick droned.

"Good," Fetch said, "and don't go thinking I won't kick your ass for breaking any of them because we're staying with someone. I can always take you out into the woods if I have to, so don't make me go through that effort."

"Yes, sir," Erick said.

When they arrived at the address where they would stay, Erick could tell right away why Fetch got along with their host. He was a farmer, living alone in a pretty generous farm house. He didn't talk much, which involved not asking too many questions either. He looked worn-down enough from working his land, and probably slept like a log throughout the night.

After they unpacked a bit, they got some dinner at the diner in town, during which Erick got to text Jaime to let her know they'd arrived.

"She said she'll be right over," Erick said, after reading through a string of enthusiastic replies.

"Tell her if she hurries she can catch dessert," Fetch said, already looking at the menu again.

And sure enough, about ten minutes later, Jaime came bursting into the diner, ignoring the waitress as she rushed past her to hug her dad, and Erick next before plopping down next to him.

"I'm so glad you're here! Are you staying all summer? No wait, don't say anything, I don't wanna think about you guys leaving yet!" she rambled, "Erick you wanna hang out later? Everyone will be so excited to see you!"

"Um..."

Erick glanced at Fetch, but he just shrugged.

"Be home by ten," he said.

"We'll let you know if we run late!" Jaime said, grabbing Erick's arm and getting up, "let's go!"

"You don't want dessert?" Erick asked.

"There'll probably be snacks anyway, and it'll save daddy some money on the bill~" Jaime said, "let's go, let's go, let's go!"

Erick shot Fetch an apologetic look as he got up and followed Jaime out of the diner. It was just like last summer. He just kind of went wherever Jaime dragged him to, and it usually turned out to be fun.

Today it was the town's tattoo parlour. Erick remembered all the afternoons they spent in the alley behind the shop, enjoying the shade, trying to lure roaming cats to pet them, and chasing off some guys who had planned to set the dumpster on fire.

But they weren't hanging in the alley by the parlour, they were hanging inside. The sign on the door said 'closed,' but Jaime ignored it and pushed the door open anyway.

"Look who finally found his way back?" Jaime announced.

"Oh god," Erick sighed, before following after.

Sure enough, the whole group was there. Even though it had been a year, Erick recognised them all right away; Finn, Jaime's best friend with the habit to dye his hair in crazy colours; Cal, Finn's boyfriend of ambiguous ethnicity and an equally ambiguous (and delicious!) repertoire of recipes; Caitlyn, possibly the tamest member of the group and a nice contrast after all the others; and last but not least, Rowan, whose uncle owned the parlour and the apartment above it.

"AAAH IT'S ERICK!" Caitlyn shrieked, getting up from the couch by the wall to hug him.

"Bitch my ears!" Finn whined, before getting up as well, "good to see you, man."

"Erick come check this out!" Cal called him over.

Erick fist-bumped Finn, dislodged from Caitlyn's hug and followed the sound of a soft hum. In a corner in the back of the shop, Rowan was bent over one of the chairs, holding a tattoo gun, though before he got a chance to see what Cal wanted to show him, he was hit by a terrible smell.

"Urk! S-sorry, what is that smell?" Erick asked, covering his mouth and nose with both hands.

"Oh yeah, that's the pig skin," Rowan said, holding up his work.

He held up a literal slab of skin with a half-finished, realistic-looking galaxy tattoo.

"Oh wow, that looks great," Erick said, "but I'm gonna keep my distance."

"You get used to the smell in a minute," Rowan said, putting the skin back on the chair and continuing.

"Is that why we're hanging in here?" Erick asked, "I thought Mr Green didn't want us thrashing the place."

"Guess he finally trusts us," Rowan said with a shrug, "we'll go chill upstairs once I'm done with this piece, so we can eat some snacks too."

He moved to dip his needle in some fresh ink, when he managed to knock it over instead.

"Crap."

"I'll get you some paper towels," Cal said with a laugh, before walking off.

Erick dared to come a little closer, the smell slowly getting less bad. The pig skin had more tattoos on it. It seemed like Rowan had been practicing vibrant, starry skies, each one looking much better than the last.

"I should call it a night," Rowan sighed, putting the tattoo gun down.

"It's looking really great, though," Erick said.

"Thanks!" Rowan said, lighting up a bit, "when do I get to ink you~?"

"I'm good," Erick quickly said.

"Oh come ooon," Rowan said, "you're such a beautiful blank canvas! Prime real estate! Jaime, tell him!"

"Imagine how epic a Star Wars tattoo could look with his new technique," Jaime said.

Erick was almost convinced, almost. But he didn't even want to begin to imagine how Fetch could possibly react to a random tattoo. He seemed more than okay with Jaime's piercings, though Jaime could get away with murder in his eyes, while with Erick...it depended on his current mood.

"Maybe when I can actually afford to pay fairly," Erick said, "besides, I'm not that blank of a canvas."

"Honey you totally have a vitamin D deficiency," Caitlyn said.

"...maybe, but that's not what I meant," Erick said, "I got, like, some scars and stuff."

"Scar cover-ups are something I wanna learn too," Rowan said, "can I see?"

"Um..."

"You gotta show us now," Jaime said, "do you have a cool story behind it too?"

"I wouldn't really call it cool, perse," Erick said, hesitating a bit, "it really hurt at the time...sometimes it still does, like before a rain storm."

"Classic scar stuff," Rowan said, "trust me, I know."

He rubbed his leg a bit, which he once managed to impale on some scrap metal in the junkyard. Erick winced a bit as he remembered the story. Frankly, Rowan could be so clumsy, he was surprised he didn't have more scars like that.

"I still wanna see it," Rowan said, "for research, inspiration maybe."

"Alright, alright, just don't ask," Erick said, before rolling up the right sleeve of his shirt.

He was turned towards Rowan so he could...be inspired or something, though Jaime shoved Caitlyn aside to also take a look. Just hidden underneath the sleeve of his Tee, Erick had a round scar with three spikes coming from it, nothing more but an odd shape, unless you knew what you were looking at.

"Jeez, Erick, what'd you do?" Jaime asked.

"Well..."

"It looks like a bullet wound," Rowan said, leaning in a little closer.

"Yeah, as if," Jaime said.

"Well...."

"ERICK!?"

Jaime punched his other arm.

"Tell me you're lying!"

"I haven't said anything yet," Erick pointed out, which only earned him another punch. Meanwhile on his other side, Rowan gently traced his fingers over the scar, feeling the outline without putting too much pressure.

"No, that's definitely a bullet wound," he concluded, not helping.

"Tell me what happened!" Jaime said, grabbing Erick and shaking him a bit.

"I said don't ask!" Erick argued.

"Technically she wasn't asking," Finn pointed out.

Erick threw him a look, while Jaime shook him again.

"Tell me!" she said.

"Calm down!" Erick said, "it's nothing serious, it was just an accident."

"How do you accidentally get shot?" Cal asked.

"We live in America," Rowan said, "but still, how? I didn't even manage to accidentally get shot yet."

"Yet?" Erick repeated, "wait, sorry. It's really stupid, I promise."

"If it's embarrassing you have to tell us," Finn said with a smirk.

"Okay, okay, stop crowding me," Erick said, swatting Rowan's hands away as he was still observing his scar, "it was a warning shot that ended up bouncing against a steel support beam and hit me instead."

"A warning shot for who?! What idiot waves a gun around like that in the first place?!" Jaime said.

Erick but his lip, he could probably still save this with a half-truth, he just had to be careful not to mention too many details.

"Your dad..."

"HAH! Your dad's an idiot!" Finn immediately said, while Jaime facepalmed.

"Of course he is," she said, "he always brings his Glock when he's travelling because you never know what can happen in the middle of nowhere— Wait! Did something happen?! Are you guys okay?!"

"No, we died in a highway robbery," Erick deadpanned, which earned him another punch while the others laughed.

"I'm serious! If something were to happen to either of you..."

"We're fine, your dad knows what he's doing," Erick quickly assured her, "besides, nothing scares off wannabe robbers like a man crazy enough to shoot his own companion, even if it was an accident. We got away with just one very painful scratch."

"Jesus fucking christ, Erick," Jaime sighed, beginning to calm down a bit, "next time dad shoots you, at least text me, okay?"

"I didn't wanna worry you," Erick said, "besides, your dad was pretty embarrassed about the whole thing..."

"I have the right to be worried, you dumbass!" Jaime said.

Meanwhile Rowan returned with a coloured marker, beginning to draw on Erick's arm before he could stop him.

"I could ink a nebula in the background, and then use the elevation of the scar to enhance the 3D effect of an asteroid, or what about the Death Star blowing up?" he murmured.

"Stop tempting me," Erick said, though he didn't pull his arm away, "this washes off, right?"

"Yeah, I'll get you some rubbing alcohol after I take a picture," Rowan said, "thanks for letting me do this. Pig skin doesn't ever come with scars to practice on."

"So long as you stick to marker," Erick said.

Meet the squad! Aaaaa I love the squad! I wish I had intro pages for all of them, but this is actually the first time I wrote with them! Up until now they'd just been rotating in my head, like a good stew hmmmm

More fluff than whump, but TBH I (and thems) needed a break.

Masterlist Main account

Taglist for the dynamic duo (however brief their interaction was in this one): @lavndvrr

[sanguinifex]

Losing my mind at how Big Tobacco kept it secret for years that smoking causes cancer

And then how when everyone else finally found out bc everyone was like “wtf why are all these people in their 60s dying of lung cancer,” they got away with no penalties except having to put warning labels on their products and all tobacco taxes and higher insurance premiums fell on the consumers they’d deliberately gotten addicted to their cancer sticks as in they spent billions of dollars of advertising worldwide to get people hooked

And then just when it was starting to look like public health was about to win the war on smoking, they rolled out vapes and used the exact same playbook they had with cigarettes, as in they knew their products were dangerous and they lied that they were safe and heavily marketed their toxic lung destroyers to kids. And they’ve STILL faced no penalties. The companies didn’t get nationalized and forced to only make the least dangerous products possible that could still contain nicotine and that looked like unappealing medical devices. Nobody’s gone to prison. No company or individual has paid a single significant fine. They haven’t even had to settle a serious lawsuit.

I cannot stress how uncool smoking had gotten by 2010, around when the first commercially successful vapes hit the market. I knew so few people my age who smoked that I could count them on one hand. Nobody in the honors/AP program smoked. Smoking was seen by the vast majority of teenagers as something nasty and smelly and seriously stupid and uncool that maybe your parents or grandparents did, as old people stuff like being bad at computers or buying single-ply toilet paper.

The public health campaigns and the warning labels and the posters in the pediatricians’ offices had worked. It was all set up to be the greatest public health victory since routine childhood vaccination. The public health people were already doing victory laps. But, like a bacterium that discovers how to resist an antibiotic, Big Tobacco developed a new addictive product and a new marketing strategy.

Vapes weren’t marketed very much to adult smokers, not at first. Like, the first couple products did that, and also tried to look as close to real cigarettes as possible, but adult smokers were primarily older, suspicious of new tech, knew Big Tobacco had knowingly gotten them hooked on an unsafe product before and didn’t trust them, and probably most saliently, other nicotine replacement products like gums and patches, plus a couple of meds that make the cravings less bad or something, already existed.

No, the first effective vape marketing focused on kids. This was legal because all the laws focused on tobacco leaf products; you had to be 18 to buy tobacco replacement products, but ones that are approved by the FDA have to be unappealing to tobacco-naive consumers.

From everything I’ve heard, nicotine gum tastes terrible, and it it’s packaged like medicine (I found some at a relative’s house when I was a kid, and it was about as appealing to children as prescription antibiotics pills, in fact less so because it wasn’t colored). Because nicotine patches are FDA approved, it’s illegal to make ones that look like cute stickers that middle school children would love.

Big Tobacco realized that this was a problem, and decided to forgo FDA approval as a smoking cessation device, even while positioning to regulators and the adult public that it was one and the FDA just had too much red tape, and marketed vapes heavily to children. They designed vape pens to look like school supplies and cell phone power banks instead of like cigarettes. They marketed them to the kids who were in middle school and late elementary in 2010. They marketed them as a legal high, fun flavors, told them the vapor clouds were cool like skateboard tricks, and perhaps most importantly, sold vapes as something that was different from smoking and also as safe as chewing gum.

By 2014, per the CDC, vapes were the most used tobacco product among US adolescents. By 2016, when I graduated college, vapes were already not an uncommon sight in bars, though most people preferred cigs in the few bars that allowed smoking; by the time I started going back to bars after the pandemic became less dangerous, every fourth or fifth person was sucking on a vape.

The kids who were toddlers in 2010 are in high school now. Per data from 2022, 14.1% of them vape. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but put it this way: in a typical class size of 30, there’s 4-5 kids who vape either socially or habitually and are willing to admit it to federal researchers despite it being illegal for people their age to vape; that means there’s 2-3 more at minimum who won’t admit it, and likely several more who will take a puff if someone offers one in the school restroom or at a party, but who don’t currently have the money to develop a proper habit; most of those will get addicted within weeks of becoming old enough to get a work permit or their first college work-study, not to mention also becoming old enough to buy vapes at a store instead of from a dealer. That’s nearly half the class! The kids know it’s unhealthy, but they think it’s like ice cream is unhealthy, not the way shooting up a cocktail of meth and tranq dope with a dirty needle is unhealthy.

Capitalism literally causes cancer. The vapes weren’t safe; they cause heart attacks, strokes, and horrifying lung damage. They cause them far sooner than cigarettes do. We don’t know anything about the cancer risk yet, but I suspect that will show up in another 10 to 20 years, and that it may be different from and/or more virulent than cancers caused by traditional tobacco products. Or it may be fewer cancers but weirder ones. We simply don’t have the data yet.

Big Tobacco got another generation hooked on a killer, and capitalism let it. The execs are still eating $500 meals at Michelin-star restaurants instead of prison food. We should change that.

[frankensteinshimbo]

The Old Machine

For @flashfictionfridayofficial's Flash Fiction Friday. The prompt was:

[#FFF218 How Do You Use 'It'?] This wonderful prompt has been brought to you by the one and only @potaeto-writes, thank you very much! What is 'it'? Why does someone not know how to use it? You better read that booklet with its fine-print! Whether your character tries to get the washing machine going for the first time or your scientist has created a rather complicated time-machine: We want to know how it's used! Write your story and tell us.

A fun fact: I work with kids and had them decide what the machine should be called based on their best guesses.

“How do you use it?”

Price’s breath tickled the hairs on the back of her neck.

“I don’t know.”

Ansley “Lee” Robinson scraped a soft layer of dust off of the top of the faded exterior of the machine with her palm. 

What was once an enameled seagreen had become the mottled color of chicken starting to mold, but now she could see tiny glimmers of her own reflection staring out of fingerprints. It was an old bulwark. It might’ve been the green-gray of a whale’s back cresting the surface of the ocean. She held the boxy shape in her hands, shifting the sharp edges, so they wouldn’t dig into her. It looked like a large flat box with a smaller longer box on top, sort of like the beat-up red plastic cash register at school. Instead of numbers, it had a raised circular keyboard. Each key was about as big as a thumbnail. 

“It’s one of those story typing machines,” Lee stated with the confidence of a tenured professor. 

“Like from an old movie,” Price swanned towards what would’ve been a graceful landing on a stack of boxes had her grandma’s chunky red heels not caught the edge of the suitcase a pace to the right and knocked his butt right onto it, like a sack of dirty clothes on laundry day.

“Yeah, I guess,” she continued without looking up at Price’s usual antics.  

Her own eye gleamed back at her, distorted in the streaky surface. She looked a second longer, then blew.

A wave of gray murk flew off or fell in clumps to the concrete floor. The ancient dust raised a fit of hacking, doubling her and Price over. The machine slipped in her hands. Quickly, she fumbled for the blocky shape with her small arms. With a horrible ringing and clattering from the machine, she gained purchase by jamming it into the soft spot just below her diaphragm. 

“Lee! Y’all better not be in that damn storage closet!”

She and Price shared a single look and a fleet-footed departure. Him on bare feet, her with the typing machine under her hoodie. 

She traded Price his abandoned socks the next day for his pack of new gel pens.

They sat on the playground bench, getting flecked with glittery pink, orange, green as they cracked the ink reservoirs open to dump them into a little plastic bottle they’d found near the slides. It looked like it’d held bubble liquid once. Now it had a concoction that was slowly turning a nauseous black. 

Price pranced on his sneakers’ tiptoes as he practiced staggering around in front of the bench Lee was sitting on. 

“You have to bring whatever you write on it to school, okay? I got those pens for my birthday.”

“It’s not like I’m using all of them,” Lee grumbled, but she knew in her heart of hearts that she wanted Price to be there.

“Yeah, but they’re still mine, so I get the first page.” Price teetered on a toe for a moment before he sank into the bench beside her. “I’m gonna put it in a frame next to my bed in the new apartment.”

Like the aftermath of a stone splashing into a pond, the two fell silent.   

 Her great grandparents had lived in her house prior to her grandparents who had lived there prior to her dad; she had always thought that she would live there as well. But Dad was always going on about the neighborhood being sold off to the city so white land developers could push into the block with new condos. Old Miss Mattie - who’d planted crepe myrtle trees down the block and knocked on their door every month or so to remind them about the neighborhood potluck had stopped coming ‘round. Dad had said she’d had to move. Then he sighed in that world weary way and shook his head. That had been when the stone had started to sink Lee’s stomach, then, that something that had been so assured for most of her life could be taken without her ever having realized it’d gone missing. 

Using the borrowed time between Dad’s room door closing and the onset of drowsiness in her body, Lee dragged the typing machine out from under her bed. Setting the glass of water on her nightstand on the floor, she hefted the thing into the empty center. It didn’t take long to fish the improvised ink bottle out of her backpack, but it did take her the better part of that hour and several Google searches to find the name of the thing.

“Typewriter. I knew that,” she mumbled as she popped the letters ‘how to use a typewriter’ into YouTube on virtual keys. The blue-green behemoth stood perfectly still beside her. She almost felt as though it were waiting. Waiting as she stumbled through finding out it already had a loaded ink ribbon, cramming in a sheaf of notebook paper borrowed from today's math notes, and marveling that the typewriter had sat there all those years patiently waiting to be used. 

The carriage moved as if oiled to click into place. A minute passed in silence, but nothing stirred except for the hum of cold air being spit out of the AC. She laid her hands on the keys. 

“Springhill was never”’ she began to write, then opened Google on her phone beside her. She puzzled out different variations of

jentrefid

jentrifyed

jentreefied

 until ‘did you mean?’ spat back out the correct input.

‘Gentrified.’

Under the painstaking guesswork of another fifteen minutes, she wrote:

“Miss Mattie never moved away and Price will not move because the city ran out of money paying lawyers. When we’re together, they can’t defeat us. We will live here and so will our children.”

When she set out for school the next morning Old Ms. Mattie waved at her from across the street.

[clairesgaragezine]

CGZ Featured Artist: MJ (Molly Jean)

May 25, 2023

Everyone, I am SO excited!! Please welcome our very first featured artist: MJ, stands for Molly Jean, female, 38 years old in Kansas City, Missouri. No formal art education outside of the 7 art classes she took in highschool. She took two semesters of theater in community college, "that counts for something" she says. She used to have a website but hasn't updated in years, you can go ahead and find her on Instagram @mollyjean.art  or over on her Tumblr which is a mish mash of fan girl stuff and whatever else she feels like @yourcoolauntie (for her avatar of Aunt Gayle from Bob's Burgers)

Leviathan, 2012 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20in)

CGZ: When did you start painting? What’s your earliest memory of painting or of creating art? 

MJ: I remember making a little pinch pot in Kindergarten. In first grade we made robots out of different materials, they were flat on paper, it was mixed medium. I used tinfoil and some other stuff. It got hung up at the school district's main office, they tracked me down and gave it back to me in highschool! 

CGZ: And where is the robot now?

MJ: I don't know where the robot is, my mom may have it in a box but it may have gotten lost.

Object II, 2020 (Acrylic on canvas, 30x40 in)

CGZ: Has your birthplace or your family background influenced your approach to creating art? 

MJ: I wish I had an answer about my culture or my family heritage, but I don't. My dad's side is Irish & English, his family came over well over a hundred years ago. My mom is half Croatian but her grandparents were old by the time she was born, and they all assimilated very thoroughly, so I know little of Slavic culture. So birthplace and heritage…the isolating suburbs of the southern midwest. 

Ultimately art has been my constant therapy, so my approach is, I have to do it. Let me try not to trauma dump too much. I grew up in a very dysfunctional home. My mom was the gentler one, my dad was scary. But my folks would take my siblings and I out to museums and around the city to expose us to a bigger world outside our suburb. We grew up poorer than we should have been because my dad was a high functioning addict, with an okay job with the city, but money went to drugs and lawyers. So I'm certain being aware early on of how class works in America shaped me as well. My mom and dad were too different from one another but they both appreciated the world, usually in a very critical and very negative way. My father, troubled, but very smart, always played music, records, he loved movies and anything avant garde and fringe. He had no boundaries and it was a volatile home. So, in a house where one parent was always afraid to speak up because her spouse would explode in a rage and the other never not talking about his every thought and feeling…I never learned to properly communicate mine. So…art. My folks are still alive…I realize I wrote this like they're dead.

CGZ: Who are your biggest artistic influences? 

MJ: The dadaists, the surrealists, abstract expressionists, the early abstract guys like Wassily Kandinsky. We watched a documentary in Jr. high about Keith Haring that stuck with me. That's a big leap from Picasso to Haring but this is kinda off the top of my head, I never took any art history courses.

CGZ: How has your art practice changed over time? 

MJ: I used to be uncomfortable calling myself an artist, in my early 20s I didn't think I'd earned it because I hadn't sold anything yet. That was real dumb. If you make something that serves absolutely no function other than you created it and now it exists and now it's in the world to be debated, analyzed or just looked at and displayed, congratulations you made an art. That aligns with the old adage of Art for art's sake.

CGZ: What do you like best about your work? What makes you happy when you’re creating?

MJ: I don't think I have a best liked…but I'm generally pleased if I can come close to what I had in my mind before I started.

Labyrinth, 2022 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20 in)

CGZ: I adored your 2023 International Women’s Day post (self-portraits in a candlelit bath with body-affirming/life-affirming messages). Is there a shared meaning or messaging across your whole art practice? What differs for you between your abstract paintings and your photography projects?

MJ: Thank you so much for saying that. Also, great question. This is actually something I've thought about because I'm scared. It's been years since I've displayed anything and I'm worried if I approach a gallery they will ask me this and I will squeak out a bullshit answer like, let the art speak for itself. I think if there is a thread between all my work, paint, mixed media, photography it's about discovery and exploration, acceptance. I'm a traumatized, depressed, queer so that's easy, right? Looking at the parts of ourselves we'd rather keep hidden because of shame or pain, that we all have a part of ourselves we must excavate. Even folks with happy childhoods. Just don't lose yourself in the ditch in the process.  …I'm not sure any of that made sense.

CGZ: What are some of the most memorable responses you’ve received about your work? 

MJ: About a decade or so ago a friend made a little film about this shadowbox project I was doing. It was an artist showcase. I was in the film community as a script supervisor…so that's how most knew me. I didn't talk about my art. I can't watch it now because I cringe…but after the viewing, a DP came up to me and he said, "I didn't know you were interesting." Weird backhanded compliment.

Another standout is walking into a pop up gallery I was showing at and meeting a jewelry designer there and she said, "You must be MJ, you look like your art." That was very affirming.

CGZ: What are the “little things” that you notice but no one else does that inspire your work? 

MJ: A sunrise, the way light simmers and breaks apart when it shines through a tree canopy. I think people see that stuff, I don't want to pretend I have some profound insight on life that others don't. I suppose it's about priorities and what we choose to register and spend our time on. I have no children or a partner, I'm my own distraction and obstacle. I do prioritize stillness.

CGZ: What are your favorite mediums to create in? Are there any “experimental” or new-to-you mediums that you’re interested in exploring?

MJ:  Acrylic is my main bag. I'd love to work with oils. Not very exciting I know. Honestly, I have ideas for sculptures but have no idea where to begin.

CGZ: What is your favorite time of day to create? What’s your “just right” setting? Do you have a favorite drink or mood-setting music? A lucky trinket you keep nearby?

MJ: Some might not say I'm not a true artist because I have a day job and am not starving for my art…but that's the dream right, to be able to eat and shelter yourself and do only art. So, usually midday on a day off. I might smoke some weed, I will definitely be listening to music, through my stereo setup or my headphones. 

CGZ: Describe what it feels like when you know a piece is finished. What makes you sit back and go “That’s done.”

MJ: I never have that feeling of "done", it's usually, I have exhausted all effort and I am either satisfied or I'm not. I'm guilty of painting over works. But I have a few pieces I think I'm completely satisfied with. The ones pictured are a few of those.

CGZ: Where do you go for inspiration? What helps refill the well?

MJ: Listening to other artists, and other people speak on their work. Moonage Daydream, the David Bowie documentary I watched the other night for example. I recently watched a piece on Roberta Flack. Music is a big motivator. I live about 10 miles from The Nelson Atkins Museum of art, so going and looking at the Marcel Duchamp or the Van Gogh's helps too.

CGZ: Do you have a favorite art museum? When you go there, where do you beeline to first?

MJ: See previous. Ha.

CGZ: What’s the weirdest or best book you’ve read recently?

MJ: I'm shit at getting around to finishing a book. I have Blood, Sweat and Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max Fury Road next to my bed. Spine not cracked. 

CGZ: As the kids say: “I’m in my ___ era.” What era are you in? 

MJ: Hermit. My fingernails haven't started to curl yet so there is still hope.

As Above So Below, 2020 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20 in)

CGZ: What song has been stuck in your head lately? 

MJ: Recently, On My Own from Les Mis. The hermit bit aside, I did just go catch the tour that came through town. So…

CGZ: What keeps you going? How do you overcome creative blocks?

MJ: I don't have creative blocks per se. They can happen but mostly I have hurdles. I let my brother move into the room I was using as my studio…so, I haven't been painting as much. But I have to always be creating something. As a kid before I painted I played piano, then got into theater, acting, modeling for a couple years. I once had a webshow with a best friend where we reviewed TV shows and recreated the episode using Barbie dolls. I was 27. Nowadays I write or play with photography, if I can't paint. Recently, some poetry, and about 100,000 words worth of fan fiction. A girl has gotta let it out somehow, no shame.

CGZ: What’s the best piece of artist/creator advice you’ve heard?

MJ: I'm sure I've heard plenty but my memory is crap, so I have no quotes to give you right now. I think in highschool, when my teacher came up over my shoulder and pointed at the heavy outline in my still life (that she'd tried to get me to stop doing) and said, "You just can't help yourself can you? That's just how you paint." Taught me something. We can be taught and told and can imitate and follow instructions and still reveal ourselves through a simple unconscious stroke.

CGZ: Where do you hope to be in five years? Ten? (Wrong answers only.)

MJ: I can't even provide a wrong answer. These kinds of questions addle my sick brain.

CGZ: A parting quote for our readers? (I adored, “I can't wait until I'm dead and all my art is at a thrift store or left beside a dumpster.”)

MJ: I'm glad you appreciated that. I do love the MOBA, museumofbadart.org, and would feel no shame being included there, they do important work, I do believe that.

I feel like I've said too much. I was mentally smoking a cigarette this whole time. So I'm stomping it out now. Just imagine me staring into your eyes like performance artist Marina Abramovic and come up with something.

This was really fun and terrifying by the way. Thanks so much Claire 🖤

Communication, 2020 (Acrylic and oil on canvas, 18x24 in)

Hellhound, 2012 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20 in)

[unovan-gardener]

So you just had a raichu and you what- Lost it? Gave it up?

.....no.

uhm

fuck its kinda a long story.

basically uh- my dad did a bad thing, went to jail, my grandparents took me to court for custody of- well, me. and all of my dads shit. on the argument that because of my medical issues with my heart, i cant take care of myself. course, i had a heart attack during the court case and they wont and got custody of me.

and they- arent good people! im a missing person because i had to break myself out of their house. and they "confiscated" most of my pokemon. aka fucking- deregistered them from me and sold them.

except the ones that they couldnt legally take from me (service mon, dad's gift mon, a mon who imprinted on me and wouldnt accept a new trainer and ghost type they didnt know existed).

marm was the first mon i ever caught myself. without anyone else putting them in my hands.

i would never lose her or give her up.

i mean-

fuck she had a little name tag, cause she was a bit of a shit /fond.

course, my grandparents probably took it off when they sold her.

fuck

shit sorry

thats was a lot

and im totally not crying

[thegirlwhowrites642]

Hi, I was hoping you could clarify something for me, I can’t remember, and I don’t have my hp books with me to double check. The Potters cottage in Godric’s hollow did that originally belong to Dumbledore? Were they just using it as a safe house? Where do you think the Potter’s are originally from?

The Potters' cottage is the Potters' cottage as far as we know and I don't think it was a safe house.

It's not exactly clear how the Potters were protecting themselves since Harry's birth seeing that the Fidelius charm is cast only a week before James and Lily's death. I would imagine a situation similar to the Burrow in HBP. You would think that without the Fidelius charm, they would use a house in a very difficult place to find but Godric's Hollow doesn't seem to fit the bill, therefore I believe we can easily assume they already lived there.

We also know the Potters are friends with Bathilda, and somehow I don't think the existence of that friendship would make much sense if when James and Lily arrived in Godric's Hollow they were already trying to hide Harry.

It seems to me like James and Lily's choice of living there was quite a free one.

What we need to remember when it comes to the Potters and Godric's Hollow is that the Potters are an old pureblood family, and Godric's Hollow has a strong presence of wizards. From the Dumbledores to the Abbotts (two of the sacred 28). It is obviously the place of Gryffindor and it's also where the first Golden Snitch was forged.

There are also ancestors of the Potters buried in Godric's Hollow so it is reasonable to believe the family is somehow connected to the place, at least very distantly. I feel like it may also be a bit unreasonable the idea of James and Lily being buried there if it were simply a place they were hiding in, if it weren't a place that had some meaning to them. This is especially true when you consider how easy it is for wizards to move things through long distances and that their grave isn't some sort of mausoleum in honour of their sacrifice (in that case it could have made sense for it to be in the place they died in).

Now, as for where the Potters are from, Godric's Hollow is in the West Country of England, so that may be a first clue. I would also imagine that James is English or Harry would have probably pointed out how his father was from a completely different part of the UK to his own and reflected on how differently he would have talked if he grew up with him (all supposition obviously, for a story with a main character that values family so much, Harry's family is criminally unexplored).

Though I'd like to point out that Fleamont and Euphemia died after James and Lily got married, so there should be another Potter house somewhere where most likely James grew up (I doubt it was sold considering all the shit James had going on at the time) and there's a good chance it's not in Godric's Hollow. Harry doesn't see his grandparents' graves in DH but who knows, maybe when he goes back there he is going to find a bunch of Potters. But then I would also wonder if it is reasonable for Dumbledore and Grindelwald to not find out the Potters had the invisibility cloak if they were a family of Godric's Hollow.

We also have some information about Potters being inventors or taking part in the political scene. While wizards can live wherever they want because they basically have teleportation, the fact that people like the Blacks, who are such big muggle haters, would have a house in London between muggles makes me think there might have been some considerable advantages to living in London, and that people like the Potters, apparently so active in society, would have been attracted to the city.

Even if Rowling also wrote this:

"The Potter family is a very old one, but it was never (until the birth of Harry James Potter) at the very forefront of wizarding history, contenting itself with a solid and comfortable existence in the backwaters. [...]"

So who knows...

I think we can safely say the Potters are English, from where specifically in England I'm not sure.

Also, it is surely important to keep in mind that Potter in the context of Britain is an English surname that arrived with the Norman conquest in 1066.

[izzy-b-hands]

Rambling abt the half dream half nightmare that woke me up today below the cut. feel free to ignore, just need to vent it out somewhere. Probably going to include me talking abt Current Family Issues and Feelings so. yeah. TW for mentions of someone in hospital, death, religion, and overall family dysfunction lmao

I know that ultimately, right now, if something big and/or terrible happened medically to anyone in my family back in ND, I wouldn't be able to go see them. The money just isn't there (part of why I'm not going out there this summer nor are they coming out here at all.) I've accepted it, and I try not to think abt it.

That said, LOVE (read: HATE) my brain deciding a hyper realistic yet weird dream abt my mum winding up in hospital is the way to go this morning. Complete with:

-her bf refusing to speak to me abt it, and telling me not to bother going to visit her in the weird, somehow existing in both CT and ND simultaneously, hospital with a 'haven't you already been enough of a burden to her?'

-me staying in my grandparent's old house in ND, and for some reason that meant being wildly unable to get ready to go to the hospital. Finding my clothes was nearly impossible, but. all their old decorations were back up on the wall so even as I was searching for them I like. Didn't want to leave? As if the house would revert back to being sold like it has been irl, if i left it. Finally I wound up just stealing clothes from my grandfather's side of their closet (specifically his old 80s styled 'eagle on a tree branch' print sweater that he got forced to toss a few years ago bc it was becoming more holes than sweater, and one of his old, big leather jackets. somehow i found jeans that fit me, idk how considering i can't seem to do that irl rn but i digress)

-me showing up to the hospital FINALLY only for Noel Fielding?? to be sitting outside it with a friend dressed in what i can only describe as absolutely gorgeous future techno witch clothing. Unfortunately they were fucking dicks in this dream and scared the shit out of me by joking that 'it was so nice I'd shown up still despite the worst' and implying my mum had already passed. Noel did shout apologies as i stomped off inside and that as far as he knew she was still okay, but his friend is the one who handed me a wrapped in plastic, small, metal stool with a weird cartoon face on the seat so i could 'sit with her body, like sitting shiva, right?' (not like that at all to my knowledge, but then again my family has rarely to never fully followed any of the various religious rituals around death, we just. take the bits the dead person liked from them and ignore the rest, for better or for worse. Maybe that's just what happens when a family is a mishmash of various christian sorts from Catholic to Protestant with the hidden knowledge that actually, prior to ppl moving to the States, ppl in the family were Jewish but inter-marrying into Catholic families for safety-sake, and so any Jewish traditions used now are done wrongly and weirdly and in odd bits and pieces. At least that's as much as I've been told/have found out abt it, anyway)

-I proceed into this stupidly fancy and open concept hospital, to immediately find a hugr crowd mucking up the elevators (crowding the elevator bank and refusing to let others on.) That's where Con showed up, and helped me make it up the ridiculously wide, roundish staircases (think like. wide rounded stage steps, but for each level of this hospital), while also trying soothe me by telling me Housemate was already here and waiting for me, so were my grandparents and even Mum's bf (he promised to keep him away from me lol, it was v sweet in an otherwise filled with anxiety dream.)

-however, as we were struggling up the steps (also full of crowds, pushing each other around, so we literally had to hold hands and hold onto the railings and walls to avoid being shoved down the stairs), he kept hesitating on saying more abt mum. He tried to distract me by mentioning that, since I was here, the docs might want me to address some of my own health issues but that he wouldn't let them force me into any treatment i didn't want. Then he finally alluded to mum being in worse straits than I'd been told abt and said something to the effect of 'doing only what you can, not what she or others would expect of you' and 'not to set yourself on fire to keep someone else alive' plus admitting he was deeply worried my family was abt to force me into a big decision that absolutely wasn't the ONLY treatment option that would help mum, but it was implied to be the one mum's bf and my grandparents were pushing for.

-still dunno exactly what that option was, but just before i woke up i started hearing the latter part of the song Gethsemane from JCS (Housemate and I have been watching various versions irl this weekend lol), specifically the bit where Jesus dares/begs/etc God to see how he dies. This was accompanied by me finally reaching my mum's hospital room, and a stupid bright light emanating from it and like. Not to critique my own brain and the dream it created, but that was far too on the nose for me personally lmao.

-and I woke up thinking abt the call with my grandparents that I had on Thursday (didn't go super poorly but went. kind of weird and uncomfortable and confirmed again that like. they're happy for me being out here in CT, yet at the same time hold it and my happiness against me to some unconscious degree as originally outright confirmed by Mum in an earlier call her and I had like. Tail end of last year lmao. the main crux seeming to be 'why couldn't i find happiness in ND/what's wrong with all of them/why wasn't i willing to keep trying to make my life work in ND regardless of my happiness/don't i know how hard it is without my being there to help everyone whenever they ask/etc family bullshit')

And now I'm laying here thinking. If the Worst would happen for any of them, they would fully expect me to empty my bank accounts and do whatever else i had to, to get to ND not just to see them, but to help. to take care of as much as possible for them (mum and grandma get decision paralysed by sad/scary life events, my aunt is so uncomfortable with sickness and death she won't do hospital visits or funerals at all anymore for anyone, my cousins...are young enough they won't know how to handle it/won't want to, my grandpa tends to just shut down and isolate when things go to shit, and that's not to say that they all don't still get done things that need doing in these situations, but that they DO all usually need prodding and help and have leaned on me for that since i was a kid.)

And i would of course want to see them/help however i could, but. not to that extent. not to the point that I'd have nothing for myself, no money or help (bc they're not in a position to return that help or money to me, and they'd be so emotional as to likely be extremely offended and upset if i mentioned needing help myself.)

That said, I'm sick of silently daring them to watch me die just for their sakes, even tho i do still love them all dearly. and of course, that's entirely too dramatic but at the same time, Mum and I have had convos abt 'what if there's a shooting somewhere that we're at, how do we handle it, how are we attempting to protect each other' and Mum always says she would take a bullet for me, but she didn't protest when i say that I'd take one for her or anyone else in the family first. Last time she just nodded like. yeah. of course you would. so. Feelings, abt all of this.

If u actually read this full thing that was A. very sweet of u and i appreciate that u care abt my silly lil fucked up brain enough to do that (genuinely, I'm v grateful) and b. here is a pic of Nisha as what little compensation i can give for u reading this long ass ramble lol

[midwesternorcprincess]

my grandparents lived in a rather grand (by my-hometown standards) old house built in like 1900 or so, and since the last of my grandparents has died now, my family went to clean the place out this weekend before it gets sold. my parents came and got me even, and i never go back to my hometown, but i grew up largely in this house and it was important enough to me that i wanted to see it one more time and like, make my peace with that

and also, incidentally, my gf lives in a neighboring town. just a wild coincidence, we met here in the town where i go to school, so it's kinda wild we both grew up in the same area. no one in my current social circle here is even from Indiana, much less the part I'm from. so i got to see her, and, thank god, stay with her this weekend and not in this now-dilapidated icebox of a house (doesn't have heat or water anymore since it hasn't been lived in for a decade) and all stuck with my family

so i went right to her place when i got there Friday night, and on Saturday she had to drive me back to my hometown so I could go through the house. and she was just gonna drop me there and come back for me later, but my parents invited her to stay and look around with us, so she did. my mom was pretty excited to give the grand tour, so the three of us went all through the house together. my mom told everything she knew, and i kinda reminisced about all these places, and i feel like having gf there kinda took the edge off what might have been a too emotional experience and made it fun

and idk, it just felt really special to have gf there for that. my family was pleasant (even the Relatives who unexpectedly showed up), and like, this was a huge part of my past that's over now, and once the house is sold it'll just be gone. it'll just be like, a ghost living on in me, and so i'm glad gf got to see some of it. idk it feels important to me. and also, that i'm the very last of the many grandchildren to, you know, pair off with anybody. it's like, idk, i know my grandparents would have been happy to see it, and to know that that was my partner's introduction, more or less, to the family. i guess i get sentimental about this stuff. And also most other stuff

but man. i am gonna miss that place. that house was so special, no way in hell any of us could afford to have it in this day and age, though. you know the scene in Anastasia where she finds the dilapidated former palace and it awakes her latent memories of when the place was in its heyday? that's what this was like, stuff just flooding back to me that I hadn't thought about in years. idk man i am gonna be melancholy for a while