#raza found family is the best found family

[jourke-rourke]

via SyFy's Dark Matter (2015)

[manicato]

Daka Taíno y estoy aquí.

I was the blogger Triguenaista/Inaruri who was stalked and harrassed for 10+ years, while homeless, by Keyla Rivera and her anti-indigenous group “This-is-not-taino". Keyla Rivera, of Florida and Orocovis, PR, a white Puerto Rican, was mostly responsible for this racist behavior.

Since in the last ten years, I have CONTINUED to see my name thrown around as a "validated pretendian/fraud" because of the now-exposed Keyla's behavior- We're just going to need to address it. And since I was doxxed by them, and my full name has been shared with you all, I'm going to go ahead and show you some documents that that hate-group wasn't willing to show.

Let's start with a family tree- ya?

Avelino, was born into slavery in Puerto Rico, approximately 1865, in Arecibo Puerto Rico. To the best of my knowledge (and factoring in the DNA test), he was Afro-Taíno, with strong Nigerian/Western Bantu roots. As noted on the last published Registro Central de Esclavos of 1872 (page 3, 9th person recorded), he was a natural-born Puerto Rican (Natural de Oto Rico).

 After abolition in 1873, like many others, Avelino was forced to continue working for 3 to 5 more years. Do Barbara Balseiro (the indicated slave owner) had a working relationship with Felix Marengo y Poggi, and was known to send slaves to work at his plantations.

Through research (1910 census), I found that Maria Baerga y Rivera De Quiñones was a "Mulatto" housekeeper for the Felix Marengo y Poggi in the 1910’s. It is likely that this is where Avelino met her daughter Maria Quiñones Baerga and developed a relationship.

They had son Felix (recorded as negro on census documents, until adulthood/WW2, where he is then recorded as blanco/brown toned (on his Draft card), who married Carmen Martinez.

This is Carmen’s Acta de Nacimiento which indicates race as “Mestiza”, clearly indicating not only direct Taíno heritage/ancestry, but a connection to an existing community as that was the only circumstance in which this term was legally used in PR when they started to write Taínos out of the country. It was and is currently illegal to list someone's race/ethnicity in PR as indigenous. Mestiza and Trigeño is the ONLY exceptions for those with concrete connections.

A Close-up:

On the naciemnto form above her mother is cited as “Vincenta/Vincenda”, from/born in Jayuya. There is a note about her grandparents in part 3. “Ambos de raza mestiza”, Ajiubro Martinez and Juana Martinez from Morovis.

According to family oral history, Carmen Martinez came from a community/family that took care of the Caguana Indigenous Ceremonial site of Utuado before the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña took over with formal protections in 1955.

There may be a relationship between her and one of the 60 Puerto Rican indigenous children taken to the Carlisle Indian School in 1901. Three Martinez children were enrolled there, Provindentia, Levia, and Miguel. My best-informed guess is Provindentia Martinez may be my 2nd great-grandmother as “Vincenta” could be a derivative of the name. If it was Provendentia, she would have been the right age to have a child, settling down in PR after traveling to NY for a few years after her time at the Carlisle School, as recorded in their records. Until better clarification can be obtained, this is just speculation.

Carmen would make and maintain small bohio-like structures in the backyard of the family Utuado home (many were destroyed after Hurricane George, and the rest after Hurricane Maria), to house Semisakis and Opias.

My grandfather, Luis Alfonso Quiñones Sr. was extremely proud and vocal of our rich Taíno heritage and culture. He made sure that we knew our roots and how precious our indigenous ancestry is, and taught us all he could remember.

In terms of direct lineage, my direct Taíno lineage can be traced from my 2nd great-grandfather Avelino, my great-grandmother Carmen Martinez (whom I had the honor of knowing and having a relationship with as a child living in Puerto Rico), and my own grandfather Luis Alfonso Quiñones Sr (who I grew up with).

If "cultural connection"/"growing up in a continuously connected family" was your issue with my indigenous status- clearly I did and have the documentation to show my family's continuous connection.

If it's blood quantum/documented indigenous status- I'm between 3/8th and 7/16th according to my DNA. With the documents I have here, if Tainos were a federally recognized tribe in the US, by the BIA standards, I'd be eligible for enrollment.

And this is all without discussing how history and the laws affect lineage recording or the "Whitening of PR". My family's oral history should have been believed to start with, but now the documentation can be found online. You have your "proof" on the two points yall bring up the most.

So you see why the younger me couldn't figure out why everyone just believed the lies being told? How even now that this hate group was exposed, I don't get why I am the scapegoat for people trying to make a point. Like, I wasn't and am not an educator, nor was I trying to make money in any way (and I was homeless- I needed money and yet DID NOT ASK). I was literally just existing on this hell site and became a target. But yall handed over your cash really quick to this hate group, validated them, and were so shocked when they ended up being frauds and provided yall with NOTHING.

You all believed a white puertorrican that BIPOC's could not be trusted to be indigenous (look at the list, it is EXCLUSIVELY Black and Brown peoples and anyone who stood up for them. It wasn't a "frauds list" until after we all left the platform. That was added AFTERWARDS. And yes, some of us are STILL friends because we were here for the community, not cash or fame). You continue to keep that belief every time you defend it. In the end, ya'll are just being racist and need to stop hurting an already small af community.

Taínos exists. We are here. We are NOT recognized by the US gov't yet. To imply our self-determination takes away from indigenous people is to fundamentally not understand what it is to be indigenous. And, it implies you see the indigenous status as money and not actually living people with complex needs and issues.

I'm glad the rest of the internet has unlearned what this group put into the world about Taínos, but now I'mma need yall on here to minimally stop throwing my name around. Stop it. I am exactly who I have been telling you all I am, whether you accept that or not is NOT my problem. I have the documentation, which is more than can be said about anyone yall have believed in the past.

At least I know who my people are, grew up knowing, and can live happily knowing there are people who disagree in our community because we aren't a monolithic group. Yall just need to treat us as humans.

For those reading for the history of it all- I'm glad to help. If you're trying to figure out your family's documentation- I got great info on how to find the information and who to contact. If you're looking for cultural resources- tainolibrary is LITERALLY the best source and it's free (Note: I have no affiliation with them. I genuinely believe they are a healthy and safe resource for those seeking reconnection/validation).

For those realizing they fucked up in believing my stalker- I accept my apologies in cash.

[merrhea39]

Trans masc Dom Dom ch 3-2

Dominik had a week to ponder what Rhea had said to him. Did everyone see Dominik as a nepotism hire? Did everyone think he was bad? He couldn’t get these thoughts out of his head and before he knew it it was raw again. Before the show started Rey noticed that something was wrong with Dominik. “Mij-o what’s wrong man?” Dom was deep in thought so his father approaching him with a question startled him a bit. “Oh uh nothing I’ll be fine papa.” Rey frowned with a bit of concern on his face before leaving. His fathers 20th anniversary in the wwe was today and there was a party. The family even found one of Rey’s old outfits his father thought went missing and giving back to Rey as a gift.. He was happy for his father but still had Rhea on the mind. Dominik got his gear on to have a tag match against the Judgment Day but the nerves this time were different. Before the match could start Rey grabbed the microphone to give a thank you speech. The crowd was chanting “Thank you Rey!” over and over again Dominik was proud even though he could only wish to get this. “20 years this is special man, really special. Now lemme give you a backstory, I was 14 years old when I had my first match in Tijuana, and I never imagined then in a million years that one day, I would perform inside in a WWE ring.” Rey started off his promo strong and emotional trying to get the fans into what he was saying. “Travel the world, make money and create legendary rivalries for all-, each and everyone of you could enjoy.” Rey slipped up a bit but it was ok he was never the best at talking on the mic. “Now the truth, the truth is guys my size back then weren’t part of the business, but I was able to break that stereotypes. I broke that so-called blueprint of what a superstar should look like.” Dom started to look jealously at his father also realizing how he’s been talking about himself highly. “Now as… as a smaller guy, and as a damn proud latino, I became world champion at Wrestlemania 22!” Dom absent-mindedly nodded along with a desire growing in him to become a champion like his father… better than his father. “And I made a lot of friends along the way, friends that I wanna thank for helping pave the road for me in my career. You might know some of these names, Dean Malenko, K Dog orale arriba mi raza! Batista, Kurt Angle, how about Edge? We can not forget the great Eddie Guerrero!” This made the entire arena chant ‘Eddie’, the same man who claimed that Dominik was actually his kid, but Rey continued. “Eddie I love you man and I miss you every damn day. I wouldn’t be here without you, and I know you’re always watching over me, thank you Eddie!” Rey got more and more emotional throughout his speech. “So the truth is tonight I stand before you and feel truly humbled and appreciative for all the love and support you guys have given me for the past 20 years.” The crowd liked Rey appeasing them and chanted ‘Thank you Rey!’ again. “You know this is special, to be able to, to be able to live all that with my family it just means much more.” Then the people in the crowd chant ‘you deserve it’, even though Rey’s first thing was to gloat, thank his friends, thank the fans and then thank his family. “Angie, Aaliyah I know you’re watching backstage. I just wanna say thank you for always being there. I love you both. Dom I’m proud of you son, I am proud of the man you have become, and I know one day when I’m no longer here, you’ll be representing the Mysterio legacy to the fullest.”

[englishprojectblog]

Animals

Hello again everybody!! I hope you well and still taking care of the pandemic, today we’re gonna talk about animals, first I tell you all about mines, my favorite animals. Anyway, we’ll start, you ready? Good.

These are some of the many animals that I like. Let’s go!!!

SNOW LEOPARD:

The snow leopard has evolved to survive under the most extreme conditions on Earth. Its grayish-white fur with large black spots blends perfectly with the texture of the rugged, rocky mountains of Central Asia.

The snow leopard's powerful anatomy allows it to climb large, steep slopes with ease. Its hind legs give the snow leopard the ability to leap the equivalent of six times its body length. Its long tail provides balance and agility, and also allows the snow leopard to shelter from the cold when at rest.

For thousands of years, this magnificent feline was king of the mountains, where prey such as blue goats, argali, ibex, marmots, rock rabbits and hares abounded. The snow leopard is found in 12 countries, including China, Bhutan, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia and Mongolia, but its population is declining.

SPANISH HORSE:

The true origin of the Spanish Horse is not known for certain, however there is evidence that in pre-Roman times there were equestrian references in what is known today as Spain.

Roman authors such as Plutarch, Pliny the Elder and Seneca speak of the Hispanian horse as a beautiful, docile, arrogant and brave specimen, ideal for war and for the games that took place in the circuses of the time.

King Philip II ordered the horse herd of his kingdom and laid the definitive foundations for the Pura Raza Española to reach its apogee in the years to come. He achieved this through the creation of the Royal Stables of Cordoba, where he grouped together the best stallions and mares from the provinces bordering the Guadalquivir, which at that time were the most prolific in horse breeding.

Thus was born the Yeguada Real, which eventually became the Yeguada Nacional. A multitude of horses were then sent to the American continent, which had a decisive influence on their exploration, and these were the origin and basis of most of the breeds that were later bred in America.

BENGAL TIGER:

Tigers are the largest members of the cat family and are famous for their power and strength. Bengal tigers, also called Indian tigers, live in India. They are the most numerous tiger species and account for about half of the wild tiger population.

For many centuries they have played an important role in Indian tradition and culture. Tigers live solitary lives and aggressively mark large territories with their scent to keep rivals away. They are powerful nocturnal hunters, capable of traveling many kilometers to find buffalo, deer, wild boar or other large mammals.

Tigers use their distinctive fur for camouflage (no two tigers have the same stripes). They stalk patiently and approach their victims with great stealth just long enough to attack them with a quick and lethal leap. A hungry tiger can eat up to 25 kilograms in one night, although they are usually not so voracious.

That’s all for today guys, I hope you liked it, thaniks, see you all soon everyone! Take care.

[isobel-thorm]

I need all the fake-dating au headcanons please and thank you

Even after Robb gets with the picture and gets together, Cobb is STILL convinced that the ‘Jedi Order’ or whatever Raza’s family calls themselves is the mob, but at that point he’s still too afraid to ask. He takes the phrase ‘in too deep’ to heart for that one because he feels Involved. 

Raza and Cobb are Jacen and Jaina’s favorite aunt and uncle, a fact that Raza constantly holds over Luke’s head playfully - and Han’s not so playfully. 

The landlord of the apartment complex is equal parts annoyed and grateful that Cobb, Raza, Din and Mina basically all live under a grand total of one or two roofs in constant rotation because while he ends up losing money once either couple ends up together, if he ever needs to run something by the entire group, he only has one phone call to make. 

The first time Selene met Cobb, her first sight of him was him hanging out of Raza’s kitchen sink cabinet fixing something for her and Selene found it equal parts charming and hilarious that her daughter was smitten with a handyman cliche, though she was even more impressed when she found out he was actually a Marshal. 

When the Robb wedding is being planned, Cobb drops by at Din’s one day, drops him a giant list “hey, here’s your Best Man duties” “You didn’t even ask me and you’re just gonna spring this on me?” “Oh, like you would say no in the first place.” 

[rosepetals-flyingbirds]

Tortured Souls. (2)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader.

Summary: Y/N Stark is Tony adopted friend (he refuses to call her daughter due to the circumstances they had met). She becomes a deadly agent and becomes a part of the Avengers.

<<

Note: Sorry if it developed too darkly. In that chapter, the reader will explain how she and Tony had met. I know it says it’s a Bucky x Reader, but that fic will probably be a slow-burn. I apologize in advance if any of the languages mentioned are wrong, I used google translate and if anyone now Persian language and wants to help me, feel free. / In the story, I said the reader and Yinsen talked in the Pashto language (which it’s what they talk in that region on Afghanistan) but since it didn’t have in google translator I used Persian instant (which they also use).

(Gifs go to their rightful owners.)

Warnings: Injuries, violence, MENTIONS OF RAPE, HUMAN TRAFFIC, language and agsnt!A

WC: 5,551.

You walked into the kitchen at the breakfast hour the next day. In the previous night, you engulfed your tears and called Fury asking for all the files about Artem and all the files Hydra had of you.

You analyzed every single one of them carefully, it had things you did recently and you wonder who it’s watching you so close by and sending them the information. If it was a few months ago you could think it was Rumlow doing so, but he is dead.

None of that information would have made their way to Hydra’s hands without a double agent selling it.

You called the team and took all the courage you had to tell them the truth. 

Being preferable telling all of them together than having to tell the story repeated times you convoked everyone to the main room at the Compound.

Steve sat in front of Tony, Bucky and Sam were standing up, Wanda and Vision at the couch aside with Bruce, Clint and Natasha. Thor wasn’t in Midgard and you know he would have bigger worries than your case.

You rubbed your hands together and start to tell your trajectory. “Well, it will be a bit long and I overanalyzed all of it and thought in telling a resume but I want you all to understand why I did what I did, and why I killed so many people that I honestly don’t regret doing so.” You darted your eyes to Steve, he was the good man that always try to put the bad guys in jail rather than use violence to kill them. You honestly hope that your previous actions do not have a bad effect on your friendship with the super soldier.

“My mom was a crackhead, my father was no different. My mother started buying weed with him and then they ended up having sex. As her family was very religious they got surprised when her belly started to grow with me inside, when they asked who was the father they expulsed her of their house when she’d told them it was a drug dealer.” Bruce adjusted his body on the couch and nodded to you, silently encouraging you to finish the story.

”The guy, my father, didn’t want her. He didn’t even recognize her face when she looked for him. Then she spent the pregnancy in homeless shelters here and there. When I born at 8 months old she got Postpartum depression, she didn’t want me, she said I was the reason she became homeless. Her mother went to see me and when she heard the baby was premature, she paid a treatment saying that it would be what a mother would do. So when I became stronger my grandmother gave me back to my mother and told she did that and I was her burden, and if she was worth saving they would help us.”

“She lived on the streets with me and one day that drug dealer saw her and when he saw the little baby on her arms had the same birthmark he had he invited us to live with him.” You let a fake smile remembering how was your childhood house. “It was best if she stood in the streets.” Your eyes filled with tears, you tried to tell the story without looking at their faces, but it was so hard! Years engulfing all these memories/feelings and having to talk about this with the people you most care about it’s hard. 

You dried the tears and Tony stood up to grab a glass of water to give to you, he did so and you took large gulps. Tony always took care of you, he was definitely the person you love the most in the whole planet.

The cold water felt great on your dry throat. “Anyway, after a couple of years later I grew up and lived in the mess. The house was disgusting and terrible. My father sent me to the preschool that was near the house and every time he showed up to pick me, everyone looked at me and judged since I always was dirty and with messy hair. When I made four years old, my mother was with more two kids, two boys. The drugs, of course, had become tougher over the years. It wasn’t weed anymore, as weed it’s the door for worse things, they start using heroin, cocaine and crack. Men started coming into the house and treading the drugs for sex and… and it was terrible.”

The disgusting smell and the vision of strange men with your mother made you shake. Even at such an early age, you can’t shake the small pieces of memories you had there. Doesn’t matter how hard you tried to. “My mother died of an overdose and one of the boys died of an infection caused by a stupid heroin needle he found on the floor.” You placed the cup of glass above the center table and you sat there, Tony was so sad hearing it all again that he didn’t tell you to “move your ass of my expensive furniture.”

“When I turned six years old my father was more into drugs than ever, he tried to trade me for more but even the crackheads told I was very petite for sex, he got pissed and started to beat me over and over because of it. When I became eight years old he sold me for human traffic. Apparently had that rich foreign man that wanted small girls and he sold me for $20 dollars! I don’t remember much maybe because of my age or the fact that I try to block everything in my mind, but I do remember that I screamed and beat the man over and over but it didn’t work. I was sent to India along with other girls in the most various ages and ethnic, but they didn’t want me there. They said I was very skinny and looked sick, so the trafficker started to give me a lot to eat to see if my body would grow. After a few months being dragged to a lot of places having all those disgusting men touching me to see if the ‘merchandise was worth the money’ I was sold to an extremist guy in Afghanistan, he gave me a shower and dressed me in a long skirt and a small top. He grabbed me by the arm and offered me to a man, I didn’t understand the words they were exchanging at first. The man didn’t want me, but after a while with the two of them bickering, he took a look and told he was keeping me.” A few tears dropped and you quickly dried it with the back of your hand. “The man was named Raza, he was the leader of a group that called themselves the Ten Rings.” Clint looked to Natasha at the mention of the name, both of them were assigned to do a mission there years ago.

“At first, he just dragged me everywhere and taught me how to hold a gun, it also had that lady called Lorna that taught me how to dance and how to speak their language, she wasn’t really sensitive but I guess she knew keeping a child was a terrible thing. I lived with them being Raza “young present”, I saw terrible things he did with innocent people and I saw how many girls were raped by him and their men, but of course, it wasn’t wrong cause they had bought them.” The sneer in your voice was apparent, along with your anger. “Anyways when I completed twelve years old I got my period, Raza laughed and hugged me. He sent me to Lorna and she helped me clean myself and her face was a pure worry. I didn’t understand why I was “Raza propriety” for basically four years and he never let any man laid a finger on me, he just taught me how to shoot, sent me to Lorna to learn how to speak their language and belly dance. But Lorna knew that when I got my period my life would change. Six days after Raza made sure I wasn’t bleeding anymore.” You shivered and weaved your hand to your hair.

“He called me to his tend and told me to dance for him, I was so scared and the fucker just laughed and touched my face telling that if I didn’t he would put a bullet in my head. I danced for him with tears in my eyes. The bastard was laid in front of me on his sofa. It had an AK-47 on his side, just to make sure I would stay in line. When the third song finished he grabbed me by the hair and… well, you all can imagine what happened.“ You looked up and saw Bucky nostril flaring, Tony was concentrated on his phone, it was blocked so you assumed he was trying to hold his emotions.

Natasha had left the place on the couch and was at her feet listening closely. “It stood like that basically every day, I was so young and it hurt so bad. When I was thirteen I heard them talking with a bald man dressed in fancy clothes he looked at me but just let a smile, he was accompanied by a translator and they were talking about ammo and a man that the ‘bald man’ wanted dead. Two weeks later they bought a man in the caves, it looked like a rich man by the clothes. One of the heavy ammo they had bought from America had shot close to him in the desert, and it ended up hurting the man sending shrapnel to his heart. It had a doctor with Raza’s group, they had kidnaped him from his previous home called Gulmira, they killed his family and basically everybody in the village. He was the only polite man there, he was called Yinsen. He saved the foreign man, the man was Tony."

"Raza didn’t know but I always managed to meet Yinsen. I knew where every camera was located and turned a few off without them knowing. Yinsen was a good man, he taught me a few things which I’m grateful for, and when he was saving Tony I was there too, I found completely amazing how he managed to save him with an electromagnet that was hooked up to a car battery.” You laughed at the memory, it was a good moment for you. “Anyways, when Tony woke up he talked to me and it was so different speak English with someone else, Yinsen did sometimes but we normally used the Pashto language. At first, I was really careful to be around Tony, but he settled himself.” You smiled at Tony who smiled back. “It was so funny seeing him walking holding the heavy car battery!” Tony chuckled. “The men gave him a few tools and parts to build the Jericho missile, but instant he built what we can say it was the first Iron Man armor,” Tony smirked at the memory if it wasn’t your petite form stealing him all the metal and random items he needed maybe the Iron Man wouldn’t be the part of him.

“He built the robot, with mine and Yinsen's help, and he got out of there. He had promised me he would take me out of that hell, and he did. Unfortunately, Yinsen died in the middle of the cross-fire. Tony used the armor as a shield and held me when it flew, of course, it falls in the middle of the desert. But we got out of there. When Rhodey found us in the desert he looked at me and asked Tony what was happening, Tony told I would go with him didn’t matter what. And he did so, he brought me here and fixed everything. His lawyer found my…” You took a deep breath trying to find the courage. “Parents, and since both were dead he adopted me. The lawyer was worried at first but since I didn’t have any register it became really easy to do so."

"Tony officially adopted me and gave me his last name. He also contracted a tutor to give me classes and asked what I wanted to do, I told him I wanted to do boxing and anything to do with wrestle. He did so and also put me in language classes as well. I guess I wanted to learn how to protect myself and never be the poor little girl ever again.” You watched your friends' faces, certainly, none of them had thought about your past.

“The ‘bald’ man I had seen before was Obadiah, Tony partner at Stark Industries back in the day. He wanted Tony dead and he was the one that planned everything for Tony’s kidnapping. I recognized his face when I had saw him in Afhegasntian, “Obie” didn't’ recognized me which was a relief, of course he told Tony he was out of his mind to adopt a kid especially one that wasn’t little anymore. I told Tony he was the one that sold him and Tony believed, he searched the information and sent Pepper to hack his computer, what occurred next you guys know the man tried to build an iron man suit bigger than Tony’s and Tony ended up blowing his ass up.” You smiled to try to make the place less tense, but it didn’t work. Steve, gave you a weak smirk, but besides him, you could see Bucky’s and Sam’s expression: serious and angry.

“But after a few years, I met Fury and he got impressed with my skills. Natasha asked me If I ever thought about becoming an agent but before I could decline Tony declined the offer for me. I accept the offer a year later and she taught me a lot of things of that world we live in.” You winked at her and she winked back. All the courses you had made surely taught you a lot of things, but Natasha taught you things beyond any course classes would do.

“One day I hacked a system of the man that had brought me from my previous dad and when I found the name Mikhail in the system I couldn’t help but feel the urge to kill him and everyone that works in that disgusting life. So I studied him and his men, I studied mind manipulation, Russian and Ukrainian and prepared myself to kill them. And I did. And that is why now Artem Melknov along with Hydra wants me.” You finished your story and let a torturous exhale.

Everyone kept in silence. All of them accepting the new information in different ways. They knew Tony had adopted you but they had always found odd you calling him Tony instead of dad or the fact that you never acted like a daughter with him, your relationship with him always looked playful and friendly.

“I saw that.” Wanda cut the silence and looked at you. “When we met at Sokovia, and I played with your mind I saw some pieces of that. I played your worst fear and I saw that terrible house you told and a man touching you. I’m sorry I made you re-live that Y/N.” Her words sounded sincere, you nodded and told her it was okay.

“Why you never told us?” Steve asked seeming pained, he had told you almost everything about his past and you never explained yours to him.

“I’m sorry Steve, but I couldn’t. It all happened so long ago and all I wanted was to forget that. Of course Tony knew everything, Pepper knows a resume of it cause she had found weird the fact that Tony was bringing a homeless girl to live under his roof. Fury also knows, but I think just them. Tony’s lawyer didn’t know much, he made a new document saying I came from a foster house in Ohio, and people believed it.”

                                …

The following hours you spent in your room with Natasha with both of your notebooks in hands, she tracked all the possible leads about the man that was hunting you down. “I didn’t have the chance to say I’m sorry.” She said but avoided your eyes, all the emotional behavior frights her a bit.

Nodding you shooked your head. “And I’m sorry I did not make my job right, cause if I had done all of this wouldn’t be happening right now.“ You closed the tap of your notebook and placed it further on the bed. You wanted to throw it at the wall with all the frustrations that were burning inside of you, but you knew better than act like a spoiled rich kid.

“I meant your past Y/N!“ She pointed and you nodded your head.

“Come on Nat, we all had terrible paths.” You told her matter-factly. “That is the reason we are all here, right?“

She nodded and looked directly at you eyes, “Yes, but I do know it saddens you too, and you don’t have to act like this isn’t boring you, cause if you do so sooner or later will eat you alive.“

“Either way talk about it wouldn’t make it go away!” You answered and stood up walking to your closet, you got some gym’s clothes and placed on your bed beside her. “But finding Artem’s group and any Hydra follower and killing all of them will.“ She nodded and knew you were blocking her attempts at solace.

You changed and put your shoes on, you needed to burn some steam.

Nat didn’t accompany you and you’re glad about it, you wanted to punch a punching bag and go for a run later. A spare would be good too, but with your mind so distant you wouldn’t hold anything and would definitely end up frustrated about that.

You searched for a couple of wraps to wrap over your hand and wrist since you found none you shook your head and went for it without so.

You started to throw punches with punches, memories coming back to your head. Raza’s disgusting voice in your ear. 

The heat inside the caves and how many men held guns and looked at you as some sort of prize.

"Hey hey, I heard you were searching for girls. Here, she is pretty right.”

Seven punches and four kicks.

“Listen here little girl, your daddy isn’t here anymore. You will shut your mouth and will not whiny when entering that plane. If you open that fucking mouth I will slit your tongue.”

Ten punches, five kicks and five diagonal elbows.

“Vah bahut patalee hai, aap use bechane vaale beemaar bechane mein saksham nahin honge.” - She is too skinny, you won’t be able to sell her looking sick.

Three followed roundhouse knee.  

“ Hasnana, ‘ana ‘urid laha.” - Okay, I will want her.

Five straight knee.  

“Tabdu jamilat alraqs balnsbt li” - you look pretty dancing for me.

Three followed punches and two elbows.

“ 'Ant 'afdal shay’ ashtarayth.” - you are the best thing I had ever bought.

Five punches, five knee jabs and five push kicks.

“Bishrtik liynat jiddaan” - your skin is so soft.

Seven punches, three kicks and four knee strike.

Your knuckles were hurting and you could feel a slight pain in your left wrist. But you didn’t stop. You punched, kicked, elbowed as all the memories were coming back to your mind.

Everything coming like a bolt of lightning in your eyelids. All the voices and all the feelings they had made you feel. You kept letting all the stress and frustrations out. Your face was wet but it wasn’t only your sweat, but your tears as well.

You went on and on and you could hear your heartbeat on your ears as your blood boiled. You screamed and kept punching the bag with all the other movements. You screamed and screamed until you felt something pulling you back.

“Y/N, Y/N!” It was Bucky. “Hey hey, it’s okay. It’s me, it’s me.” He hugged you and locked you in his embrace.

You were pissed at him and you hated letting people see your weak parts, but you needed it, the comfort. His metal arm around your waist and the flesh one on your hair, you pressed your upper body into his wrapping your arms around his chest, your head was resting on his metal shoulder which even with his shirt on, it felt cold which were always soothing.

Bucky.

The gym as the majority part of the Compound was soundproof, but super soldier’s hearing could easily pass by it. Steve and Bucky were assigned to a mission the next morning. Bucky couldn’t sleep so he decided he needed to do some work out to try relief his mind off of everything that was happening rather than spend hours looking at the ceiling of his bedroom.

When the elevator got to the gym's level he heard disturbing grunts, knuckles throwing punches and then a scream, your scream.

He entered the part where the punches bags, a wrestling ring and some sparring folding mats were placed.

He saw you there completely lost. He ran after you but you kept screaming and punching for dear life. He had shouted your name at least six times, but only when he pulled you back and turned you around you realized he was there.

He embraced your body against his. You sobbed and hugged him back eagerly.

Y/N.

A few minutes had passed until you calmed down. You placed both of your hands on Bucky’s chest and looked into his eyes, the gaze was ephemeral since your felt a terrible pain in your left wrist. You moaned in pain and let go of his body.

He darted his eyes to your line of stare and took a breath when he saw how your knuckles were bleeding definitely caused by the fact you didn’t utilize a wrap.

“Goddamn it Y/N, why you didn’t use a wrap?” His voice wasn’t angry, yet he hates to see you hurt in any way, especially about something you could have avoided.

He placed his hand on your lower back and walked with you toward the shelves which were alongside a sink with a long counter. - because training in a Compound with superheroes who take training really serious requires having a part to take care of the possible injuries and knowing that Tony designed the place to have a sink, shelves with all possible band-aids and bandages, followed with an aid kit and some medicines. -

Your eyes were bloodshot and you felt like a robot, your movements predictable and your mind far away. Bucky grabbed your hips up and placed you on the counter like you were a doll. He gave you a smile to try to soothe you, but you just looked at him. He moved to the top shelf grabbing the aid kit.

Your hands were on your lap, and you were staring at the punching bag that was decked out with a few drops of your blood, just now when the adrenaline levels had subsided you felt your head, knees, elbows, hands, wrist and feet throbbing.

“Can I ?” He asked, in precautions. Normally when he had a PTSD episode or any anxiety one, you were the one who helped him go through, and you always tried to tell him before doing anything. You tried to let him know what was happening cause he never had the possibility in his captivity in Hydra, they just had used him whatever the way they wanted. Like he was some kind of ragged doll.

You lifted both of your hands and he grabbed one by one expecting it, his hands were huge and yours looked tiny on his, but he tried his best to be careful.

He analyzed the first one, and besides the bloody knuckles and the red marks that were growing swollen, it was okay. He touched your wrist and forearm and went up to see any sign that you were feeling pain there, he looked for any bone or nerve displaced or broken. You didn’t hiss or flinch so he went to the left one.

Your knuckles were damaged as well, your wrist was swollen and when he touched your wrist you let a pained sound. He did the same procedure up on your left arm. “Can you move it?” He asked and you know he was referring to your wrist.

You moved it slowly in circles motion, but even with the pain, you could still move it letting Bucky know you didn’t break it. “Gladly isn’t broken. I think it’s just displaced. I also think you didn’t break your metacarpal neither, which it’s a good thing.” He smiled again.

Definitely trying to calm you.

He started to clean your wounds with saline and dried it with a piece of cotton. He grabbed the antibacterial ointment and passed on the wounds and covered all of them with knuckles band-aids each one.

He did the same procedure with your left hand. You gulped feeling your dry throat. “I screwed everything Buck.” Your voice was quiet, you hadn’t said anything since your screams, only sobs.

He darted his eyes to you and got his attention back to your knuckles.

“What do you mean?”

“Everything,” You narrowed your eyes. “I don’t regret what I did, I don’t regret the people I killed. All the women and men I killed. I do not regret it!” He kept looking at your hand and you paid attention to his facial expression, Bucky as Steve was a good man, people would say it’s hypocritical for the Winter Soldier himself be against murder, but he is. “If I’m a bad person for doing so, so be it, I don’t care. But I couldn’t stand the thought that people who won money over selling innocent children, teenagers to prostitution. Or selling people to slave jobs around the world. I couldn’t Buck. I did and I would do everything again. Because the world it’s a better place without those people on it!” You frowned but at this point, you couldn’t regret your prior decisions.

He didn’t know what to answer right away. He killed people, more than he can admit out loud because he regrets it. But it wasn’t him doing so, was a trained machine, the Hydra fist. He had killed two people when he was a hundred percent Bucky Barnes back in the 40’s, but it was in the war.

“But now I’d set you guys in dangerous. And I hate myself for it.”

He finished your bandages and placed it on your lap. His hands placed on the dark counter, each one close to your sides. “We are always in danger.” His voice was low while he searched your eyes to make sure you knew he meant it. “We will get hurt but the next day we’ll be here and kicking.” He tried to assure you with a scanty grin on his face. But you didn’t trust his words, he had avoided you all those weeks.

“That is why you hadn’t talked to me in a whole month?” He let go of the counter and walked to the shelves to grab a roll bandage to put on your wrist. But he kept the silence. His eyebrows had lowered and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

He placed the package in the pocket of his pants and gripped your hips to put your feet on the floor. “You will need to put ice on this before wrapping, let’s go to the kitchen, all the ice it had here Clint used that morning.” He walked away but you stood there staring at him.

He didn’t hear any footsteps on his side nor behind him, he looked at you and realized you hadn’t followed him. He looked at your face, a few feets apart. His head lowered and his eyes went to the floor before going up to yours. “I am sorry.” He said truthfully.

“Why you avoided me, Buck?”

“You got shot Y/N, if the bullet were a few inches apart, or if your gear hadn’t that armored mode thing you could be dead now.”

“But I didn’t die, I’m great, I’m here! Right here in front of you! And it has passed more than one month I came back. I spent 4 days at the hospital and you left on the first one. When I came here you were gone. You were on a solo mission God’s know where because neither Fury nor Steve told me when I begged them to. Then another three weeks and nothing about you.”

“You had enough people here to help you.”

You let a fake laugh. “Oh yes James, thank you! I mean I was just worried about your ass cause I needed someone to feed me or read me a book.” You said with your voice going higher and higher. “Are you serious? What happened in years of friendship uh? Every time we went on a mission or every time we spent the night awake because you could not sleep? All the things we talked about and all the amazing things we lived together?” You walked close to him no minded how your body was aching, he wasn’t going to run away without an explanation. “I needed you here with me Bucky! You like to say that I almost died and the only sane thing I can think when someone you care about almost dies it’s the need to be close to that person. But you just ran away from me.” A tear left your eyes and went down your cheek, you watched him silently for a moment. “Have you any idea how selfish was to leave for solo missions and spending your time at your apartment? Have you any idea how selfish it was to worry me so much that I couldn’t sleep at night?” Drowning in everything you pursed your lips together.

He swallowed his saliva and avoided your eyes looking away, he didn’t know you felt it in that way.

Bucky had a different defense mechanism, he went on those missions because he needed to put his body and mind to worry about other things rather the guilt feeling he had. “I needed to be there to protect you Y/N. And I wasn't.”

“It wasn’t protection I needed, Tony and Sam were there. What would have you done differently, throw your body in the front of the bullet?” He would, without a second thought. “Because if you did it wouldn’t matter because the guns were to close to anyone to do something!”

He scoffed and passed his hand over his hair placing a small amount behind his ear. “Exactly.” He answered at the mention of the guns so close to your body.

You scoffed and ran your hand through your hair in pure confusion and annoyance. “If you were there I could at least try to understand that, but right now it’s like you are trying to cut me out of your life and are using this as a poor excuse James!“ You yelled and your throat ached in how dry it was.

Bucky knew you only called him James on two occasions: to tease him, or because you’re madly angry with him. Which is the case, it’s the second option.

He grabbed the bandage from his pocket and gave it to you, you just kept looking at his eyes expecting any sign of emotion. “Go upstairs and ask Sam to wrap your wrists, I have somewhere to go.” Since you didn’t grab the bandage roll, he walked away and placed it in the small furniture on the door side.

You walked behind him and pulled his metal arm back. “Are you leaving me again? Honestly, James if you want to go then go, but never look at me again.“ Your eyes were watered but you held the tears at the maximum. He looked into your eyes and nodded slowly.

“Ask Sam before it gets too bad to wrap.“ He said and walked away passing through the door, leaving you behind.

You let the tears fall, and held your mouth with your hand trying to muffle your sobs, it was useless, you knew he would listen to it.

                                …

>>

@soshewrotestories​ @cutie1365​

[sevenswcrds]

about the mun.

general info:

♡ preferred name: Vira/Vee ♡ age: 24 ♡ pronouns: they/them ♡ sexuality: asexual panromantic ♡ height: 5′3′‘ is the story i’m sticking to ♡ hair colour: naturally a very very dark blonde that i pretend isn’t blonde. right now? Black, blue, turquoise, and green ♡ relationship status: single and not looking

favourite things:

♡ favourite colour: violet ♡ favourite song: The Seed, AURORA - however I currently have Monsters, ALL TIME LOW on repeat ♡ favourite band / artist: PVRIS ♡ favourite youtubers: Don’t really do youtube except for music ♡ favourite food: bacon cheeseburger/baked ziti/calamari ♡ favourite bird: hooded ravens ♡ favourite animal: horses ♡ favourite celebrity: .... mmMMMmmm not sure i care enough but i guess Emilia Clarke  ♡ favourite time of day? Twilight ♡ favourite holiday(s): Samhain  ♡ favourite season: Fall  ♡ favourite fruit: raspberries ♡ favourite flower: lilacs but only the actually purple ones. hyacinths. lavender. wisteria. ♡ favourite emoji(s):  u v u (it’s a face i swear) ♡ favourite app: discord or twitter ♡ favourite hobby: roleplaying, dnd, streaming dnd, drawing, writing in general, drawing ♡ favourite country: Anywhere But Here ♡ favourite weather: misty and cloudy ♡ favourite element: fire

name of:

♡ name of your crush: LMAO funny fuckin joke right there bud (i am recovering from heartbreak, no crushes to be found) ♡ name of your pet(s): oh gods.  CATS: Phantom, Dagda  DOGS: Fenrir, Sparks, Swat, Sniper HORSES: Patti, Haides, Aurora, Khaleesi, Cadolina, Crow, Amirah, Dezzi, Gambler, Raza, Fantasia, Wicked, Mortuary, Justify, Regal, Radiance, Boo, Lucy, Griffon, Piper, Skipper, Rhiannon, Noir, Tazanna. ♡ name(s) of your best friend(s): Keeping this one silent.

this or that?

♡ introvert or extrovert: introvert ♡ nerdy or sassy: hard both ♡ tall or short: short ♡ looks or personality: personality ♡ homesick or traveler: homesick ♡ musician or artist: artist ♡ woods or city: woods ♡ tv or youtube: gods neither just give me a fuckin book ♡ phone or computer: computer ♡ family or money: family ♡ books or movies: books ♡ food or sleep: definitely sleep would be nice

Tagged by: stole it from @yourlovingspy  Tagging: anyone.

[blackkudos]

Carrie Mae Weems

Carrie Mae Weems (born April 20, 1953) is an American artist who works with text, fabric, audio, digital images, and installation video, and is best known for her work in the field of photography. Her award-winning photographs, films, and videos have been displayed in over 50 exhibitions in the United States and abroad, and focus on serious issues that face African Americans today, such as racism, sexism, politics, and personal identity.

She said, "Let me say that my primary concern in art, as in politics, is with the status and place of Afro-Americans in the country." More recently however, she expressed that "Black experience is not really the main point; rather, complex, dimensional, human experience and social inclusion ... is the real point."

Early life and education

Weems was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1953, the second of seven children to Carrie Polk and Myrlie Weems. She began participating in dance and street theater in 1965. At the age of 16 she gave birth to her first and only child, a daughter named Faith C. Weems. Later that year she moved out of her parents’ home and soon relocated to San Francisco to study modern dance with Anna Halprin at a workshop Halprin had started with several other dancers, as well as the artists John Cage and Robert Morris. She decided to continue her arts schooling and attended the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, graduating at the age of 28 with her B.A. She received her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Weems also participated in the folklore graduate program at the University of California, Berkeley.

While in her early twenties, Carrie Mae Weems was politically active in the labor movement as a union organizer. Her first camera, which she received as a birthday gift, was used for this work before being used for artistic purposes. She was inspired to pursue photography after she came across The Black Photography Annual, a book of images by African-American photographers including Shawn Walker, Beuford Smith, Anthony Barboza, Ming Smith, Adger Cowans, and Roy DeCarava, who Weems found inspiring. This led her to New York City, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she began to meet other artists and photographers such as Coreen Simpson and Frank Stewart, and they began to form a community. In 1976 Weems took a photography class at the Museum taught by Dawoud Bey. She returned to San Francisco, but lived bi-coastally and was invited by Janet Henry to teach at the Studio Museum and a community of photographers in New York.

Career and work

In 1983, Carrie Mae Weems completed her first collection of photographs, text, and spoken word, called Family Pictures and Stories. The images told the story of her family, and she has said that in this project she was trying to explore the movement of black families out of the South and into the North, using her family as a model for the larger theme. Her next series, called Ain't Jokin', was completed in 1988. It focused on racial jokes and internalized racism. Another series called American Icons, completed in 1989, also focused on racism. Weems has said that throughout the 1980s she was turning away from the documentary photography genre, instead "creating representations that appeared to be documents but were in fact staged" and also "incorporating text, using multiples images, diptychs and triptychs, and constructing narratives." Sexism was the next focal point for her. It was the topic of one of her most well known collections called The Kitchen Table series which was completed in over a two year period, 1989 to 1990 and has Weems cast as the central character in the photographs. About Kitchen Table and Family Pictures and Stories, Weems has said: "I use my own constructed image as a vehicle for questioning ideas about the role of tradition, the nature of family, monogamy, polygamy, relationships between men and women, between women and their children, and between women and other women—underscoring the critical problems and the possible resolves." She has expressed disbelief and concern about the exclusion of images of the black community, particularly black women, from the popular media, and she aims to represent these excluded subjects and speak to their experience through her work. These photographs created space for other black female artists to further create art. Weems has also reflected on the themes and inspirations of her work as a whole, saying,

... from the very beginning, I've been interested in the idea of power and the consequences of power; relationships are made and articulated through power. Another thing that's interesting about the early work is that even though I've been engaged in the idea of autobiography, other ideas have been more important: the role of narrative, the social levels of humor, the deconstruction of documentary, the construction of history, the use of text, storytelling, performance, and the role of memory have all been more central to my thinking than autobiography.

Other series created by Weems include: the Sea Island Series (1991–92), the Africa Series (1993), From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995–96), Who What When Where (1998), Ritual & Revolution (1998), the Louisiana Project (2003), Roaming (2006), and the Museum Series, which she began in 2007. Her most recent project, Grace Notes: Reflections for Now, is a multimedia performance that explores "the role of grace in the pursuit of democracy."

In her almost 30-year career, Carrie Mae Weems has won numerous awards. She was named Photographer of the Year by the Friends of Photography. In 2005, she was awarded the Distinguished Photographer's Award in recognition of her significant contributions to the world of photography. Her talents have also been recognized by numerous colleges, including Harvard University and Wellesley College, with fellowships, artist-in-residence and visiting professor positions. She taught photography at Hampshire College in the late 1980s. She was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2013. In 2015 Weems was named a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow. In September 2015, the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research presented her with the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal.

The first comprehensive retrospective of her work opened in September 2012 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee, as a part of the center's exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video. Curated by Katie Delmez, the exhibition ran until January 13, 2013, and later traveled to Portland Art Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts. The 30-year retrospective exhibition opened in January 2014 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. This was the first time an "African-American woman [was] ever given a solo exhibition" at the Guggenheim. Weems' work returned to the Frist in October 2013 as a part of the center's 30 Americans gallery, alongside black artists ranging from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Kehinde Wiley.

Weems' work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Portland Art Museum, the Tate Museum in London and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Weems has been represented by Jack Shainman Gallery since 2008.

A full-color, visual book, titled Carrie Mae Weems, was published by Yale University Press in October 2012. The book offers the first major survey of Weems' career and includes a collection of essays from leading and emerging scholars in addition to over 200 of Weems' most important works.

Weems lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and Syracuse, New York, with her husband Jeffrey Hoone. She continues to produce art that provides social commentary on the experiences of people of color, especially black women, in America.

Weems is one of six artist-curators who made selections for Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from May 24, 2019, through January 12, 2020.

Select exhibitions

Presentations of her work have included exhibitions at:

Women in Photography, Cityscape Photo Gallery, Pasadena, CA, 1981

Multi-Cultural Focus, Barnsdall Art gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 1981

Family Pictures and Stories, Multi-Cultural Gallery, San Diego, CA, 1984

People Close Up, Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 1986

Social Concerns, Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, MD, 1986

Past, Present, Future, The New Museum, New York, NY, 1986

Visible Differences, Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA, 1987

The Other, The Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX, 1988

A Century of Protest, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, 1989

Black Women Photographers, Ten.8, London, England, 1990

Who Counts?, Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, IL, 1990

Biological Factors, Nexus Gallery, Atlanta, GA, 1990

Trouble in Paradise, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston, MA, 1990

Whitney Biennial, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1991

Of Light and Language, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA, 1991

Pleasures and terrors of Domestic Comfort, MOMA, New York, NY, 1991

Calling Out My Name, CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY (traveled to PPOW gallery, New York, NY), 1991

Disclosing the Myth of Family, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 1992

Schwarze Kunst: Konzepte zur Politik und Identitat, Neue Gesellschaft fur dingende Kunst, Berlin, Germany, 1992

Dirt and Domesticity: Constructions of the Feminine, Whitney Museum of American Art, at Equitable Center, New York, NY, 1992

Art, Politics, and Community, William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Mansfield, CT (traveled to Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA), 1992

Mis/Taken identities, University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (traveled to Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Forum Stadtpark, Graz, Austria; Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen im Forum Langenstraße, Germany; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; Western Gallery, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA), 1992–1994

Photography: Expanding the Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 1992–1994

Sea Island, The Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, PA, 1993

Carrie Mae Weems (traveling exhibition), The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, 1993

And 22 Million Very Tired and very Angry People, Walter/McBean gallery, San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco, CA, 1993

Enlightenment, Revolution, A Gallery Project, Ferndale, MI, 1993

Fictions of the Self: The Portrait in Contemporary Photography, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC; Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 1993–1994

The Theatre of Refusal: Black Art and the Mainstream Criticism, Fine Arts Gallery, University of California, Irvine, CA (traveled to University of California, Davis, CA; and University of California, Riverside, CA), 1993–1994

Women's Representation of Women, Sapporo American Center Gallery, Sapporo, Japan (traveled to Aka Renga Cultural Center, Fukuoka City, Japan; Kyoto International Community House, Kyoto, Japan; Aichi Prefectural Arts Center, Nagoya, Japan; Osaka Prefectural Contemporary Arts Center, Japan; Spiral Arts Center, Tokyo, Japan), 1994

Imagining Families: Images and Voices, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1994–1995

Black Male, Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, and The Armand Hammer Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, 1994–1995

Carrie Mae Weems Reacts to Hidden Witness, J. Paul Getty Museum of Art, Malibu, CA, 1995

Projects 52, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1995

StoryLand: Narrative Vision and Social Space, Walter Phillips gallery, The Banff Center for the Arts, Banff, Canada, 1995

Embedded Metaphor, Traveling exhibit, curated by Nina Felshin, 1996

Inside the Visible, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., international traveling exhibition, 1996

Gender - Beyond Memory, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan, 1996

2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Africus Institute for Contemporary Art, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1997

Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African-American Artists, traveling exhibition, 1998

Taboo: Repression and Revolt in Modern Art, Gallery St. Etienne, New York, NY, 1998

Tell me a Story: Narration in Contemporary Painting and Photography, Center National d'Art Contemporain de Grenoble, Grenoble, France, 1998

Recent Work: Carrie Mae Weems 1992–98, Everson Art Museum, Syracuse, NY, 1998–1999

Who, What, When, and Where, Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, New York, NY, 1998–1999

Ritual & Revolution, DAK'ART 98: Biennale of Contemporary Art, Galerie National d'Art, Dakar, Senegal, 1998–1999

It's Only Rock and Roll, traveling exhibition, 1999

Claustrophobia: Disturbing the Domestic in Contemporary Art, traveling exhibition, 1999

Histories (Re)membered, The Bronx Museum of Art, New York, NY, 1999

Carrie Mae Weems: The Hampton Project, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA, 2000–2003

Looking Forward, Looking Back, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, 2000

Material and Matter: Loans to and Selections from the Studio Museum Collection, The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, 2000

The View From Here: Issues of Cultural Identity and Perspective in Contemporary Russian and American Art, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia, 2000

Strength and Diversity: A Celebration of African-American Artists, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 2000

Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present, Smithsonian Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and culture, Washington, DC, 2000

History Now, touring exhibition beginning at the Liljevalchs Konsthall and Riksutstallningar, Stockholm, Sweden, 2002

Pictures, Patents, Monkeys, and More... On Collecting, traveling exhibition curated by Independent curators International, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2002

The Louisiana Project, Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, 2003

Cuba on the Verge, International Center of Photography, New York, NY, 2003

Crimes and Misdemeanors: Politics in U.S. Art of the 1980s, Lois & Richard Rosenthal center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, OH, 2003

Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since 1970, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, 2004

Beyond Compare: Women Photographers on Beauty, BCE, Toronto (traveling exhibit), 2004

African American Art - Photographs from the Collection, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO, 2005

Figuratively Speaking, Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL, 2005

The Whole World is Rotten, Jack Shainman gallery, New York, NY, 2005

Common Ground: Discovering Community in 150 Years of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2005

Out of Time: A Contemporary View, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 2006

Black Alphabet: Contexts of Contemporary African-American Art, Zacheta national gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland, 2006

Hidden in Plain Sight, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, 2007

Embracing Eatonville, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI, 2007

The 21st century, The Feminine Century, and the century of Diversity and Hope, 2009 International Incheon Women Artists' Biennial, Incheon, South Korea, 2009–2010

Colour Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today, Tate Liverpool, UK, 2009–2010

Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic, Tate Liverpool, UK, 2009–2010

From Then to Now: Masterworks of Contemporary African American Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH, 2009–2010

Carrie Mae Weems: Estudios Sociales, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain, 2010

Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 2010

Slow Fade to Black, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY, 2010

The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, Nasher Museum, Durham, NC, 2010

Myth, Manners and Memory: Photographers of the American South, De La Warr Pavilion, East Sussex, UK, 2010

Off the Wall: Part 1 – Thirty Performative Actions, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH, 2010

The Deconstructive Impulse: Women Artists Reconfigure the Signs of Power, 1973–1991, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, Purchase, New York, NY, 2010

Posing Beauty: African American Images From the 1890s to the Present, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ, 2010

Stargazers: Elizabeth Catlett in Conversation with 21 Contemporary Artists, Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY, 2010

Unsettled: Photography and Politics in Contemporary Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2010

Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN, 2012

This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, 2012

La Triennale: Intense Proximity, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2012

Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba, 2012

The Maddening Crowd (video installation), McNay Art Museum, Sa Antonio, TX, 2012

Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; Cantor Center for the Visual Arts, Stanford, CA, 2013

Feminist And..., The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA, 2013

Seven Sisters, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2013

Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. New York, NY, 2014

P.3 Prospect New Orleans, The McKenna Museum, New Orleans, LA, 2014

Color: Real and Imagined, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, England, 2014

Carrie Mae Weems: The Museum Series, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, 2014

Wide Angle: American Photographs, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 2014

The Memory of Time, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2015

Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy, 2015

Winter in America, The School (Jack Shainman Gallery), 2015

An Exhibition of African American Photographers from the Daguerreian to the Digital Eras, Marshall Fine Arts Center at Haveford College, Haveford, PA, 2015

Represent: 200 years of African American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2015

Under Color of Law, The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art and Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA, 2015

30 Americans, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015

Grace Notes: Reflections for Now, Spoleto Festival, Spoleto, Italy, 2016

The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art. Cambridge, MA, 2016

Viewpoints, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (February 18–June 18, 2017)

We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (April 21–September 17, 2017)

Blue Black, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, MO (June 9–October 7, 2017)

Matera Imagined: Photography and a Southern Italian Town, American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy (2017)

...And the People, Maruani Mercer, Knokke, Belgium (August 5–September 4, 2017)

Medium, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA (August 29–December 3, 2017)

Carrie Mae Weems: Ritual and Revolution, Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (September 12–December 10, 2017)

Dimensions of Black, Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA (September 17–December 28, 2017)

Posing Beauty in African American Culture, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL (October 6, 2016 – January 21, 2018)

We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA (October 13, 2017 – January 14, 2018)

Edward Hopper Citation of Merit in the Visual Arts Recipient Exhibition, Carrie Mae Weems: Beacon, Nyack, NY (November 10, 2017 – February 25, 2018)

Making Home: Contemporary Works From the DIA, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (December 1, 2017 – June 6, 2018)

We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA (June 27–September 30, 2018)

Be Strong and Do Not Betray Your Soul: Selections from the Light Work Collection, Light Work, Syracuse, NY (August 27–October 18, 2018)

Carrie Mae Weems: Strategies of Engagement, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Boston, MA (September 10–December 13, 2018)

Family Pictures, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI (September 14, 2018 – January 20, 2019)

Heave, 2018 Cornell University Biennial, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (September 20, 2018–November 5, 2018)

Carrie Mae Weems: Strategies of Engagement, Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA (January 13, 2019–May 5, 2019)

Carrie Mae Weems II Over Time, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (September 7, 2019–October 5, 2019)

Awards

2005: Distinguished Photographers Award

2007: Anonymous Was A Woman Award

2013: Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award

2013: MacArthur Fellow, "Genius" Award

2014: BET Visual Arts Award

2014: Lucie Award

2015: ICP Spotlights Award from the International Center of Photography.

2015: Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow

2015: W.E.B. Du Bois Medal from Harvard University

2015: Honorary Doctorate from the School of Visual Arts

2016: National Artist Award, Anderson Ranch Arts Center

2016: Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theatre

2016: College Arts Association

2016: DeFINE ART

2016: Art of Change Fellow, Ford Foundation

2017: Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University

2017: Inga Maren Otto Fellowship, The Watermill Center

2019: Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, Bristol.

Publications

Carrie Mae Weems : The Museum of Modern Art (N.Y.), 1995.

Carrie Mae Weems : Image Maker, 1995.

Carrie Mae Weems : Recent Work, 1992––1998, 1998.

Carrie Mae Weems: In Louisiana Project, 2004.

Carrie Mae Weems: Constructing History, 2008.

Carrie Mae Weems : Social Studies, 2010.

Carrie Mae Weems : Three Decades of Photography and Video, 2012.

Carrie Mae Weems: Kitchen Table Series, 2016.

[blancheludis]

Tagging: @tokky231

Fandom: Marvel, Avengers Characters: Tony Stark/Steve Rogers, James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Bruce Barton, Steve Rogers Chapters: 10/?, Words: 56.845

Summary: Tony meets his soulmate under the worst possible circumstances. It is not just a kidnapping gone wrong. It turns out Steve and his gang picked him on purpose and they want some personal revenge. If only he had managed to say the words written on his soulmate’s arm before they threw him back out into the streets.

---

The moment Tony finds out about Obadiah, all his meticulously laid plans of revenge and reparation evaporate into thin air. He had been prepared to fire his entire board of directors, to weed out scientists, to go up against the military. Not once has he thought this could be personal.

Instant denial builds up inside him. It turns his limbs heavy and his mind slow. Obadiah would not betray him. Throughout all the cold years of Tony’s childhood, he has been more of a father to Tony than Howard. He has always been the one who understood Tony.

Tony is used to people only ever wanting him for what he can offer them; money, fame, tech. While Obadiah happily took Tony’s ideas to turn them into more profit for the company, that has never been all there was between them. They are family.

Despite the dread of proving this true – even if he trusted Steve, he would not just believe information like this – Tony gets to work. The evidence Steve sent him is conclusive. Tony knows Obadiah’s phone number by heart. On top of the terror of seeing it and the whole long minutes he talked with the Avengers, it hurts that Obadiah did not even think to use a burner phone for this, feeling so sure about Tony rolling over and slinking out of the picture as he was supposed to.

At least, Tony assumes he was supposed to vanish quietly. He is not sure to what end other than Obadiah being in line of becoming the company’s CEO once more. Their success is built on Tony’s ideas, though. That is probably why Obadiah needed the USB drive, to tide him over until he kicked R&D back into proper shape.

Tony is getting ahead of himself here. All he knows is that Obadiah hired the Avengers. Nobody said anything about killing Tony. Perhaps the plan really was to only get the drive and let Tony be handled roughly. It might have pushed him into more defensive gear or guns that are easily concealed. Perhaps Obadiah ordered them outright not to harm Tony but the Avengers went ahead and did it anyway.

Even Tony’s great talent for delusion does not let him spin this into something harmless or an accident.

Pepper finally brings him back the data from Stark Industries’ internal servers, and Tony is hesitant to go through it even before he finds the dozens of shipping logs and names like Raza and the Ten Rings, and Obadiah’s metaphorical fingerprints all over it. For good measure, he finally lets JARVIS hijack the servers and watches him tear through them with a curious detachment, watches the condemning files pile up, undermining the very foundation Tony has built his life on.

It is true then. Obadiah did not just send the mob after Tony, he has also been selling their weapons to anyone willing to buy. The logs go back years. This was happening even when Howard was still alive.

Feeling the damning need to laugh, Tony wonders what his godfather is thinking about him shutting down the weapons manufacturing. That is, apparently, what Obadiah built both his lives on, the official one where he is Stark Industries’ CFO, and the secret one where he is filling his offshore accounts with money from illegal weapons trades.

Even in Tony’s head, this sounds ridiculous. Enough so that he refuses the actual danger Obadiah might pose to him right now. He hired the mob once to get his hands on Tony’s work. Now that Tony all but ruined his livelihood, there is no telling what he might do. Somehow not even Tony’s enormous talent for denial is enough to convince himself that Obadiah will not do anything.

Considering the sheer amount of evidence he found, there is no more hiding from this. All Tony has to do is pack it all up and hand it over to the authorities. He will have to watch his godfather being led away in handcuffs after strangers go through Stark Industries’ data, upturning all the ugly truths of what has been happening here.

It is the right thing to do to stop the illegal distribution of his weapons and to ensure his own safety. Instead, he has JARVIS saving all of it, queues it to be printed, and saves it again on a separate USB drive. He is fond of those. Then, in the true cowardly fashion of a Stark, he turns off his computers and walks right out of his workshop, giving in to the need to hide his head in the sand for a while longer, at least until the roiling nausea has passed and this knowledge does not turn every breath into an act of labour anymore.

“Sir?” JARVIS asks, not specifying what he means.

Everything is in disarray now. It is impossible to know where to best set his next steps.

“It’s all right, J,” Tony says, not recognizing his own voice. It is a quiet monotone, sounding like he is suffocating on the truth he has just read. “I’ll take care of it. I just – I need some time to think about it.”

“It is unwise to sit on this information too long,” JARVIS says with as much disapproval as eagerness to start acting. He sounds almost vengeful but Tony cannot muster up any pride for that. “Especially with –”

“I know,” Tony interrupts him, sharper than he intended. With how shattered he feels inside, it is no surprise that he cuts anyone coming too close. That is why he needs time. He cannot deal with this while he is falling apart.

Never do business while you’re emotional, his mother had told him once after they watched Howard ruin a business deal during dinner, drunk and angry like he often was. It makes you lose focus.

While Tony feels numb, he knows that, soon enough, the realization will hit and with it the betrayal. He wants to deal with this, but he cannot do so if he turns into a sobbing mess at the mere sight of Obadiah, capably only of one, devastating question: Why?

Tony knows why, just as much as he does not. Money and family. He thought the latter would always outweigh greed. That is only true, of course, if Obadiah ever considered them family too.

“Do you want me to call someone?” JARVIS asks, nearly turning it into an ultimatum. Either Tony is reasonable and does not shoulder this on his own, or JARVIS will snitch to someone to help him.

Under different circumstances, Tony would be glad for his AI’s initiative – well, that is not true. He is never actually happy to let other people in, not even those he trusts. Vulnerability is not something Howard allowed under his roof and old habits die hard.

“How big are my chances of Pepper listening if I send her on vacation?” Tony asks instead of answering JARVIS’ question. It is meant as a distraction for both of them, something to hold onto instead of thinking about his godfather.

“Considering recent events, non-existent,” JARVIS says, voice distinctly chiding. “Do you want me to inform her of your findings?”

It is a giant stroke of luck that Pepper got the USB drive without finding the information herself, without going digging.

“No,” Tony exclaims quickly, all the air in his lungs rushing out with the word. “Just – no.”

He cannot talk to Pepper. She will look at the evidence and believe it, and then she will act. Contrary to him, she does not let emotions keep her from doing what is right. Tony is not ready to act, not ready to face this shame. He also does not want to drag her into this. Obadiah has already proven that he is not above hurting those he is supposed to protect, and Tony cannot risk putting Pepper in danger.

“Keep an eye on her,” Tony orders. “If Obadiah gets in any way close to her or appears suspicious, alert me and make sure she stays safe.”

Safe from his godfather. What has the world come to? Tony is understanding it less than ever before. He always considered few things set in stone, and now even those are crumbling, and he with them.

“All right, sir,” JARVIS replies but sounds like he has more to say.

He does not approve of Tony’s inactiveness, and he is right. Obadiah is a wild card since Tony obviously does not know him at all.

Tony slowly makes his way to his bedroom, too restless to sleep but wanting to withdraw somewhere safe. Leaving the lights off, he sits down on his bed, feeling more alone than he has in a long time.

Obadiah. His godfather. All those memories of laughing together, of sneaking into Howard’s workshop, of leading the company together – all of that was a lie. A lie to enable Obadiah to amass more money for himself, not caring about the bodies he created, the blood he spilled. All of it on Tony’s back, guiding him right where he can do the most damage and therefore the most profit.

Nausea roars in Tony’s stomach. He thinks of Barnes’ missing arm, of dozens of news stories, of the statistics passing his desk every month. That is his doing. Obadiah might distribute the weapons, but Tony makes them. All this death comes from his brain, his hands.

“Sir,” JARVIS speaks up but he sounds like he is very far away. “Your heartbeat is picking up.”

Tony slashes his hand through the air, unable to say anything but needing JARVIS to stop speaking anyway. He does not need help, does not need anyone telling him this is not his fault. It is. It does not matter that he did not pull any trigger himself. He was blind to what was going on. Perhaps he could have seen what was happening if he had not buried himself under work and sex and alcohol. If he had not trusted blindly. He, Tony Stark, who is notorious for trusting no one.

Perhaps Steve was right. Perhaps all of the Avengers were right. He did not keep an eye on his weapons and people got hurt.

In a way, he now relishes the lingering pain in his own body. It anchors him, keeps his thoughts from wandering too much. He is still here. There is no ignoring the fact that he messed up, but he is going to make this right. As much as he is able to, considering all the damage that is already done.

Tony gets out his phone and stares at the dark screen for a long moment. He does not want to talk. At the same time, his throat is constricted with the building pressure of needing to let it all out.

He does not ask JARVIS to dial for him, does not want to admit that his AI is right that Tony should not be alone at the moment. He also does not quite know who he is calling. Scrolling through his contacts, his finger hovers over Steve’s name, too long to be a coincidence.

It is ridiculous. Steve is not going to help. He is not going to make the gaping hole in Tony’s thoughts any better. No matter their truce or that Tony would not even know about Obadiah yet without Steve, they are not friends. They are barely even allies. Talking to Steve will not solve anything. It will only give the throbbing soul bond more validation.

With a contemptuous snort, Tony scrolls up and finds Rhodey’s contact. He is not quite ready to submit himself to his best friend’s worry, but he is drowning in this silence with only his thoughts as company.

The dial tone rings in his ear, a distinct judging quality to it. Glancing at the window, Tony realizes it is dark outside. It must be later than he thought. Still, he keeps the phone up, knowing that Rhodey will always pick up when he is needed, be it in the middle of the night or a firefight. Been there, done that.

When the call finally connects, Tony can barely hold back a relieved sigh. How needy he has become.

“Tony?” Rhodey says, sounding like he has just woken up but is quickly growing alert. Late-night calls usually mean problems.

It pains Tony to hear how much trust resounds in that one word, his name. It feels like Rhodey should be allowed to take a large step back from Tony, considering that he, too, has been in more danger due to Tony’s carelessness.

A thought passes through Tony’s head, stabbing like a knife is attached to it. How easily Rhodey could have been killed by his bombs, his bullets. How easily he could have killed his best friend.

Tony swallows, tries to find his voice. He digs his fingers hard into his arm to ground himself. That does not help until his elbow accidentally pushes against his broken ribs. His mouth opens for a pained gasp but he remains silent, hugs himself.

“You can stop looking into the weapons dealing,” Tony finally manages to say, the words tumbling out slowly.

His eyes are closed as he wishes to be anywhere but here. A week ago, his life has been so uncomplicated, running in the ever-same circles. He hates himself a bit for wishing to go back to that despite needing to take responsibility for the present.

“What?” Rhodey’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts but not entirely. “Have you found out who’s doing this?”

“I mean, we still don’t know who is buying them, so maybe don’t stop looking at all,” Tony argues, almost toneless while Obadiah’s name is like a noose around his neck. “I want to round up every single bullet that got handed out to the wrong people.”

That is important, he realizes, and easier to concentrate on than the mess inside his own company. He will take faceless terrorists every day over the smiling memory of his godfather.

“Tony, what is going on?” Rhodey asks, but Tony barely lets him finish his question.

“That’ll be hard, right?” he counters. “Do you think I could hire a private squad or something if the brass doesn’t want to spare their soldiers for this?”

“Tony,” Rhodey barks, loud enough to snap Tony out of his rambling. “I need you to tell me what is going on.”

A thousand other nonsensical arguments lie on his tongue. How to keep the press quiet. How to not go down with Obadiah, since no one is going to believe that Tony is innocent in this.

Tony cannot avoid the inevitable anymore, though. “Obie ordered the hit on me,” he says. If not for the absolute silence between them, his words might have gone unheard as they are merely a whisper. It feels like any more volume would give it more weight too. “He’s been selling my weapons too. I mean, all the evidence points in his direction, but it can’t be true, right? He’s my godfather. He wouldn’t –”

Before Tony can sink into another litany of denial and random pieces of information, Rhodey cuts him off. “What kind of evidence?” he asks, voice sharp and ready to condemn Obadiah on Tony’s word alone.

Tony thinks of all the data he has secured from Obadiah’s phone and computers, of the communication trails, the shipment plans, the offshore accounts. All the numbers he will never be able to forget.

“The kind that is ironclad,” Tony says, weighed down by the admission. The arm around his chest presses against his ribs again. This time, his breath does not even catch as the pain shoots through him.

“Stane is –” Rhodey pauses, then asks, “Are you sure?”

Tony knows Rhodey does not ask because he does not believe Tony. He asks because he has to be sure before he gives in to the rage boiling in the pit of his stomach, just like Tony might once he has gotten over the personal betrayal. Once he does not feel like his entire being is dissolving anymore.

Taking a deep breath, Tony braces himself for the truth. “I’m sure.”

Not missing a beat, Rhodey declares, “I’m on my way.”

It leaves Tony reeling. He feels like there should be some reluctance, some kind of argument. Rhodey’s loyalty is a precious thing, and a big part of Tony is relieved. At the same time, it should not be this easy. Offering his godfather up as the bad guy should be harder than this. Tony cannot even trust himself, so it feels strange that Rhodey would.

“No. You’re not,” Tony says nonetheless, wondering how he can muster the strength to deny himself his best friend’s company. “I need to deal with this myself.”

That is certainly true, but he does not want to be alone. Does not want to face the coming days. He has to, though. Starks are not prone to sentimentality. Letting his arm drop from around his chest, Tony sits up straighter, stares into the darkness of his bedroom. He might still feel untethered but there are more important things to deal with for now than his personal comfort.

“You’re not going to confront the man who sent a hired gang of killers after you alone,” Rhodey argues but achieves nothing but to harden Tony’s resolve.

“They’re not –” he tries to argue, mostly to keep Rhodey occupied while he pieces himself back together.

“Well, I wouldn’t know because you refuse to tell me anything about them, so I have to assume the worst,” Rhodey cuts him off with all the harshness of someone tired of not being allowed to care for the people they love. He has always had little patience for Tony’s self-destructive tendencies. “But I know Stane, and I know that family obviously doesn’t mean anything to him, so you won’t do this alone.”

The echo of a smile pulls at Tony’s lips as he feels warmth spreading through his chest. Yet, he protests. “I’m not yet doing anything.”

That is the hardest part to admit. With anyone else, Tony would have gleefully let law enforcement storm their home and take them into custody. With Obadiah, he needs to know why first. He needs to know what he has done wrong, and how deep the damage goes. Whether, since this has already been going on when Howard was still alive, his father knew.

Tony has a lot of questions and he does not know how to ask them, nor whether he is ready to hear the answers.

“What does that mean?” Rhodey questions, one wrong word away from yelling.

“You should be glad I’m not rushing into anything here,” Tony argues but does not manage the teasing tone he has been aiming for. Perhaps he should not try to pretend everything is all right. Rhodey would look right through it anyway. “I mean, that’s me being responsible, right?”

The short silence that follows is answer enough to that. “Are you alone?” Rhodey then asks with the kind of impatience that means his fingers itch to pack his things and hijack one of the military jets to come home.

“I’m not,” Tony says and wonders what that has to do with anything. He is not going to fall into a bottle or do something stupid without a chaperone. That is why he is calling. “JARVIS is here and –”

Rhodey clicks his tongue, successfully cutting Tony off. “Let me rephrase that. Is Pepper there?”

“You’re not going to tell her,” Tony says slowly, voice brooking no argument. What is most important now is to keep his friends safe. “I can’t risk Obie finding out that she knows.”

That might not stop Obadiah from hurting her, of course. It is no secret that Pepper is the only reason why Tony has not pushed Stark Industries into ruin twice every week since taking over. If Obadiah really wanted to take Tony out of commission, Pepper is the perfect place to start.

“All right,” Rhodey sighs, not happy with it but conceding Tony’s point for now. Then, though, he adds, “I’m still coming.”

Tony shuts his eyes briefly, swallowing a curse. He still wants to say yes, to have someone watching his back here at home. Deciding to step up and take responsibility also means to go about this strategically. Serving Obadiah all the people he cares about on a silver platter is not that.

“No. I need you to find out where my weapons are. I’ll deal with Obadiah,” Tony argues. Softer, he adds, “I can’t have him become suspicious. If he finds out you’ve been rushing here for the second time in a row, it’s – He can’t find out.”

Tony does not do secrecy well. Since he wants this to be over, he is ready to be sensible.

There is a long silence on the other end while Rhodey comes to his decision. In a way, Tony is glad for his best friend’s reluctance.

“I don’t like this,” Rhodey then says, but it is obvious that he is giving in. Reason over emotions. Who would have thought they would ever get here?

“I know.” Tony forces a smile on his lips, even though it remains unseen. It might just help to build himself up. “I’ll tell you if anything changes.”

Hanging up, Tony lets his hand fall, drained of even his last bit of energy. Rhodey’s worry is appreciated but Tony is far beyond that.

What has been only a rumour before is now a fact. Tony’s weapons are out there. He does have blood on his hands – and no idea how to wash it off. He suspects he cannot. If asked, his friends will surely argue that this was not his fault, but they would be wrong. Accountability – that is what he said on live television just earlier this day. That feels like a lifetime ago.

Lying back on his bed, Tony closes his eyes. He does not think he will be able to sleep, does not want to either. That just means that tomorrow will be here much quicker, and with that Tony has to act. Against his godfather. Against years of blindness and quiet complicity. He just does not know what to do.

 ---

Morning comes too soon. Tony did sleep, although his dreams were plagued by stray bullets and bombs and flowing blood forming a steadily rising headcount. He gets up before the sun and scrubs his skin raw under the shower as if he could wash away who he was and emerge stronger. When he slips into his clothes, he still feels just as frail.

What he needs is a plan. He has evidence and a likely motive. Obadiah’s accomplices should not be hard to find. Then he needs to get together with the military and talk about how to take his weapons out of terrorists’ hands.

In between all these nice, logical steps, however, is the fact that he will have to confront Obadiah. Tony still wants answers but he begins to think that is not as important as to leave the whole matter behind without tainting his memories of family anymore. Every time he thinks he is ready to get to his feet and either call the police or take the elevator down to Obadiah’s office, his body refuses to move, keeping him frozen in place.

He is not ready.

When his phone chimes, Tony flinches. Once he has collected himself, he tries to laugh at himself for that. Nobody is going to jump out of his phone to either murder or judge him. He is perfectly safe up here in his tower’s penthouse. Nobody but Rhodey and Steve knows what he has found out. Most importantly, Obadiah does not know. It is still Tony’s turn to move.

Tony picks up his phone from his nightstand and walks towards the kitchen while he checks it. He has several missed calls from Rhodey and Pepper, and texts asking about his well-being. Pepper inquires about the USB drive, about whether he has found out anything yet. That means Rhodey has not told her, at least. Tony does not think that Obadiah would hurt her. Then again, he did not think Obadiah would sell their weapons on the black market.

The newest text is not from his friends but from Steve. Tony almost turns off his phone without reading it. He can imagine the kind of plans a mob boss with a personal grudge has to offer. Traitor or not, Tony does not want any harm to come to Obadiah. Not like that. Only, he kind of does. Deep down in his gut, Tony realizes he is angry.

You should hire a bodyguard, Steve writes, with all the pretentiousness of someone who does not know how to leave well enough alone.

This has Tony laughing out loud. The sound echoes ugly in the empty room around him, making the hair in Tony’s neck stand up. He turns on the coffee machine while he ponders whether he should reply at all. In the end, he is too glad for the distraction to pass up the opportunity. Steve might continuously butt in where he is not needed but at least there is no need to pretend with him that everything is all right. That Tony is all right.

I hope you’re not planning to offer yourself.

The very thought is ridiculous. The most danger Tony has been in years has been at the Avengers’ hands. He realizes that Steve’s concern about Tony’s safety is probably honest, fuelled by the soul bond or remorse, but that does not mean that Tony would actually trust him with it.

He is surrounded by security anyway. JARVIS, for one, who is usually the only security he needs. Mostly, Tony is his own biggest enemy. Pepper has also increased the guards down in the foyer. They were not even trying for subtlety when they followed Tony to the press conference the day before. The last thing Tony needs is more people looking over his shoulder, judging his every movement.

I would, Steve writes to Tony’s amusement, but your safety is more important than trying to prove a point. I know someone who is very good at his job.

While that is surprisingly considerate, there is still no chance that Tony is going to agree. I don’t need any of your underlings to follow me around.

Putting down his phone, Tony reaches for a mug. He fights the urge to fill himself an entire pot of coffee and drinking straight from it. With how much exhaustion is still pulling him down, he is going to need a lot of caffeine to keep him going.

Steve needs a while to answer. Enough to allow Tony to burn his tongue as he impatiently takes his first sip of coffee. That does not stop him from taking another one right away.

His name is Thor Odinson. Steve seems to attract people with strange names like Bucky and apparently Norse gods fanatics. Run a background check on him. He has never been part of the Avengers. He does not even know about us. I met him in the Army.

Steve seems to think that this is enough to alleviate Tony’s reluctance to get anywhere near the Avengers or their friends. Gripping his mug in one hand, he types with the other. I don’t trust any of your friends. Mob or not.

Tony almost hears Steve sighing. It might be more of a tugging sensation right in his core like the soul bond is reacting to their conversation, but the intention is clear. They are constantly dancing around each other. Glaring at his arm, Tony thinks Fate or whoever has thrown them into this should be glad they are talking to each other at all.

Just look him up.

Feeling his eyebrows rise, Tony is tempted to snap something back, to warn Steve away from giving him orders. That is half of the reason why they are in this mess. Because Steve does not know when to back off, how to let other people make their own decisions.

Instead, Tony takes a deep breath and writes, I won’t need a bodyguard anymore soon anyway.

He does not have the energy to fight on all these fronts at the same time. That is the reason he proposed the truce in the first place.  

How are you dealing with Stane? Steve asks immediately, not just sprinkling salt into Tony’s wound but dumping the whole bag on him.

Since the night before, Tony has not come any closer to having a feasible plan. Steve seems to know that. It is a good thing then, that Tony does not owe him anything, neither answers nor justification.

Locking his phone, Tony puts it face down on his kitchen counter. He leaves it there when he goes back to his workshop. He needs to find out who else has been in on the weapons trading. If anything, that will take his mind off personal things for a while as well as giving him an excuse not to confront his godfather just yet.

[bigskydreaming]

antifamutantdown replied to your post:

Thanks to a friend I got my grubby little hands on...

Kalen… You must review the rest I can’t do this anymore

So far the only other ones I’ve read are X-Men #1 and Marauders #1, and I have very little thoughts on them!

My X-Men #1 thoughts can be summed up as cool space house, Krakoan dish soap is neat idea but also gross, we don’t need to see that, why is Havok there, why is Havok anywhere, die Havok die, yay Gabe! Its so weird that I like megalomaniacal actually canon despot and father killer Gabriel Summers better than Alex but like, in his defense Corsair is a shitty father, the Shi’ar Empire is a shitty empire, and like, spending a decade entombed on an asteroid while Xavier mindwipes everyone into forgetting you ever even existed would make anyone cranky, also like, could be worse, at least he’s not Alex. But also, why is he talking like that, its so weird and unnecessary, and also also, I do need SOME context for why he’s suddenly bbq-ing on the moon with his brothers and dad like he never once flambeed said dad like he’s currently searing those steaks, like....did he just Get Over Everything or did Xavier give him a homicidal-otomy before sticking his consciousness back in a shiny new body? I need answers! 

But also lolol at him trolling Logan, even if it was in that weird ‘yo, Shakespeare’s dead, we don’t have to talk like this anymore’ kinda way. But also, Teen Cable calling Scott Dad and Jean Mom and asking them if he can trade guns with Raza and finally getting a chance to be parented the way Cable’s always deserved IS MY EVERYTHING, WHY AM I SO WEAK, and him and Rachel getting to be actual siblings and them all FINALLY having a chance to be an actual, somewhat normal FAMILY, like, this is the literal first time in any of their histories that they’ve all been together and just...enjoying a meal together, its....ugh. This is the good food. THIS is the food I’ve been waiting for. But now plz hurry up and tell me if they’re all being mind controlled by Evil Chucky, this is highly critical information and I need it and want it, please can I have it.

Meanwhile, my Marauders #1 thoughts can be summed up as:

Kitty being all yo-ho-yo-ho a pirate’s life for me in a sailboat is random as fuck, I don’t care about the story’s explanation, it just is. Also a million snores to the OH NOES, AM I EVEN A MUTANT AT ALL plot that I had hoped died with the Neo and all the other nonsense Claremont plot bunnies that never needed to be brought to fruition. I am TIRED. I do not CARE. Points to Bobby for making the Only Valid Top Joke, nobody needs to make any others ever, but minus those same points for the random switch of the Pyro that is gay and has slept with Bobby and has Sexual Tension with him for the Pyro that was basically just dead for twenty years, juuuuuuust in time for Bobby and the Not Gay Pyro to be teammates in the same book whereas the ‘Bobby just hit that fairly recently and you’d think this merited followup’ Pyro is once more, nowhere to be found. I am SUSPICIOUS.

But also, death times infinity to the equally inexplicable plot point of Why Is Kitty In Charge When Ororo, Whomst Canonically Is Like The Literal Best Leader The X-Men Have Ever Had and Also Has Actual Queen and Goddess On Her Resume....is like....literally standing right there. We get it. Kitty is amazing, she is the most amazingest maybe!mutant who ever did live, even if she’s not even a mutant or whatever. Like, I actually like Kitty, but part of that like is me maintaining that she would be equally Valid as a character even if she’s NOT the Most Important Maybe!Mutant in all the land, even when she is not on land, but is being a pirate on a sailboat. I just do not get this constant obsessive need to push her as the ultimate successor of Xavier’s dream, like, the figurehead of the next generation of X-Men....when the older generations of X-Men ARE STILL RIGHT HERE. 

Its okay to just have her be a super genius spy computer hacker and also canon ninja ghost girl! She doesn’t also have to be Head Honcho In Charge Of All The X-Men Even Though We Refuse To Render a Hard Verdict On Whether Or Not She’s Canonically Old Enough To Drink Yet. We promise to be impressed by her regardless! I am TIRED. I do not CARE. Let Ororo be the leader she’s always been and always should be, instead of just having her stand behind Punky Brewster: The College Years and co-sign her Important Declarations with an “I’m With Her” T-shirt because lol why even give Ororo dialogue if you don’t need to, am I right, X-writers? 

Like....you put Kitty in charge of a lineup that consists of Ororo, Bobby and Bishop, literally ALL of whom are older than her, more powerful than her, have decades more experience than her, AND have experience being team leaders themselves (yes, even BOBBY, albeit his experience wasn’t with an ‘official’ team lineup, but its well established that he was defacto leader of his oddball lineup during the O:ZT era, and he managed to get them all the way to the Final Boss Fight and win the day without a single one of the mutants under his care kicking the bucket in the betwixt time which is like, more than 90% of mutant leaders can say about their team lineups). 

I’M JUST SAYING that like, even if you want Kitty to be team leader because she’s obviously qualified, like I’m not even disputing that, I’m just being like bwuh, why THIS particular team though? Its so random and like, none of these characters need the girl they all used to babysit to hold their hands and tell them where to go next and who to zap with some of the most potent mutant powers in all of mutant-dom, all of which carry a degree of responsibility that she’s never had to struggle with herself and never will because like....she can’t accidentally wipe a city off the map when she sneezes.

LOOK I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR PLOT POINT THAT’S BARELY EVEN A PLOT POINT, I just...I don’t get Ultimate Boss Lady Kitty Pryde. I mean, again, its NOT remotely about whether or not she’s capable of the job, she’s more than qualified and competent out the wazoo, I just don’t get the seeming NEED they have to push her as Big Bad Boss Lady when again...Ororo is STANDING RIGHT THERE. It doesn’t make SENSE. 

Also, the colorist on this issue SUCKETH THE BIG ONES and needs to go back to coloring school until they can learn to shade and color Ororo’s skin tones appropriately. She should not look like she and Kitty go to the same tanning salon and then get called away to save the day before anything close to a tan is even gotten. Like, what in all the fucks in the great kingdom of Here’s A Lotta Fucks, was up with that fucking colorist. Who hurt you? Whomever told them it was okay for Ororo to look like that deserves a swift kick in the Oh No You Don’t’s.

Okay there you go! My review of the other two that I’ve read so far. Last week was pretty shitty for me so I didn’t even try to read Excalibur #1, because all I knew is it had Apocalypse ‘on the team’ and I noped in the other direction whilst saying, Lord, I do not have the patience this week to see what the fuck they come up with to justify Apoca-freaking-lypse just kicking it around the island and then being all yeah sure, let’s totally team up to go have magical shenanigans in Otherworld, like, I’m sure there’s a reason, but I do not have the brain cells to spare right now on the off chance that the reason is so dumb, multiple of my brain cells simply give up and willfully expire on the spot, rather than try and make sense of the idiocy.

Sooooo, I could just not be giving that premise enough credit, or I could be giving it too much. Time will tell. As for the rest, that about wraps up the current state of my thoughts on all things Dawn of X, with my ultimate takeaway being mostly cool stories so far dudes, but also, just FYI, I refuse to let myself get too too invested in any of this yet, on the off chance that Evil Chucky ISN’T riding shotgun in everyone’s brains and occasionally taking the wheel to use them all to make weird ass decisions like life is one giant game of Grand Theft Auto for him. Because if he’s NOT playing Gepetto to their Pinocchios, there are some WEIRD ASS character beats and story choices going down, and I actually Dislike instead of Like, so making a ruling on just how much of this is Evil Chucky vs how much of this is just Shitty Writing is like....pretty fucking key and I would like enough info to render a verdict on that matter, like, post fucking haste, so plz feel free to stand and deliver on that any day now, Marvel.

[theatreworksstkilda]

DRIVE: REBECCA MESTON IN TOP GEAR

Theatre People

K.E. WEBER — MAY 31, 2019

Inspired by true events, playwright Rebecca Meston, has written a tale of loss and heartbreak set to a backdrop of time and space.

Drive is a play that was inspired by former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak, who in 2007 drove from Houston to Orlando to confront her ex-lover’s lover and supposed attempt to kidnap her. Five months before this event she had been up in space on a mission.

Meston was gripped by the crime at the time, but it wasn’t until 10 years later, when she was constantly driving across regional SA that she remembered it like a flash.

“Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” she says. ” Now with a small child in the back of my car, and driving amidst highways and freeways and long stretches of horizon, I was struck by the more thematic elements of the story, like how big the world is, and how incredibly small. How completely capable and driven you can be when the stakes are so high, but you’re also feeling lost, or grief-stricken, or heartbroken.”

“Looking out at the road there was this immediate sense of “I can’t look away now. I can’t get distracted. Or seek to be distracted. Yes there may be a banger of a song on the radio and I’ll go into memory, or fantasy, or a conversation I wish could happen, but ultimately, at the eleventh hour of this drive, I will have to face it. Face myself.'”

While the show is about an astronaut and an otherworldly backdrop, it’s really about loss, heartbreak, the end of a marriage, a long-term relationship. In an epic way. Meston explains that the show charts a 14-hour trip through space and time, in the back seat of our heroine’s car, memory and fantasy come and go like a dark, otherworldly version of Taxicab Confessions.

Meston goes on to say that beyond the location and Americana of it all, is a 14-hour unravelling of a highly capable woman; filled with mess, nuance, and controlled rage. How does this happen? What does a complex unravelling of an inner-life look like? Bringing it back to the here and now, the relevant themes explored include:

How a woman so at the top of her game, with a family and a 19-year marriage, can fall so spectacularly apart?

How we often use this old adage “the truth will set you free”, but what is the actual process of getting free? What do you have to go through first? Is it a dark 14-hour drive of the soul made through the middle of a rainy night?

How close are any of us, at any time, to snapping? To getting into a car and not looking back? Do we in fact all have 10 per cent of Lisa Nowak in us somewhere?

When you put your distractions aside, your double screening, your social media, your Game of Thrones addiction, all the stuff that helps you look away, and properly face yourself, what happens?

The engrossing work took approximately two years of work from initial concept to completed work.  A first stage development, as part of Vitalstatistix’ ‘Incubator’ residency, was done in May, 2017. Meston then worked on it with dramaturg Saffron Benner, as part of ‘A Month in the Country’ at Hothouse, and then, in 2018, it went through an inSPACE development with a packed out showing. Meston and team have now spent four weeks rehearsing and it’s primed and ready.

Meston confesses that one of the challenges of getting Drive to performance stage was in explaining the idea in one or two quick sentences!

“The form of the show – road theatre – and that audiences are basically going on a drive from A to B over 50 minutes – isn’t a style we regularly see on stages,” says Meston. “We have road movies, Thelma and Louise, Death Proof, etc, but what does road theatre look like and feel like? What are its conventions? How do you abstract a car? All brilliant creative challenges.”

Meston acknowledges that the joys, on the other hand, was making this very style of work, and with a story that explores the more complex and nuanced elements of what it feels like to be human. “And working with an extraordinary team of artists who care deeply about making new work, and who are all exceptionally good at bringing new Australian work to life,” she says.

Research was a big part of Meston’s journey with two years devoted to researching the world of astronauts, NASA, space travel and what it takes to get there. In that time,  Metson’s insight into the world and mind of her lead character, Stella, heightened making writing her a little easier.  

“When it came to writing the show, it all just poured out of me,” she says. “Maybe “easier” is the wrong response. It was still really hard too, Stella is a tricky character and not exactly the easiest person to spend time with. “

“She is going through great loss while in a sense coping, or treating her car drive like a mission into space. No it didn’t end well, but she was highly functional. I relate to this, as I’m sure a lot of audiences will. We don’t all fall apart and become immobilised during loss and grief. Some of us do the exact opposite. I felt I knew my material very well, as opposed to her being “easier to write'”.

As a playwright, Meston cares about finding the genre that serves the story. Whether it’s cabaret, stand-up, direct address, a punk rock musical, a five-hour durational public performance. “Growing up, when my mum was angry at me when I’d have a friend over, she’d sometimes whisper in my ear, “When I get you behind closed doors, WOE BETIDE!!” (she’s English)”

It’s precisely this that interests her. The behind-closed-doors of a character. The hard parts of a character. Not the one smiling broadly, and waving goodbye to said friend. The one who closes the door, turns and shows the mess, the anger and all that’s been temporarily flattened out for public display.

“There is a British/Nordic detective series called Marcella with Anna Friel which I found so intriguing in the making of this work,” explains Meston. “The character of Marcella is not immediately likeable, but you are with her, care about her, are on her side, from the beginning because of her richly drawn, nuanced character who is neither maiden, mother or crone. The storytellers I like best include Patricia Cornelius, Kate Mulvany, Bryony Kimmings, Clare Barron, Jeanette Winterson, Barbara Trapdio and my late friend, poet Hima Raza.”

Next on the list for Meston is the making of Hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s – an intimate cabaret with a live choir, which aims to reimagine the mythology of Australian rock music from a female perspective.

Meston explains that it will feature a rambling house party come front bar of an Australian pub, complete with garish, swirly carpet that sticks to your feet and reeks of stale beer and cigarettes.

But for now, Meston’s focus is Drive – a work that aims to be brutal, funny, aware of itself as theatre and profoundly moving.

As the show charts a 14-hour trip through space and time, in the back seat of our heroine’s car, memory and fantasy come and go like a dark, otherworldly version of Taxicab Confessions. Urgent and immediate, Drive tells the stories you will never read about on your Instagram feed, but to which your heart will explosively relate.

June 6 – 15

www.theatreworks.org.au/program/drive/

[pooma-education]

Group discussion

Topic: How to make 💯 attendance of parents to PTA meeting in schools.

Participants: Ms. Leena Rai, Mrs. Buvana, Mrs. Farhana khan, Mr. Ashish Bhatnagar, Mr. Nahid Raza, Mrs. Gena Basti, Mrs. Durga K Nair, Azeez...

• Mrs. Buvana: Keep involving them in school decision making

• Leader. Ms. Leena Rai Kalra UNV: First they need to learn to be responsible towards his or her own child answerable to his or her future.

Every month calling and continuous interaction by the school may bring them to school.

We need to make them realise their duties inspite of the busy schedule.

PTA meetings are an added advantage where they can be encouraged that they too are going to be the next member.

Time to time their involvement in some activities

The interactive session of some parents with a few classes like a doctor parent to be in a school

An electrician parent can come to let the children learn mending of the fuse etc

• Mr. Nahid Raza UNV: We should accept our faults too. It will make us better

Mr. Cosmos: These are some ideas for boosting the numbers at your next meeting.

1. Vary the meeting time

2. Vary the meeting place

3. Encourage Attendance As A Responsibility

4. Make meetings more Fun

5. Give Prizes

6. Make meetings shorter

7. Combine meetings with other School Events

8. Publicize meetings

• Mrs. Gena Basti: I'm in to this field for 26years. None of the year i faced 100% attendance of parent on open meet. We'll make cl without fail after the open meet without fail. They'll come out with smiley face and very cool answer that' we had work at home, we saw the papers already, we had family function, etc., which is very lame and least bothered. If they respect only know their children will respect?.

• Mrs. Durga Nair UNV: We had a PTM once along with Grant Parents day celebration, the parents turned up count was really appreciable

• Mrs. M. Farhana Khan UNV: Make PTA meetings interesting by showing some documentary films or ask parents to come and show their skill if they have any

Mrs. Gena Basti: I use to choose remote areas to work. Can't blame. They do concentrate on their fields. I use to provide mobiles to my staff. Once in 15days they make calls to have good relationship with them . They are very much happy about the communication .

AZEEZ: Importance of PTA meeting in schools

It's a common human quest that not to listen someone is pointing mistakes or errors on their kids or on them. The reason behind is this that Parents are not interested in facing the designer's world of their kids.

The aim of PTA is now a days forgotten by the schools and the parents.

It helps the school to improve its standard and status.

It gives home school communication.

It gives ample opportunities to the children in all the ways-living, security, celebrations....not only for studies.

It develops community relationship with school and it goes beyond the school.

It gives solutions to problems to parents and the child.

It improves a sense of belongingness and participation.

It helps to get immediate support from the parents or society.

It is a bridge between school and society.

Some ways to improve Parents attendance in PTA:

• Stressed parents need a stress-free moments. They wanted to have fun in a safer place.

• Personal contact is what I have found to be the best way to not just improve meeting attendance, but also overall involvement. If you are outgoing and truly interested in other people and their ideas, they will gravitate towards you and school.

• Parents would come to see their kids but only about have the grade would show up in the meeting. Make some changes- offering refreshments, babysitting, personal interaction.....

• We need to make sure that everyone feels that they have a valid voice and opinion when they come to a meeting.

How many of our PTO's were cliques, or were perceived that way at one time or another?

• Honestly speaking, people are busy and families are over-scheduled these days...another meeting is the last thing people want to have to fit into their schedules.

And who can blame them?

• Try to look at things in a positive light...first of all, the more in attendance, you can pretty much guarantee a longer meeting!

• The length of the meetings is what scares people off.

• Try to see it as an assurance that your families trust that what you decide for the organization and the school is okay by them. Some might see it as apathy, but perhaps it's that they know that the group in place to make decisions is capable.

• Want/ Get feedback from parents?

Provide a quarterly (or more often) newsletter to the families, let them know what's going on.

• Survey them, offer a "suggestion box" at school...that way, people can offer ideas on their time, and not yours...

•Above all Respect them. We are source to their children and they are our only source for survival.

Let's leave competition, comments behind, we too human being and let's have free interactions with our surroundings by leaving our teacherhood for a while.

Smile for a while with them. While you smile the children behind them smile at you and start respecting you and listening you. The success stories begin from here when your students start listening to you.

Mr. Ashish Bhatnagar UNV: Well there can be many reasons for parents non-involvement in the PTA meets.

Parents might feel that whatever they discuss in these meets are never implemented. Lot of promises but not fulfilled.

They do not get proper feedback from teachers. A constructive and structured feedback is a must. Then they will always look forward to these PTMs.

Also involve parents in various activities in the school. Have a close bond with the parents. Communication is the key. One key person from school must keep communicating with parents.

In schools you can start up Parent Volunteers group and give them responsibilities to take care of it.

Year end on Annual day function you can award them THE BEST PARENTING AWARD for motivation.

[dpr-lahore-division]

PARLIAMENTARIANS CALL ON CM PUNJAB

With the compliments of, The Directorate General Public Relations,

Government of the Punjab, Lahore Ph 99201390.

No.431/Ehtisham/Umer

HANDOUT (A)

LAHORE, March 20:

Provincial Ministers and MPAs from different districts called on Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar at CM office and discussed apprised him about the problems of their respective constituencies as well as the progress on different ongoing development schemes. The Chief Minister said that a separate development package forever district is being prepared. Development work in the constituencies of elected representatives will be completed on a priority basis. The government will start development projects in their constituencies keeping in view the public needs and priorities. Utilizing all resources in specific cities cannot be called development but usurping the rights of backward areas. He said that the PTI government has taken the remote areas into the mainstream. The former rulers started self-exhibitory projects by ignoring the priorities of the people. The pomp and show projects became a "white elephant" and a burden on the national exchequer. The people’s hard-earned money was wasted on personal likes and dislikes. Former rulers did not pay any attention to provide basic amenities to the people while the PTI government is implementing the agenda of composite development. Development work is taking being carried out in neglected areas with the consultation of MPAs. I do not believe in the One Man Show but in teamwork, said Usman Buzdar. Serving people is real politics. I am visiting every area to resolve peoples’ problems.

Those who met the Chief Minister include Provincial Ministers Jahanzaib Khan Khachi, Shaukat Lalika, MPAs Ali Raza Khan Khakwani, Ghazin Abbasi, Umm Al-Banin, Wasiq Qayyum Abbasi and Mamoon Tarar. Chief Whip Punjab Assembly MPA Syed Abbas Ali Shah and Secretary Good Governance Committee Ijaz Hussain Minhas were also present on the occasion.

*****

No.432/Ehtisham/Umer

HANDOUT (A)

LAHORE, March 20:

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar in his message on the World Down Syndrome Awareness Day has said that children suffering from Down Syndrome deserve special attention from society. There is a dire need to run an awareness campaign about this syndrome. In order to make the children, who are suffering from Down Syndrome, a useful member of society consistent efforts are required. He said that they are our children and it is our joint responsibility to secure the future of these children. It is very important to have an integrated system of their look after and effective treatment. They can be made useful citizens of society by providing them with proper education and training. The purpose to celebrate this day is to create awareness among the people about the economic and social rights of such children.

*****

No.433/Ehtisham/Umer

HANDOUT (A)

LAHORE, March 20:

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has said that the pandemic of coronavirus is getting worse day by day. Citizens will have to show seriousness and everyone will have to perform responsibly. Make masks an essential part of your life and use it to protect yourself from corona when you are going out. Avoid visiting markets and bazaars unnecessarily. He said that following SOPs is in the best interest of citizens. There is dire need to take extra preventive measures keeping in view the recent wave of Covid-19. He said that the death toll is also increasing. all necessary steps will be taken to protect the lives of the people, he asserted.

*****

No.434/Ehtisham/Umer

HANDOUT (A)

LAHORE, March 20:

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has expressed a deep sense of sorrow and grief over the sad demise of sister of provincial minister Ajmal Cheema. Usman Buzdar telephoned him and extended heartfelt sympathies and condolence. He prayed that may Allah Almighty rest the departed soul in eternal peace and grant courage and strength to the bereaved family to bear this irreparable loss with fortitude.

*****

No.435/Ehtisham/Umer

HANDOUT (A)

LAHORE, March 20:

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has said that his happiness is linked with the happiness of the people of the province. In his message on "World Happiness Day", the Chief Minister said that he wants to see Punjab especially Pakistan at the top of the list of happy countries. Real happiness lies in serving others and he found himself happier whenever he got the chance to serve the people. Seeing people smiling and happy is a real joy. Usman Buzdar said that the world is passing through the disaster of Corona, but we are optimistic. He said that smiling in difficult times is bravery. He said that happiness should not be restrained to a single day, every moment should be full of joy. One can find real happiness in the inner self. The secret of happiness lies in serving others selflessly, he concluded.

*****

No.436/Ehtisham/Umer

HANDOUT (A)

LAHORE, March 20:

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Bzdar has prayed for the speedy recovery of Prime Minister Imran Khan and expressed well wishes for him. The chief minister said that we are hopeful for the early recovery of Prime Minister Imran Khan from Corona. He said that the people of Pakistan also praying for Imran Khan. War against Corona will continue under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, he vowed.

*****

[isobel-thorm]

3, 7, 9, 18, 23, and 29 for Raza/Cobb?

3. Who is the most romantic?  Answered here

7.  What do they get up to on a night out?  They don’t get many of those considering they’re both arguably town leadership, so its mostly working nights out. If he’s free, he’ll head to the bar and keep her company when she’s bartending. If he has to do a run for security/check in on a family, she’ll come with him. If anything they treasure their nights in where they can just lock everybody out and laze around. 

9. What is the most embarrassing thing they have done in front of each other? After buying the armor and heading home after the attack, Cobb found Raz’s mothers house and Raz was there, so he got a little more hands-on recovery because her mother (my OC whose name escapes me) is absolutely charmed by the guy so she just talks A LOT and brings up all of Raz’s embarrassing childhood stories and he’s delighted.  As far as Cobb, during a raider attack he got caught in a crossfire and was very nearly impaled by a third attacker, so Raz, realizing if she didn’t Do Something he was going to die, decided ‘hes been trustworthy so far, he’s your best friend, if I don’t do this he’ll DIE’ so she force-pulled him out of danger. Cobb, who just assumed the whole “they’re jedis” thing was a dumb rumor and had no idea why he was just launched through the air by nothing, let out a Very Manly, Not At All High Pitched Scream. Raz doesn’t think it was that embarrassing in context, but he does. 

18.  When they fight, how do they make up? Staring each other down with angry expressions until one of them breaks and comes in for small talk or a hug.

  23. Where is their favourite place to be together? Same place as Raz’s part of #9. Its secluded enough that when... Mama OC isn’t there they can genuinely feel alone and no one will come by to bother them, but its set up on a hill that has a gorgeous view, so it’s all relaxing and romantical uwu

29. Why do they fall a little bit more in love? Every day is another adventure so they usually find something small and different about each other. Nothing too too special on that front as a whole. 

[babyaida]

12th of March

I’ve been thinking about my future lately and how I want things to turn out and what I actually want to do. I’m having a positive meltdown though, what an oxymoron, sort of.

Obviously I want to move out of my mom’s house and live on my own, in my own place and do my own things. I want to move preferably in between my job and school, so maybe downtown or the outskirts of downtown.

But I also want to move to San Diego, but the universe really wants me to stay in LA because I found an internship related to one of my majors and USC offers a program where I could get my Master’s and PhD all in three years also for one of my majors. I also want to travel to Japan and have the best time of my life because all young people want to do that.

But I really want to have a baby (despite what happened) in my mid-twenties because I won’t be too young nor too old to take care of my child. (And no this isn’t because Kylie Jenner just had her baby, i swear it isn’t). That being said I would have to give up the traveling ideas. I really started thinking about starting my family. I don’t care if I go through the artificial insemination path, adopt a child, or get pregnant through a significant other but I really want to start my family. I want a child to nurture and teach and grow with. I was always told I have this natural mother-side and I would be great with children. Maybe it’s just baby fever and it’ll die in a couple of days, weeks or months, but since a young age my idea/plan was to have children at 25, or at least trying to have a child. I’m 19, going on to 20, which leaves me 5 years to actually make it happen, if this “phase” doesn’t die down.

With that being said I also want to be a stay-at-home mom. I have thought this through and it’s not because I want to quit school and do nothing, but because I really want to be there not only for my partner, but for my children. I know how it feels like to have both my parents absent growing up because of various reasons and I certainty do not want that for my children, at all. I am still continuing my education because of the same reasons, such as working from home, and others but then I think to myself, past women fought to be able to get an education and a place in the workforce, especially my raza and for me to choose the stay-at-home mom path would be disrespectful to them and their sacrifices. But me having my degree would be the back-up plan if say I were to separate (and i say this loosely because i do want to be married after all but maybe i won’t be married when i have children) from my partner then I have something to support myself with or things of that nature.

So as of right now I sort of have a plan for my life but I don’t know what could happen. Honestly anything could happen and that’s what’s fucking terrifying about life. Which is why I hate the question “Where do you see yourself in ____ years” because it’s a hypothetical question. My answer is always “Hopefully alive” because shit happens and not because I’m being cynical or I’m joking around but because truly I hope I am still alive in xx years.

Personal thoughts/diary on tumblr

[bluebettiesboutique]

Found a newspaper clip from La Raza Chicago, IL del 19al 25 de Enero de 2014 I miss my shop , I miss my friends and family. Especially all the amazing artists that helped Blue Betties Boutique throw the best art events! Thank you to everyone who believed in me and took a chance! I'll be forever grateful! #bluebetties #chicagoraised #chicagoartists #localartists #smallbusinessowner #entrepreneurs #missyou #grateful #openwestand #goodfriends #feelingnostalgic https://www.instagram.com/p/CC2TS_onYS3/?igshid=nt3gxw7fow5l