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sluttbuttsstuff · 3 years

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LA SQUADRA BACKSTORY HEADCANONS PART 2

Here’s everyone else’s backstory, part one with Melone and Ghiacchio is here

https://sluttbuttsstuff.tumblr.com/post/652486890343268352/la-squadra-backstory-headcanons-part-1-ghiacchio

WARNINGS: dark themes, SFW

None of this is Canon of course, just speculation

PROSCUITTO AND PESCI:

I’m combining theirs because they’re so intertwined.

Prosciutto is a few years older than pesci, and they grew up in the same neighborhood.

By the time Prosciutto was in high school, Pesci was in 2-3rd grade, basically

Prosciutto was the younger of two children from an old school mafia family.

Pesci was the only child of a teen mom, and mostly raised by his grandmother.

To be honest, Prosciutto was kind of annoyed by Pesci when he first met him. He was a weird looking kid who was annoyingly clingy and kind of a crybaby

Pesci wasn't well liked by the other kids his age, and when they did hang or they usually either teased to poor kid or used him

Prosciutto was liked well enough by his peers, but he spent most of his time with people older than him- his father’s “associates” and new mafioso initiates.

There was one that Prosciutto became particularly close to- his uncle.

He was younger than most of the other mafiosos, and a lot less uptight than Prosciutto’s father.

He made Prosciutto feel like he was already apart of the gang, trusting him with family secrets, teaching him how to shoot and care for a gun, even bought Prosciutto his first pack of cigarettes

Prosciutto’s uncle made him feel like he was the capable adult and badass gangster he so desperately wanted to be.

Prosciutto’s father, of course, loved his Brother and wanted him to have a good relationship with Prosciutto, but he didn’t approve of his son’s involvement in the family business, at least not so young.

In truth, turns out Prosciutto’s uncle was a scumbag with a lot of gambling debts, and ended up getting himself into a lot of trouble

He was always bad at money, and thought he could get some from his brother, but he refused

Angry, Prosciutto’s uncle killed his brother, Prosciutto’s father, hoping to get some inheritance or at least steal some off of him

Prosciutto happened to hear and see everything, and in a rage, killed his uncle and mentor

Angry and betrayed, Prosciutto decided not to join his family’s gang, but to make a name and life for himself, and ended up settling with passione.

He had a difficult time, struggling to survive and make a name for himself, especially when he first got his stand.

Initially, he thought it was a useless stand; he didn’t see any potential in a stand that just makes someone get older

But then he realized he could disguise himself, age others into dust, and was promoted to hitman

Prosciutto learned a lot from his experience, and realized something very important

He and Pesci, the small boy who lived in his neighborhood, were one and the same

Used by their peers, potential ignored, betrayed by their family- the next time he saw Pesci playing by himself on the street Prosciutto treated him VERY differently

Pesci was surprised but nonetheless happy; his grandmother was nice to him, and his mother worked hard to support him, but he didn’t really have anyone to teach him how to be a man.

Prosciutto didn’t encourage Pesci to become a mafioso, but he never discouraged him either. He let Pesci decide for himself

Prosciutto tried to be a mentor that was the perfect mix of his father and uncle-strict with high expectations, but also caring and gentle when necessary

Pesci was able to stand up to his bullies thanks to Prosciutto, and Pesci idolized him for helping him so much

So naturally he wanted to be just like his mentor Prosciutto, hence joining Passione

In truth, Pesci is naturally gentle and kind, but at the same time, he knows there are lots of people being bullied and hurt like he was as a child

Its Pesci’s dream to not only live up to Prosciutto’s expectations, but to make sure he’s never weak and taken advantage of again like he was as a child

And also? He's never told anyone, but he secretly dreams of being able to protect and mentor others like Prosciutto did for him

It’s true that he can be cowardly and has issues with self-esteem, but he wants to make prosciutto proud, and I think he could have become a very capable, firm but fair mafioso like he wanted to

ILLUSIO:

Illusio is the oldest of two children from an average middle class Italian family.

From a young age, Illusio was very aware that both of his parents preferred his younger brother.

He was smarter, prettier, stronger, more charming etc and His parents didn’t bother hiding their preference

Illusio would work hard to earn their approval, helping around the house with chores and trying his best to do things that would make them happy, but his brother did it better

It aggravated Illusio to no end

To make things worse, his brother noticed the preference as well, and instead of sympathizing with illusio, or even just ignoring his effect, he was very cruel to Illusio

He would complain to his parents that Illusio’s room was bigger, and he would get illusio’s old room.

Illusio had a girlfriend? His brother would steal her away, just to spite Illusio.

Obviously, this gave Illusio a GIANT inferiority complex, and he grew to hate his brother more and more everyday

Finally, one day Illusio snapped, it was something insignificant, to this day Illusio can’t remember what it was that set him off

But he ended up strangling his brother to death.

It wasn’t planned, but he didn’t regret it. He quickly packed up what few things he had and ran away from home

Illusio hasn’t made any contact with his family, and they haven’t made any with him to this day. It’s probably better this way

He joined Passione soon after for protection against the law, and manifested Man in the Mirror

Man in the Mirror was obviously influenced with his fears of inadequacy, as well as manifesting a safe space from him from others

He would isolate himself when he was having issues with his family as a child, and that manifested into the mirror world when he received his stand

He’s become obsessed with himself and his self-appearance to overcompensate for his lack of support and care as a child, which is why it’s mirrors

Because he was so often gaslit as a child, he is able to physically control who comes or goes into his “World” as a means of protection and self preservation

FORMAGGIO:

Formaggio’s mom was a single parent, trying her best to raise him

She kept trying to find a husband, but she had a bad habit of picking awful dudes

Best case, Formaggio got ignored, worst case, he got hit a few times by his mom’s partner

Eventually, Formaggio’s mom landed a man who was willing to marry her and adopt Formaggio

He was nice enough to his mother, but he really wasn't interested in raising Formaggio at all

It didn’t help Formaggio was a hyperactive annoying child- he couldn’t help it, he was left to raise himself

Formaggio’s stepfather was fairly wealthy, and did regularly spoil him and his mom with presents and money

But he still mistreated Formaggio- purposefully ignoring him, beating him if he acted up

He and Formaggio fought a lot, and unfortunately Fomaggio’s mom sided with her new husband

She still worked most of the day, and had lost several boyfriends due to Formaggio’s behavior, so she thought that was the case here

Even if she wanted to, she literally couldn’t afford divorce- she needed his money

So Formaggio’s relationship with his stepfather got worse and worse

It wasn’t until Formaggio was a teenager, however, that Formaggio found a solution

He hung around a lot of bad kids,and got involved with Passione.

He found out that his stepfather had pissed off some higher ups in Passione

He ended up killing his stepfather to gain the favor of the gang, and that was how he got into la squadra

Also, He ended up leaving home, and never actually finished high school

Little Feet is a way for Formaggio to feel the control that he never had as a child, and to put his enemies into the same position he was in for years with his mother and stepfather

Like his mother and father, he still has to deal with monetary issues- he has problems saving money and wants to live it up while he has it.

Just another reason he was so eager to kill the boss and take over Passione

RISOTTO:

Risotto was the only child of his two parents, who died tragically in a car crash. Despite just being a baby, he was able to survive with minor injury, but his stand was awakened as a result

He was adopted by His Mother’s sister, and lived with his Aunt uncle and their own child.

Their family was HEAVILY religious, Roman Catholic of course, and very strict with Risotto and his cousin

His cousin, a few years older than Risotto, was the only one openly warm with him

His Aunt and Uncle were cold and distant, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that Risotto seemed to be “Cursed”

Accidents, though relatively small, followed Risotto like the plague

Kids who teased Risotto’s bizarre eyes would end up stepping on a nail at the playground

People who yelled at Risotto and his cousin on the street would get unexplained nosebleeds

Risotto’s aunt was starting to believe he was possessed by a demon, or being punished for some unknown sin

They started disciplining him whenever anything bizarre happened, and taking him to church

They even tried having an exorcist perform on him, but it continued

Risotto’s cousin didn’t believe it though, he knew Risotto wasn’t evil and wouldn’t hurt anyone

Without him, Risotto didn’t have a friend in the world

His eyes were odd, he prematurely greyed, and he grew very tall and large from a young age.

So he got a lot of weird looks, followed by random accidents and bloody injuries which got worse and worse

It started to become too much for Risotto, and his cousin realized this

He knew he and Risotto had to get away from his parents, so he got a driver’s license, saved up money, and made a plan with Risotto to escape

On the day they planned to leave, their Parents caught them, and got into a big fight

There was lots of yelling, even some violence, but Risotto and his cousin managed to escape

As they were leaving, Risotto’s aunt called out that they were disowned, and that Risotto was an evil monster

In the car, Risotto’s cousin tried to comfort him, who was visibly upset, but he just couldn’t stay calm.

As if possessed, His cousins arms moved the steering wheel, screaming in pain

Nails and Razor blades were poking out of his skin, and he lost control of the car

They ended up crashing the car, and Risotto’s cousin was dying

Risotto’s cousin looked at Risotto like he never had before: Afraid.

He called him a monster, that he must have really hurt all those other people, and now he had killed him

His cousin died in Risotto’s arms, and Risotto lost everything

He destroyed the car he and his cousin had been in, and everyone assumed he had died in the wreckage

Eventually, his talents were noticed by Passione, and he worked his way up to head Capo of La Squadra Execuzione

Risotto never fully recovered from losing his cousin, and became obsessed with controlling his powers and emotions

As a result, he became a cold and ruthless leader his men respected

However, he can’t help caring for his squad, they’re all he has left at this point

His job, his teammates, they’re all his life consists of at this point.

Why is his stand like that? Who knows, he was just a child when he manifested it

It wasn’t his choice to have this power, but he’ll make the best of it, for his team’s sake

SORBET AND GELATO:

Sorbet grew up in a poor family, and spent most of his time on the streets trying to earn a living. He dropped out of school early to join the workforce as soon as possible, and joined the military to leave his family.

He doesn’t hate his family or anything, they tried their best, but there’s just too many painful memories of starving and helplessness.

He met Gelato in the Military, he came from a long family line of soldiers

Gelato learned from an early age how to fight and defend himself, and had to deal with a lot of toxic masculinity and violent older siblings

Sorbet and Gelato ended up bonding, just friends at first but after a time they figured out their feelings

Tired of Military BS, they decided to desert, and ended up joining Passione

They don’t do a job without the other, and either share a room or their own apartment

They’ve dealt with a lot of discrimination because of their sexuality, but Passione doesn’t judge them for it, even if they don’t pay as much as they should

Besides, killing is their specialty, what else would they do?

#sluttbuttsstuff #headcanons #fic #imagines #la squadra #vento aureo #jjba #no shipping #risotto #pesci #prosciutto #formaggio #illusio #sorbet and gelato

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deniigi · 3 years

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Jack and the other folks at the gym; how they met, what their relationships are like, how they are with Matt etc.

For you, anon. I have an old fic that answers all of these questions.

It’s written from the perspective of Jack’s best friend and sparring partner Rudy DeLuca.

Title: Tape

Summary: There were two generations of devils at Fogwell’s Gym

Warnings: child abuse, physical abuse, references to drug use and suicide/suicide attempts, and foster care

-------------

There was a famed baby at the gym at the moment and Rudy was scheming how to get it into his arms when the old man caught him leaning on the front desk and told him that he had two whole grandbabies waitin’ for him at home.

Matty took that moment to fly in from the back room where he’d been harrassing the shit out of the new ‘clerk’ (as Fogwell called him) to ask if Tina had finally popped.

Rudy was caught off guard by the image of Tina beating the shit out of Matt for that and then by the wave of nostalgia that the kid’s sudden enthusiasm bought.

“Well, look who’s here?” he drawled instead, slowly turning around towards the beast. “Where you been, neighbor?”

Matt beamed at him.

He looked good.

Happy.

Far, far too happy.

Rudy squinted.

Matt waited a beat, then scrambled back into staff entrance and knocked shit over on the desk back there in his haste to go hide behind Fogwell.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

That’s right, troublemaker, go hide behind Grandpa. He’ll protect you, you little shit.

The new gym baby was a full two months old. He was fat and grumpy and his papa’s pride and joy already. Rudy managed to snag an opportunity to get the thing into his arms when Bert and Kenny came in, signaling for the youths that the senior citizen shift had begun.

Fogwell was the most distinguished of the senior citizens, but, of course, he would wait his turn until the rest of them had finished lavishing attention upon his fiftieth great-grandbaby.

Baby’s papa was proud as a peacock.

“His name’s Henry,” he told Rudy, while Henry wrinkled his nose and eyes up at him.

Henry.

Ehn.

Terrible name.

“He looks like a John,” Rudy said.

Papa, who Rudy had forgotten the name of at least six times since he’d joined the gym, laughed.

“I thought about callin’ him Jack,” he said. “But my girl drew the line there.”

Ah.

Right.

This was that kid.

Kenny had gathered everyone into a group huddle in the changing room the other week to explain seriously how they all needed to avoid the fuck out of this guy. He’d said in a whisper that the guy was one of them people into vintage shit.

A hipster, he meant.

A fuckin’ hipster in their midst.

God, there were more and more of them in the gym every day.

Rudy lifted an eyebrow at baby Henry.

He didn’t deserve to be called Henry. He really did look more like a John. But, for the sake of the dead, Rudy decided that he’d squint for as hard and long as it took for him to become a Henry.

---

Fogwell’s had been legendary back in the day for producing pro boxers out of good-for-nothin’, trouble-makin’ guys with no other prospects.

Fogwell was that general from Mulan who made men out of boys (and the occasional girl. And the most recent kid who said that they weren’t a guy or a gal and if anyone wanted to throw down about it, they were posting their number on the cork board by the front desk).

Back in Rudy’s youth, that had been appealing as hell. And so he’d had a swagger on into the place, thinking that maybe he would pop his guns a bit in Fogwell’s direction and get the polishing he needed to make enough money to buy his girl a ring.

On the upside, Fogwell had, in fact, noticed him. But the downside was that Rudy had had no fucking clue what that actually meant, and so three years later, he’d found himself smoking only twice a week instead of every day, drinking goddamn protein shakes, and doing a daily fuckin’ jog like a military brat.

Fogwell had no time for dumb shit. He didn’t care if you wanted to kill yourself slowly with whatever vice you picked from the basket, but if you walked into the ring with his name on your back, then you would disgrace that name on pain of divine retribution.

It was way easier just to get one step ahead of the guy’s nit-picking than to suffer his judgemental silence.

That had been Fogwell back in the day, and that was still Fogwell in the now.

But as with any force of nature, even if the old man had planted his feet and announced his intention to rest there in that place for the next two millenia, the world around him still carried on spinning around.

Fogwell’s wasn’t just a facility for churning out pros these days. It wasn’t just legendary, now.

It was a fuckin’ institution.

God help them.

They were a tourist destination. Ghost hunters, folks on buses, sports fans, teen girls with a mighty need for a vintage-lookin’ selfie. You name it. They pressed their noses up against the yellowed glass to watch the people inside break their bodies down to build them up into something money-making.

It wasn’t an unwarranted curiosity, to be fair.

Fogwell had produced twenty pro boxers in the last several decades who’d really made it. Like, really, really made it.

Bert was one of them—to literally every one of the senior citizens’ surprise.

Bert had been a empty-headed wise-guy with a porn-stache at best way back when. And like, don’t get Rudy wrong, he was still an empty-headed wise-guy. He was just an empty-headed wise guy with a head like a helmet and a whole lot of money now.

Not that you’d have known it from lookin’ at him.

Bless him.

He was paying college tuition for all his kids and he was helping the older ones vet kindergartens with tuition or what the fuck ever, doing all that he could so that those babies didn’t have to live life out of Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese boxes like him.

Bert had made it. That was the dream.

The dream was just that, though. A shot in the dark. A drop in a bucket. Kenny had done alright, just like Rudy had done alright. They’d had their ten minutes of time in the spotlight. Had made enough to get by. Had made enough to be comfortable in Hell’s Kitchen. To retire and become personal trainers or sports commentators or whatever the fuck opportunity jumped up in their faces.

A lot of fellas hadn’t made it, though. And then there were the Almosts.

Jackie had been an Almost, god rest his soul.

This new hipster kid at the gym with his baby had latched onto Jack’s image, found in old magazines and grainy footage, and had decided that that whole vibe fit the image that he wanted to live in.

It made Rudy sick. It made Kenny angry—hence the group huddle.

There were about seven of them left who’d both known Jackie and who still used the gym on the regular. Eight if you included Fogwell.

Nine if you included Matty.

Jesus fuckin’ help them.

This dumbass hipster kid didn’t even know who Matty was. Most of the newcomers didn’t. He was just some bright, perky blind guy to them. He was Center-Left-Second-Back bag. That was his bag.

And he was good.

He was a curiosity to the newcomers and the people pressed against glass—one of a handful of middle-weights in a sea of heavyweights. He didn’t look like everyone else. He wasn’t packing muscle like everyone else. He was lithe and coiled and looked, honestly, a little out of place to folks who didn’t know the gym as Home #2.

He was interesting to the newcomers mostly because he was 100% Fogwell’s favorite. Fogwell doted on him by ribbing him and bullying him viciously, by bumping into him and throwing him off mark left and right, and all the while, Matty just beamed.

The newbies thought he got preferential treatment because he was blind. But that wasn’t it. Matty got treated that way because that was how his grandpa told him he loved him.

---

Before Jake and Carlos and Omar and Matty, Jack had been Fogwell’s favorite up-and-coming rookie.

It had been no secret. Well. To most people.

Jack had been horrified when he’d found out.

No one wanted to be Fogwell’s favorite. That’s how you went pro whether you liked it or fucking not.

Jack had pleaded with Kenny for hours to take his place, but there was nothing that could be done. Jackie was the youngest and Jackie had come from a shit home life and Jackie would do anything and everything Fogwell told him to do because he was just that kind of sweet and respectful.

Fogwell could smell Jack’s lack of a father-figure on him like Chanelle No. 5.

He could smell it miles away.

Jack had actually been at the gym before Rudy had joined up. He’d been around since he was about seventeen. He’d come in on the heels of his big brother who wanted to go pro.

It quickly became apparent to Fogwell that Tom Murdock didn’t have what it took to be a boxer. He was just a bully. But that little brother of his, Tom’s punching bag, now he had some talent. He had the diligence and respect that the game, in Fogwell’s opinion, was severely lacking.

So Fogwell did what he did best and drove a wedge slowly between Tom and baby Jackie, separating the two of them so that he could get his mitts on Jackie and do something with him before Tom and his junkie sister took Jackie down with them.

Rudy had met Jack soon after Jack’s eldest brother had been arrested for murdering his wife and stepdaughter.

The kid was a wreck. He’d just turned 18.

He didn’t talk. He just fought and fought and fought until he cried and cried and cried. All on his own, from 5pm to 1am, at Center-Left-Second-Back.

Fogwell let him.

Fogwell came over to put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed when he finally dropped from exhaustion.

It was hard to watch.

The older guard at the time had bared their teeth and clenched their jaws as Jackie had pummeled his heart out against that bag.

No one could help him.

Everyone but Rudy, at that time, had seen the man he’d walked into the gym with. They’d seen this coming a mile away. And over a few days of that, it become clear to Rudy that Jack didn’t have a home to go back to that didn’t scream at him from morning until night. At that time, the gym for him was Home #1.

---

It took about a year, but Rudy eventually got to know this weeping, heartbroken boy from the worst side of the Kitchen.

Rudy learned from the others about the Murdocks.

They were sinners and drunkards and addicts, word had it. The police were always in and out of their rooms, taking one of the five kids or one of the parents to jail for some damn reason or another. Neighbors wasted their hard-earned money on phone calls to the police for domestic disputes and violence and so on and so on. Everyone on the streets said to be careful of the Murdocks, especially them boys.

They got the devil in ‘em.

But not Jackie, Rudy learned.

He was shy, bless him. He wasn’t suited to those others’ kind of life.

Rudy actually had felt, for the second time in his life, strong brotherly feelings around this kid. He and his own sister didn’t get on until someone threatened the other. Then it was no-holds-barred, bear-like feelings. Just them against the world.

But Jack was different. He had puppy eyes with a constant black one and perpetually chapped lips. It had never occurred to him that he could spend a buck buying chapstick. It had never occurred to him that he could have friends that he didn’t have to smile at until his face hurt.

He didn’t really get what it meant to have relationships with other people and for the first six months of their acquaintance, Jack refused to meet Rudy’s eye, much less say more than five words to him.

He was more than respectful.

He was skittish.

The other guys, who were happy to haze Rudy, warned him that he if so much as looked at that kid, Fogwell would break his bones and his career would be over before it even started.

It had definitely turned into a kind of spite thing.

Rudy had absolutely been that kind of shithead back then.

He’d started by offering to hold Jack’s bag while he worked out his aggression. That had been a mistake.

He’d caught Fogwell snickering at him about ten minutes into it, after trying and failing that whole time to find a way to plant his feet that would let him actually hold onto the bag.

Jack had noticed.

Jack had gotten flustered and freaked out bad enough that Rudy had been forced to leave him be or else he’d hyperventilate or go hide in the backroom in a cupboard or something in self-flagellation.

It took some practice and some muscle, but they got there in the end.

Jack was a great sparring partner because he did not fucking go down. It was like trying to fight a pine tree sometimes. He would, could, and did take hit after hit without batting an eye.

And when it was his turn for offense?

Rudy was well aware that he’d signed up to be a human punching bag, but this? This was a lot.

Fogwell critiqued the fuck out of Jack’s everything.

His form.

His posture.

His aim.

His drive.

His commitment.

His tape.

His fucking hair.

Jack thought he was like that with everyone.

Rudy loved that kid like a brother, but he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. Not by far.

That had become more clear when Kenny joined their mottley crew and, aggravatingly sharp, had taken to teasing Jack. That was more frustrating for Kenny than anyone else because Jackie didn’t get a single joke or jibe.

No, Jack didn’t know Seinfield. Or Friends. Or Charlie’s Angels. No, he didn’t know anything about cars. No, he didn’t know about physics or chemistry or math. What the fuck was English lit? Wait, what’s the difference between books and literature?

God.

Bless.

That.

Kid.

He wasn’t unintelligent, he just wasn’t academic.

He was sweet about it, though. The youngest of five, he had no choice but to be sweet because all his siblings called him hopeless and useless and stupid, so he had to be something and so pretty it was.

Rudy had never met someone who performed so well under pressure and around two years into their friendship and, suddenly privy to the full extent of Jack’s honestly horrific, borderline surreal upbringing, he finally got it.

But then along came Grace.

The Lord’s agent herself.

Jack was a good Catholic boy who saw a nun and dropped his eyes, but for some reason, this novice caught his gaze and he was gone.

He got dopey and dreamy the night after she and some friends had snuck out in their novice habits to see a load of guys in desperate need of the Lord hitting on each other.

It was tooth-decaying the way Jack swooned for that girl.

Her name was Margaret, she told him saucily at the church one street over from the one he’d grown up attending, but he could call her ‘Grace.’

Jack banged his melon on a locker a week later at the gym and the jolt make him realize that he was in love with her.

He cracked his head a second time with everyone watching him in a mix of pity, exhaustion, and indulgence and then scurried off to the bathroom to hyperventilate over a urinal.

“Someone go keep Baby M from drowning in a sink,” Horace Whalin, a professional beast at the start of his career, had sighed.

Everyone had looked right at Rudy.

---

Grace was the worst thing that could ever have happened to Jack.

Everyone at the gym knew it. Fogwell hated that girl with a cold passion.

She made Jack stupider than usual. Bolder than ever.

She made him think and made him question things and like, that was probably a good thing in terms of Jack’s life experience and mental health, but in terms of boxing?

Not good.

Fogwell was openly dreaming up schemes to break them up the day Jack came tearing into the gym and announced that he was getting married.

It took everything in Rudy not to start cackling right then and there. The entire gym’s necklines bulged with the effort not to fucking laugh. Fogwell went silent and blank.

He’d waved Jack in close and and when he came—because he would always come to Fogwell, no matter what—the old man set a hand on Jack’s shoulder and told him that if he brought that woman into the gym he’d kill him.

Jack stared up at him and said that they were getting married in a church, Coach. Why would he bring her to the gym?

At that point, it would have taken a saint not to laugh and the gym was full of only sinners.

---

Grace was the worst thing that had ever happened to Jack, but Matty was by far, the best thing.

Fogwell, after being vindicated upon Jack and Grace’s abrupt and tragic separation, found that Matt could be used as a motivator for his up-and-comer.

Matty, of course, played the part beautifully.

He was unfairly cute with those delicate, whispy red locks and them big hazel eyes. He was bubbly and chatty. An unrelenting troublemaker. Just a barrel of laughs.

Fogwell took to letting Jack put Matty’s carrier on a bench next to the ring or on one of the metal bleachers around the mats in the weights and sparring room. He found that if Matty started whining or crying, that Jack got twice as motivated to finish whatever task was at hand with maximum efficiency.

Matt was the best thing to ever happen to Jack’s boxing career, truly.

He also immediately became the gym’s darling because all the veterans there at that point were dads. Rudy himself had had his first girl Tina the year before, but unlike Jack, the rest of them had childcare arrangements and the money to maintain them.

---

It was just natural for people to gravitate towards the baby. Out of paternal instincts, yeah, but also because Matty was a source of constant entertainment.

He called everyone uncle until he was seven and he needed to be negotiated with to leave Fogwell be until he was nine. Fogwell didn’t mind him. Fogwell had unwittingly adopted him.

Matty didn’t meet his own uncles and grandpa. Jack couldn’t bear that. He took Matty to meet Bill, Jack’s eldest brother—the one who’d killed his wife—in jail and afterwards had been heart-broken and anxious for days.

Grace did not approve, it turned out.

Grace, who went by Maggie at that point, and who had given up her rights to be the mother of Jack’s child, remained one of Jack’s closest and dearest friends.

They still loved each other, and in Fogwell’s very correct opinion, that was nothing but trouble. He snatched Matty at every opportunity and informed him softly but firmly that he was not going to fall in love with a nun when he was big or there would be consequences.

Matt seemed to have come to understand this rule over time, but he never seemed to put together pieces as to why Fogwell was so insistent about it.

---

When Jack turned up murdered, everyone at the gym decided that it was their fault.

It was surreal.

Unbelieveable.

He’d been right there, just fine, laughing and smiling the day before. Rudy had held his bag and Jack had told him to tell the girls and Mel that he missed them.

And, in a moment of crushing realization back then, Rudy had understood the implications of those words and then remembered how good Jack had always been about smiling at people.

He knew how to make himself seem okay and unimportant. He knew how to fade into the background.

Fogwell took it hard.

He blamed himself for not recognizing how bad things had gotten at home for Jack and Matty. He blamed himself for not booking him for more jobs, for pushing him harder and harder on his form lately.

Matty was taken away by social services and his absence from the table at the gym the next day finally brought out the tears that Rudy hadn’t been able to let fall.

He tried.

He tried, he did.

Over the years, Matty had become a brother to Tina, Angie, and Penelope. He fit right in that two-year gap between Tina and Angie. Rudy had him over when Jack worked and Jack had the girls when Mel needed a break from the screaming and crying. And really, by then, everyone’s kids were everyone’s at the gym.

It wasn’t a matter of who belonged to who, it was more of a matter of when someone belonged to someone.

Rudy tried to get custody or at least foster rights. Mel gave herself an ulcer over it, trying to think of how to arrange things to make their home safe for Matt. Trying to think of how to make space for him. He could share a room with Tina. They were still young. They probably wouldn’t mind after some growing pains. But social services said that that wasn’t possible. Matt was too high-risk for them. They didn’t have enough experience with ‘his type of child.’

Which was bullshit.

Matt wasn’t high-risk, Matty was traumatized and scared and with people he didn’t know, who didn’t know him.

That was what made him high-risk.

He knew Rudy and Mel’s house. He knew their girls. He knew their neighborhood.

Still, nothing.

Fogwell himself tried. Shocked the shit out of everyone at the gym, but Social services sadly shook their heads.

By then, Matt had been placed out already.

---

Matt disappeared for five years. Just vanished completely. There was no sight of him until one day, Tina came home and said that ‘oh yeah, I saw Matty today’ while playing with her food at the dinner table.

Rudy and Mel had set down their forks.

Tina sighed and said that he was taller now, but he didn’t look good.

He looked sick, she said. With dark rings around his eyes and broken sunglasses. He’d been sleeping, leaning against the side of some stairs out in his school uniform at the Catholic highschool a few blocks away.

She’d poked at her chicken and then set down her fork and excused herself.

Rudy stroked her hair that night as she cried into her pillow for her lost brother.

---

Matt was, by fifteen, a troubled kid.

Rudy heard shouting one day from Clinton Church and stepped out to see what was happening. He was shocked to see that familiar ginger mop struggling in the arms of two cops, swearing that if these people took him back to wherever he’d come from, that he’d kill himself. He’d do it. Don’t try him.

The priest was called.

Matt was forced down to the ground and handcuffed, still fighting.

It was--it was a whole lot to see. Kenny swore softly behind him and Bert left them to go back inside. He went to the bathroom and didn’t join them out on the mats for a while.

---

Fogwell decided around then that enough was enough.

He went to the church and asked if he could borrow Matt for a while. He needed some help getting his accounts together and he knew Matt was a bright kid. Giving him a little work experience in a familiar and disciplined setting would be good for him.

But Matt wasn’t there.

---

The hospital didn’t allow anyone to visit Matt. He apparently hadn’t earned the privilege of visitors from anyone who wasn’t on his care team.

Rudy felt numb at the front desk.

Jack’s boy had tried to kill himself. He’d warned them all that he would do it.

He’d apparently screamed himself hoarse that he wanted to be with his dad in the ground.

He was still screaming.

This wasn’t the first time he’d done any of this, Rudy came to learn through a few whispered conversations with some nuns from St. Agnes.

Grace had found him after the three attempts the nuns knew of. This last one was just bad enough that she couldn’t bring him back from the edge.

Grace’s eldest younger sister had committed suicide. Grace had found her and then left home immediately become a novice. To find her own son as she’d once found her sister was cosmic and divine cruelty—enough that even Fogwell shook his head and said it just wasn’t right.

---

The first time Rudy saw Matty after the whole situation, he looked exactly as Tina said he did. Tired. With dark circles. Thin. His clothes threatened to fall off of him. They were threadbare and had holes in them here and there.

Matty didn’t talk.

He moved his head around a lot and jerked when anyone spoke to him or brushed against him, and he scrambled back and tripped sometimes if he was touched directly.

It was like looking at a smaller, thinner version of Jack all those years ago—this time with tightly bound wrists and a hospital bracelet that looked like it had been stretched and torn and chewed on.

Fogwell asked Matt if he thought he could do something with the accounts.

Matt said nothing.

Fogwell gave him a box of receipts and bits and bobs of payment cards and IOUs and Matt had frowned and put his hand into the box to touch its feathery contents. He’d lifted his face up in Fogwell’s direction and sneered.

“You can’t seriously live like this,” he’d said in a voice that almost brought tears to Rudy’s eyes. He’d heard Kenny clear his throat behind him.

---

Matty was the smartest person Rudy had ever met.

He set Fogwell’s accounts into order in an afternoon and then he fucked off for a few days, only to come back and digitize the whole thing after making the Big Man himself sit with him and read everything out individually to him as punishment for his nasty, twentieth-century ways.

Matt was disgusted with Grandpa’s living conditions.

He banged into every object in the backroom and swore like a sailor, loud enough that the folks hitting shit in the front room could hear him.

It was hard not to laugh.

“WHY?” Matt finally raged at Grandpa. “WHY. WHY. WHY?”

Grandpa shrugged.

Matt flailed at him in agitation at the lack of verbal answer and told him to get into the fartherest corner of the room and to get a pen, they were going to organize.

Matt was the reason that Fogwell’s Gym had survived for long enough to become a tourist trap.

Matt put every document in that place in order, ready for an audit. He made computer systems for payments and receipts and direct debits. He singlehandedly bullied Fogwell into the new century and made him get a card machine.

He bitched and moaned and belly-ached until Fogwell had interviewed a handful of tax people with actual, non-criminal reputations and picked one and once he was done with all that, Matt harrassed him to invest in a deep clean for the place and to make it accessible by ADA guidelines—the whole nine yards.

Matt, at fifteen, breathed new life into Fogwell’s Gym and it was kind of amazing how the place went from barely hanging on to a decent business once more.

---

After that, Matt seemed to be doing a lot better.

He didn’t have any more foster home placements. He didn’t try to hurt himself again. He decided, instead, that he was going to graduate highschool. He’d failed a fuckload of classes, though. Rudy found him despairing in the backroom over these and settled in across from him and asked to see the reports.

They weren’t good.

Matty’s teachers wrote constantly that Matt was extremely bright, but failed to participate in class or turn pretty much anything in for a grade. He slept in class. He seemed dazed. He didn’t ask for help or give any indication that he needed it.

His assigned para said that she found him challenging to work with. He was resistant to questions and seemed to be angry or, at best, uninterested in her speaking to him.

He was way behind.

Rudy had tapped the reports against the table back there and had taken a deep breath.

“It’s okay,” he told Matt. “We’ve got two years. We can make this work.”

And Matty’s head had jerked up from the table.

“We?” he’d asked in a small voice.

---

Matt really, really struggled with high school. Not because he wasn’t smart enough, but because his experience was so wildly different from other kids. He didn’t go home like they did. He went to St. Agnes’s. He didn’t play video games, he read books. He didn’t smoke cigarettes or joints. He didn’t drink. He was under constant surveillance.

He was bullied. Relentlessly.

Fogwell was quietly furious when Matt came in a few times a week to type away at the desk, inputting receipts for the new secretary to deal with later. Matt was always hurt. Always fighting.

He got his classwork done out of spite, seemingly, but then went home to the orphanage and got harrassed the whole way.

He fought his peers like the devil himself.

It was…

There was…

Something not quite right with him.

---

Bert pointed out when Matt was seventeen that he didn’t always use his stick like other blind folks. He forgot it sometimes and wandered around the gym like anyone else.

He didn’t trip over anything or keep fingers touching the wall like he usually did in other places.

They all chocked it up to him having grown up in the place.

Matt asked Fogwell to let him train.

Center-left-second-back.

That was Jack’s bag.

That was his son’s bag.

The veteran boxers all cycled through teaching Matt how to box. He knew—they all knew Matt already knew how, but there was always shit to learn.

Except that sometimes there wasn’t?

Matt seemed to already know everything that they taught him, including the nit-picky, little things. He listened to their descriptions, let them manipulate his hands and arms and hips, and then did what they asked immediately and with perfect form.

It was eerie.

It just wasn’t right. There was just something about it that wasn’t right. Rudy couldn’t put his finger on it.

---

Matt graduated highschool the year after Tina and it was only when Rudy saw the draft of the commencement program slip out of his bag on one of the benches that Rudy realized that Matty hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.

He picked up the program while Matt was attacking his bag and considered it, then did what was done in the gym and handed the program off to Fogwell who, in a booming voice, told Baby M to get the fuck over there, front and center.

Matt clung to his bag in terror at the sound. He, unlike his daddy, had the good sense to be reluctant to follow Fogwell’s orders. Eventually, with his tail between his legs, he skulked over and had his nose shoved in the program.

He pawed at it when Fogwell made him acknowledge it and mumbled something about not going.

Which was absurd.

“It’s not a big deal,” Matt said. “I’m not valedictorian or anything. It’s just highschool. And no one’s got time to go anyways, so what’s the point if it’s just me?”

God, this kid.

---

Matt’s graduation was very Catholic. Far more Catholic than Tina’s had been, but when Rudy looked over his shoulder, he was pretty sure that even a school this Catholic hadn’t been prepared for the influx of nuns hurrying down from Clinton’s church, all bustling and excited about young Matthew actually getting his diploma.

Between those four (aw, Grace. Look at you trying to play it smooth) and the seven boxing families who’d shown up, Matt was embarrassed to the point of tears. He’d hidden behind his mortarboard for the thirty minutes it took for people started calling folks up on stage.

He didn’t want to come out to take any pictures afterwards, but Tina wasn’t letting that happen. Her sisters leapt on board with the program and Rudy had managed at least one picture of the four of them smiling. Even better, he had one of Matt trying desperately to keep a smile while Fogwell stood stiffly next to him in stone-faced approval.

---

Matty was the first in the gym’s kid’s generation to graduate college, and then he was the only one to go on to law school.

It was only at that big graduation that Rudy finally saw Matt beaming like a loon—like he had up at Jack as a baby, but this time at the long-haired, chubby guy next to him.

This, legend had it, was the Roommate.

The one Matt refused to speak about to anyone at the gym.

Period.

At all.

There was no discussion.

That is, until he was forced by Fogwell standing menacingly over him in silent demand for a hug, to introduce them all to Foggy.

Foggy Nelson.

And then, just like that. It was exactly Jack all over again.

Veins bulging as everyone tried desperately not to laugh at Fogwell’s face at the realization that Matty had gone out and found a better, nicer Fog-person to be friends with.

---

Foggy Nelson—Edward Nelson from the hardware store’s son—was not fucking good enough for Matty, Fogwell decided. He’d begun a stoic campaign to introduce Matt to every available boxer’s son and daughter in the city in the hopes that a little nudge would get Matty away from all them conniving lawyer-folk. That was all fine and well with Matt because Matt, they’d all learned after a few years in his company again, was a horrendous flirt.

God, this boy.

Incorrigible.

He flirted with Tina and Angie and Penelope and got slapped every time.

He flirted with Bert’s daughter Becka.

He flirted with Becka’s husband.

He flirted with Kenny’s son’s best friend at the son’s wedding.

He flirted with the new secretary’s sister-in-law.

He was completely unstoppable.

Kenny approved.

But Kenny also asked Matt pointedly if he and his roommate had worked things out yet and that sent Matt scowling and shuffling off to go hide behind Fogwell, wherever he was, for emotional support.

---

Matt was Daredevil.

He had to be.

Everyone in the gym suspected this.

He was too good at fighting. To flexible. Too sturdy and relentless and angry to be anyone else. They all recogized his shoulders in those little blips of videos people posted online. They recognized how close he got to people from the way he get up in his bag’s imagined face.

He had some kind of superpower—some kind of 360 degree awareness was the best Rudy could describe it.

He felt like he remembered Jack freaking out about something like this a million years ago. Nattering on about super-senses in the aftermath of the accident.

Fogwell was the one who’d brought it up again after he’d noticed that Matt liked to come in at night and spar on his own.

One time, just once, he’d left one of the security cameras on, concerned that Matty might get mugged in the night on his own there.

But Matty wasn’t getting mugged anytime soon.

No, for real.

Matt was…maybe something a little beyond them.

The video Fogwell had shown the older guys before deleting it and telling everyone to mind their own fucking business had shown Matt throwing his weight at the bag—throwing legs and fists—in complicated, almost choreographed movements that spoke of lethal intent.

He moved like a weasel. Like a predator.

Like a devil.

God knew where he’d learned those moves. The boy had lived a lot of life in those few years he’d fallen off of the gym’s radar. There was no telling who he’d met or how he’d learned to be as he was, but things made a lot more sense after that.

Jackie had had a devil in him. It only made sense that his dramatic-ass kid had one, too.

Matty had made something more of himself than his daddy. In so many other things, but in this, too.

Fogwell’s Gym was protected. It was home to a devil in disguise.

---

The hipster Jack-fan appeared with baby Henry a few more times before Bert asked him if he knew that his hero’s kid, who’d lived the life baby Henry was currently living, was actually a regular at the gym.

Hipster-kid gaped and fell over himself trying to ask Bert if he could meet the guy.

Bert smirked. And then waved across the place over to where Matt had just slithered in with absurd orange sneakers that he was very proud of. He was clearly on the hunt to go show Fogwell so that he could be disgusted.

He froze when Bert called his name.

The hipster’s jaw dropped.

“Matty, come tell this man about your daddy,” Bert said.

Matt stared.

Then made a sad, aborted gesture with his free hand that said that he had very important annoyances to make of himself, so could this maybe wait?

“You’re—you’re--?” the hipster stammered.

“Matt Murdock,” Matt said hurriedly. “Great to meet you? You’re the one with the kid, right? Congrats. Have either of you seen Fogwell?”

The hipster blinked.

“Uh?” he said. “Not today?”

Matt scowled.

“He’s not escaping these,” he said, tapping his way angrily back to the door. “I got him a matching set. No one is escaping them.”

The gym at large watched him stalk back out the door, tapping away furiously, no doubt on the way down the block to Fogwell’s house.

“That’s Matt Murdock?” the hipster asked.

“Man, I thought he’d be taller,” another newbie said.

“Kid, that is the least of your problems when it comes to Matt Murdock,” Bert laughed. “Now, all of you, back to work. This ain’t a dog and pony show. Go on.”

---

#daredevil #fic #ficlet #jack murdock

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blazehedgehog · 2 years

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this mightve been asked before, but what do you think of jrpgs generally? any favorites?

The JRPG boom of the late 90's was prime territory for me. I've told this before, but I think my first JRPG was Final Fantasy 4 on the SNES. I think I borrowed a friend's copy at first, and liked it enough that I ended up getting it second-hand, later.

When I first heard somebody describe "hit points," I thought that meant points you could hit, like individual locations on the body that could be struck. So hearing a boss had 15,000 hit points made me think, "Wow, they must be really big." Y'know, like they had lots of surface area. To hit.

I think I played FF4, then Earthbound, then Chrono Trigger. I had a Game Genie, so rather than understand all of the stats and stuff, I would just input a code that would give the maximum amount of possible EXP, so I would jump straight to level 99 after the first battle.

The first JRPG I played and actually understood was Super Mario RPG. That was also one of the first games I ever bought with my own money.

I'd never finished FF4 originally, so as the buzz for FF7 began to ramp up and I found myself lacking a Playstation, I started the SNES version. I don't think I ever finished it then, either, because I ended up with a Playstation that Christmas, with Final Fantasy 7. FF7 practically became my life for over a year and a half. I did everything in that game, and most of it without a guide. All master materia, all summons, all ultimate gear, all limit breaks (even Aerith's!), leveled my party to 99, a full stable of gold chocobos, beat Emerald and Ruby weapons, and a maxed out in-game clock of 99 hours, 99 minutes, and 59 seconds. I also had several other files to explore alternate routes (dates at the gold saucer, etc.). I wrung out every droplet of fun that game had and then some. I even figured out a way to infinite-cast Knights of the Round, for free (it was a complex system of setting up a w-summon materia, counter-materia, and something else, but it trapped you in a loop of summoning them over and over and over and it only cost MP for the first summon).

Like a lot of people that started a minor JRPG obsession, but I didn't have a lot of money to really try out much. I watched friends play a little bit of Beyond the Beyond, Wild Arms, and Secret of Evermore. I heard kids at school rave about Legend of Dragoon (and I rolled my eyes at it, because I thought it looked dumb). I played demos for Grandstream Saga and Legend of Legaia. Heard enough about Xenogears and its infamous second disc to think I'd never, ever want to play it. Learned to hate how slow strategy RPGs were when I tried a friend's copy of Final Fantasy Tactics.

I was over-the-moon excited for Final Fantasy 8. I was obsessed with how cool the demo seemed. It was such a huge jump in fidelity over FF7! It was gonna be great!

Then I rented the full version of FF8 and it was... markedly less cool. The rad, action-packed demo sequence was changed to be less climactic. I fell off pretty hard, getting bored. (Many years later, a cousin would give me their copy of FF8, and I gave it an earnest second try -- came away not just bored, but legitimately frustrated by how dumb some of the writing was)

Still, I continued to bounce around various other JRPGs. Starting lots, but never finishing them. I was super excited for Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, but hit a difficulty spike in the third or fourth dungeon and rage quit the game. I think I probably played close to half way through Grandia 2 before falling off the game and never going back to it (no real reason, just got distracted).

Then came Chrono Cross. Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy 8 delivered kind of a one-two punch that made me wonder if Squaresoft knew what they were doing. Cross was so obtuse plotted, so in love with itself, and so NOT what I wanted in a Chrono Trigger sequel that it actively upset me. I got stuck somewhere towards the end of the first disc and ended up reading a story synopsis. I don't remember much about it now, outside of the fact that I really did not like it.

FF8 and Chrono Cross seemed like Square-Enix was feeling themselves a little too much and started mucking with the traditional JRPG systems in ways that didn't make sense or feel good. Like how battles in Chrono Cross don't give you EXP, or the magic draw system in FF8. It felt like, after making so many JRPGs, Square was trying anything to differentiate new games, even if it meant breaking fundamental core concepts in bad ways.

And so it became: if an RPG reminded me too much of what I didn't like about FF8 or Chrono Cross, I stopped caring.

Which is a shame, because Square were genre leaders. Everyone followed them. And soon enough, it felt like "JRPG" stopped having any meaning. It became more about story trappings than systems or mechanics, and most of them are modern day, or science fiction, or alternate historical. Swords and sorcery JRPGs are almost dead, outside of Dragon Quest, and I have a sneaking suspicion the next Dragon Quest could change that, too. The term "JRPG" became more synonymous with "anime RPG."

Most of the JRPGs I am interested in these days are the classics I didn't get to play back in the day. That's not to say that's all I'm interested in; I'm currently about 12 hours in to Mother 3, and I have Switch copies of Tales of Vesperia and Final Fantasy 12 I've gotten for Christmas over the years, and I have added incentive to play Kingdom Hearts 2 (and 3, and...) now.

At this point, JRPGs I've played are mostly: Final Fantasy 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13-2, Lightning Returns, 15, Mystic Quest, Tactics, Tactics Advance, Chrono Trigger, Cross, Earthbound Zero, Earthbound, Mother 3, Grandia, Grandia 2, Legend of Legaia, Skies of Arcadia, Phantasy Star 4, Tales of Phantasia, Kingdom Hearts 1, Re:Coded, Sands of Destruction, Sonic Chronicles, Breath of Fire 1, 2, Super Mario RPG, Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga, Bowser's Inside Story, Dragon Quest 8, Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow, Crystal, Ruby, Fire Red, Pearl...

JRPGs I've finished: Final Fantasy 1 (GBA), Final Fantasy 4 (DS), Final Fantasy 7 (PS1), Earthbound (SNES), Chrono Trigger (SNES, DS), Sonic Chronicles, Super Mario RPG, Super Star Saga, Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow.

A few of those are basically finished. I played KH1 and Re:Coded to their final dungeons, respectively. I got to the final boss in Bowser's Inside Story and FF6, but the final battles were so long that I got fatigued, made a mistake, and didn't feel like redoing them more than once. In Pokemon Crystal, Ruby and Pearl, I reached the Elite Four but didn't feel like grinding up enough levels to get over the hump.

Favorites are probably Final Fantasy 1, Final Fantasy 7, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, and Super Mario RPG.

Final Fantasy 1 because it feels so different and so much closer to a traditional western RPG. You feel a little less lead by the nose by the story and are turned loose in a space that feels more mechanical, like you're exploring an open world.

Final Fantasy 7, because... well, see above.

Earthbound because I love the weird viewpoint of "Classic 1950's Americana as seen by a Japanese author." It's also very charming, nostalgic and heart-felt.

Chrono Trigger because it's the best JRPG designers of their era collaborating across company lines and basically making what I would consider to be the ideal, perfect JRPG. It's not the most complex, sprawling or thought provoking game in the world, but it's EXTREMELY good at being a digestible story that doesn't overstay its welcome.

And Super Mario RPG isn't necessarily a revolution, but it's got fun characters and a weird world and extremely nice music. Just a very charming, solid game (and story!) all the way through to the end.

I'm looking forward to getting around to seeing more of Breath of Fire 1 and 2, the Tales of games, that SNES Star Ocean game, Secret of Mana, maybe Robotrek, finishing Final Fantasy 9, playing more than just the demo of Grandia 1, etc.

#questions #anonymous #jrpg #final fantasy #square-enix #squaresoft #chrono cross #chrono trigger #long

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aventurasdeunatortuga · 3 years

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Laredo Part 2 Week 2

First photo is yesterday’s grocery haul. Second and third photos show our stock of underwear and boys’ clothes. Fourth photo shows our COVID isolation building, the last photo is the church hall that has been converted into an emergency shelter to accommodate the 200-300 people staying each night at La Frontera. The main shelter building can only accommodate about 150.

I’ve been back in Laredo for about 2 weeks now, which is how long I stayed the last time I was here. I still have about 2 weeks left. Last time I was here I remember being completely and utterly burnt out by the end of 2 weeks and I can feel myself burning out again now.

I’ve been splitting my days between the two shelters, La Frontera and Holding, and they are so different. At La Frontera I feel very welcomed and involved and useful and the people seem a bit friendlier, but the flip side of that is that there is so much chaos and lack of organization it honestly stresses me out so much. There are just so many people in such desperate need all the time and there are maybe 3-4 volunteers each day trying to prioritize which crisis needs to be dealt with first. Usually that ends up being transportation and food. Things like clothing and cleaning and toiletries and organization have fallen by the wayside. We’ve been getting hundreds and hundreds of people in really terrible conditions clear until 2:30 in the morning every single day and we just simply do not have the people needed to make it run smoothly, so volunteers in the evening have just been opening the closet and letting folks grab what they need at random, which results in even more chaos and disorganization. The last few days when I’ve come in there have just been enormous piles of stuff all over the floor and garbage everywhere. It is really stressful.

Yesterday we realized that no one had gone grocery shopping, and there wasn’t much food left in the pantry. I don’t know how that system normally works, if there even is one, from what I can tell it is random volunteers buying food and occasionally community members donating food. We cooked all the food there was and served as many people as we could but here were about 250 people at breakfast who hadn’t eaten in several days.

Most of the groups that come in haven’t eaten in several days, but this group looked truly, truly desperate for food. The children were all screaming and the adults were trying to hold themselves back so as to not push or shove but I could tell it was hard. The heartbreaking part was that we didn’t have enough food for all of them, and about 50 folks went without food. We didn’t even have anything like granola bars or bread slices or cereal or anything to offer them.

Me and one of the nuns went to the grocery store and bought two fulls carts worth of food, we bought this yesterday morning and already today it is almost all gone. I feel frustrated with the leadership at this shelter, it feels like there is none. One of the directors is constantly out of the building driving people places and doesn’t answer her phone and the other is constantly putting out fires with border patrol and the police and the hospital and the city government, etc so she is never there either. The entire shelter depends on the 3-4 community members and out of town volunteers that show up at irregular hours and most of whom only stay for a few days.

The worst part is seeing how this lack of organization impacts the people coming through, who are already dealing with a lot of trauma and I know the chaos here isn’t helping.

But there’s only so much we can do. I started falling apart this morning after wading through so much garbage to try to get through the kitchen. I got very overwhelmed and started getting snappy at people, which doesn’t help anyone. One of the newer volunteers stepped up to help while I took a break. When I came back the both of us were able to get a number of the folks staying at the shelter to help us. We got folks to clean up all the garbage and clean the tables and sweep the floors and help us with the food. They were happy to help and were appreciative of what we were doing.

I’ve been at La Frontera shelter from 9-2 most days, which is usually when we finish serving lunch. Then I head over to Holding Community Center until about 7pm. The difference between the two shelters is night and day. While La Frontera has only 2 paid employees, Holding has 18 employees, most of whom are on site for the entire day 7 days a week. It makes an enormous difference. The flip side of that though is that I don’t feel super helpful there and the people have kind of set systems in place and a few staff members don’t seem very open to volunteers coming in to help as they are overwhelmed and don’t want anyone upsetting their system. It’s also different in that all of the folks staying here stay outside or in the vacant classrooms at the community center, the volunteers all work in a separate building and very rarely directly interact with the folks staying there. So while I’m there I essentially sit at a table and organize baby wipes and baby food for 3.5 hours straight. Then I help serve dinner and then I’m done for the day. We aren’t allowed to directly interact with the folks staying here because there are a lot of cases of COVID on the buses, the folks staying here tested negative but were still exposed so we’re trying to be very careful, but still it is kind of frustrating when folks knock on the door and ask for things like a bottle of water and to hear that I’m not allowed to give them water until a specific time or else everyone is going to be trying to get one. It’s definitely two ends of a spectrum.

I’ve been trying to interact with folks by doing a ‘diaper cart’ every afternoon. I load up a cart with diapers and formula and wipes and just walk around outside offering things to people.

Today I helped serve dinner to the main group of COVID negative people, but then I was also asked to bring dinner over to the group of people who tested positive for COVID. They are being quarantined in an empty warehouse across the street. They have nurses there and everyone wears masks. They have to quarantine for at least 10 days, and receive one change of clothes and a hygiene kit when they first arrive. They get a blanket and a cot and stay there until they recover. I hadn’t been over there before and was a bit nervous about it.

It was truly terrible to see. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a more miserable place. We stood in the doorway while folks lined up by the door. We handed food off to the nurses and they then handed the food to the people waiting in line. There were at least 100 people in there, packed wall to wall on cots and all of them coughing and looking so sick.

The medical team was treating them well and they had the basics that they needed, but it just broke my heart seeing so many sick people in one place. The hospitals will not accept them because they don’t have health insurance. Most were exposed to COVID in ICE detention, because ICE does not test the people they detain and keep people confined in close quarters for extended periods of time. If folks get extremely ill the hospital will accept them for 48 hours. The shelter is the only place in town that will accept them, if the shelter was not there ICE would have just left them on the street.

It’s been a really long week. I’m trying to not let all of this get to me. The most difficult part I think is seeing all of these problems and feeling so powerless to help. At La Frontera shelter it seems like a neverending crisis and lack of resources and organization that me as a part time volunteer cannot realistically fix, which is really hard to accept. There were some rooms I came across today that were in such a state of disarray I just had to close the door and walk away, because there was no way I could take that on. At Holding, there are enough resources and organization, but seeing the people quarantined and seeing the busloads that come in each day of more and more sick people breaks my heart. Right when I was walking out the door at 6:45pm today a busload of 130 more people arrived, and staff was trying to decide if they should feed them or test them for COVID first, because the medical staff and the food team were leaving for the night and they didn’t know what to do. It was hard to accept that there wasn’t really anything I could do in that situation.

I’m trying to do what I can. I’ve been fundraising and have raised around $750 so far. I’m planning on using most of it for underwear and food for La Frontera shelter. Both shelters depend entirely upon donations though and I know that even if I spend all of that money today that all of the donations bought from it would likely be gone by the end of the week.

What really needs to happen here is systemic change. There needs to be drastic changes to our immigration policies, ICE as an institution needs to be shut down or at the bare minimum be investigated for their treatment of folks being detained by them. The fact that people come out of there exposed to COVID and without having eaten for several days is unconscionable. There needs to be government funding and disaster relief teams for folks seeking asylum, it is absurd that a bunch of random volunteers and community organizations are having to take on a humanitarian crisis of this scale.

I’ll go into this in a later post, but the United States is almost entirely responsible for creating the conditions that have caused so many folks to flee their home countries. It is the absolute bare minimum that the US can do to accept folks that are fleeing the situations that we created. They do not want to leave their homes, they are being forced to.

Rant over.

Until next time,

#laredo #texas #borderlands #immigration #asylum seekers

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deadinsidedressage · 4 years

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How do you feel about going to trail rides where the horses have most of the time learned to just follow the horse in front of them? I see them getting lots of hate since "its not real riding" and that ppl should rather go to riding school than to trail rides. Here where i live, riding schools don't let beginners ride without handler and only in arena so it would be pretty expensive and not that fun tbh and it would turn into a lesson rather than fun and relaxing time on a horse in a forest.

That’s not an interaction with horses that will net you experience to learn to ride safely and confidently on your own. It can also be debated how safe those “guided trail ride” scenarios actually are. Not to disparage people who work there or people who’ve enjoyed going on them (I’ve been on a few myself), but placing beginners/non-horse people on horses with extremely varied backgrounds (and sometimes questionable soundness) isn’t a recipe for success. I’ve personally been on one with 25 people in the group with 2 employees, a lead and a back. That’s not a good ratio to actually help if someone falls and is injured or has a horse take off. When you add in that these facilities often don’t have helmets available... it’s really just a bad accident waiting to happen. Not to mention if your goal is to be an active rider with horse ownership in your future--- you’re not gaining anything valuable out of the experience. In my experience, the horses are taught to follow the horse in front of them (like in a pack line) and are often encouraged to ignore the rider on top of them. To these horses, you are not a rider you are a meat sack they’re packing. “Saddle time” doesn’t equate to better riding when it lacks the context of correct coaching. If you did a year of taking a guided trail once a week you would not have learned to ride you would have learned to be a passenger. I’m not entirely sure how to interpret “riding with a handler” but I am going to assume you’re referring to one of two things (if not both):

Someone coaching off a lead line or a lunge line

Someone coaching from the center of the arena

Both of which are tied up in being for safety and being for education. There are two things you need to know about horse riding:

It’s inherently dangerous

It’s not simple

Beginners are put on a lead line or a lunge line because they do not yet know how to safely control the horse. Nor is sitting correctly on a horse very intuitive when you first begin. To actual sit in a balanced way that means you won’t fall off if the horse suddenly stops (let alone takes off, bucks, rears, spins, etc.) while also exerting control of the direction and speed you’re traveling at is a very complicated bit of full body isolated muscle use. It takes a period to develop this and so yes, beginners are put in situations where they have the need to control the horse “removed” (in both cases the person with the lead line or lunge line can cede or take control when necessary). This allows the rider to actually develop their balance independently of developing their aids (aids = how our seat, legs, and hand work to control the horse). Which often is actually a means of accelerating the learning process even though it can seem to slow it down--- because while yes you’re not “in charge” of the horse, developing your balance first means a quicker adaptation period to using your aids correctly because you’re not having to fight your body to communicate with the horse (should be also greatly noted this removes a lot of frustration and discomfort from the horse being used for beginner instruction). When graduated off a line, yes an instructor stays in the arena because... that’s... that’s just how you get instruction? The purpose of a riding school or a lesson barn (or just taking lessons on your own horse or on a horse you lease) is that you are learning to ride. You’re not paying them for the privilege to ride, but you’re paying them for instruction on learning to ride safely, correctly, and confidently. While it seems really simple and straightforward when watching movies or shows (or even watching people out in the world), riding is complex. I can still recall the roughly year period of my life when I transitioned from walk/trot only to walk/trot/canter. There was a lot of muscle coordination and balance it took for me to do that and then even with that it took me a while to feel comfortable doing that. You need instruction to learn to do just about anything with horses and especially to do it correctly and safely. You take lessons when you are learning the basics, you take lessons as you continue to improve your skill, and even if you got to the Olympic level you’d still take lessons. Even if your goals are only to be someone who does trail riding, taking lessons to learn the fundamentals of balance and control should be something you pursue. As I said earlier, horses are dangerous. Hundreds of people die every year when participating in horse sports, including trail riding. To reduce your risk of being one of those hundred plus, you should invest the time in learning to safely halt, w/t/c off a lead, ride basic figures, ride basic obstacles, and develop a solid enough seat that if your horse takes off, rears, or bucks you should be able to stay on. People who are really wise and smart but are “only interested in trail riding” also invest time in riding their horse regularly in an arena, take regular lessons focused on developing their riding for their interest, and go to trail/obstacle specific clinics. Those people are the ones who are really looking out for themselves and their horses because at the end of the day... anything you do with horses is dangerous so anything you do to prevent a dangerous situation is smart. Of people who trail ride and only trail ride without any arena time, lesson time, or clinic time invested that I personally know or have known... they all experienced major falls or accidents. One couple whose horses I exercised for a few years only took the horses out to ride for hunting season. They only began riding in their middle age and never with formal instruction. So when one of their horses panicked and fell on the man absolutely crushing his pelvis... it wasn’t that big of a surprise. He’s lucky he wasn’t hurt worse.My aunt broke her knee going to mount up on a trail because her horse took off. She used to ride regularly as a under 20′s woman but has only been the occasional trail rider since she bought horses again as a 40′s something woman. If she rode regularly and worked on her horse’s training issues... probably avoidable. Her friends she rides with who don’t even have an initial formal riding education to fall back on have also fallen and had serious injuries. One broke several vertebrae and one broke her collar bone. These are accidents that while not entirely avoidable for someone with a much greater riding education (because no accident with horses is 100% predictable or avoidable) are way less common. Generally, I also live in an area now with a lot of “fair weather” (do not ride with much/any regularity) trail riders without formal education. As a result I also get to read a lot of “HELP MY HORSE DUMPED ME AND TOOK OFF IN CAP. FOREST AND HAS BEEN MISSING 48 HOURS” in our local equestrian facebook groups. Too many of those have the follow up where you learn the horse has been hit by a car, broke a leg falling off a cliff, or just... never is seen from again. So while one may seem more fun in the short term, in order to actively be going out and doing these things on your own and safely on your own you really need to put in the work of learning riding basics.

#Anonymous

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purplesurveys · 3 years

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1123

survey by zqrwrgnani

What do you typically have for breakfast? I skip breakfast Monday to Friday. On weekends either of my parents will usually make fried rice served with 3–4 of the following: eggs, hotdogs, corned beef, dried fish, ham, longganisa, and luncheon meat.

Where do you purchase most of your clothes? There’s a tiangge at the local mall where they will change up the collection of clothes being sold every couple of weeks. They have trendy choices at really low prices so that’s where I liked getting clothes back when I went out more.

Do you have any opinions on Anna Delvey? Literally have never heard of her. Should I know who this is...?

What are you currently streaming? I have an episode of (surprise!) 2D1N turned on, but it’s paused.

What do you typically order when you go for coffee? Iced caramel macchiato. I actually switched it up today and went for a basic iced mocha, though. Just wanted to try something new, I guess.

Anything you’re looking out for at the thrift? No, and I don’t usually make trips to thrift stores either.

Who are your favorite YouTubers? Louise Pentland is a recent favorite. There’s also Good Mythical Morning, Grace Helbig, and The Try Guys. I also like a ton of BuzzFeed people but I don’t think they count as YouTubers. I like a good number of local vloggers as well but they’re no one you would recognize.

Describe your skincare routine. I just splash some water onto my face first thing in the morning, every day.

What’s your typical morning routine look like? Work has conditioned me to automatically wake up at 6:30, and by then I have the choice to either go back to sleep or try to properly wake up by watching YouTube videos. Either way, I have to be up by 8 so I can start working. And like I said, I briefly wash my face, then I immediately head to my laptop. That’s it, really; it’s super uneventful and I'm sorry I can’t make it any more interesting lol.

Are you still playing Animal Crossing? I never bought the game, actually. I asked Nina if I should buy it and she said it probably won’t be suitable for me since the game requires a lot of creativity, which as y’all know by now I lack entirely hahaha. I have my eyes set on other games.

How has the pandemic specifically affected you? It kept me from having a memorable final year in university, and it kept me from having a graduation ceremony. We also had to sell one of our cars, which I really loved driving when we still had it, so that bummed me out. I believe the pandemic had also been a slight factor in the crumbling of my former relationship as well.

Where’s your favorite place to go for brunch? I never go out for brunch.

What’s on your nightstand? Right now there is a bunch of books on it and a paper envelope from work.

What do you think about before falling asleep? Anything except my already pending deliverables work for the following day.

What is your main source of anxiety? Continued from the previous evening. I don’t know if there’s a main catalyst...a lot of things have the ability to make me feel anxious.

Any bands or artists you’ve recently discovered? I’m going further down the K-pop rabbit hole as I know it, lmao. It’s starting, you guys. This week I discovered GOT7; I’ve only heard one song so far but I’m extremely hooked. Ravi’s also very talented and has catchy songs.

What are your goals for today? Have a great rest of the evening and enjoy the start of my weekend.

What kind of games do you play on your phone? I haven’t been playing a lot of games on it, actually. I mainly use it to keep track of my Viber notifications (because my laptop sometimes won’t, and I end up replying to some work threads late) and to watch on Viu. But the last game I downloaded was a logo quiz game for old times’ sake.

Are there any packages you’re waiting to come in through the mail? Nah, haven’t ordered anything recently. I think I’m over my online shopping phase hahaha. I was just really excited about it when I got my first couple of paychecks, but now that the initial thrill has passed, I mainly look forward to spending on food – exactly like how I predicted it would be for me.

Describe your favorite t-shirt? I’d neverrrrr throw out my CM Punk Best in the World shirt for the world, no matter how more tattered and stained it gets. It’s one of my prized possessions and it reminds me of a really happy and carefree time in my life.

Do you have a specific aesthetic? I don’t know if I fit into a certain one; I certainly don’t consciously try to. You’d have to ask my friends if I do have a specific kind.

Skinny jeans or mom jeans? Mom jeans, a thousand times over. I dread wearing skinny jeans.

What’s your favorite 90s cartoon? The Wild Thornberrys.

Describe the moment you realized you were falling in love with someone. I felt scared more than anything else. I’ve never felt such a heavy sensation before, so I didn’t know what was going on. I also felt the need to be around them as much as I can, as I was starting to love and enjoy their presence, and be the one to attend to their needs.

Have you tried the feta and tomato recipe? No but sounds delicious.

What’s your favorite sparkling water brand/flavor? I don’t drink that. Sounds nasty.

What’s your favorite makeup brand/brands? Don’t wear makeup, either.

What’s your all time favorite movie? Two for the Road.

What are some female names you would name a baby? Olivia, Mia, and Amelia are some of my favorites.

What about male? Erm, probably names like Mason, Elliott, Matteo, Liam...I don’t want a son, so I don’t think about boy names too often lmao.

Do you have any subscription boxes? No. I’ve always wanted to subscribe to one with a quirky concept, like a Korean-themed one, or international snacks or condiments, or curated alcoholic drinks, etc. but at the end I feel it’s a luxury I could do without.

What did you purchase the last time you bought groceries? The last time I got groceries was for work, and for that instance I got several of the following: coffee packs, soju, various canned goods, spaghetti set, Nutella, and toiletries.

What fictional creature would you like as a pet? Wouldn’t keep him as a pet but I feel like Maximus from Tangled would be such a fun dude to be around.

Describe your favorite piece of jewelry. I don’t have one. I love borrwing my mom’s Tiffany’s jewelry, though.

Have any local businesses closed that you’re sad about? So fucking many of them, especially the ones I frequented back in college. I went back to Katip last week and the place felt like a damn ghost town.

How do you feel about the BLM movement? I support it, of course. And I feel infuriated by those who try to counter by saying aLl LiVeS mAtTeR or worse, bLuE lIvEs MaTtEr.

What’s the worst advice you’ve ever taken? I don’t think I ever took an advice I knew was bad or would be useless or irrelevant to me. But this reminds me of my mom’s favorite piece of advice for every bad situation, which is to pray lmao.

How do you feel about your neighbors? I feel like I answer this a lot on this surveys, but I don’t think anything of them. We mostly keep to our own business.

What kind of dwelling do you live in? A house.

Have you been watching this season of The Bachelor? I’ve never tried watching it and have no desire to.

What’s typically kept in your purse/wallet? Paper bills, receipts I have the tendency to stuff and keep there even though I’ll never have to use them again, my Paramore ticket, TIN ID, copies of 1x1 and 2x2 photos of myself just in case I have to whip one out, driver’s license, my debit cards, and my vape.

How do you feel about TikTok? I gravitate towards the tutorials and unique prompts (like people showing their parents of different nationalities, the then-vs-now of their pets, etc) more so than the dance-y/meme-y ones. I’ve never felt the need to get the actual app, though. I get my TikTok fix on Facebook, which makes me feel old saying so LOL

What’s the hardest thing you’ve done/been through? Dealing through a breakup was surprisingly harder and more excruciating than deaths I’ve had to go through.

Did you/do you still have a Neopets account? I never had an account but I did have a Neopets game on my flip phone.

What do you look like on a day where you don’t leave the house? Haggard.

Do you have any opinions on Amberlynn Reid? Have literally never heard of that name.

Any current trends you dislike? Most streetwear.

#survey #surveys

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haylanmakesstuff · 4 years

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Day 1 & 2 of my 21 day Skeksis Costume Build

I usually work as a seasonal Interpretive Ranger for outdoor agencies, like National Parks and Forests, and last year when I got back from working all the way across the country from my home, I had less than a month to pull a Halloween costume off! I always make my costumes from scratch (except things like shoes, but I often alter them, etc.)

I wasted about a week of my time debating what I should do. I had a few ideas but I wasn’t crazy about them. I often feel like I need to be CRAZY excited about whatever I make. When I didn’t work during the summers out of state, I would often start my costumes any time between late June and early August depending on how ambitious it was. Now I had less than a month!

I had been watching The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and was thinking about how since I was a little kid I’ve always wanted to make a Skesis costume. Then I realized – I didn’t have a job or anywhere to be until school started, so why not go nuts and make one in just 21 days? I did just that. I took pictures along the way to be able to show how I did it…now welcome to the first post detailing the experience!

Also, I had posted about this costume on a Halloween Costume Club I used to run as a Facebook group and actually had people being jerks about it. I am not here for your negativity. I am here to share my process and love of crafting with others, and I am happy to answer questions, too. No, you don’t have to make this costume or anything in just 21 days, even I would usually start months in advance and only work on it intermittently for a better product, I just didn’t have that option in 2019. But please, I’m here to share the happiness of crafting, not to hear how stupid you think my hobbies are.

First, the end game:

Now, let’s back up 21 days and start from the beginning. I kept a calendar with notes on what I worked on because I eventually wanted to go back and make this post. Currently (July 2020) I am updating the costume for a second Halloween (if that happens during this pandemic) and those updates will be the last post of this series. Enjoy!

DAY 1: OCTOBER 10TH

Today I worked on the head/face, and eyes. Go big or go home, because if I couldn’t make the most important part of the costume, then the rest is cancelled. I first gathered a bunch of screen shots of Chamberlain from the new Netflix show, googled images of the character, the puppet, and models. I started the head and completed that process before I realized I liked Skekso’s character design WAY more than The Chamberlain. And I had seen Chamberlain done several times before online and realized I wanted to take on a new challenge. That’s why you’ll notice the head shape is that of Chamberlain and not of The Emperor. That morning I went to craft stores and hardware stores and got the stuff I would need to start off. This would mean many trips to these places, and since I live in a partially rural area, it’s a drive for me so I try to limit these visits so I don’t waste all my creating time driving. You’ll see each material listed as we go along.

First, here is Skekso, The Emperor from Dark Crystal; Age of Resistance, so you know what he looks like from the source material. If you haven’t seen this show, obviously I would recommend it, and would tell you start with the show, not the movie from the early 80’s, because the show is a prequel. I think to new viewers the movie may be more exciting if you see some of the back story on why it’s happening.

So now to the build:

1.) I started with plastic craft mesh in white to make a skull shape:

I used a paper pattern so my sized would line up correctly, etc. You’ll notice I’m not only terrible at math, but I absolutely hate it. Not a great quality for a Maker and I have to compensate A LOT for my lack of math love and skills. I missed a lot of school growing up and never actually learned stuff like long division until college, so….make do! Our weaknesses and flaws won’t end us, we just find a way around them.

2.) Once I got the plastic mesh pieces the right shapes, I glued them together with hot glue, very carefully. I cut out a spot for the eyes making sure the future-eyes that were still ping pong balls fit snuggly. Notice all of my shopping and material decisions are heavily reliant on being light weight – I’m only 5’2 and not very strong, I knew I couldn’t pack a 50 pound costume around all night. I can keep my carry-on bags under 20 pounds usually, so I was confident in tricking this costume to be as light as possible.

3.) Next, I used upholstery foam from the craft store (look in the furniture/upholstery section) to coat the mesh skull with without any contours, etc. That will all come later. I also made my favorite 3 ingredient pumpkin cookies that are the BOMB. Let me know if you want the very short recipe.

4.) After I had all the basic forms of foam where I needed them and hot glued on, I started carving out the foam into the various shapes and valleys to look like Skekso. This took a long time and make a crazy mess, so beware if you have pets, roommates, or husbands – you’ll owe them some of those cookies to put up with your bull.

5.) Then, I started on the eyeballs. Keeping it lightweight, I used regular old ping pong balls.

In the background, to the left of this picture, you’ll see a yellowish-hand. During this time I was also making a Halloween Decoration/Party Decoration; a full size Dementor from Harry Potter, for my yard for the month of October, and for November when I have an annual Hogwarts Feast; both of which I will showcase on here later! I liked these hands so much I ended up adapting a fancier version for this Skekso costume, so more on that later.

DAY 2: OCTOBER 11TH

Face, teeth, eyes, and head dress.

1.) Today I continued painting the eye balls, giving a base coat of off white, painting the iris and pupil, and veins. I used acrylic for all of this, but dipped the reds and pinks in water before using tiny brushes and toothpick points to create the veins. I actually glued a part of a wooden skewer (thicker than a toothpick) short, maybe 1.4 inches at most, to the back of the eyeball so I would always have something to hold onto without messing up the paint job. I figured this would be handy when gluing it into the head later, and it was.

I also continued the carving of the foam on the head from yesterday, finally getting it where I wanted it, ready for the next stage.

2.) Next, I drew dark spots of different sizes on the jaws of the head to see how many of what size teeth I wanted Skekso to have. I used a picture as reference and got it as close as I could. Counted how many large, medium, and small teeth there were, so I knew how many to make.

Then, clearly, it was important that I sang him a little song of encouragement. It could be reenacting that scene from Alien 4 that’s so darned sad too, hard to say.

Now I know what you are wondering: What the heck am I wearing on my head? No, I don’t have a mushy skull like a bitty baby, I’m actually preparing myself to get used to the helmet that will be used for the costume later. I am not sure how heavy it will be, so I want to get used to the bike helmet, and you’ll see later I slowly add some weight to it. Yeah, I look kinda crazy, but at least I got to do it in my own home. And I am not superhero Christine McConnell – I never dress in anything but slouchy pajamas for the most part if I’m heavy into a crafting project. I want comfort and not to ruin everything I own because shit gets messy!

3.) Now that I know how many and what sizes teeth I need, time to make them. I bought a shit ton of Crayola Modeling Magic for this costume because it’s lightweight and I am used to using it. I used only white, mold it how I want it, then it dries for at least 24 hours for these little teeth. Anything bigger will add time – you’ll see more made of this later. Here are the little teeth on a pretty platter to dry:

4.) Now time for more work on the head: I painted the mesh inside of the mouth black so it couldn’t be seen once the head is done. The mouth will be slightly open so you can see the teeth. If I had more time, I would have made a tongue, to.

5.) First unexpected fix: when working on the head I noticed I didn’t like how wide part of it was, between the eyes. The head already is Chamberlains head shape instead of The Emperor, so I used a stitch through the middle to pull in the eyes, making the bridge of the nose narrower.

That’s all for today! And it was a lot. Come back for more posts about my journey through the Cliffs of Insanity to build this Skeksis costume in 21 days. Happy Halloween All Year!

#skeksis #skeksi costume #cosplay #costuming #the dark crystal #jim henson #muppet shop #netflix #age of resistance #the emperor #skekso #halloween #halloween costume #haylan makes stuff #craft foam #quick build #maker #crayola #crayola model magic

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dxmichelle · 4 years

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I am not normally one to throw a whole lot of personal stuff around on my blog, but I feel the need to rant.

Some big-name grocery stores are paying hazard pay to their employees. $2/hr bonus for having to deal with the customers panic-buying all the eggs, meat, toilet paper, and pasta sauce (but not pasta? What’s all the sauce for???), restocking as much as they can, and dealing with the likelihood of catching COVID-19 just because they have to show up for work because it’s an essential business that can’t close.

That’s great! Now that the employees have to be there, of course, because I’m sure they’d all rather be home, but that their companies are acknowledging that they are what’s keeping the store afloat and are compensating them better for it. Even if it is a temporary boost in pay until the pandemic is over, I’m sure it will not go unnoticed by the team members.

Now. Having said that...

I think I’ve mentioned once before that I work at Walgreens. (If not, it’s no big secret *shrug*). Like any other grocery store and pharmacy, we are an essential retailer that can’t just close down in the face of a serious pandemic. We know the store has to stay open. We don’t expect it to close. Ever. I mean, we’re the only store in town open on Christmas all day. The world can end twice over and we’ll still be selling cigarettes and printing photo orders.

Some of what’s happened to other stores (read: grocery) has happened with us. My store in particular is out of toilet paper and paper towels, milk, eggs, sanitizer, etc. All those nice things that the panicking hoarders bought everyone out of within two weeks or so, they’re gone. They’ve been gone. And it’s near impossible to get it back in stock.

We’ve had customers give us shit because we don’t have any paper goods, cleaning supplies, disinfectant, masks, gloves, rubbing alcohol, heck - even the Tylenol is all gone. You know how much OTC pain medicine we keep on the shelves year-round? TONS. And it’s wiped clean. Even the generic Tylenol is out. It’s nuts.

“Why are you still out of everything!? Don’t you guys receive trucks anymore?”

“When are you getting “[name that product]” in?”

“WHY DON’T YOU EVER HAVE TOILET PAPER?”

Okay, truth be told, we have been getting paper goods back in stock. By the third hour it’s been restocked to the floor, it’s gone again, and that’s with setting a harsh limit per customer. We’ll get maybe two bottles of hand sanitizer in a week. Clorox or Lysol wipes and disinfectant spray? Forget it.

The Tylenol is a recent addition to the “whoop, it’s gone!” club. We’ll probably restock just fine on it, but it might take a week or so. ...Or maybe it won’t. Who knows.

I can see exactly what comes in on each truck before it arrives. But I can’t tell the customers that in fear they’ll storm the truck or something before we’ve finished unloading it.

“Our truck comes later this week. We can’t guarantee what’s going to be on it.”

Which is true, because essentially every distribution center is out of all the things people want.

And because we are also a pharmacy, where the sick come to get the medicine to feel better, we are constantly in the line of fire for picking up whatever illness our customers drag through the front door. Doesn’t have to be COVID-19. People don’t know how to stay the fuck home when they’re ill.

You would think that all the Karens and the Susans who bought all the hand soap, sanitizer and face masks would have better sick etiquette, but nooo, they’re the ones not covering their mouth and nose and spreading their germs all over everyone and everything.

And don’t even get me started on how dirty money is.

So, being such a large and well-respected(?) retail pharmacy, what has Walgreens done for our employees in these troubling times of uncertainty and unease for their team members?

1. 2 weeks of paid sick pay but only if you’ve been confirmed to have COVID-19. And since testing is so readily available (HA), if you have flu-symptoms and choose to stay home and self-isolate, you can! But it comes out of either your PTO, or goes unpaid.

And if your child is home because no school and you have no one to watch them? It’s fine to stay home, but you won’t get paid unless you pull PTO. If you have it.

2. Social distancing markers! There are tape lines on the floor for the checkout and pharmacy lines. Except that when you need the pharmacist for a consult and you’re at the window, or standing at the pharmacy/front checkout counter, it is impossible to stand 6ft away. What, am I supposed to let the customer throw the money at me? Am I supposed to ring out their purchases and fling the bag back at them? Let me tell you a secret: it doesn’t work.

3. Discouraged wearing of gloves and masks at the front register. Okay, I see the point behind these. Not that anyone has masks to wear, mind you, but they don’t prevent the catching of COVID-19. And wearing gloves just keeps the dirt and germs on the gloves, and keeps you from frequently washing your hands, which is what everyone recommends you doing anyhow. But...realistically. The checkout cashier doesn’t have the ability after every 2 transactions to go wash their hands. And sanitizer is really only so effective. Either way, it’s not stopping whoever wants to wear gloves from wearing them, so we have gloves up front to use.

4. Sent care packages to help us clean, and reduced store hours. My store was open 8am-10pm. Now it’s 9am-9pm. That hour in each direction really doesn’t do a whole lot of difference. The idea is to clean, disinfect everything, and restock in the new time window that the store is now closed. Which is fine. But we don’t have anything to restock, our stockroom is BARE. And those care packages for the store to use? A case of toilet paper that I could have ordered myself when ordering supplies, a 6-pack of paper towels, two tubs of Clorox wipes, a box of 30 gloves. Oh yes, this will last a long time... We’ve also been given the go-ahead to expense any product off the shelf that we need to keep the store disinfected.

...Expense what!? THE SHELVES ARE EMPTY.

---

To give my company some credit, they are very good at keeping us updated with what’s going on. There are usually message posts every/every other day, and I honestly do feel like they are trying to do well in a situation that is trying for just about everyone.

Many team members have spoken up in comment forums with concerns, and they are doing what they can to address them.

Now, having said that....

(Remember that first paragraph about hazard pay? I know it was like a year ago up there at the top of the post)

Today, 3/22/20, Walgreens announced that they are giving their store and distribution team members a one-time bonus to show their appreciation for us.

We, the team members ringing out all of our customers purchases while they cough and sneeze uncovered in our general direction, the pharmacy technicians and pharmacists dealing with angry and impatient patients because the lines are long and everyone’s trying to get early refills on their medications, on top of the usual crowd in for their regular pickup or just trying to drop off a new script. We the team members having to placate the customers by walking into an empty stockroom, look at the empty shelving for 10 seconds so we can then walk back out and assure them that “no, we really are out of face masks and rubbing alcohol”.

We hourly team members fighting the fight on the front lines and praying to whoever we believe in that we don’t contract COVID-19 from anyone and everyone, will get a one-time bonus of $300 for full-timers, and $150 for part-time, at the end of APRIL.

Are. You. Serious?

I realize that it is better than them shrugging their shoulders and doing absolutely nothing. For many people, I’m sure it’ll be welcome. I can definitely use the $300, considering I lost all my hours at my second job and am going to probably be short in the upcoming months.

But, as this is a bonus, it’ll probably be taxed to hell. I’ll probably really see only half of it. And when you break it down, it’s like a $.53 raise, for four weeks. But you have to wait four weeks to get it.

We are just as vital as the grocery store down the street. The fact that Walgreens think that this will placate its worried employee-base is completely out of touch. But then again, the people making these decisions are probably doing so from the comfort of home and not in the stores super busy with customers standing on top of each other, and us while they grab the last can of soup and box of vinyl gloves available.

For us fighting to keep everyone else happy and healthy, this is a slap in the face and a punch to the gut.

If I am going to work every day, risking my health and the health of my family just so everyone else can pick up their essentials...and non-essentials, I should be compensated for it. Without us in the stores, no one is getting their good sad stare at the toilet paper aisle, ranting over the lack of Tylenol, or waiting in line for that flu shot they should have gotten at least 5-6 months ago.

Not to mention...you know...getting their medication. That’s important too.

It’s time Walgreens gave us the hazard pay we deserve. And conveniently enough, several days ago, someone started a petition in hopes that might happen.

So if you’ve made it to the end of my rant, and want to try and help out a frustrated shift manager, or any of the other thousands of store and DC employees who must feel extremely slighted right now, feel free to click and sign. There are already 45,000+ signatures. Every bit helps.

And if not? Maybe signal boost this post. It might wander onto the blog of another Walgreens employee just as frustrated as I am. Who knows.

Thanks for reading, Michelle the disgruntled employee

#michelle's ramblings #if you made it to the end congratulations #I'm going back to regularly scheduled fic-writing now.

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marceltorak · 4 years

Text

Simmer, Get to know

Tagged by the lovely @katsimsdreamer and @whyhellosims ♥

Under the cut, these are so long ☻♥

Your name: Patricia is my Real Life name but on the internet, I go by MarcelTorak for account names and Sinostra (usually) for my avatar in games.

Languages you speak: English, a tiny smattering of Spanish and French because you know school and education. French is required in elementary school in Canada and Spanish, German or French are usually options for you in Highschool. I studied Spanish for 4 years but that was 20 years ago so... I retained NOTHING!

Are you a mermaid: I am a Life Bouy I float... literally FLOAT like I can dive into the water and just keep my arms and legs straight at my sides and I will end up on my back floating perfectly.

Your playstyle: Mostly just Gameplay but I have been trying challenges recently. I never tried any challenges before I joined Tumblr.

Your self sim picture: I might be a bit thicker but I’m sure I set her to the heaviest setting. I’m lucky in that I retained my figure even when I gained 100 pounds it helps me look less than I really am.

Stories or gameplay builds, lookbooks, edits or cc: I love reading people's stories. I love doing gameplay and just seeing what randomness can happen at times. I’m too lacking in confidence to really do lookbooks or builds but I love looking at other peoples. I adore CC just not talented enough to make it but I certainly APPRECIATE IT!!! I did do my first edit ever the other day for the Lunar Zodiac Challenge!!!

Your favourite age state: I would love the age states a hell of a lot more if there was -more- I could do with them. Infants, Toddlers, Children are so adorable but I feel really limited in their activities and personalities. Teens are great because the game treats them like practical adults so there is little you can’t do with them. I love the growing up and watching them become someone...

Your favourite season: Every time I start a new save I start in spring because I feel that is the order of things. Birth life ageing death and birth anew. It feels off if I choose a different season to start with. I did it with the Santa Baby Challenge but that’s because she’s all about winter so I had to.

Your favourite holiday: Winterfest was my favourite because of the Santa Baby Challenge and the fun I had with it but I’m growing to really like Love Day and the warm fuzzies I get seeing my sims do special things for their loved ones.

How was your day: I didn’t really get much done today but the things I really wanted to get done today I did finish so I feel accomplished.

Your favourite career: If you don’t mind needing to travel around a lot the Conservationist Career when you do the stay at home functions was really fun when I started out with Pearl but as my families grow I lose the time to spend focusing on the stay at home tasks as much so I usually pick a job that suits their personality or aspiration and send them off without me.

Your favourite aspiration: I love family aspirations.

Your favourite EP, SP or GP

Favourite Eps: Island Living

Favourite SP’s: The toddler one. I forgot what it’s called.

Favourite GP’s: Vampires and Realm of Magic

How old is your simblr: I should be hitting 1 year old within the month? I’ve had the account for much longer but I’ve only been active for a year.

Have you woohooed: I should say so. I’ve been married, divorced and now live common law with my current darling who I hope to be with forever. It’s been 8 years so I think I will. ^_^

Your favourite skill: Any musical skill, Flower Arranging and Wellness.

The size of your mods folder: 16.6 gigs with about 580+ folders sorting by the creator.

Your 3 favourite mods: Deaderpool for MCCC, LittleMsSam and all her mods, Polar Bear sims and their Personality and vampire mods. I suppose but I really am tied up with several more I would want to list.

Your interests (other than sims): Reading, Crochet and Video Games... Mostly RPG types like World of Warcraft, Starwars and the like.

Your favourite sim (picture if possible): I made her for a bachelor(ette) challenge that never went anywhere so she’s never gotten to be featured in anything but I seriously think this is the most beautiful sim I’ve ever made and will ever make.

which sims games you have played (including mobile games): The Sims 1, 2, 3 and 4. I had the Wii sims uhm... those little box head ones? Both mobile versions as well. Oh and the Castaways one. I still own (in storage somewhere so the disks might not work anymore... all the expansions, game packs and stuff packs of Sims 1, 2, 3, and almost all of 4 I’m just missing tiny living.

Propose a crazy scheme: *raises pointed finger in the air* I believe that what sims 4 needs the most is what sims 3 had! That website connected to the game that lets you purchase little addons for the game! You could by something as simple as a hairstyle or a whole town! you had to use real money and I can’t see why it wouldn’t make them billions of dollars because I swear by the time sims 4 came out I had invested about 1,000 dollars myself alone and I still hadn’t bought all I wanted to buy! Hell! They could even save themselves time and give out like a... I dunno uhm.. royalty payment? to current modders to feature their stuff on the sims official site if they let the company own the CC from then on but the artist either would get a single fair payout or a couple of cents per download kinda payout.... it would motivate the people who make CC for money as well as fun and give EA a massive pool of content to choose from!

The best part of simblr: Seeing all the amazing talent, imaginations and humour of the people around me who have the same joy in playing sims as I do. Seeing comments on my posts even if it’s just a <3 I get all happy seeing it!

The worst part of simblr: Well I haven’t really gotten to see the dark side of Simblr to be honest but I do think that people sometimes can get out of hand with their differing opinions.

What other games you play: World of Warcraft, Starwars Online, Any MMORPG really I’ve tried almost all of them if they are free to try. Lately, my husband and I play Titan Quest together it’s fun it’s like Diablo 2

other websites or accounts (origin, twitter etc..): uuuuuuhm I have a Facebook account for personal use that I hardly use other than to get messages from people I need to hear from since I do not have a phone. I have a twitter I never use that I linked to things so they post on it for me? I have an Instagram I was putting crochet stuff on it but I can’t remember the password for it anymore I never use it really I don’t really Uhm... do the social thing... I’m on Discord?

I’m tagging: @quinnterestingsims, @kalissimsblog, @lotusplum, @sammsims, @sadmachinepng, @nyxfoxx if you already have done this or don’t want too then just ignore it.

#socials

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leggypuppy · 4 years

Text

An Ascension Incarnassial, Pt.2

Ao3

Which Both Begins And Ends With The Introduction Of A Stranger

July 18th

Appt. P.L. 20/07. 4.15 Long St. Cafe

July 20th

L. St. Caff not at all improved since last and only visit. Still apparently constructing their pastries from cardboard. Would rather have met somewhere more comfortable, but such details decidedly not left in my hands.

Had consumed two coffees and three abominable pastries by the time the hairs on the back of the neck began to stir. Turn around to find self pinioned by a real harpoon of a gaze. Am not the most observant of fellows, but am certain wielder of said ocular weaponry was not there on own arrival. Clearly, had located P.L. Or rather, she, I.

Introductions exchanged. Quiet woman. Smiled a lot. Very small, very thin teeth. Surprisingly cold for having such a genial air. Seemed to know Papa better than I did. Such a fact much less surprising. Also no great shock to hear it intimated he was seeking pleasures “denied to healthy society.” Well, Father dear, aren’t we all?

That admission is made here in the privacy of shorthand. Didn’t take kindly to P.L.s employment of hated phrase, ‘finish what he started’. Still. She was still. Stillness speaking to a memory of a dream.

Accepted her proposal. If nothing else, have never regretted hearing the phrase ‘substantial contribution’. Her conditions trouble me a little. Shall be not providing myself for an ending. Can read between the lines there well enough. But, with her gold-and-silver aid, shall be well appointed to set the right tongues wagging. Winter shall give way to the red.

Besides! Am not so without friends or means. After all, the house shall be the perfect setting for acquiring new acquaintances. Shan’t have any problems providing P.L. with her ending. All shall be well.

July 21st

Horrific news!

The house is to be taken to pay for debts. Have put down the foot, shouted at those accessible for shouting at, even threatened the deployment of Aunt M. Nothing results. Apparently even the formidable bulwark of matriarchal relatives cannot divert the tide of capital from it’s decided course. Bastards.

Am left with nothing but the meagre sum in the will. Donation of P.L. shall only stretch so far, and at present am lacking in sufficient sway with Ori’s numismatists to develop it to fullest capacity. Only viable solution is to find employment*.

Intolerable! Not to mention downright cruel! Can a bereaved man not mourn his lunatic pater in peace???

*[E/N: the underlining in the original document appears to have gone right through the paper]

July 26th

Found work. Start tomorrow. Humiliating. Do not wish to record details. Posterity can gain more satisfaction and insight by reflecting on its own posterior.

July 26th [evening]

IN GI RUM IMUS NOC TE ET CON SUMI MUR IGNI

Now there is a lump of the roman tongue that hasn't escaped or withered on the vine! Might be the only lump. Answer, naturally, is moths. Shall commiserate my new career in fashion that best befits it.

[Editors note: The next few pages are densely packed with writing, but unfortunately entirely illegible. Ink appears to have been spilled across one page, and several pages underneath it have been torn out. Text resumes]

July 28th

A mess! Mistakes may reveal themselves a pleasure, but pleasure gained is never mistaken. Excuse handwriting. Not entirely cohesive on page still. Head all full of sights and sounds and sores. Much so that last one. Fuck.

***

Feeling a little clearer. Less dazzle, more hangover. Shall attempt here to recollect last night. Wouldn’t normally bother, but met someone am keen to remember.

Am rather put out that Ecd. unknown to me for so long. Stepped over threshold to welcoming embrace of smoke, red velvet, music thrum-thrumming through the feet to the chest. Didn’t know a single soul there. Bought drink, set about fixing that.

Dancers there superb, of no other persuasion than lithe and rhythmbound. Not unexpected, but beyond welcome. Nothing wrong with the fair and feminine, but variety is the spice etc etc. However. Had this display to enjoy, was enjoying, promising company developing next to me, and yet-

Begins to get a little blurry here. Remember a face, very clearly. Strong profile, no feature short of striking. Little hollows of shadow. Lips set smiling, almost bored. Eyes all blazed with low lights. Hunger there, I think, well hid.

Decided to talk to him. No memory if I did. Other images swim together, glasses and lights and someone’s kisses, yes, but lipstick stains suggest not his. Cannot shake the feeling of something missed, or dead, or drowning.

Cannot sit still. Need a focus to prevent the mind from eating itself. Perhaps employment not such a foul thing after all?

***

Found note pinned to door. Services apparently no longer required. No patience at all, some people.

***

Tried to exorcise the remembered face by sketching it. Abysmal results.

Refuse to sit here and mope like a caricature in one of F.’s beloved pulps. IN GI RUM IMIS NOC TE ET CON SUMI MUR IGNI. The night is to be enjoyed as much as wine. May find him again, may not. But no part of my soul do I owe to ghosts.

#Cultist Simulator #cultsim #fanfic #Rollo Rutherford V #Poppy Lascelles #Cashimeer Klimek #is not my oc I just have permission from my datemate to use him and I'm going to so there

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sasukeslilkitten · 4 years

Text

an essay about fashion dolls in recent days by an adult doll collector

as a doll collector, even though I grew up with Barbie, when Bratz came out, they took my heart & I think eternally Bratz will be the doll that I love the most.

as an adult i literally despise Barbie because even though the premise was Barbie is rich bitch who can do anything, her proportions were very irksome & unrealistic to me even as a child & as I grew up I was more & more disgusted by her. Sure, in 60s-90s that body was ideal & could even be considered ideal now. But twig arms, ridiculous super model height, exaggerated hip & chest with nickel wide waist just seems very detrimental to me. Not to mention every so often buzzfeed or daily mail etc will bring you the stories of women turning themselves into barbie dolls... & yes, I recognize that Barbie has become more inclusive to everyone now, but in my opinion, Barbie is almost like aged up American Girl, the Disney of the doll world.

However, I felt like Bratz had a very typical & realistic body type for someone between the age of twelve to even twenty two. Bratz bodies aren’t very plastic surgery heavy at all. Bratz were the embodiment of the nineties, a symbol of the changing times by that point. The fashion dolls. Flashy, exciting & alternative. The doll for the egirl, the doll with edge. The doll for the youth with a passion for fashion. At one point my mom had taken a good deal of my Bratz doll clothes for her Bratz & when I was left to look at the remaining clothes I thought “wow, these are literally the sluttiest clothes.” I loved it! Barbie may be a doctor or a lawyer, but the Bratz spent big money on their clothes to go out dancing in, Bratz are out here to have fun. The Bratz would feature in a style magazine more times than Barbie ever could with hair & make up leagues louder & flashier than Barbie could ever dream.

Bratz are my favorite doll & nothing will change my feelings for the original Bratz. It is incredibly painful that Mattel bought out Bratz when they were fighting a losing battle against Littlest Pet Shop.. Yet I would like to bring up that having Bratz aimed at both adults & children would have been the better way to go. There is a good enough amount of adult collectors besides myself who would quickly jump to a preorder of a new Bratz doll in the original style. & we had that happen in 2018 & the adult collectors loved it! So why hasn’t it happened again?

When Mattel bought out Bratz they changed the Bratz body to resemble a smaller & more realistic, toned down Barbie. At first, it was so subtle that I saw the body had changed & I could tell you how it changed, but I didn’t realize it was a smaller more proportionate version of Barbie’s body until I read someone else say it in an article & I couldn’t unsee it. My opinion on the second Bratz body is that, if Bratz never had a first body, if the second body was the original, I would be completely fine with it because it seemed like a regular lady body with no flash & slightly more human than the original Bratz body.

Another change Mattel had made was they toned down the new Bratz hair & make up. Hairs weren’t done over the top or super stylized anymore, they became very basic, & I can’t think of any second body doll with a fun make up at all. Did they even wear make up at this point?? & the face became far reminiscent of My Scene. Yet, one thing I did appreciate about the hair change was we got a lot more short hairs which Bratz never did before. Like Shania is a great example of that. I had to have Shania solely for her hair. But the body change caused a difference in fit between the originals & the dolls after Mattel bought them out. The difference isn’t terrible, but as much as I tried to like the second body, when I would share clothes between the original & second bodies, the clothes fit awkwardly on the opposing bodies, to the point it was irritating in some cases but interesting in others.

Then Monster High became a phenomenon. I couldn’t understand this. Of course I liked the alternative monster based premise. I love that idea! However, their bodies disgusted me. I didn’t like the fact there would be zero compatibility between Monster High & Bratz. I didn’t like their weird scoliosis & tiny binded chests. The only appeal I could fathom with Monster High was the fun monster concept for girls with alternative interests. Also, for many years, I was under the impression Monster High only wore dresses which was really disturbing to me.

After Mattel found Bratz proceeding to lose the battle against Monster High, they came out with possibly the greatest & most ill fated doll line; Bratzillaz. For those who don’t know, they are a combination of the second Bratz body with the posibility of Monster High. & their face is a slightly toned down version of the original Bratz with a layered glassy looking eye. Their faces have a softer, more adorable & angelic look than any other doll I have ever encountered in my life. Their faces are like a mix of original Bratz with Pullip. I admit that when it came to clothing & ideas, Bratzillaz were lacking miserably. Rather than even trying to fight the monster idea, they were a witch academy. Yet there were werewolf & mermaid characters. There were a lot of fun colored hair & eyes. For being dolls so breathtakingly beautiful, they had an incredibly painful run of one full year, maybe a little over a year.

Instead Mattel decided to make Bratz more child oriented. Again, many adult collectors would still be very into the original fashion heavy Bratz dolls... But no, we get these god awful alien bodied, deformed Bratz dolls. Their bodies look a lot more like Monster High but if you completely removed the ability to pose them... So what’s even the point then? They can’t do anything, they can’t stand or even sit down! They can’t share any of their clothes with any other Bratz line whatsoever. I admit, some of them had really fun hair (mostly when it comes to color) & really fun clothes, yet what do the clothes even matter if you can’t even display the doll? I had seen a couple in a thrift store & I had bought them only to be severely disappointed. I actually tried to buy a fashion pack meant for the third Bratz body only to find the shoes didn’t snap on to any of the bodies i had. Yet I kept their heads & bought original Bratz bodies for them. Yet this horrible gesture of grotesquely mutilating Bratz did nothing to save the doll, proving that all Mattel wanted to do was murder Bratz & never give them a chance. Not as long as their precious Barbie still existed. When all along, adult collectors still watch, buy, sell & customize the original Bratz.

A couple days ago I had gone to a thrift store with a friend where I found a whole damn pile of twenty plus Monster High dolls. As I expressed before, I didn’t like Monster High & I never have. I have seen many dumped into thrift stores & passed over them without a second thought. But here, I had to look in the pile, holding out hope that I would find an original Bratz doll mixed in.. & as I sifted through these bizarre dolls, I did find myself ensorcelled by some. I enjoyed their fun skin tones & vibrant hair colors, & because they were only a dollar each, I bought seven of my favorites. I took them home & fixed them up & redid some of the hairs I didn’t like. & I had a lot of fun. I still don’t like their strange finger sized chests & their weird scoliosis torsos yet I had a lot of fun posing their bodies.

I inspected their brand online & found a couple other dolls by them that I liked. Nowhere near the number of my fondness & love for the original Bratz. But I did change my mind a good deal about them. I would like to collect some of them & it’s interesting to know that they can pretty much (although awkwardly) wear Bratz clothes & it would seem they are more compatible with the third Bratz body. & in an interesting twist, they can also probably wear My Scene shoes. & it would seem that they were in fact manufactured with some pairs of pants & shirts, although it is weird to me how many dresses they chose to incorporate. I also liked the ability to remove the hands to get long sleeve shirts & jackets on with more ease & the ability to customize dolls with different limbs. They also had fun hairs & unlike the original Bratz, Monster High not only included a lot of fun colors for their hairs, but also different lengths. Their make up wasn’t quite as flashy, but the point is, they still tried & there were fun colors to be experienced along with plenty of fun hair styles. But Monster High can’t actually be considered a fashion doll in the same way Bratz are.

I guess eventually Monster High also lost their popularity & attempted to revive the brand by gearing them more toward a younger audience, which obviously failed.

I see a lot of people online, on various platforms, customizing & presenting original Bratz dolls in a very fanciful & inspiring way. People really go all out with their original Bratz dolls fashion wise, from paying for programs to spending heaps of time editing very intense magazine like photoshoots of their dolls, to people literally sewing & buying one of a kind clothes for their dolls. Buying specialized Bratz wigs to custom re rooting, yet I didn’t see anyone anywhere going this hard with Monster High.

Some of these people have now picked up these new Lol Omg dolls. I think these dolls are adorable! I wouldn’t buy every one that’s come out, but I already love them profusely & far more than I ever admired Monster High. I can’t wait to see what they do next! One opinion I have though as an adult collector who strictly collects out of commission dolls, I can easily find every style of Bratz & Monster High for under fifteen dollars on ebay & for less than five in thrift stores. Yet, because no child has received a Lol Omg doll, grown up & discarded it, it seems like I would have to buy these dolls new :\ & there is one I really like & want that is new but it comes with a set of the stupid original Lol Surprise figurines, which I’m saying I’m an adult collector, I have no use for those stupid things..

In closing I want to say that thus far, I will always love the original Bratz & Mattel took something with amazing promise & shit all over it for everyone. Monster High wasn’t as bad as I thought, but save for the third body Bratz, is one of the lesser doll lines I’ve seen as an adult collector. I am super happy & excited to see what Lol Omg does with their dolls as I am very eager & enthusiastic about collecting them. Yet by far, the best doll out of all the ones I’ve encountered is Bratzillaz. Even though they appeared to be a total failure, most of those dolls are still trending at thirty dollars new in box. They didn’t have the greatest fashions, but when it comes to their bodies & faces, nothing surpasses their heavenly beauty.

#this is just my opinion though

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nncastle · 5 years

Text

Long Walk, Long Update

The work on the long walk continues! Ahh, will it ever end!??

Someone said to me that this is looking like some weird golf putting area sans flags, but their comment comes from a lack of gardening imagination and a severe underestimation of how much work this is.

Allow me to explain what's going on here.

Last year we moved a lot of dirt to create this area. We graded the hill and completely reshaped this space. The only constant was the pond and the fountain. The imported dirt grew weeds, lots of them which swallowed all the wildflower seeds I put down resulting in a mess of nasty plants.

This year, I hatched a new plan. I didn't have the budget to thickly plant perennials to outcompete the weeds so I went with a middle ground approach. I created some flower beds in organic shapes and planted them with fast-growing annual seeds like zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, and asters. I didn't mix the seed so each bed will grow a unique type of flower. I bought mulch, lots of it, which I then packed in between the flower beds to stop weeds from taking over. My husband and I have now moved 12,000 lbs of mulch and there is more to go.

Without the clearly marked areas, I wouldn't know where to weed, or where the flowers were planted. The mulch also creates walking paths that weave through the flower field. Each bed is labeled so I can keep track of which flowers I liked best and which performed better in part shade/ sun, etc.

I did buy some perennials this year, which you can see in the photos. I mostly started with larger shrubs and trees because they take up a large amount of space. I put in some Itoh peonies, ninebarks, dogwoods, sorbaria, spirea, etc. Each year, as my budget permits, I will add more and more perennials in the currently drawn beds, thereby eliminating some of the annuals.

For this year, however, I'm truly looking forward to the explosion of color. Most of the plants I planted will grow 30" or more and bloom all the way through the first frost. This space will be a huge cut flower farm and a boon to pollinators of all types.

For those of you who don't remember what this area originally looked like before the landscaping...here's a before and after pic. If you want to see more of this project in progress I chose the tag #fountainproject.

I chose the curving shapes partially because of Gertrude Jekyll. Gertrude used to weave colors and beds into one another to create more of an organic cottage garden feel. Straight lines would have just been weird in this space.

This blog is a diary of the progress I make on the house and garden. Having lots of photos helps me assess what works and what doesn't. The gardening entries also help me understand how weather affects what I grow each season. I realize there's a lot of people following the blog now and that it's grown from a personal space into a sort of community space... but the focus for me is the same. This is a place for me to jot down ideas and keep track of changes around the house.

If it provides pleasure and inspiration to readers, then all the better.

Now let's get gardening!

#long walk #fountainproject #fountain #mixed borders #flowers #mygarden #gardening #garden #annuals #flower beds #borders

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garryspolicememories · 4 years

Photo

Policing Memories of

Garry Crawford Circa 1962

Part XVI

In the early spring of 1974 I was selected to attend a Search and Rescue Course with the Canadian Military. I must admit that I was probably the one in the back row with my hand straight up, yelling : Pick Me! Pick Me! I loved being in the Northern Bush. Whether it was on the trap line, hunting or another fishing expedition.

If my memory is correct, by that time I had completed my diving training with Ed Zelionis and had convinced my wife that we just had to have our own aircraft. We bought a Cessna 150 which we leased back to the local flying school. Part of the lease was an agreement that I obtain my pilot’s license for the sum of $200.00. Everything worked out fine. I even put the aircraft in my wife’s name, but unfortunately she did not like flying. So we sold the plane and built a new house.

The Search and Rescue Training took place in the Champlain Provincial Park north of Mattawa, Ontario. They set us up in small groups of 3 or 4. Each group had their own tent. The fire season was already high, so we had to do our own cooking on Coleman stoves. The first part of the course was classroom indoctrination. The part that stayed with me the rest of my life was the part where they emphasized, that in a survival or wilderness situation the first thing you do is to take stock of what you have at hand. What is available? Then make a plan of how you will use those items. I have never forgotten that as it applies in so many different situations. We were supposed to exist during the course on minimal food etc. At the same time as our course was being run there was an advanced Course in the same park with cooks and plenty of provisions. Lets just say we ate well.

The search and rescue training itself was excellent and probably is still followed today with a few adaptions. I know for the searches I coordinated over the following years we usually used a line formation, which covered an area back and fourth marking the area with flagging tape as you covered the ground. One adaption I learned to do was take one or two people who were good with a compass and send them out to predetermined locations. This was especially good in cases of small children or the elderly. I would have these people mark their route with a different coloured flagging tape. The locations would be determined by the lay of the land, the light conditions and time of the day the person became lost. The topography quite often will funnel a lost person to travel in a certain direction. They are also inclined to follow the light source. I found that quite often we would be searching too small an area. The target would not be circling but would travel in a straight direction. At the same time the main search party would pick up any clues as they carefully searched the main area. Discipline on a search line is very important. The line must hold. When a clue is observed the line stops and the clue is examined whether it is a track, article of clothing or a broken branch. One or two persons are specifically assigned do the examination and documentation.

A Search at Mile 22 CNR TRACK WEST OF

HORNEPAYE, ON

One search I sadly remember occurred in the late fall during the latter part of the 1970’s. I was dispatched to Hornpayne Detachment area. Where a learned that a young native woman who worked in the roundhouse at the CNR Sheds at Hornepayne, had travelled up to her grandparents cabin to spend a few days with them. The cabin was located on the north side of the CNR Line 22 miles west of Hornpayne and south west of Nagagami Lake. The young woman had left in the afternoon to check rabbit snares north of the cabin. A heavy snowstorm had blown in and she had not returned. All trains passing that area had blown their whistles while passing that area and she had failed to appear.

If my memory is correct, a couple of days had passed between her going missing and our responding due to the communication problem of getting word out. I proceeded to the scene via CN rail with a large search party comprised of OPP members and several native elders. We had something like 22 people on the line. They did an amazing job. Most OPP members would visualize an area of about ten to twenty feet ahead of them as they moved along in line. The native elders always seemed to be looking a hundred feet ahead. They often would notice a bent or broken branch long before we would get to it. It had snowed at least three times between the time the lady went missing and our search commenced, so there was no way of following her tracks. However we would locate areas where she had been. We would find shadow tracks in the settled snow where we could follow her for perhaps ten feet or so then lose the direction. At one point we even were able to dig her frozen foot print out. It was composed of packed and frozen snow. We also located a sweater which she had dropped and in another location her axe. The final area that we were able to positively identify was a thick growth of cedar. She had crowded into the grove, sat down on a clump of snow, then taken cedar branches and folded them over and twisted them into an egg shaped ball. The CNR trains had continued blowing their horns during our search. We found out early on that they would have been of no help to the woman. The sound ricocheted off the surrounding hills. It never seemed to be coming from the tracks, but would circle you as the train went on down the tracks. This of course would have the opposite effect to giving the lady a direction. If she tried to follow the tracks, she would have circled instead. That is what we found she had in fact done.

The last day of our search we knew another heavy snowstorm was coming in and it would obliterate any sign. In the afternoon heavy wet snow started to fall. We decided to make a deep drive down towards the river that flows out of Nagagami Lake. I remember I was concerned after the noon break that if we stopped too long with the wet clothes and cooling weather that some of our people would get into hyperthermia. I knew from experience that they also would lose energy. So what I would do would be to call a smoke break, as soon as those smokers lit up I would call for them to move forward. We made our run north then the return sweep. When we reached the area we had already covered, we made a beeline for the CNR Tracks. It was getting pretty cold by this time. It was quite dark by the time we reached the tracks. I knew all of our people were out of the bush and we were walking down the tracks to wait at the cabin for the next eastbound train to picks us up. I remember two men were walking ahead of us. One of them was Errol Patterson. Now those who know Errol will remember he had a pretty dry sense of humour. It was cold the crew were tired and probably feeling a little down because of our lack of success. My Christian names are Garry David. All of a sudden I heard Errol exclaim in the cold darkness. Somebody should tell that G—D---- CRAWFORD that slavery went out in the 1800’s. I still have a little chuckle to this day. I’m sorry Errol but you all did an excellent job. We took turns warming up at that little cabin. We were picked up by an eastbound freight train and returned to Hornpayne that night. It was a disappointed crew. The heavy snow that followed on and off for the rest of that winter stopped any further search. Plans were made to return in the spring and attempt a recovery.

The following spring in early May Norm Kerr and I returned to the area by helicopter. I remember we found a small field near the railway tracks and Norm practiced hovering at a few feet above the ground, while I got out out onto the landing skid carrying my chain saw. I weighted about 225 lbs. at the time, so it made some difference in the balance of the helicopter. When he got use to the feel of my movement and weight change, we flew into the area where I wished to commence our search from. The area was mostly muskeg with many black spruce trees about 30’ high. We found a spot where there was a large boulder probably dropped there by the glaciers. I remember he went into a hover over the boulder concentrating on a broken spruce tree for reference. I got out of the helicopter onto the skid then jumped the five feet or so to the top of the big boulder. I looked back at the helicopter and Norm was in total concentration. I reached up and slapped the skid twice and Norm took off. When he returned in a half hour or so I had dropped enough trees and made a cross pattern of poles that he could land on the muskeg. We made two landing pads in this manner, and then returned to Wawa.

I had made arrangements with the CNR railway to set up a work train complete with cooking facilities and sleeping quarters on a siding near our starting point. We returned about a week later with a compliment of approximately 22 OPP members. Brian Ringrose was our cook. Most of the crew drove to Hornpayne and the CNR provided transportation to the siding where we were set up. Norm Kerr had arrived with the helicopter and ferried the men into our landing spots. If my memory serves me right, we continued the search for three more days; with no luck. On the fourth day we received word that we would have to stop the search as the helicopter was needed elsewhere. We received the word around noon on the fourth day. I contacted the crew by radio and advised them of the situation. They were pretty disappointed and asked if they could continue their search for the remainder of the day. We filled a packsack with some nourishment, flew over to their location and lowered it to the team in the bush.

It was a pretty disappointed group that returned to our siding that night. This was the only bush search I coordinated in all my years on the OPP that was not successful. The only thing I could think of was that the young woman had stepped into a sinkhole and could not be seen. There were plenty of these areas in the muskeg.

Could I have Made a Difference

As I said earlier in my stories we had many good members in Wawa Detachment. One of them was Walter Purdy. He hailed from the Maritimes, came to Wawa married a local girl and was one of the longest serving members at the Detachment. He had that cheerful maritime personality which people were quick to pick up on. It was common at that Detachment to have someone come in off the road and compliment an officer for a job well done. I can remember more than once, a person coming in that wished to compliment Walter on his professionalism and manner after he had issued them a ticket for a traffic infraction. We didn’t get to many of those. I heard one incident where he had stopped a person for speeding, issued the ticket and as he returned to the violator’s car; a voice from inside the car said something to the effect: Stop Officer wait a minute! As Walter hesitated, a lady jumped out of the car ran around to the driver’s side and said: Okay now! She wanted a picture as Walter served the ticket, to commemorate their trip.

One of the memories I had with Walter concerned our attending to a firearm discharge complaint at a home in Hawk Junction one night in the latter part of the 1970’s. We were both familiar with the subject of the complaint. He was a heavy drinker and was known for his dislike of any form of authority. The alleged perpetrator had been drinking was very belligerent and threatening. We seized all firearms in the house and he made death threats towards us for our action. During the altercation, his wife and children were present and witnessed the whole performance. I will mention one of those children in the following paragraph.

In 1993 I had retired and was teaching in the Law and Security program at Cambrian College at Sudbury.

On the night of October 7th.1993 Constable Joe MacDonald of the Sudbury Police force made a routine traffic stop on Gordon St., in Sudbury. Peter Pennett and Clinton Suzack occupied the car. Suzack was wanted for a parole violation. A gunfight ensued. Constable MacDonald received a vicious beating that included a broken leg. This was finalized by his execution by gunfire. Constable MacDonald had emptied his revolver and succeeded in shooting Suzack twice in the chest and Pennett once in the hand. Suzack and Pennett were both convicted of 1st degree murder and sentence to 25 yrs. in prison. Hopefully they will never get parole.

At the time of this incident police officers were still issued with .38 special calibre revolvers as they were in my time. This firearm was known to often be ineffective in stopping a violent offender. They only held six bullets and were slow to reload even with a speed reloader.

Following this incident Nancy MacDonald Joe’s widow started lobbying for better firearms. I believe a lot of the credit for the more powerful and better all around weapons that are carried by police officers today, goes to her.

Each day as I returned to teach at Cambrian College I passed the area where Constable MacDonald died I had to wonder, Could we have done something different all those years before that would have made a difference. The attached picture is that of Constable Joe MacDonald. May his memory go on.

If you wish to read my previous submissions, they are all stored at the following URL: <garryspolicememories.tumblr.com>

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berlinaura · 5 years

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Man it has been an eventful week. After settling down to my room and unpacking my things I listed down everything I need and went for a long shopping day on Wednesday. I bought for example a plastic container for leftover food (our fridge is ridiculously small!), hangers, extra set of bed sheet and food. At first I thought I would have to dry my laundry in hangers but then I realized that we have plenty of equipment from laundry racks to cleaning supplies that I had nothing to worry about. I already washed my first batch of clothing successfully even though I had no idea what each of the 9 programs of our washing machine do.

Thursday 3rd of October was the national holiday of Germany, der Tag der Deutschen Einheit. A celebration of the German reunification. My buddy invited me to go to the celebration in Brandenburger Tor so we went. We enjoyed the market and live music and went for a long walk in the area of Reichstag building and Hauptbahnhof. We thought (falsely) that the only place where we could get snacks for a movie that would be open would be the main train station. Then we walked to Sony Center in Potsdamer Platz and watched two movies in a row. At first I thought it would be absolute madness but then I realized how genius it is! Gemini man would get a 3/5 from me and IT part II 4/5.

On Friday my roommate asked me if I wanted to come to a museum with her and her new friend. Of course I’d go! We visited Neues Museum at the museum island. We observed some bath tub looking sarcophagi and saw Nefertiti herself.

I wasn’t supposed to do anything outrageous on Friday because I had been feeling a bit ill and wanted to have a rest before the upcoming orientation week. After the museum visit my roommate threw a pre-drink gathering at our apartment and I had a moment of weakness so I joined and went clubbing with them. I am glad though because the evening was fun!

In my opinion the club was no different from the clubs I’ve been to in Finland. As I heard someone say earlier, the erasmus parties aren’t probably the best Berlin club parties there are. For my first party in Berlin it was good enough though. And I am a bigger fan of the pre-parties and casual pub evenings anyways.

On Saturday I woke up feeling okay and wondered about it for a moment. Then I stood up and realized I was still drunk. I used this energy to clean up the kitchen because flies around stacked beer pong cups aren’t a pretty sight after a night out. On the late afternoon I went thrift shopping to Humanas and found a cute skirt I can wear the next time when going out. I felt like I didn’t really pack any clubbing clothes so I had a mini crisis on Friday and ended up going in just jeans and a T-shirt.

Sunday was my chill day. (As if everything before it was such a hard work!) I binged Shameless UK on Netflix for a couple of hours until me and my roommate went to get a drink at Boxhagenerplatz. The place was full of cozy bars and I thought I’d definitely be going there again! I had probably the best gin & tonic I’ve ever had in my life.

Monday was my last day before orientation week. I was hanging out in Alexanderplatz, getting some final school supplies and I thought “maybe some erasmus students would like to meet today” so I sent an invitation to our facebook group. Luckily a shit ton of people were interested! People wanted to meet quite late but luckily I got a Swedish and a French girl to meet up with me beforehand. I was asked if I know any cool bars in Berlin and all I could come up with was the place I was the day before so we met at Boxhagenerplatz “:D” but it was good and the bars were great!

Later we met with the whole group in a bar called The Castle and it, once again, is a bar worth going back to. The bartender was super nice as well as the atmosphere. We talked and enjoyed drinks for several hours until I had to do the adult thing and go home to get some rest for the first day of orientation week.

Navigating through the campus was less stressful when you already knew some people. The room of the information session was so retro. Some parts of the campus seem so modern and beautiful. There’s this one place that looks like a museum because it is so aesthetically pleasing. Then there are these run-down hallways and classrooms that look like they’re from the 70′s. Nevertheless the info session was somewhat useful as was the campus tour afterwards.

TUB makes some administrative matters a bit too complicated and they know it! For example, when I want to search through the courses, I go to the course catalog (Vorlesungsverzeichnis, available only in German) to see the name of the course and the timetable. When I want to know what the course is about, what are the prerequisites and how many credits it is worth, I go to MOSES. Then there’s a different place for the material, possible course sign up, exam sign up etc. This all makes me appreciate the compact student portal we have in Finland.

Another thing that makes me go WTF is that most of the courses don’t require a sign up! We just go to the first meeting, greet the teacher and announce that we are there to learn. We don’t even sign up for exams because we “don’t exist in the system”.

I also knew that Germans like to use cash but I wasn’t prepared for this!! We need to pay at school cafeterias with a Mensa card but the machines that allow us to load money to the card only accept cash money (and not even coins). Many bars only accept cash and the ones that proudly advertise they accept card payments have a 5-10€ minimum limit for the purchase. This is something that I’ll probably get used to and I hope that a proper wallet makes my life easier. I should have thought about that before coming here.

Because of the program for the orientation week was sold out in such a short time, I could only get tickets for two events: visit at Urban nation museum and a walking tour in Kreuzberg. Many didn’t even get that so I am lucky. To compensate the lack of official events, we decided to go bowling with a group of people I got to know on Monday. Turns out Alexanderplatz is a pretty popular place to go bowling even on Tuesday evening so we didn’t got in the first place. Luckily the second one was just a 10 minute walk away and we had a nice game there. Afterwards we went for a drinks in Hackescher Markt and I ordered my first lager!

The evening was successfull but unfortunately I also got to see two rats! I was told to get brave and set a goal to get rid of my rat fear by the end of my erasmus year but I’m not sure if I can do it. After seeing the rats I do feel a bit less nauseated by mice though so maybe it will be possible to get over my rat fear as well.

Today we went to listen to another info session at campus. This one was about courses, the sign ups and all that. Everybody is just as confused by the lack of an official sign up - why can’t TUB just come to this century and open an online sign up for courses!! After the info session I decided to go for a walk so I decided to go to Märkisches Viertel in Norhern Berlin. I wanted to see the place after hearing Sido’s “Mein Block” and also just get a walk because the sun was shining and for once I had no rush to anywhere. Judging by my short visit, Märkisches Viertel is like the Hervanta of Berlin.

youtube

Of course as soon as I was on the border of Berlin so pretty much as far as I can get from the city centre, some people at the erasmus group wanted to meet in the centre with a short warning. I decided to skip it all and headed home for a nap after which I finally sorted out my courses. My timetable is currently very full but I don’t want to have the risk of failing a course and then not getting enough credits. I want to a have the possibility to drop a course if it feels too difficult.

I am looking forward the rest of the week! Tomorrow I’ll go to the campus again because there’s some sort of fun (?) meeting planned with the buddies and exchange students of TUB. In the evening I’ll go to the movies again to see Joker! On Friday there’s the museum visit and an international erasmus party at the same club as last week. This time there will be people from TUB so I am excited to go again. On Saturday late afternoon (important and calculated factor!) there’s the walking tour in Kreuzberg. I haven’t been to that area so much so it’s nice to check it out. And then for Sunday I plan to go to see the Reichstags dome from the inside and maybe do something with the roommates.

# livin the dream

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