#their severe truama say different

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Why did Joon posting that song blow up to such an insane degree, but Taehyung mouthing the n-word seems to have made no noise? I’m absolutely not saying I wanted Taehyung to be at the center of a hate campaign, but I’m kind of surprised? If I understood the meaning of the song correctly, Joon really didn’t do anything wrong or offensive at all, but it blew up and was everywhere for days. I saw so many discussions about it on different platforms. But then Taehyung actually DID do something wrong. But it’s just… crickets. I guess I’m just confused? Why did Joon’s thing turn out like it did, but Taehyung seems to have gotten away unscathed?

***

I just want to say, first of all, that I abhor this sort of ask for two reasons: (1) because it ultimately taps into the incredibly toxic hyper-competitiveness in k-pop, where everything is seen within the lens of comparison and competition - nothing is sacred; and (2) because I'm Black and Korean, and having to explain the intricacies of how this space creates and engages in the sort of prejudice cocktail one uniquely finds here, especially since I've been into k-pop for this long, is annoying and borderline dehumanizing to experience.

But I understand why you asked it. I know you likely bore no malice in asking it and I can see why the stark difference in reactions could be confusing, so I'll use your ask to make a general comment about general fandom dynamics. It's something I've talked about before, when discussing hate and how Jimin doesn't actually get as much hate as a lot of people think, but that he does get huge amounts of certain kinds of hate. I suggest you read that post with this one please, because I won't repeat all I said there, here.

I often talk about the different players in k-pop fandom, how hate can be manufactured, and that various things have influenced previous scandals blowing up. It can get confusing to fully explain, but I'll try not to ramble and will try to outline this methodically somehow, splitting up the factors I think are important into sub-headings.

The Background/Setting

This might not seem obvious at first, but it's important to know what else is happening in k-pop fandom at the time.

In the case of Namjoon's artificial scandal of recommending a Frank Ocean song about Black queer experience, and unrequited love related to religious truama - a song 10s of idols and people had shared before to zero controversy, and a scandal started in a Blinks GC including BTS akgaes (who were Blinks) - the background context was Lisa getting dragged by most of stan twt for an unflattering picture posted on Popbase, Blackpink getting flayed by several k-pop fandoms for not selling out their latest concert venue, and simultaneously NewJeans taking yet another record from Blackpink. This wasn't the catalyst for the hate on Namjoon, but it provided the background noise for why Blinks were so angsty and pissed. All that happened in one day.

You see, before Blinks came after Namjoon, they'd actually gone after NewJeans' fandom in retaliation. A blink hacked the NewJeans Global fanbase following the achievement announcement. Look at the date of that tweet. If you were on Twitter you would've seen "APOLOGIZE TO LISA" trending globally. Well, that's what happened. Bunnies are a much smaller fandom but their group is the top girl group, meaning that fandom dynamics make them an easy target to overwhelm that nobody would care to defend and so their pleas that their fanbase was hacked fell on deaf ears, Blinks easily overran them and practically everything that happened to Namjoon two days later, happened first to NewJeans and their fanbase. But the scandal didn't gain much traction and Blinks were like, raging pissed. I'm talking people screaming in various Twitter spaces mad. Just insane any way you look at it.

Then a day later Namjoon said in a magazine interview that BTS would be returning around 2025. That was the catalyst for the hate. Aside from the additional annoyance for Blinks of BTS, well, BTS-ing, BTS akgaes who were also Blinks, absolutely lost their shit. It might seem like such an innocuous thing, but one thing you'll realize is, a lot of people here are frankly insane. I know I use that word a lot but I actually mean it. Much of what passes for 'discourse' here, is actually fueled by people who are very unstable and cannot manage their emotional reactions to facts outside their control. Such is the perpetual plight of BTS akgaes and one such fact is BTS all saying they intend to return in a few years, and so their attention turned to him and he would've had a hate train sooner or later. It was only blind luck that he shared Bad Religion on Instagram the next day.

To contrast with Tae's situation, Blinks were celebrating various achievements yesterday and today. And so, silly as this might be to say, they were less pissed than they were in the lead up to Namjoon's situation. Also, Blinks and most other shooters were pre-occupied with much juicier drama today, which was the blow-up around Bang Chan's room being suspended. Dives and Stays have been going at it, with Blinks and shooters well in the mix. Scandals sometimes never happen the day of the incident. In fact it's more common for something to happen which an anti or rival fandom notices, keeps away, and then blows up at a more opportune moment - such as during the actual comeback. So it's not like Tae's even in the clear. This could still come back to hurt him (and BTS, because that's how these things always play out), though I doubt it, because of the players.

The Players

The fact is that since Tae started dating Jennie, he has less natural predators within the Blink fandom. He's still hated, just not to same degree he was by that fandom when he accidentally followed Jennie on Instagram a year ago. Also, many Blinks are BTS maknae-line akgaes meaning many Blinks are also taekookers and KTHs. In case anyone was unaware. So Tae is likely never going to get as much umbrage from Blinks as he would from Orbits, for example. But just by being in BTS, he's hated by that fandom.

Rival BTS akgaes are also players here who tried to get the ball rolling on the hate train, but in recent weeks I'd seen sympathy from PJMs towards Tae for his abysmal performance numbers, so not many of them joined in right away. JJKs on the other hand, who have been dealing with a lot of flack for Seven's versions/performance, saw an opportunity to use Tae's gaffe to play off his akgaes and the fandom against other akgaes. ARMYs are a bit stupid, as I've said before, and PJMs are careless, loud, and moronic - they've earned a reputation that makes them easy scapeoats, as I've said before too, so playing those factions off each other was very easy to do.

This all left Black ARMYs, who knew that if this blows up, every BTS member would become a target because of k-pop fandom dynamics, whether that was fair or not, especially for a gaffe like this, to contain this somewhat.

Namjoon does not have the benefit (if I can even call it that) of dating Jennie, his akgaes do overlap with some other fandoms but not Blinks, and his crime was not the sort that was very contagious to other members, so it allowed more akgaes to zero in on him and Blinks to let loose on him.

The Crime

There's no pretty way of saying this, but identity 'crimes' in k-pop fandoms are kind of a bitch and can be tricky to understand. In Tae's case, the fact is that the clips do offer him plausible deniability. I can see how someone could persuade others to think he never mouthed it, though I personally don't buy it. But given the fact that racist charges in particular are very sticky and will be used to target every member, from Jimin to Namjoon even if Tae was the culprit, I can see why the fandom approached it this way.

There's also the very simple fact that a lot of people didn't actually notice that Tae mouthed "nigga". I know the song he was listening to so I know what he said, but I could bet you 40 quid that 80% of the fandom is actually blissfully oblivious. And that's how it usually is with these things. Unless an anti or rival fandom blows it up, it might as well have never happened because few people would've registered that it happened in the first place. And because of (1) the background and (2) the players, it was always unlikely that this could turn into a shit storm today. It could still happen for Tae, but it happening today, in my view at least, was always unlikely.

Namjoon by contrast, had a crime that wasn't even one, but religious sensitivities can be very volatile, and the people who eventually believed he was in error and were fanning the flames, were primarily homophobes and misogynists who justify those beliefs with their religion - in addition to some Muslim fans who perhaps felt genuinely hurt. Not Black ARMYs or Black k-pop stans who have likely dealt with exactly this sort of crime before. I mean, this is k-pop, Shinee and Mamamoo for example, well loved k-pop groups still haven't apologized for doing Blackface and Brownface, they've never even acknowledged it, and yet nobody cares. And so many Black fans unfortunately have a sort of resignation or racism fatigue. In a sense.

One other reason is that, for racist or anti-Black accusations, sometimes other k-pop fandoms could be hesitant to join in and blow up the scandal because they’re aware of their own idols being guilty of the same or much worse, and they know explicitly going after BTS will get ARMYs to drag their faves to filth. It would be something akin to mutually assured destruction but ARMYs would possibly overwhelm with share numbers. Comparatively, accusations around Islamophobia aren’t as common, and so more k-pop fandoms could join in to virtue signal on that basis, and blow it up further knowing ARMYs wouldn’t have equal basis to retaliate towards certain fandoms.

**

I took my time writing all this for a few reasons. One is because I'm very well aware that there's a narrative in some parts of the fandom that Jimin is hated the most and Tae is hated the least. Again as though this is some kind of competition. And that it's very likely for this to be the talking point in this space filled with Jimin biases, jikook shippers, and Jimin akgaes. Not to call y'all out exactly, it's just the reality as I see it. But like I keep saying, if you're listening to akgaes for most anything, you're being quite stupid because you're guaranteed to be misled. In my opinion. There's a lot more things that influence how things play out here, there's so much more nuance into how various patterns develop, that the simplistic and victimizing arguments offered by that point of view, aren't all that helpful if what you want is to actually understand what's happening here.

*

And while I'm on the subject since this post is already too long and I've gotten asks about how to feel about this, I'll copy-paste here what I already told someone else privately:

I don't hate Tae, and as a Black person, much less a Black person who has lived in Korea with family there, this sort of anti-Blackness, while disappointing no matter where its encountered, even more so since it's from a BTS member in this case, is something many Black people live with.

I understand what you mean I think, and though you say you don't know how to feel right now, I know how I feel: I feel disappointed. Tae mouthing the word on camera, not bothering to show more care around how it could look, indicates to me that it's possible he shows even less care in private i.e. he's possibly comfortable saying the word in private. This could be true or false. And while not the worst thing in the world (I don't for a second think any of the guys are perfect people - it's possible there's a high chance they'd behave like typical Korean men in various situations with all the cultural prejudices and ignorance), it's disappointing that this could still happen in 2023. As you've said, it seemed very unlikely. But then again, unlike some other members, Taehyung himself has never come under fire for this sort of gaffe. Where Joon, Hobi, and Yoongi have been forced to grow in their engagement with Black culture as they're the members that have worked very deeply on hiphop, Tae's always had a bit of a peripheral view. He's never been personally impacted by any of that particular scrutiny, and given what I think his personality is like, I won't be surprised if it never really registered in his mind as something to be cautious about, since he'd never been personally really affected by it. Hence one reason I started out that post by calling him stupid, as harsh as that might sound.

Personally, I never expect perfection from BTS, so while this is disappointing, it does not dramatically impact how I feel about Tae or BTS or Layover a week from now. I listen to a lot of music and a lot of hiphop made by artists who have very likely killed before, so my personal tolerance for 'problematic' artists or things like this could be very different from yours. It's unfortunate that Tae's actions could bring very negative attention to the whole group, and people will have feelings - some people being hurt and other people re-offending in a bid to defend or antagonize him, so I'd suggest trying not to get caught in the crossfire. If you still want to support Tae, that's okay. Personally, I'll be checking out his album and plan to support it with streams and some sales. If you're hurt and want to say that, that's okay too. If you don't feel like supporting his project, that's okay too. Process this in a way where you honour your feelings and beliefs first, based on the facts as you have them. And anyone who tries to make your life difficult about it either way, fuck them. In my opinion.

[heademptysystem]

System discovery!

I'd always known something was wrong, even when I was really little. I'd always been prone to 'zoning out' and had some pretty vivid imaginary friends growing up. I'd often felt like I didn't belong in my own body, and it was more of me just looking after it, for someone else.

I was very quiet as a kid, and chalked down most of these things to loneliness and anxiety. As I grew a little older I started to worry I was going mad hearing these 'friends' talk to me, and just like that they pretty much stopped. I learnt later that May and Zeeylans dormancy forced the system to stop contacting me in front, May was worried I would tell someone about these voices.

While alters did continue to assist they did this through masking as me, so at worst I just was having an out of body expeirnce. I've had a history of hallucinations and delusions for a long time as well, getting worse as I entered my teens and subsequently for us more truama. I was about sixteen when alters started using their own names and dropping the mask of who they were again.

Mostly Novum, who stated he was me from a past life meant to help me navigate this one. At the time I was having a spiritual delima anyway, and this didn't seem too far of a stretch, I also didn't want to think of another explanation as I was fearful of what that would be.

My bf started doing some research when I explained this too him and he met Novum, Satan and Eve on several occasions. He's extensive research led DID but he did not say anything to me at the time, gentle encouraging me to seek answers.

Eventually Novum cracked and told me it was a lie, he'd just always been in my head, well he said I've always been in his head as he believes this body is his. This threw me even more, finally I had to turn to get some medical advice.

Looking back now there were lots of signs, notes not in my handwriting, emails under different names. My battle with gender fluctuation. (I am trans but for a long time was confused as to whether I was gender fluid as some days I would feel feminine so deeply and believe I was female again, I was not. It was eve.) other things like emails in different names, being able to eat foods one day and hating them the next, but i was able to explain away most and ignored what I couldn't.

It took me a long time to fully accept what I had, I didn't want to believe what I'd gone through had caused something like this, sometimes I still struggle with it. I'm hopefully as time passes I will come to peace with it.

(Novums story did make sense as we are from the same source where that is what (kinda) had happened, he was also confused as he had rarely fronted in childhood and was doing the best he could with what he had)

- gray (he/it) [overseer]

[flipping-the-coin]

Forum: Cycle by Cycle

Thread: The Power Problem

By: Anonymous Poster 14 Joor ago

I would like to start this essay with a brief story. I hope my fellow citizens will indulge me. There is a purpose to what I have to say. My Conjunx suffers extensive mental damage as a result of trauma he endured during the war. Because of this, he retreats into himself for much of his time online. When he is fully aware of himself, he is paranoid, skittish and often unable to control his reactions to stimuli. Specifically, sudden decreases in lumens affect him negatively. This is important. 

I had to leave him that cycle to collect recyclable scraps to trade in for credits at the Center. They shorted me my credits, as usual, but this was not important. My Conjunx does not do well alone, so I strove to set my irritation aside and hurry back to our hab to tend to him. I was relieved to find him functional and in high spirits even after our brief separation, reading mythology on his datapad. 

We met in an embrace and afterwards we refueled together. It was incredible to hear his voice speaking so freely after his last withdrawal. We discussed the myth he had been reading for some time when our hab suddenly went dark. There was no warning siren to signal its arrival. His fear still aches at my spark as the darkness came. I do not know what hallucinations and delusions he was thrown into, but the damage that was done to our home as he tried to escape was extensive. Electronic doors do not open without power. 

We were locked in for at least an orn, and my Conjunx fought for half that time before retreating back into himself once he became exhausted. Our entire deca-cycle was ruined by this one event, and nearly three stellar cycles of progress in his recovery had been lost. It was a devastating blow. Of course, we were denied compensation upon filling out restitution forms….

Which brings me to my point; how many of us are left to dwell in darkness due to the whims of the mechs of the upper levels? More and more they are not signalling to us when they are revoking our access to essential power, and I know that my mate is not the only one suffering these sorts of truamas. 

How many of us rely on external power sources to properly function with wartime injuries? Damaged power cells are a common complaint. I know of several mechs who rely entirely upon external power to remain online. The withdrawal of the warning sirens is a death sentence to those suffering this issue, as they have no time to collect a replacement power source. Just last deca-cycle my closest neighbor met the Allspark this way. How many of us have lost conjunxes, sparklings and friends to this madness? 

Would it make a difference if they could hear the wailing of hungry sparklings forced to wait for the power to return to their energon purifiers, or the terrified echoes of the cries of the workers caught in the mines that come up through the ventilation shafts as temperatures rise to unbearable levels? I do not think it would. We are but afterthoughts to those that live in the light. If it were not so, then why do they punish workers who cannot access the upper levels when transport is down at their own whims? 

My mate and I are not the only ones who suffer the sudden darkness. We are not the only ones who left scrambling and screaming to adjust. We are not the only ones who get locked in our hab over unnecessary blackouts. Would you like to know the reason our request for restitution was denied, my fellow citizens? I will quote them exactly: Restitution benefits for your grievances are denied on the grounds of sacred duty. We all must make sacrifices to honor our fallen Prime. 

Tell me this, fellow citizens. Why are we the ones who must be sacrificed for their flagrant obsession to memorialize one fallen mech? They speak of sacrifice, but what do they give up to dwell in their grandiose remembrance of the past? They give up US. They give up your sparkling’s energon, and my conjunx’s sanity. They sacrifice the lives of soldiers who fought for the Prime who dwell down here. They offer up the sparks of those hammering away to bring us our fuels. They offer up our safely and sanity to prop themselves up on our broken backs. How long until we all buckle under the pressure? 

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[jasontoddsguns]

Acknowledging that Robin is inherently a child-solider even with the complicated situation surrounding it 🤝 understanding that it’s fictional and that it’s the younger readers self-insert.

[guardianspirits13]

I wanna talk about Natsuo Todoroki for a second here.

tw// mentions of abuse, self harm, and suicide

Natsuo visibly has the most emotional trauma out of anyone else in his family (Touya not included), and I really wanna talk about why that is.

For starters, we haven't seen him really smile since he was introduced in chapter 187. He's introduced as having a friendly, easygoing persona and it's easy to imagine this is how most people outside of his family know him. However, every time we see him appear since then, another layer of his trauma is revealed and expanded upon, and it cuts DEEP.

I think the main reason that Natsuo still seems so vulnerable compared to the rest of his family is different than what you'd assume. Fuyumi and Shouto both spend a lot of time around Endeavor, and have been in close proximity to his (relatively recent) decision to atone. They have seen his growth firsthand and come to terms with it. Rei has obviously taken a very different path to healing- not entirely voluntarily- but she has been working with doctors and therapists for years to change and recover and reconnect with herself and her children. Natsuo is off at college, and takes every opportunity he can to avoid Endeavor. He (understandably) wants nothing to do with him, and shows stagnant resistance to his attempts to atone.

The reason why Natsuo can't move on from the past is because his trauma didn't come from Endeavor. It came from Touya.

Now initially we were led to believe that it was simply Touya's untimely death that still bothers Natsuo, and it makes sense seeing how Endeavor drove him to the edge. Losing his best friend and brother as a young kid without parents to support him or any therapist to speak of can absolutely been the source of persistent emotional damage, but the more and more we learn about Touya's situation, the more evident it becomes that Natsuo's trauma is much much deeper than even grief.

Touya, as we know, was driven by an ambition instilled in him by his father and experienced extreme rejection sensitivity when those ambitions were no longer realistic. Touya's relationship with his parents could be described as insecure attachment, a psychological term primarily regarding how kids react and respond to their parents and other close relationships. As he was raised, Touya learned to equate his potential to be a hero with his personal worth and similarly confounded attention with love. The difference being, of course, that love is unconditional, but even attention was being continually directed away from him as a punishment for continuing to train and burn himself so he could once again become worthy in his fathers' eyes.

This is where Natsuo comes in. At first it was assumed that all of the Todoroki children were born out of Endeavor's strong-willed desire to have a child that could surpass All Might, but we learned that this isn't exactly the case. I'd argue that it was narratively poetic on Horikoshi's part once this was expanded upon. Fuyumi was born to support and encourage her brother, and that is the exact role she plays 23 years later, keeping her family together.

Natsuo's case is even more intersting.

It was bad enough if Natsuo was only born for the potential of his quirk, but it's even more sinister that the sole intent behind his birth was to discourage Touya from his ambitions. I'd say it was to replace him, but it was more to promote the idea that Touya was expendable than to raise aonther kid with the same ideals but the potential to actually achieve it, although that was definitely a secondary motivation.

The parallelism in this is how much Natsuo's life revolves around Touya. He was born because of Touya, he looked up to and took care of Touya as a kid, and the absence of Touya in the present continues to drive him and his decisions in life (but more on that later).

I continue to pray that we will eventually get more solid backstory on Natsuo and Touya's relationship as kids and where it cut off, wether on a bad note or not, but there are a few things we know for certain. One, Touya was mentally ill. Yes, he was rejected by his parents but he seems to have been particularly vulnerable to this compared to any of his siblings since he was the first of them and thus relied only on his parents for validation in his early years. He shows early signs of a variety of different mental disorders, particularly BPD, which I have previously written a whole analysis for on its own. Touya is shown self-harming both by the very nature of his quirk and even by very directly ripping his hair out. He was incredibly self-destructive.

This is why it is so much more concerning to me that Natsuo, who was AT LEAST four years younger than him, was his primary source of comfort. Natsuo was too young to have known anything more than 'my big brother is sad that daddy won't train him anymore' and he obviously wasn't equipped in any way to handle Touya's severe mental illness. Touya most definitely needed professional treaatment as his forms of coping were abnormal even for the neglect and rejection that he experienced. Natsuo comforted Touya through breakdown after breakdown, and more than that Touya relied on him and came to him voluntarily for support. Natsuo was the best option he had, and he took full advantage of that. The main source of Natsuo's trauma was Touya's reliance on him.

Not to say at all that this was in any way Touya's fault- he was mentally ill and desperately in need of some form of comfort to keep him sane; it was almost a survival method at this point since neither of his parents really acknowleged him at all anymore. Touya's instability hurt Natsuo more than parental neglect ever did, but it was the neglect that enabled it and striped Touya of the supportive atmosphere he would have needed at this point not only to prevent but to heal from the mental damage he had already suffered.

Natsuo dealt with this for years and you can see how much it hurt him to see Touya in so much pain, not only from Endeavor's rejection but from his own self harm as well. For Natuso to know that his brotherly love would never be the same as having loving parents; would neve be enough- but at least it was something so he continued to love and care about his brother for little in return- is indicative of the kind of character he is.

(Edit: After the events of chapter 302 we know that Natsuo's relationship with Touya wasn't perfect. I will elaborate more on this in a different post, but I just wanted to clarify that although we were shown a very high-tension scene between them, it is implied that this was a regular occurrence that Natsuo was usually more receptive too but tired out of, in addition to Touya's spiraling mental health. It fit with the natrative to show the tension Touya was feeling with his family from all directions, but Natsu and Touya clearly had a stronger relationship up to and before this point, evidenced by their sharing a room and playing together regularly.)

He is incredibly selfless, and it's interesting to note how many of his positive qualities as an adult stem from negative experiences as a kid. He never really felt love from his parents, so he relied on Touya (and likely also Fuyumi) for that as well. If he grew up learning he had to give love in order to recieve it back, it absolutely influenced who he became in the future, a solid example of this being the responsibility he feels to reach out and have a relationship with Shouto and further regrets that he wasn't able to help his abuse in the past either. Another aspect of his character that intruigues me is how gentle he is. Personality-wise he seems about as opposite as he could be from the awkward, stoic, emotionally-stunted person that is Endeavor.

There are a couple of reasons for this, beyond what I've already discussed.

One, he had little to no contact with elements of toxic masculinity growing up, especially not from Endeavor.

Two, most of the influence he did have growing up was from Fuyumi, who is established to have endlessly cared for him since he was a literal baby.

Three, he grew up in a household where almost everyone around him was in much more literal, immediate pain than he was so he developed a very strong sense of empathy that might also have been tied to early survivor's guilt.

Now I have one important distinction to make, and that's the temptation to label him as a 'softboy' or something of the like after seeing him caring for his family and more pointedly, watching him break down in tears during chapter 252. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with men being soft or vulnerable (on the contrary it's actually so so important and relevant that Hori is writing characters like this in a mainstream shounen manga but that's an essay for another time), it is unfair to label him as such based on a moment when his trauma is being exposed.

Because his truama stems from such a young age, there is a blurry line between just being born with more emotional intelligence and the situation he was in fostering those traits. You know, the classic nature/nurture thing. My point being, it's important to tread carefully when discussing the nature of his personality to avoid invalidating his trauma; I have no doubt that he is very strong for having survived these things, and the moments we see of him onscreen are definitely among his most vulnerable.

Another thing that people less familiar with Natsuo's character might assume is that he is hot-headed and argumentative. I thought that at first too- after all, he doesn't seem to shy away from yelling at Endeavor when given the opportunity. However, this doesn't seem to be the case at all.

The first real scene we see him in with Endeavor, the man walks into the room and Natsuo decides he can't handle it and goes to leave. However, Endeavor happens to be blocking the doorway. Endeavor physically stops him and provokes him to his face, asking him to say whatever is on him mind. While Natsuo is notably not confrontational, Endeavor is. I think it's fair to say that he felt at least uneasy at this gesture. Natsuo is very honest with his feelings, and it's obvious that he's pissed at the audacity of Endeavor to be so oblivious to his own son. This is presumably one of the first real interactions they've ever really had, and at this point Natsuo has been dealing with trauma (caused by Endeavor!) on his own for years, and Endeavor seems completely oblivious to his pain and dismmisive to the rest of the family's as well.

Again during the internship arc Natsuo tries to get along with Endeavor and this time he actually gives it a fleeting chance. Tensions are high, however, and the conversation very quickly becomes uncomfortable, at which point he leaves. It is continually implied that Natsuo is uncomfortable being around Endeavor because his very presence brings up painful thoughts and memories of a time when sharing the same space as him was a warning to run and hide. This is later directly confirmed by Natsuo as he says that every time he looks at Endeavor's face he remembers Touya and the pain he was in.

I feel like an important side note is that we have never seen Natsuo outside the context of his family, which is understandable, as the role he plays in the story directly relates to them. However, if you take a look at Shouto, even though his experiences have shaped him to become who he is, he definitely acts differently when Endeavor's not in the vicinity.

Back to Touya's death, it would be very rare that someone would mourn a death for an entire decade without finding closure unless there are other factors preventing it, and uncomfortably this seems to be the same thing for both Natsuo and Endeavor: guilt.

This is getting incredibly long already, but it's important to note that Natsuo probably felt an incredible responsibility to take care of Touya and protect him because of his empathetic nature. His love was never going to be the same as having loving parents. His encouragement was never going to be the same as having support from Endeavor. Even further than then neglect and abandonement, it was not being able to save Touya that really made Natsuo feel worthless.

He seems to try and remedy this inability to save Touya and diminish his guilt by doing everything he can to be better. He reaches out to Shouto to be a better brother, he consistently pushes his limits to entertain Fuyumi's notion of a happy family, and he's working hard towards a degree rhat will allow him to help people like Touya (and Rei) because he failed to do so in the past.

His bio mildly implies that he didn't have much of a direction he was heading in after high school, but Fuyumi's encouragement led him to seek out his current college career. This goes back to Natsuo's 'purpose' in a sense revolving arount Touya, from his birth to his relationship with him to his death, after which he lost his direction. They were always rather inseperable, so naturally their seperation hit Natsuo hard. He lost his direction in life so when Fuyumi encouraged him to rediscover it, he thought of helping people, because that's ultimately what he was born to do.

Thank you so, so much for reading this if you made it to the end! I clearly have a lot of thoughts on this. Let me know what you think about it as well, and hopefully we'll get more info on this soon in the manga :)

[spookymultimedia]

More omegaverse Holly/Michael/David hcs!

When Holly's romantic bond with Michael got broken up, she fell ill and depressed. She found temporary solace with AJ but it never made the empty feeling go away. She very quickly returned to Michael. Her family and peers criticize her for choosing a beta over a nice omega but she doesn't care she needs him more than anything.

David is an omega. He didn't want children with Racheal so they never did, since he kept up with birth control and heat suppressants. David is an asexual, but he can detect scent in others. He has a scent similar to betas that are dull and smells like the faint smell of a clean new car. He feels peaceful around Michael's scent.

His heat suppressants don't erase his heats but enables him to cope with his cycles thought non-sexual means. He usually keeps a weighted blanket in his nest because he tends to get very clingy and touch starved. His nests tend to be pretty orderly with a nice cool comforter, weighted blankets, in case he's alone, dim lighting, lots of water and and a small fan. Sometimes he'll try to nap through his heats. He absolutely hates going through heats because they cause him lots of frustration and loneliness. Especially when his romantic bond faded with Racheal. The first time Michael was around David during a heat it was very unexpected. David stayed at Michael's house a few more days than planned and their jobs are put on hold. When he's with Michael during heats he gets possessive and will keep Michael in his nest for as long as he can. He NEEDS to be cuddled. David purrs alot when he's cuddled into Michael. This led to the two forming a romantic bond with each other. Often Holly will care for him and make sure the two are comfortable once David lets her in his nest. She feels very sympathetic to his heats and distress. Her scent is very calming for David too and has a strong platonic bond with him.

Holly is very aggressive towards Jan and sees her as a potential threat to Michael. David also hissed alot at Jan back before he was bonded with Michael. Michael has severe truama from her and pretty much repressed his entire relationship with her. He has some memory loss issues. All he remembers is waking up in Dwight's space in lots of physical pain. Michael is a beta but Holly essentially treats him like an omega from how often he's in distress. He has a strong scent she can detect when he's distressed. She will start denning and create a safe cool space in her home for Michael to cocoon in. He likes to be nestled on the couch in a blanket with her strong scent. The scent is personally helps him feel grounded and safe. For awhile she avoided Michael during ruts because she did not want to stress him out. Eventually he grew very comfortable around her and willing to mate with her.

For my own sanity let's say Michael doesn't want pups at all. Good? Good

David used to be part of a pack with Racheal but their bond faded and when the pack found out he had a bond with Michael, both a beta and a guy, they kicked him out. It wad very stressful for him to suddenly be without a pack. Holly could feel there was a distressed omega nearby and found him. She took him home with Michael until he was calm again. She understood that both she and David had a bond with Michael. She wasn't that jealous she was just relieved he was safe and cared for.

The main difference between this and my regular au for this ship is that Michael never broke up with David, Holly and Michael took him to Callorado.

[holdmyhopeinyourhands]

i honestly commend you for having a differing opinion on stiles when absolutely every piece of media regards him as the god of tw

Thanks. I love Dylan himself just fine (wonderful actor) but Stiles is a very toxic character and I can't watch most of his scenes without feeling uncomfortable in some way. He always lashes out at his supposed family whenever something in his life goes wrong. Bullies them for their trauma, manipulates them and is pretty much the type of people I like to avoid.

That's not to say that he doesn't have his good moments. Moments were he helps and protects and defends those around him. But those moments are always overblown and his mistakes minimized to the point that people don't even acknowledge them. To put it bluntly, stiles acts as if the world owes him something. As if his friendship alone should make scott willing to put up with his trash behaviour. That Isaac shouldn't mind him joking about his abuse (bringing up his ptsd) because Stiles "allowed" him to join scott so Isaac should "accept" stiles making fun of his truama.

I just..... I wish someone called him out on it. That characters (like they call out scott when he is rightfully out of line) just told him to knock it off and that those types of behaviours are disgusting and unacceptable. But instead everybody nods along and pretends it's ok and Stiles continues to be an asshole.

Sigh, sorry for the rant. I just hate the character severely. And he is the single reason I cannot rewatch that show anymore.

[at-the-exd-of-everythixg]

Right. Cracks knuckles

So there I was, watching spirited away, when I started thinking somewhat about how the characters teleport to the spirit worlds, and u know I always have Sal on my mind so...obviously I started thinking about Aspherane teleportation in further detail.

These are some pages that I think best sum up the working of Singularity's powers and the manner of how her teleports work.

Aa lot of media always uses the work of "speed of light" when it comes to travel in space. Steven Universe particularly used it as Gems are made out of hard light as well as the many times we've seen characters travel in light speed. So, yeah, it's a big ass trope and one I'm now gonna play around with 👈👈

Singularity is a hero who is a living pocket dimension as well and someone that particularly inspired me when creating Aspherane. A lot of their (going with nb Singularity cause marvel is a coward who still gendered EVERYTHING when A-force came about) powers are relating to dimensions when they crossed over into Arcadia, a world ruled by Doom, and began to help A-force but ultimately satisfied their life before they were "reborn" or teleported to another universe.

(Which, holy shit, could u IMAGINE Sal dying and he just. Teleports to another world. Aha imagine that as a thread the truama the angst of seeing who he loved as someone diffrent- fuck I'm into it)

So yeah, Singularity is capable of teleportation spatially, teleportation through dimensions and being capable of taking people into their personal pocket dimension. Now, this is where my headcanons come in on how it affects Aspherane and Majesdanes and therefore Sal and Pascal.

So, for Majesdanes, I like to think there's a comparison between the workings of time travel and inter-dimensional travel. I've stated a few times how there are differences between Majesdanes and Aspheranes that involve the amount of energy that they process and how it's used. Before the Fall, Majesdanes controlled Aspherane and had a large amount of energy within the planet and within themselves. A lot of Majesdane technology was focused onto space travel and time travel, which meant that it wasn't entirely uncommon for Aspherane to travel to other time periods on other planets and blend in.

As for social context, I imagine it wasn't that uncommon for a lot of Majesdanes to accidentally time travel when they're young and still expanding their energy. Mostly I like this because it's very funny to imagine a Majesdane accidentally popping away in time ksksk. A lot of this is due to the fact that while Majesdanes have a physical outreach of power and energy, much like how a star is constantly expanding, as well as having a pisonic outreach which in turn, rockets through time itself as a Majesdane will often cement their existence.

After the Fall, a lot of Aspherane liked to tell horror stories about how the Majesdane were never really dead, but how their Light (or, well, spirit for humans) simply travelled and followed their energy and now they live on, trapped in between the echoes of time and stretched beyond all limits.

....anyway.

In contrast, Aspherane are more in tune with dimensions and the constant expansion beyond their world and through more stars. There's a belief held among Aspherane that their people never really die, instead, being reborn in diffrent worlds until they wind up back as a Starling on Aspherane. Unlike Majesdanes though, it takes a lot of effort and the teleport of such an extensive form only takes place under severe stress which,,,kinda happned to Sal when he was 12 and although he doesn't realise it, 100% I'm saying he crossed into a spirit world of sorts and that's how he got to New York in like, under ten minutes from Utah. This is a large reason for his cracks since Sal kinda,,,blew off a lot of energy that he never quite got back and then immediately came to live in a place where he would slowly decay while alive but whatever.

Sal in these terms is...messy with his power and while he ranges less in dimension travel, his human side would allow Sal to actually shift into the spirit world, y'know, like imagine how it was for Sokka in ATLA??? Its that for Sal. Idiot probably can do it once or twice a year but never realises fully. This is also in tune for Pascal, who has dreams of the future as well as making reality altering prophesies if he was more inclined due to the fact that he has Majesdane and ßönnënlicht blood, which...makes him strong as FUCK when it comes to fate.

And surprisingly, his twin sister, Cassandra is actually more tied in to Aspherane powers and therefore has the ability to see into other dimensions as well as unlocking them. When Iris buys her from Molly Solberg, she's the reason why the DFC are able to extent their business into other worlds. God. I'm so big brained with my worldbuilding.

But yeah, takes drag of ciggerate, that's my take on dimensional travel and time travel that's slowly died within two cultures over time.

[neeceeblogs]

About Me

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." Page All About Neecee B. I am a blogger focusing on mental health concerns and issues. My experiences include truama, which occured in different stages of my life. The truama has resulted in multiple diagnoses. The Journey My journey has been an interesting one to say the least. I have not always had the easiest time in managing my mental health issues. Throughout my attempts in managing my emotional rollercoaster, I found journaling. Journaling has become a staple in my coping skills tool box. When I came to a point that I was faced with a decision in what I would do moving forward, I chose blogging. Topics I write about several things, including my experiences and take on mental health. I also share my perspective on current events. And just to make it fun I also include stories about my emotional support dog, Apollo. Apollo is a French Mastiff and is the smartest dumb buddy I could ever ask for. When Your Mind Won't Let You LeaveAgoraphobia This post will look at various aspects of the agoraphobia disorder as well as the anxiety disorder with focus on its various symptoms that are associated. The ratio of American citizens will also be looked at to clarify the prevelance it really has here. "Never Have I Delt With Anything More Difficult Than My Own Soul." Join Read the full article

[bigbirdgladiator]

Behind barbed wire, within view of Texas, 2,200 migrants live in a netherworld between U.S. and Mexican responsibility. No one's in charge and amateurs are rushing in to help. Desperate conditions and an abiding despair are forcing awful choices. Some people think that's the point. Leaked Letter Shows Where Military Will Reinforce Trump’s Border WallMATAMOROS, Mexico—In the year since the Trump Administration instituted the Migrant Protection Protocols, known as the Remain in Mexico policy, a sprawling encampment has grown in Matamoros, just a shout across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas. The people here are under the jurisdiction of the United States, although they sleep at the very edge of a country neither their own nor the one they seek. The camp exists between Mexican and U.S. authority and outside international law. It's not an official refugee camp, though it certainly looks like one. Dozens of tents are pitched in rows on the tennis courts and soccer pitch of a city park and covered in black garbage bags to keep out the rain. Men lug plastic hardware-store buckets to collect water. They have built tables out of logs and the flat boards of shipping pallets lashed together with rope. Women pat masa into tortillas and cook on grills over wood fires (park trees chopped down for the purpose). The camp is a waiting room for the U.S. immigration courts, which operate out of a warren of white tents on the Texas side of the river. But the wait is long. Many have hearings set for March or April, five and six months after they first presented their asylum claims. The camp teems with children, young, skinny Central Americans with indigenous faces. On Feb. 1, UNICEF issued a statement saying the agency had begun developing places for the children to play, some basic health screening and organization of water and sanitation services. But these are minimal and belated. Migrants seeking asylum in the United States have been sleeping in Matamoros since July. In the absence of official international system management, social service workers, attorneys, activists, crisis junkies, Silicon Valley millionaires and organized and freelance do-gooders have filled the vacuum. Some have experience responding to crisis. Some have no idea what they are doing. No one is in charge. An Italian tourist is running a photography class for kids. A self-described redneck anarchist is managing logistics and operations: what to do with 100 camp stoves donated by a philanthropist, where to locate the garbage barrels a charity is buying. An evangelical pastor associated with Franklin Graham who runs a hip-hop church in Matamoros is helping organize a council of camp residents to make joint decisions. A clutch of acupuncturists is extolling the trauma-relieving properties of their art.There is no vetting. The volunteers who walk into the camp with some idea of doing good receive no screening or training on the risks that the migrants face. Some take pictures and post to social media long accounts filled with details of migrants' asylum claims. A knot of GoFundMe and Kickstarter pages without accounting safeguards collect donations for a mushrooming variety of initiatives, some well-grounded, some not. Not that there haven’t been efforts to organize and control the chaos. They just haven’t been effective. Since December, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, a U.S. group called Angry Tias and Abuela, and others have met weekly with the Mexican immigration authorities. Bria Schurke, a physician's assistant from northern Minnesota, is on her fourth stint in a makeshift health clinic run by Global Response Management, a tiny nonprofit that also has clinics in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. She worked in refugee camps in East Africa, and is alarmed by the rookies, the lack of ethical protocols governing humanitarian relief in Matamoros. "Because it's accessible a lot of people are showing up, well intentioned or not," Schurke said. Most of the patients Schurke sees in the clinic have respiratory infections or intestinal illnesses, scabies or lice. There is malnutrition, but the most severe malady is fear. The camp inhabitants are popular targets for the drug cartels and human trafficking operations that hold power in Matamoros. Migrants are subject to kidnapping, torture, and rape, according to “A Year of Horrors,”  a new report by Human Rights First. It tallied 201 cases of kidnapping and attempted kidnapping of children under the Migrant Protection Protocols.A Feb. 12 report called "No Way Out," from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, is equally dire. In October 2019, the report notes, of the patients MSF cared for in one border town, 75 percent had been kidnapped recently.An MSF psychologist and two other workers have been serving migrants in the city of Matamoros since September. At the beginning of February they began working inside the migrant camp with a doctor two days a week. In addition to infections and injuries from exposure, hunger and walking hundreds of miles, MSF staff see truama from abuse suffered along the migrant root and also inside U.S. detention centers.The report called the levels of violence that migrants are fleeing in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras “comparable to that in war zones where MSF has been working for decades” and “a major factor fueling migration north to Mexico and the U.S.”But admittance into the United States may never come. Returning home is not an option.  Conditions are desperate enough that some parents have sent their children across the bridge into the U.S. alone, deciding they are better off in detention centers than the precarity of camp.These are choices parents shouldn't be compelled to contemplate, said Jennifer Nagda, policy director for the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, who visited the camp in January. “There shouldn't be a camp,” Nadga said, punching each word. “This is a completely new and unprecedented effort—in contravention of international treaties and obligations. It's an explicit effort to make it impossible for people to exercise their legal rights.”On the Brownsville side of the river, a clutch of protestors sits in a small park in vigil. They will stay, they say, until their country recants its crimes. They believe the camp and the desperation it breeds are intentional designs of a government intent on dehumanizing a hated population.Drawing comparisons to the treatment of Jews in the years before the Holocaust, Joshua Rubin, a retired computer programmer from Brooklyn, who is Jewish, says he feels compelled to be a witness, to not look away when his country is doing something wrong. He organized the protest called Vigil at the Border. He and the others will remain, he said, holding their "Let Them In" and "History is Watching" signs until the U.S. reverses the Remain in Mexico policy. "I don't have a lot of hope that that will happen, but I don’t have much choice," Rubin said. "You can't close your eyes and make it go away."Back in Matamoros on a Friday afternoon in late January a hundred people walked into a tent—large and white like something for a wedding except this was about separation not union—sat themselves in rows and listened as two attorneys from the Young Center gave a briefing:Here is the process that will confront your children if you send them over the bridge by themselves. They will be collected. They will be sent to a prison-like detention center. They will be assigned a case number. They will get a calendar date. They will be under the authority of federal agents. They may spend months or years in this facility. They may be sent to foster care. The people with whom they live may or may not speak Spanish. They may be able to connect to your brother, your aunt, your cousin in New York, in Michigan, in California. They may not. You might never see them again.The Hondurans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans listened in weary attention. In the front row, a toddler breast-fed luxuriantly, in the way of toddlers, full, entitled, the fingers of his hand splayed proprietarily on his mother’s side. She wiped her eyes repeatedly and blinked hard.Leaning forward, heads inclined and faces stoic, the migrants listened to the lawyers' words. They were not hopeful.Gladis Molina Alt, director of the Young Center's Child Advocacy Program, was herself once a migrant. Her father fled Morazán, El Salvador in the early years of that country’s war, swam the river and got himself to Los Angeles. He sent for her and her brothers and mother later. She arrived in the U.S. at age 10. Became a citizen at 27. Went to law school and now, pulled by history, works as a legal advocate for other migrant children.Today is different though.  Ordinarily she works the hard cases of children in detention. Today she is at the other end of the story, speaking to parents in the camp who may have received some very bad advice.An American woman visiting the camp has told families she can get their children into the United States, that within a week they will be with those family members waiting in Maryland or Iowa or Oregon.The woman has no way of ensuring this. No expertise or authority. But families have trusted a heart-sick gringa. They sent their children to stand on a small bridge across the Rio Grande and throw themselves on the anemic mercy of Customs and Border Patrol. It is difficult to learn where those children are today. The federal detention, supervision and child management system is vast and anything but transparent. Still, after the briefing a quiet line forms, then encircles the attorneys, women and men wanting more information.The breast-feeding mother is among them. The next day, climbing out of the tent she shares with her husband and children, holding the happy toddler on her hip while her older child plays soccer in the dust, she explains. The little one is too small to send, but she is worried for the fate of her nine-year-old son in the camp. The kind of people they fled El Salvador to avoid are active here. She knows they'll prey on the boy.It feels like psychological war being kept here, she says: the waiting, the uncertainty. Yet if they return to El Salvador she is sure they will be killed. "I have to think of sending him," she says, crying now. "There is no life here."    She and her family are among tens of thousands of Central Americans who’ve fled north in the past decade: 35,000 people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras sought asylum at the U.S. border in 2017, the last year for which Department of Homeland Security data was readily available. An additional 75,000 people from those three nations sought asylum when faced with deportation the same year. Asylum claims from the northern triangle of Central America jumped 800 percent between 2012 and 2017 according to DHS’ Annual Flow Report on Refugees and Asylees from March 2019.Holocaust Survivor: Yes, the Border Detention Centers Are Like Concentration CampsThe migrants are driven from nations deformed by brutality, where the social and psychological wounds of wars committed a generation ago festered into drug, gang and government violence today that leaves few families safe. Last week Human Rights Watch released a report documenting cases of 138 Salvadorans who were killed after being deported back into their country.The parents who circled the lawyers after the briefing in Matamoros had similar fears and questions: How long, really, before they get out of detention? My children are gone, how will I find them? What if their claim of asylum has already been rejected? Does that count against them? How will it affect my own case? Is there a way to do something to make it more possible that I might see them again? There is no life here. I cannot take them back to Honduras/El Salvador/Guatemala. We will be killed."It's Sophie's Choice, but you don't get to keep one of them," another lawyer with long experience and red eyes said after she stepped away from a conference you might call a sidewalk conference, but for the fact there was no sidewalk.Only cracked, very dry ground.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/39GPR3H

[heademptysystem]

dormancy for me was the hardest thing to come back from!

I went dormant when we were about 11? Maybe we were still in school, up until that point I'd been overseeing the system that we thought was relatively small (we knew of about 14 alters) I went dormant due to stress along with several other alters at that time.

It was like dying I suppose? I just stopped existing until i existed again? I woke up trapped somewhere in the innerworld and spent the first like two weeks trying to front and leave some evidence I was there. It was a last resort, I didn't know we we're out as a system at the time.

I remember fronting in a coffee shop, with someone I didn't know and being too scared to say anything in case they didn't know, why would they? last I remembered we were young and it was vital to be covert. I fronted again in a different house, saw the body in the mirror for the first time and realised how much time must have passed. It was terrifying.

I did end up leaving a note, which was found and the others were able to help me reintegrate into the main system, it was strange to see alters again so changed, Gray especially, he'd been a kid when I left and then he was nearly an adult and an overseer himself!!

It was strange when I came back into my role, I became the main overseer again accept this time the alter count was huge, I had way to much catching up to do, truama we'd expeirnced while I was gone, things we'd uncovered, system changes and subsystems. It took me I'd say close to a year just to feel like I wasn't drowning in it all.

I'm sure my dormancy was needed, and I'm sure there wasn't another option at that time, but for me personally it screwed me over so hard.

- may (he/they) [overseer/system coordinator]

[lovehardenemycollector]

Behind barbed wire, within view of Texas, 2,200 migrants live in a netherworld between U.S. and Mexican responsibility. No one's in charge and amateurs are rushing in to help. Desperate conditions and an abiding despair are forcing awful choices. Some people think that's the point. Leaked Letter Shows Where Military Will Reinforce Trump’s Border WallMATAMOROS, Mexico—In the year since the Trump Administration instituted the Migrant Protection Protocols, known as the Remain in Mexico policy, a sprawling encampment has grown in Matamoros, just a shout across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas. The people here are under the jurisdiction of the United States, although they sleep at the very edge of a country neither their own nor the one they seek. The camp exists between Mexican and U.S. authority and outside international law. It's not an official refugee camp, though it certainly looks like one. Dozens of tents are pitched in rows on the tennis courts and soccer pitch of a city park and covered in black garbage bags to keep out the rain. Men lug plastic hardware-store buckets to collect water. They have built tables out of logs and the flat boards of shipping pallets lashed together with rope. Women pat masa into tortillas and cook on grills over wood fires (park trees chopped down for the purpose). The camp is a waiting room for the U.S. immigration courts, which operate out of a warren of white tents on the Texas side of the river. But the wait is long. Many have hearings set for March or April, five and six months after they first presented their asylum claims. The camp teems with children, young, skinny Central Americans with indigenous faces. On Feb. 1, UNICEF issued a statement saying the agency had begun developing places for the children to play, some basic health screening and organization of water and sanitation services. But these are minimal and belated. Migrants seeking asylum in the United States have been sleeping in Matamoros since July. In the absence of official international system management, social service workers, attorneys, activists, crisis junkies, Silicon Valley millionaires and organized and freelance do-gooders have filled the vacuum. Some have experience responding to crisis. Some have no idea what they are doing. No one is in charge. An Italian tourist is running a photography class for kids. A self-described redneck anarchist is managing logistics and operations: what to do with 100 camp stoves donated by a philanthropist, where to locate the garbage barrels a charity is buying. An evangelical pastor associated with Franklin Graham who runs a hip-hop church in Matamoros is helping organize a council of camp residents to make joint decisions. A clutch of acupuncturists is extolling the trauma-relieving properties of their art.There is no vetting. The volunteers who walk into the camp with some idea of doing good receive no screening or training on the risks that the migrants face. Some take pictures and post to social media long accounts filled with details of migrants' asylum claims. A knot of GoFundMe and Kickstarter pages without accounting safeguards collect donations for a mushrooming variety of initiatives, some well-grounded, some not. Not that there haven’t been efforts to organize and control the chaos. They just haven’t been effective. Since December, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, a U.S. group called Angry Tias and Abuela, and others have met weekly with the Mexican immigration authorities. Bria Schurke, a physician's assistant from northern Minnesota, is on her fourth stint in a makeshift health clinic run by Global Response Management, a tiny nonprofit that also has clinics in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. She worked in refugee camps in East Africa, and is alarmed by the rookies, the lack of ethical protocols governing humanitarian relief in Matamoros. "Because it's accessible a lot of people are showing up, well intentioned or not," Schurke said. Most of the patients Schurke sees in the clinic have respiratory infections or intestinal illnesses, scabies or lice. There is malnutrition, but the most severe malady is fear. The camp inhabitants are popular targets for the drug cartels and human trafficking operations that hold power in Matamoros. Migrants are subject to kidnapping, torture, and rape, according to “A Year of Horrors,”  a new report by Human Rights First. It tallied 201 cases of kidnapping and attempted kidnapping of children under the Migrant Protection Protocols.A Feb. 12 report called "No Way Out," from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, is equally dire. In October 2019, the report notes, of the patients MSF cared for in one border town, 75 percent had been kidnapped recently.An MSF psychologist and two other workers have been serving migrants in the city of Matamoros since September. At the beginning of February they began working inside the migrant camp with a doctor two days a week. In addition to infections and injuries from exposure, hunger and walking hundreds of miles, MSF staff see truama from abuse suffered along the migrant root and also inside U.S. detention centers.The report called the levels of violence that migrants are fleeing in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras “comparable to that in war zones where MSF has been working for decades” and “a major factor fueling migration north to Mexico and the U.S.”But admittance into the United States may never come. Returning home is not an option.  Conditions are desperate enough that some parents have sent their children across the bridge into the U.S. alone, deciding they are better off in detention centers than the precarity of camp.These are choices parents shouldn't be compelled to contemplate, said Jennifer Nagda, policy director for the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, who visited the camp in January. “There shouldn't be a camp,” Nadga said, punching each word. “This is a completely new and unprecedented effort—in contravention of international treaties and obligations. It's an explicit effort to make it impossible for people to exercise their legal rights.”On the Brownsville side of the river, a clutch of protestors sits in a small park in vigil. They will stay, they say, until their country recants its crimes. They believe the camp and the desperation it breeds are intentional designs of a government intent on dehumanizing a hated population.Drawing comparisons to the treatment of Jews in the years before the Holocaust, Joshua Rubin, a retired computer programmer from Brooklyn, who is Jewish, says he feels compelled to be a witness, to not look away when his country is doing something wrong. He organized the protest called Vigil at the Border. He and the others will remain, he said, holding their "Let Them In" and "History is Watching" signs until the U.S. reverses the Remain in Mexico policy. "I don't have a lot of hope that that will happen, but I don’t have much choice," Rubin said. "You can't close your eyes and make it go away."Back in Matamoros on a Friday afternoon in late January a hundred people walked into a tent—large and white like something for a wedding except this was about separation not union—sat themselves in rows and listened as two attorneys from the Young Center gave a briefing:Here is the process that will confront your children if you send them over the bridge by themselves. They will be collected. They will be sent to a prison-like detention center. They will be assigned a case number. They will get a calendar date. They will be under the authority of federal agents. They may spend months or years in this facility. They may be sent to foster care. The people with whom they live may or may not speak Spanish. They may be able to connect to your brother, your aunt, your cousin in New York, in Michigan, in California. They may not. You might never see them again.The Hondurans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans listened in weary attention. In the front row, a toddler breast-fed luxuriantly, in the way of toddlers, full, entitled, the fingers of his hand splayed proprietarily on his mother’s side. She wiped her eyes repeatedly and blinked hard.Leaning forward, heads inclined and faces stoic, the migrants listened to the lawyers' words. They were not hopeful.Gladis Molina Alt, director of the Young Center's Child Advocacy Program, was herself once a migrant. Her father fled Morazán, El Salvador in the early years of that country’s war, swam the river and got himself to Los Angeles. He sent for her and her brothers and mother later. She arrived in the U.S. at age 10. Became a citizen at 27. Went to law school and now, pulled by history, works as a legal advocate for other migrant children.Today is different though.  Ordinarily she works the hard cases of children in detention. Today she is at the other end of the story, speaking to parents in the camp who may have received some very bad advice.An American woman visiting the camp has told families she can get their children into the United States, that within a week they will be with those family members waiting in Maryland or Iowa or Oregon.The woman has no way of ensuring this. No expertise or authority. But families have trusted a heart-sick gringa. They sent their children to stand on a small bridge across the Rio Grande and throw themselves on the anemic mercy of Customs and Border Patrol. It is difficult to learn where those children are today. The federal detention, supervision and child management system is vast and anything but transparent. Still, after the briefing a quiet line forms, then encircles the attorneys, women and men wanting more information.The breast-feeding mother is among them. The next day, climbing out of the tent she shares with her husband and children, holding the happy toddler on her hip while her older child plays soccer in the dust, she explains. The little one is too small to send, but she is worried for the fate of her nine-year-old son in the camp. The kind of people they fled El Salvador to avoid are active here. She knows they'll prey on the boy.It feels like psychological war being kept here, she says: the waiting, the uncertainty. Yet if they return to El Salvador she is sure they will be killed. "I have to think of sending him," she says, crying now. "There is no life here."    She and her family are among tens of thousands of Central Americans who’ve fled north in the past decade: 35,000 people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras sought asylum at the U.S. border in 2017, the last year for which Department of Homeland Security data was readily available. An additional 75,000 people from those three nations sought asylum when faced with deportation the same year. Asylum claims from the northern triangle of Central America jumped 800 percent between 2012 and 2017 according to DHS’ Annual Flow Report on Refugees and Asylees from March 2019.Holocaust Survivor: Yes, the Border Detention Centers Are Like Concentration CampsThe migrants are driven from nations deformed by brutality, where the social and psychological wounds of wars committed a generation ago festered into drug, gang and government violence today that leaves few families safe. Last week Human Rights Watch released a report documenting cases of 138 Salvadorans who were killed after being deported back into their country.The parents who circled the lawyers after the briefing in Matamoros had similar fears and questions: How long, really, before they get out of detention? My children are gone, how will I find them? What if their claim of asylum has already been rejected? Does that count against them? How will it affect my own case? Is there a way to do something to make it more possible that I might see them again? There is no life here. I cannot take them back to Honduras/El Salvador/Guatemala. We will be killed."It's Sophie's Choice, but you don't get to keep one of them," another lawyer with long experience and red eyes said after she stepped away from a conference you might call a sidewalk conference, but for the fact there was no sidewalk.Only cracked, very dry ground.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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[neeceeblogs]

About Me

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." Page All About Neecee B. I am a blogger focusing on mental health concerns and issues. My experiences include truama, which occured in different stages of my life. The truama has resulted in multiple diagnoses. The Journey My journey has been an interesting one to say the least. I have not always had the easiest time in managing my mental health issues. Throughout my attempts in managing my emotional rollercoaster, I found journaling. Journaling has become a staple in my coping skills tool box. When I came to a point that I was faced with a decision in what I would do moving forward, I chose blogging. Topics I write about several things, including my experiences and take on mental health. I also share my perspective on current events. And just to make it fun I also include stories about my emotional support dog, Apollo. Apollo is a French Mastiff and is the smartest dumb buddy I could ever ask for. When Your Mind Won't Let You LeaveAgoraphobia This post will look at various aspects of the agoraphobia disorder as well as the anxiety disorder with focus on its various symptoms that are associated. The ratio of American citizens will also be looked at to clarify the prevelance it really has here. "Never Have I Delt With Anything More Difficult Than My Own Soul." Join Read the full article

[neeceeblogs]

About Me

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." Page All About Neecee B. I am a blogger focusing on mental health concerns and issues. My experiences include truama, which occured in different stages of my life. The truama has resulted in multiple diagnoses. The Journey My journey has been an interesting one to say the least. I have not always had the easiest time in managing my mental health issues. Throughout my attempts in managing my emotional rollercoaster, I found journaling. Journaling has become a staple in my coping skills tool box. When I came to a point that I was faced with a decision in what I would do moving forward, I chose blogging. Topics I write about several things, including my experiences and take on mental health. I also share my perspective on current events. And just to make it fun I also include stories about my emotional support dog, Apollo. Apollo is a French Mastiff and is the smartest dumb buddy I could ever ask for. When Your Mind Won't Let You LeaveAgoraphobia This post will look at various aspects of the agoraphobia disorder as well as the anxiety disorder with focus on its various symptoms that are associated. The ratio of American citizens will also be looked at to clarify the prevelance it really has here. "Never Have I Delt With Anything More Difficult Than My Own Soul." Join Read the full article

[neeceeblogs]

About Me

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." Page All About Neecee B. I am a blogger focusing on mental health concerns and issues. My experiences include truama, which occured in different stages of my life. The truama has resulted in multiple diagnoses. The Journey My journey has been an interesting one to say the least. I have not always had the easiest time in managing my mental health issues. Throughout my attempts in managing my emotional rollercoaster, I found journaling. Journaling has become a staple in my coping skills tool box. When I came to a point that I was faced with a decision in what I would do moving forward, I chose blogging. Topics I write about several things, including my experiences and take on mental health. I also share my perspective on current events. And just to make it fun I also include stories about my emotional support dog, Apollo. Apollo is a French Mastiff and is the smartest dumb buddy I could ever ask for. When Your Mind Won't Let You LeaveAgoraphobia This post will look at various aspects of the agoraphobia disorder as well as the anxiety disorder with focus on its various symptoms that are associated. The ratio of American citizens will also be looked at to clarify the prevelance it really has here. "Never Have I Delt With Anything More Difficult Than My Own Soul." Join Read the full article

[neeceeblogs]

About Me

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." Page All About Neecee B. I am a blogger focusing on mental health concerns and issues. My experiences include truama, which occured in different stages of my life. The truama has resulted in multiple diagnoses. The Journey My journey has been an interesting one to say the least. I have not always had the easiest time in managing my mental health issues. Throughout my attempts in managing my emotional rollercoaster, I found journaling. Journaling has become a staple in my coping skills tool box. When I came to a point that I was faced with a decision in what I would do moving forward, I chose blogging. Topics I write about several things, including my experiences and take on mental health. I also share my perspective on current events. And just to make it fun I also include stories about my emotional support dog, Apollo. Apollo is a French Mastiff and is the smartest dumb buddy I could ever ask for. When Your Mind Won't Let You LeaveAgoraphobia This post will look at various aspects of the agoraphobia disorder as well as the anxiety disorder with focus on its various symptoms that are associated. The ratio of American citizens will also be looked at to clarify the prevelance it really has here. "Never Have I Delt With Anything More Difficult Than My Own Soul." Join Read the full article