#this way i can vent while also performing a social service

[roxannepolice]

[ermbabyel]

hi hi hi !! may i please request a personality ship with bts and ateez !! i apologize in advance bc it's super long </3

I’m a 5’9.5 (basically 5’10) girl with dark skin, jet black hair (currently in long twists rn!!), and i’m on the curvier side (esp hips and my thighs) !! some of my favorite features are my plump lips (and i have a beauty mark on my bottom lip!), my long legs (that look so so so so good in skirts and dresses), my kempt and pretty fingernails, and my eyelashes !!! i’m a virgo (and surprisingly i get along with all the signs, i cant think of a sole zodiac sign i DONT mix well with), and i am an i/enfj (i got 51% extravert 49% intra the first time, then 50% for both the second time!! ) and i honestly agree—i’m an ambivert all the way! i often come off as cold/shy when meeting new people (one of my closest friends avoided me for a month before meeting me because i looked so intimidating LMAO), but once you get close to me i turn into a bundle of warmth and love: i will never stop texting them the <3 emoji every morning or buying my friends/s/o their favorite starbucks order when they need a little cheer-me-up.

  i’m extremely passionate about the issues and people i care about and the goals and dreams i have. I’m creative, patient, an extremely good listener, caring, a social butterfly, and extremely hardworking. my friends always told me of my heart of gold and how perceptive i am of the people around me—noticing immediately when something is wrong and trying to make them feel better. I’m also very headstrong, detailed, and determined!! my friends also call me a nerd since i’ve had all a’s since kindergarten—i LOVE school and would describe myself as intelligent. i really like that i’m empathetic and motivational to those around me. it’s really easy for me to show my affection, adoration, and support for someone because i just want everyone to feel loved and safe :( i HATE seeing my loved ones sad, and when people usually have problems about anything (from family to just school), i’m the one they come to talk to because of my warm and openminded heart. I love sharing happiness with my friends in their goals and always hype them up no matter what, and it makes me so so so so happy seeing my loved ones content. im also really, really funny (my fave personality trait of mine tbh)!! I’m always cracking jokes and laughing (sometimes for no reason LMAOO). i would be in the library at like 7 am with my friends and struggle with stifling my laugh from jokes i told </3

  I also love to go out and explore—whether trying out a new restaurant in the city or a newly opened amusement park or trying something new, like skydiving (or some other crazy but fun idea), trying recipes from around the world, or trying sledding for the first time! at the same time, i like really chill, mellow spending-time-alone-or-with-one-other-person activities like baking (my favorite treat to bake is red velvet cupcakes and cheddar bay biscuits) and dancing !! (i’ve been a dancer for more than 12 years!!). i can also speak more than 5 languages (including korean!) and i’m always saying random phrases (like thank you, i love u so much!, gtfo my face, that sucks ass) in a random language too LMFAOOO. i often think being a coffee/cafe lover is a personality trait (i love love love love love coffee) i also love accessories (earrings, necklaces, bracelets, anklets, rings, etc) and would die of happiness when the day i can wear matching accessories with my s/o comes.

besides being my bestfriend who i can kiss and whatnot (hehe), my ideal type is a TALL (THEY DONT HAVE TO BE but 5’9+...i’m already tall but pls .5 of an inch taller would be enough) man who has eyes for me and only me !!! they may look cold/cool/mysterious/laid back at first glance (like “i dont like u lol” or “yeah haha 🙂" to any other girls but “hi baby what can i do for u today to please the loml” with me <3)  but turn into the sweetest, warmest, cutest honey bun once i get to know them! (kinda like me)!! ALSO a man who can pull off all black outfits like those are my FAVORITE omg. he needs to have a BIG sense of humor (like i want to laugh every second i’m with him and laugh so hard that our stomachs start hurting and we beg each other to stop making jokes type of humor), fashionable (so i can learn fashion pls and wear coordinated outfits with him). i just want a boy who i could talk to and listen to for HOURS. like i would follow him into the bathroom as he showers and sit on the toilet and just listen to him talk about his day or vent to him, but also a boy that loves comfortable silence!! like just cuddling with each other or im studying, and hes working on a personal project so that just being with him makes me feel warm <3 i want a s/o who’s willing to go out and travel with me so i could take off guard pics of him and make him my wallpaper until he begs me to change it. im also not good at conflict so if conflict arises, id love a boy who knows how to talk me down and open up the room for conversation and make me feel safe and not as if im confronted or wrong, someone where we can just talk, resolve our problem, and make it up with a hug or night out!! this kinda leads to me wanting a relationship where we both help improve each other and our flaws (for example some of my flaws are callousness, taking things to heart sometimes, and not opening up easily, etc), so i’d really appreciate a relationship where my partner and i can help each other grow as people. i also love love love to cook, so i’d love an s/o that loves cooking with me and teaching each other how to cook each other’s cultural foods (i would love to teach my bf how to cook jollof rice and have a cookoff one day). I like ALL 5 of the love languages but my top 3 tied for 1st are quality time (THIS i want to spend everyday with my bf at chinatown or a new city exploring), words of affirmation (someone who reaffirms me of their love continuously, supportively, and in sweet ways), and acts of service (cooking my favorite food when i’m down, doing chores that i cant do when tired). men who are really expressive through touch are also ideal <3 i'd shy away from pda, but inside the house i’d be so happy yet so shy and flustered when they express their love through touch (like laying in my lap so i can play with their hair, holding my hand while watching tv, cuddling while talking about whatever). OR like the SLIGHTEST compliment or act of love (LIKE BACKHUGS OR HOLDING HANDS OR KISSING MY BEAUTY MARKS OR FOREHEAD KISSESJSJSJSJ). i love a man who's goal oriented, know what he wants, and makes the move first (kinda like taking control of the relationship!!) in all, i’d just love to be really appreciated and loved and also show the same love, support, warmth, closeness, and happiness to my bf <3 tysm <333

Hi hi~! You sound like such a sweetheart and so cute 😍💕 I’ll be super happy to ship you~!

Bts

Yoongi 🥳

I thought of Yoongi right away while reading your submission. You sound like such a sweet and supportive person that I think Yoongi would benefit from being in a relationship with you. You also remind me a lot of hobi when I was reading your description so I think you two would be best friends too~! Yoongi would be intrigued by your appearance, your intimidating aura around you would make him want to know you more. Surely there’s more than meets the eye...and Yoongi was correct. After getting to know you more. He soon learned how such a happy and sweet person you are. He would love the duality of you. It’s keeps him on his toes and yearns to learn more o about you~! Yoongi is a very passionate person as well, especially with his career and his members. And I’m sure he’d be passionate with you too, but he’ll show you in his own little ways. For example, writing songs about you for bts’ new comeback, getting you your favorite foods and drinks when you both have had a long day...he just loves you so much. I can see you, and sope being the three musketeers of bts, you three would do SO much together. Yoongi can be a silly and goofy person as we’ve seen, but only certain people can drawl that aspect out of him, so you and hobi would do SOO well at making him feel comfortable to let loose and have fun~! I can see you and hobi goofing around at the studio with each other and Yoongi would shake his head and act unimpressed, but we all see right through him and he truly adores you in that state~! Yoongi would also think it’s super adorable how flustered and shy you get when he gets touchy with you 👀💜. Just a very cute and wholesome relationship~! 🥰

Ateez

Seonghwa 🥳

You love when your partner takes control? You don’t need to tell Seonghwa twice! The boy would LOVE to take care of you and take the lead in the relationship. I think he’s also naturally dominate, so it would be no problem for him~! I can see you two going on cute coffee dates to local cafè shops close by. Seonghwa would absolutely adore how excited you are about coffee~! He would also think it’s hella attractive that you’re a dancer 👀. He LOOOOVES to watch you dance for himself maybe he would create a dance for only you two to perform. Your legs and lips are how absolute favorite physical traits of yours. Seonghwa would always have a hand on your leg or knee whenever you guys are sitting down. And if you’d let him, Seonghwa would kiss you all day long~! He just loves the feeling of your soft lips against his 💜. Seonghwa also adores how happy and cheerful you are. Especially on hard long days full of practices and performances, your cheerful and loving nature always makes him feel better and soooo much more relaxed. I can see both of you mothering the other members too~! He appreciates you taking care of him at times, but he’s also take opportunities to take care of you too~! Overall a very sweet and loving relationship~! ❤️‍🔥

Again, I am very sorry for the long ass wait 🥺. I hope you enjoy your ships love~! Stay happy and healthy~! 🤗💜

[thisiskatsblog]

Hi Kat, I'm feeling sad and sort of mad here so I might rant, I'd like to know what you think I don't know if you're gonna post it or answer it to avoid controversy and negativity in your blog but I appreciate you got to read it bc I needed to vent, tysm in advance...

I see so many people hating on Harry because he said "clothes are fun" without "making any social statement about it and that he doesn't recognize his privilege of wearing what he wants cause he's rich and famous" and can I just say that it's because of that same privilege he's so influential and has helped so many queer fans to be who they want to be, he's using his privilege for good and also, I hate when people try to force activism out of everyone...

I understand being critical but activism should be genuine and intentional. It just seems to me that they're people from the q community who had an agenda against him before this interview got released, sometimes it doesn't even seen this is about social justice. I've seen the most cruel and hateful comments wishing for him to be miserable and unsuccessful (that's not happening anytime sooner, honey, go off)...

And they don't really know him, they don't know he does more than waving flags and putting stickers on his guitar, he has donated to non-profits, spent money on queer artists, he protested and signed petitions for BLM, he has helped fans to come out, he does have talked on social issues, they're just looking for a reason to be mad tbh...

He might not get too deeply political because he has stated that politics divide people and that is 100% true. He has INDEED recognized he is privileged on a RS interview and that he just wants to show people he sees them and he's here for them. Everybody does activism in different ways, and Harry's certainly isn't performative, he's not obnoxious about it but he's not tone deaf either, he's self-aware.Honestly, I don't understand what this people want?...

If they see this cis boy speaking on gender issues and gender expression on a Vogue interview and talking about trans/nb/gnc people who are opressed then they may fill Twitter with comments like "he doesn't do anything for us, why is he talking about it? he's not our icon" but if he doesn't do it then he's pandering? Do they want an ally who leads a movement and speaks on issues or an ally who does acts of service for the movement and doesn't speak for it? I don't understand, idk if I will..

Finally, no one should be a certain sexuality to be allowed to break gender roles, yes, straight people do have privilege even when they dress androgynous but they shouldn't be cancelled for that...

Now, entering hypothetical (basically confirmed) field, can we talk about how problematic is accusing a closeted person of pandering? If someone have ever told artists like Bowie or Mercury to "stop profiting of queer people" while they weren't out in the public eye, then no one would have paved the way for other men to express themselves, break toxic masculinity and help other gender non-conforming kids. Kids like Janelle Monaé, Billy Porter, Lil Nas, P!nk, Sam Smith and yes, Harry Styles.

(that was the end of my rant btw, it was like 8 asks, I think, hope nothing got lost, sorry for the length but this people literally want Harry to fail because of freaking wearing a skirt and not getting too political about it and I was certainly not having it)

----------------------- Hi anon,

They all arrived! 

I’m glad it helps you just to be able to vent, without expecting to be published, so anyone who needs a vent: do feel free to use the service of my inbox 😊

I will publish because I think you are making a few interesting points.

It’s true that Harry can do the things he does because he is privileged – and I completely agree with you that it’s a good thing he is using that privilege to the fullest and thereby changes things for the better for other queer people.

On the other hand, I do understand the frustration of queer people who are less privileged when they wish he would recognize that privilege. It isn’t true that in this day and age anyone can dress the way Harry does on the cover of Vogue, and it could make his “statement”, which in itself is positive for queer people, all the more powerful if he recognized it and expressed his wish for that to change. To me, it’s a question of gradation. Wearing a ruffled dress is really good and changes lives; saying that you wish everyone had the freedom to wear that dress in the way you now have that freedom is even better and raises awareness of intersectionality (when you are LGBTQ and poor, being LGBTQ is more difficult than when you are LGBTQ and rich).

I don’t think Harry is the kind of person you’d need to force activism out of, I do see him as someone who has been activist as well as political on many occasions. Maybe not as political and activist as I’d like him to be, maybe not in the way I would be in his position, but definitely committed to the same causes that I find important, and not afraid of using the position he has to influence when he feels comfortable to do so. I wish he’d been more vocal on a great number of occasions, but I agree with you in that you cannot look at your idols in music and simply expect them to be fervent and perfect political activists. Art can be activist, but it doesn’t have to be, you cannot expect it to be.

Furthermore, I think Harry definitely has some privilege that he’s shown to be unaware of, and I’ve also seen him take things in, learn, change his position (see the RS interview you also mention), and become more vocal politically. In other words: Harry is human.

I have not seen the criticism you are talking about, and it seems there have been various different ones, so I won’t be going into them, some seem more valid, others are not. In any case I would be very hesitant to put it all aside as “queer people who had an agenda against him” or “they’re just looking for a reason to get mad”. That thinking may put you at ease, and stay on your side of things, but it won’t help the conversation. I think it’s important when you’re on two sides of an argument, to try and understand where the unmet need is on the “other” side.

Since I haven’t seen the original arguments, I am not completely clear on this – but it seems that the common thread in your understanding of the criticism he receives is that Harry’s ambiguous identity (while having amply suggested he may be not cis/straight, he hasn’t been straightforward about it) makes it possible for people to criticize him both ways.

I agree with you that you do not need to be queer to be allowed to break gender norms, and that closeted people should not be criticized for breaking gender norms and paving the way, to come out themselves, and for others. But I do see where the frustration on the other side comes from – I don’t think it’s necessarily evil willed towards Harry. What I see, a strong wish and urgent need to have out and proud role models who do these things; and – guessing that a lot of the people criticizing him suspect he is indeed closeted – an enormous frustration that closeting still happens, and about the mixed messages Harry, as a role model, may implicitly gives to queer kids in this way. It’s okay to dress outrageously and challenge norms but it’s not okay to be explicit about your identity and orientation, do keep that vague. I personally feel extremely frustrated about that, even if I also believe this is outside Harry’s will.

“We don’t talk enough, we should open up, before it’s all too much…”

Anyway, long story short anon: I get you. And I think I get the other side too. In the end we all choose whether we want to see the glass as half full or half empty. And I’m siding with you that it’s half full, and with the critics that I wish it were completely full, but then again with you that you cannot really fault Harry for that not (yet) being the case... But it’s okay for it to be said: I wish the glass were full.

[ink-and-flame]

Kinktober Day 6: Intensify

Kinktober Day 6 Prompts: Hair pulling || Nipple clamps || Genital sex  Fandom: [None] Original Tags: Exophilia, Hair Pulling, Nipple Clamps, Rough Sex, Size Difference Pairing: Human(f)/Orc(m)

Living in a new place was never easy and neither was trying to build up a new social life. It wasn’t just about meeting new people, but finding people with shared interests that it was easy to connect with. Lia had not lived in the town long and had struggled to make any kind of connection. It was an interesting place, that was certain. It was why she chose here to move of all places. The people were so diverse, humans mingled with all the other races and lived in what seemed like harmony here. Yes racism was still a thing, but it seemed far more subdued. Most the people that lived here chose to live here and so had no reason to attack one another. 

Her apartment building was set up to take many races, different styles and sizes of apartment were available based on need, race, and size. Smaller races like goblins could have apartments scaled down to their size if they wanted. Same for larger creatures living in buildings that supported their height. Lia’s building had all sorts living in it as the owners clearly took diversity seriously. She loved her apartment, it was a little bigger than she probably needed but it was perfect. 

Lia had ended up selecting an apartment previously rented by orcs. Everything was just a bit too big, but she had dealt with situations like this before. The struggle was worth it due to the location. It was a nice corner apartment with big windows and a balcony. The owner offered to make changes to the structure for her, but Lia didn’t want to make the apartment unlivable for others. So she just got a few step stools. The other added benefit was all the extra space since most of her furniture was smaller. She did keep some of the larger orcish items such as the couch and comfy chairs. 

Of course after a few months Lia felt lonely. She had made nice with a few neighbors and hung out at the coffee shop with a lovely fae girl. It just still felt like something was missing. Sitting around at home obviously wasn’t going to help, but Lia was frustrated so spending time on the internet helped. At least on line she could make connections, she had friends she could talk to, and if nothing else, vent about her loneliness. 

It wasn’t just emotional loneliness, there was physical loneliness too. The most surprising thing about the move was how much Lia missed her friends with benefits. She used to complain about being a booty call, but after all these months with nothing. Which for Lia 6 months was a long dry spell, she was starting to go a little crazy. Her toy budget had increased and while it kept the edge off it also frustrated her because it always felt like something was missing. 

Browsing local hang outs Lia decided to see if maybe there were any clubs around. Bars were an acceptable place to meet people if she was careful. Nothing wrong with a one night stand even if it wasn’t her usual cup of tea. To her surprise not only did she find a club that had potential, it was one that spoke to her interests. Finding a BDSM club within driving distance had been a shock. Normally she only found those in the larger cities, but it was pretty clear that is what this place was all about. They did require that people buy memberships, but there didn’t seem to be too many restrictions on who could be a member. 

Feeling excited Lia contacted the customer service for the club asking about memberships and was surprised at how quickly she received a response. They had a trial membership option that allowed for people to pay for a day so they weren’t paying for something that ultimately didn’t work out for them. Lia agreed and filled out the attached form sending it back and was excited. She would have to pay when she got to the club and bring her ID, but they already had her information so it would just be to check and make sure she was who she said she was and that she was actually as old as she claimed. 

When the weekend rolled around Lia was a bundle of nerves. She was excited but she had spent all week imagining and fantasizing about what the club would be like. Choosing what to wear had not been easy. She didn’t want to overdo it on her first day. Settling on a simple outfit, one of her more form fitting dresses and some heels, Lia smiled at herself in the mirror. She had pinned her hair up wanting to look a bit classy since she was hoping to attract attention.

Arriving at the club Lia was surprised at the size of it. The bouncer gestured her to where guests could sign in. She showed her ID and got her temporary membership card and went inside. The music wasn’t too loud, which was nice. This wasn’t a dance club, people wanted to have conversations. There were several booths around the room and curtained doors that lead to other rooms. The main room had a stage in the center where dancers performed, similar to a strip club but these girls were in costumes and all looked so interesting in their masks. 

Finding an empty booth Lia sat down, ordered a drink, and just observed for a while. She watched as people went in and out through the various curtained off areas. There didn’t seem to be any restrictions on who was allowed wherewith one exception, the V.I.P. Lounge. Which made sense. Feeling adventurous, Lia finished her drink and headed off to see what was behind curtain number one. Eventually she wanted to see what was behind all the curtains, but it was as good of a place as any to start. 

The first room was simple enough. It was set up like a lounge, instead of tables it was small circular beds around the room with curtains around them that could be left opened or kept closed. Couples were in various stages of undress and sexual activity around the room and Lia found it quite arousing. Moving to the next space this was clearly an area for public punishment. Submissives were tied up and displayed, some being spanked, others just bound and left to be viewed by those around them. 

Towards the back there was a door with another bouncer in front of it. Curiosity getting the better of her Lia walked over to ease her curiosity. The bouncer didn’t try to stop her but did look at her curiously. She showed her day pass and he nodded with a smile, gesturing for her to go on in. This door lead to a hallway filled with doors. Each room had a sign over it either lit up green with the word VACANT, or red with the word OCCUPIED. It didn’t take Lia long to figure out that this was where people would go to do private and probably more intense scenes.

Peeking into some of the vacant rooms they were set up to invoke different scenes. Some just had equipment in it, sort of dungeon looking. While others were mocked up to look like specific locations. There was a hospital room, a classroom, an office setting, a few different bedrooms with some interesting furniture choices, and those were just the ones she could actually look in. 

Turning around and leaving the hallway she smiled at the bouncer on the way out, he smiled back and nodded. Clearly this was common, new people being curious. It was probably why he allowed her back there without her actually participating in any kind of scene. From there she moved back to the main room sitting down at a different table and looking thoughtful. There was more to see, but right now she was horny and needed another drink. 

Lia wasn’t alone long when an orc sat down at her table after asking if it was ok that he join her. He was handsome, tall, and quite muscular. He was in a nice suit, but there was something wild about him. His bluish black hair stood up up in a wild sort of mohawk that looked soft to the touch. His large ears were pierced and he had the greenest eyes Lia had ever seen. His tusks had rings around them and he had a few facial piercings. 

He reached out a hand, a well manicured hand at that, introducing himself as Darnok. Lia blushed when she shook his hand, hers was so small compared to his. She was so small compared to him. She wasn’t tall for a human regardless, but next to this orc she felt down right miniscule. She knew his kind could get big, but he had to be over 7 feet tall. His voice was so deep she could feel it vibrate through her with every word he spoke which only affected her more and it was clear that he could tell. Her arousal was beyond obvious. 

“I haven’t seen you here before, I would very much like to get to know you little one.” Darnok smiled gently. He had quite the charming smile, but he simply didn’t want to frighten her.

“My name is Adalia, Lia for short. I just moved here about 6 months ago. I didn’t even know this place was here, I found it online. So this is really my first time here. I just wanted to see what it was all about, see if I fit in, if I like it.” She took a sip of her drink.

“And?”

“I do, I think I want to get a membership here. Not sure what I will do with it at first, but I hope if I come here enough I could meet people and well, go from there.” Lia smiled at him and tried not to scoot closer.

“You’ve met me, if you are willing.. I can show you some of the ways you can enjoy yourself here?” Dar wasn’t being subtle but he wasn’t saying anything outright either.

Lia knew what he was offering, what he was asking. Honestly, he was sexy, intelligent, and seemed nice. He was also patient and wasn’t pushing her to answer. Something she appreciated, but despite not really doing the whole one night stand thing, her hormones were overriding her and made the decision for her.  “I would love to.” She offered him her hand and allowed him to lead her away. Back towards that hallway of doors. 

Darnok chose one of the bedrooms, it was more simply in design and it made sense to Lia since this was their first encounter. She was pretty sure that they were really only going to have sex and that kink wouldn’t be entering into it much. Though, he was attractive and she wondered if things went well, if he would want to meet up again. He seemed nice enough, gentlemanly, well put together, but it was really just his kind eyes that struck her the most. He didn’t set off her creeper vibe the way some men at clubs like these did. So why not give him a chance, give them a chance to see what could happen.

Stepping over to the bed Lia looked up at him. She was short, but this orc made her feel positively tiny. “Just so I understand, we are going to be having sex, yes?” She had to check, because if he was looking for a kink scene she felt they needed to negotiate. 

“Yes, I apologize for not making my intentions more clear. While I would love to do a more intense scene with you, something about you just interests me, I am aware we just met. I thought it might be better if we started simple, see if we are even physically compatible. That being said, I can be an intense and demanding lover, and I do have my kinks that come out regardless of how simple I like to keep things. I need to know if you have any hard stops now, any lines that could be crossed that would ruin the experience.”

Dar had made it simple for Lia to understand and she appreciated his desire to just get to know her a bit. Even if they were skipping several usual steps. “Hard limits for me are anal, permanent damage, and excessive pain. Other things can be negotiated, but I feel like those are the only ones that might come up in this situation. What about you? I am assuming you are going to be in control, but that doesn’t mean  you can’t have limits.”

“Fair of you to ask.” Dar had already slipped off his shoes and suit jacket, laying the jacket on the chair behind him. He was unbuttoning his shirt revealing his muscular and quite hairy chest. “I don’t do degradation usually, don’t call me a beast or a monster. No racial slurs, things like that. Also, I prefer if you didn’t struggle in any way that made it seem like you don’t want what is happening. This needs to be consensual and I want it to feel that way. A little struggling can be fun, but not until I know you, know your real body language. Other than that, we won't be getting into anything that would come close to my other lines.”

Lia nodded, watching as he revealed more and more of his body. He was the largest, and strongest male she had ever seen naked like this. He wasn’t built like a body builder, a little softer than that, but he still looked strong enough to pick up vehicles and throw them. Kicking off her shoes she unzipped her dress and moved it to a free chair, the bedroom was well set up and she was glad not to have to toss her clothes on the floor. “I don’t know if I could say anything truely horrible to someone while having sex, I dont think we have to worry about that.” Undoing her bra Lia blushed a bit. 

“You are so lovely, I don’t suppose you will indulge me?” Dar asked.

Lia looked curious as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet bag. Inside was a pair of decorative nipple clamps, a lovely silver, with little bells on them. Holding them out to her, he gave her the opportunity to choose if she took them, and Lia did. Placing them on herself to show her willingness. They pinched a bit, but in a good way, and the bells made such a sweet little sound, the bells having a delicate chime to them, musical in a way. They made her nipples look larger and harder, she actually began to like the way it felt to have the extra weight there. 

“Exquisit.” Dar breathed as he looked her over. “Would you let your hair down? Are you comfortable with a little hair pulling when things get rough?”

Lia had to think a bit before nodding. “Just, not too hard ok? I haven’t really done it so I don’t know how painful it is.” Reaching up she began unsecuring her hair, setting the pins and clips on the bedside table and letting her hair fall down her back in waves. Turning she moved to get on the bed and sat there looking at him, patting the place next to her.

“I promise, I will keep my strength in check as much as I can. Please let me know if anything becomes too much.” With that his pants and boxers were off leaving him nude before her. 

Lia was shocked by the size of him, thick and uncut, but not even fully hard yet. She scooted back on the bed as he climbed up next to her. His hand grabbing her wrist to stop her as she tried to remove her thong. 

“Let me, give me some time to warm you up, get you used to me. I can smell your fear, I promise I am not going to hurt you. I can be gentle to start.” Dar leaned in nuzzling at her neck, his form looming over hers as he pushed her back onto the bed. The nipple clamps chiming delicately as he positioned her. 

Using his mouth and hands, Dar slowly worked Lia through her nerves. Showing her how soft he could be, showing his gentle side, letting her feel safe with his touch. He brought her pleasure through gentle teasing, and enjoyed each of her orgasms as they came upon her. The muscles of his body were tense as he held back his own desires so that he could ease her nerves and prepare her body to take him. When she was ready he smiled down at her as he loomed over her. 

“You are so perfect in your pleasure Lia, I wish I had a whole weekend to play with you. There is so much more I want, but I can’t hold back my own needs any longer.” Leaning up to kneel between her legs, Dar grabbed a condom from the bedside table, as they were offered for free by the club. Sliding it on where Lia could see was just one more gesture to prove to her she could trust him. He always used protection with new partners, but if Lia enjoyed him as much as he was enjoying her, perhaps they could move to a different arrangement that no longer required one. 

“Thank you, some people don’t want to use them.” Lia wanted to help and reach for the bottle of lube, helping to pour it over him and stroke him to lube up the condom. She could feel him throbbing in her hand and it was clear he was eager. 

Dar smiled and waited for her to finish, though his jaw was clenched. The feel of her hand on him was so good, he almost didn’t want to stop, but he desperately wanted to be inside of her. Grabbing Lia by the waist he lifted her and flipped her over, placing pillows under her to help support her body. Holding her down he used one hand to guide his cock to her entrance, rubbing slowly to work her up and get her used to the feel of him against her. Soon he couldn’t resist any longer and he was slowly pushing into her tight heat. The sensation almost overwhelmed him and he felt himself tensing as he tried to control the rush of pleasure that threatened to push him over the edge far too quickly. 

Lia squirmed beneath him and Dar thought he might lose his mind as her wiggling was driving him to distraction. It felt too good, far too good, and he was pushing in faster and harder than he had originally intended. The sounds of her moans and whimpers driving him on as he managed to get halfway in before having to pause. “Are you ok?” His voice was strained but she had made a noise that sounded like she wasn’t.

“Y….” Lia swallowed and tried again. “Yeah, just.. So intense. You’re so big Darnok.” Lia whimpered and squirmed as she felt her core stretched beyond what she felt were her limits. Yeah she had a few larger toys, but nothing like this. She had never taken anything like this and it was both terrifying and glorious. It burned but in a way that made her want more. “Don’t stop, please?” She pushed herself back against him to try and take more of him as she heard him groan above her his grip on her tightened. 

Dar was losing control. The heat of her, how tight she felt around him, her eagerness. He had calmed down some until she begged him not to stop and tried to push more of him into her. It was enough to drive anyone mad. Growling deep in his chest Dar’s hips snapped forward pushing more of his cock into her as she cried out at the sudden stretch and invasion. Her body was taking him so much better than he had imagined and he didn’t want to stop. 

“Can you take more?” His voice was tense and he lost himself for a moment and growled down at her. “By the gods I just want to rut you girl.” His thighs shook slightly with the effort of holding still. She was trusting him, and that meant more to him than he wanted to admit. Looming over her small frame Dar felt strangely protective of Lia, and didn’t want to ruin this experience or her opinion of him by fucking her like a savage. 

“Please, I want it Dar. Please fuck me. I need it.. I need to know what it is like..” Lia was desperate for more. He had promised a level of roughness she was sure she had never known. This was her first time with an orc and she wanted to experience what it was like. She wanted him to enjoy it too, and a part of her, a darker more submissive part of her, just wanted to be thoroughly ruined by him. 

It was her begging that broke some of his resolve, the sweet sound of her voice, the clear need in her tone. Dar couldn’t hold back any longer and he thrust forward into her hard, burying his cock the rest of the way until his heavy balls slapped up against her. Watching as her body surged forward from the impact, the jingle of the bells of the nipple clamps making his cock twitch inside of her. Feeling her surrounding him, Dar was lost. 

Lia cried out as Dar began fucking her in earnest, his cock pushing deeper into her than anything had ever been. Her body was at its limit if not past it, and yet, having Dar balls deep inside of her only made Lia want more. She pushed back against him, moaning loudly and begging for him to go harder, begging him to fuck her, to use her. Something in her snapped as the orc looming above her became more and more feral in his fucking. 

Soon Lia was lifted off the pillows, held up in the air as Dar pounded into her. The bells on the nipple clamps ringing constantly as his hand found a grip on her hair and yanked her back, holding her in place as he thrust up into her, his balls slapping lewdly against her wet cunt. The feel of his hand in her hair, the tugging, the power he had over her, the helplessness she felt only made Lia more wet and more needy for him. 

She lost track of what she was even saying, begging for things that weren’t possible  and made no sense. She was overwhelmed with pleasure and felt her orgasm building wild and out of her control. The tight coil of pleasure ramping up more and more, each time she thought she had reached that peak ready to crash over, it just kept ramping up, that burning pleasurable sensation growing more tense. 

Dar began to fuck Lia with almost complete abandon, surprised that her body could handle so much and that she just wanted more. He could feel her tightening around him and knew she would cum soon. It was a miracle he had not released yet himself as he rutted up into her in exactly the way he had promised himself he wouldn’t. Then he felt it, that flutter in her core followed by a scream and she was cumming around him. 

Grunting Dar hunched forward sinking his tusks into her shoulder as he thrust up hard into her spasming pussy, his own release spilling into her, blocked only by the condom he had remembered to put on. He could feel her shaking in his arms, her orgasm just as intense as his own as his balls throbbed and pulsed with each pump of his release. 

It had felt like many minutes had gone by for both of them as their bodies slowly relaxed, orgasms subsiding. Dar became aware of himself first and pulled back slightly to survey the damage. He had broken her hard limit, his tusks had dug into her flesh and broken the skin. There would likely be a scar and she was already bleeding from it. 

Carefully pulling out Dar moved to the cabinet in the room and grabbed the first aid kit, cleaning and bandaging the wound as Lia lay there. “I am deeply sorry, I lost control, that is no excuse. I understand if you want to press charges and never see me again.” Dar was surprised when Lia began laughing.

“You just gave me the best orgasm of my life, the most intense and fulfilling fucking I have ever had, and you think I am mad because you bit me?” Lia tried to sit up but couldn’t yet.

“But.. you said no permanent damage?” Dar was confused but helped her sit up, holding her gently as he massaged her body, knowing her muscles had to be sore. 

“Promise me you won’t walk away. Promise this isn’t just a one time thing, and we can forgive the bite..” Lia knew she was pushing, reaching, asking for too much.

Dar smiled gently at the little human in his lap. She really was perfect. “Then perhaps you should mark me in return, and make this official.” He leaned in pressing his forehead to hers. “When you have the strength, of course.”

[rogueblxde]

hey ! leave me alone. - it’s not a venting post, it’s my Akali rant adhfaskfh

so what is Akali’s story in the k/da / TD universe? it’s short and really simple: born in a clan (of sorts), studied and educated in martial arts, ran away when she was about 18 years old, deciding to leave the old ways behind, and began to actively search for her place in the world by expressing herself with her exceptional rapping skills, acrobatics and street art. key word “street”. quickly became a street star, went viral on various streaming services more than once, was mostly enjoying this sort of carefree (emphasis on free) life that she was living for herself, not for someone else. then got invited to join the new ambitious project as the leading rapper, and exploded.

worldwide famous. the prodigy girl, the hip-hop ninja, incredible flow, the sarcastic cool type, the neon demon – listen, there were many names. many cameras in her face as well. many eyes watching the new super bright star, the need to keep up her cool and laid back persona – you know, the industry is merciless and unforgiving. so are the fans, which can change sides just as quickly as they fell in love with you. and then True Damage as her one and only passion project, attempting to go back to her roots, the street performers, diamonds in the rough, free from labels and the pressure of the agencies, ready to make music how they see fit.

and what do people usually get for something bold like this? ha-ha, that’s right, a lot of hate.

now let’s break it down a little.

Akali’s actual personality is not entirely different from her k/da persona, but there’s still a spin of “I’m so dangerous, edgy and awesome” that spreads through her rapping all the way into the MV and their performances, actually going even further to the photosets and red carpets, interviews and all that. she has a label – a snarky cool girl, who doesn’t like heels and prefers heavy sneakers, which is also something you wouldn’t see often in modern k-pop. (the industry irl is so toxic it’s unbelievable it’s still so freaking huge, ok) it’s still a label, and even though she’s comfortable with being the rebel one, there are still standards to be met in the huge gatherings of idols. how do you think people look at the group with three gorgeous girls and a gremlin? kdfha it’s a joke, all of them are gorgeous, but it’s clear which one of them would never wear heels, even if she was held at a gunpoint.

of course, at first everything negative is ignored. Akali values her opinion and maybe opinions of her new k/da friends, trusting Ahri’s leadership, Eve’s advice, clinging to Kai’Sa who is just as new in that as she is. she’s talented and popular, they score a perfect all-kill with their first song, their life is… crazy. it’s too much to bear, honestly. interviews, social media stuff, promotions, ads, plus working on something new – except… where’s working on something new? does k/da just cease to exist after a great score? why weren’t the given the opportunity to do more? why can’t they write more music? Akali lives through her rap, she loves writing music, loves writing words, and she knows other girls love to perform too – but with all the campaign bullshit she’s lost in the tornado of crazy schedules. and there’s no time to do something she actually wants to do, enjoys to do, AND she’s getting judged on the way she looks, dresses, that she’s too muscular/slim/not slim enough. ramen? ew, a girl should stop eating. where’s her make up? why is she boyish? she’s not elegant to be an idol. why don’t she just leave?

now, obviously, all four of them were probably receiving stuff like that, and it needs to be ignored. it’s shitty that people like that exist, and sad that they think it’s ok to tell someone what they should and shouldn’t do.

at this point, what do we have? overwhelming success, a perfect persona to play constantly, since it’s campaign time, no windows to do something they enjoy. isn’t it hard? hell fucking yes it’s hard. it takes a toll on health, both physical and mental, and it’s honestly that period in her life when Akali gets her first “actual” anxiety attack. what should she do, how should she behave, what if she does something stupid, huh, what if she trips, oh, her appearance will be ruined, no? rapping becomes hard. mistakes, slurs, words not flowing as efficiently. she is deprived of one of the few things she actually enjoys because they are pushed into certain patterns of how an idol should behave.

so what does she do? as pathetic as it may sound, the only thing she succeeded with. she runs away from the popular group, she tries to find her feelings for the music again. I imagine all of the girls have their own apartments plus the ‘dorm’ of sorts, where all of them can live, and in her own apartment Akali has a studio, where she is learning to mix tracks and use samples and all that. it’s her little safespace, and if she’s not napping in her bag chair next to the balcony in her living room, she’s most probably locked in the studio again. that’s where the idea for True Damage actually hit her for the first time – she was listening to one of Yasuo’s tracks while trying to understand how to mix it properly. at the time it seemed like a great idea – re-ignite her own love for music with collaborating with amazing street stars? and, let’s be real, it was a great collab – filled with passion, filled with talent, right?

yet one of the most frequently asked questions was “did she leave k/da”.

and yes, this one is based purely from my own irl experience with everyone who was judging Akali for “leaving kda”. I’ve had quite a few people talk shit at me, the mun, about my character leaving a 2d musical group, how would you like that, lmao. so I’m implementing this.

which leads to receiving even more fame. and more hate. “finally she left”. “ugh what a rat”. “lol she’s nothing without the group”. and she would’ve been able to take it, but because she tried to do something she was passionate about, her project was overlooked simply because “it’s that girl who ditched the group that made her famous”. and the best one yet – “of course she needs more talented people to carry her now”.

you can be strong as fuck, nerves of steel and all, but when there are eyes of millions of people upon you, you begin to crumble. it’s hard, it’s tough, it’s something you either give in to, or find strength to go through, finding more and more reasons to keep going. either it’s your passion, your fanbase, your friends, your family – quite literally, anything to show you how you’re not a failure and you don’t actually know what people think of you.

now, one of the things from my own experience with depression is that I’m constantly feeling down because I think someone hates me. or I think they want to replace me, or that they laugh at me, etc. etc. it’s really hard to break out of this cycle of thoughts, you are just constantly going back to putting your thoughts into someone else’s behavior without actually thinking that it might be completely wrong. and it’s hard as it is with just my circle of people – and when there was no one around you and all of a sudden there are millions? yeah, that shit hits hard. very, very hard.

Akali is still a strong girl. she knows she will get through this shit and comeback with something incredible to rub it into everyone’s faces, or not – maybe she’ll show her honest self, give her honest opinions and drop f bombs on the trends of the industry.

but for now she’s just nowhere to be found, hiding in her studio, and not giving two shits about anything. projects? haha. practice? haha. she covers her favorite rap tracks just because she feels like it, because the lyrics speak to her. she will come back eventually.

exhibit a / exhibit b.

[dontcallmekoda]

Depression is stupid

So I’m gonna start by saying i literally made a new account because I have friends on my old one (which i haven't posted on in years btw) that i don’t really want to see this.

Well lets get into it

I was diagnosed, while in the military, with chronic depression.  I’ve gone through counseling, tried natural supplements, and even been on medication but everything only seems to work temporarily.  No matter what i seem to do it always comes back. Counseling was my favorite of the three because with the other 2 it felt like i was corking the problem and not attempting to resolve it.  Now i haven’t been to a counselor in a few years as I’ve been able to keep it at bay with good habits (eating better, getting adequate sleep, taking time for socializing, etc.) however I knew I’d still need to deal with it I’m just doing my best to minimize it.  With that being said I’m noticing the patterns of it coming on again and that scares me because depression has made me do some stupid things in the past and I do not want to ruin where i have got myself to.  I have a good job, a nice truck, a good relationship with both my parents (which was not always the case) and frankly i found myself truly happy with how far i have come but i want to continue moving forward which is why i made this account to vent about the stupid things I’m doing as to not let them fester in my mind overthinking them dozens of times.

So one of my first signs actually has to do with my interactions with the opposite sex.  I’ve never been any kind of womanizer or fuck boy for that matter but when i start to notice a decline the first thing i start to want is an orgasm. Although,when you are Poly and single that can be pretty hard to obtain, also add in the fact that I’m not really a charmer and I’ve always been the weirdo of the group and that leads to me having only really ever had 2 sexual relationships.  Now wanting to have an orgasm i feel is pretty natural the dopamine helps stabilize to keep you from feeling so down you cant do anything so i usually end up masturbating but that can tend to be like eating bread when you want a sandwich.  Anyways I still usually try and find someone to hookup with or start a relationship with at this time which is hard because a hookup would have to be a friend or someone i already have some sort of connection with and i believe that has lead to quite a few female acquaintances distancing themselves because of the way i acted and i always seem to regret that when i get my head back on straight.  A relationship however isn’t better because I’m usually rushing past all the red flags and putting myself into a shitty situation in which i end up hurting the other person due to my lack of perception in the early part of the relationship.  Even though this process normally starts because of my problems i always end up blaming myself and making my condition worse because of my urges and it honestly saddens me that there are many awesome people who will probably only remember me as a fuck boy that tried to get into their pants at one point.

Now obviously there are two threads from here the one where i was with someone and the one where i was by myself.  I’d like to dive into the relationship thread first as that has never worked out the way i hoped (see Single above) now i have gone through my lows in both romantic relationships and each had a different outcome due to having different partners so ill go through each individually.  My first was definitely my first love we spent so much time together that we basically lived together at least 18 months of our 2 years together.  She was with me through basic and it was after basic that my depression really hit me hard (uncorked my medication while in service and i was basically told i wasnt good enough for military even though i had perfect scores through basic) and she stayed and helped me through that.  We stayed together for almost a full year after basic until i was fired from not 1 but 2 jobs.  The firings killed my confidence and i was so low that i didn’t want to drag my love down with me and distanced myself.  One thing led to another and eventually she left me for someone else who she is still happy with today.  Now on to relationship number 2 and this one was a little different as it started with me already in a depression.  It had been 5 years since me and my previous girlfriend had broken up and i was pretty down.  I lived with 2 actors who could bring girls in just about whenever they wanted and that led me to compare myself to them can be pretty degrading when they start talking numbers and while theirs are in the 20s and 30s and you have to sit back like well at least I’m not a virgin.  Enter my second girlfriend who was very obviously into me and i jumped into it like a recovering junkie.  It took me about 2 weeks to establish a connection with her and then when i was comfortable and able we did the deed and i started to feel better about myself little by little as my confidence grew so did my performance at work and thus came raises and i was able to buy my new-ish truck and cross that off my bucket list.  With everything that was going on i fell in love with this girl not for who she was but who she had helped me become and now that i look back that feels very selfish of me.  It then became my goal to help her in whatever way i could as she had anxiety that affected her very harshly.  I did everything i could but started to feel overbearing and like help wasn’t what she wanted.  After time all the red flags that had been there since the beginning started choking me like a bad scarf of my own design.  She started turning on me for helping her and when i decided to leave she threatened to kill herself for it.  Seeing how toxic the relationship had become i left but i feel like if i had been more coherent in the beginning i wouldn’t have hurt her as bad.

Now on to the second thread of being single.  The ebb and flow is pretty common as the vast majority of the time i have been single.  We’ll start this thread from after i have already hit the depression and then move to the effects (note: many of these symptoms i go through in relationship too its just how i handled them that changes).  I begin by spending less time following my good habits usually my personal care declines (stop showering everyday, don’t get enough sleep, eat like crap, etc.) then it starts affecting my job, i make little mistakes which i get harder and harder on myself about the gremlin in my head (who doesn’t pay rent) starts telling me how worthless i am and how i can never live up to anyone standards even my own and whatnot. Next i begin to distance myself from friends and family feeling like i’m a burden and that people are faking how they feel about me.  I then lose the ability to focus on just about anything even worse than normal (adhd too yay).  Finally, i begin to lash out at anyone who kept close and usually end up quitting my job and getting stuck like this for months.  In the past this has led to me losing the ability to work many places in my city,  tarnishing relationships especially those of my parents in the past, weight gain, less self confidence than when i started, and eventually me somehow getting out of the hole usually through a new job or friendship or something else random.  The results of these has led to me having 13 jobs in the last 7 years and i have probably chased off more friends than some people have had.

Anyways this has been my rant on why depression is stupid.  I would like to say i did not come here and write this looking for help I came to vent my frustrations of my own chemical imbalance.  To anyone who has decided to take the time to read this feel free to send me any questions as i enjoy talking about my struggle if it helps someone else all in all that is the one thing that has always made me feel better is when i can be a light for one persons darkness and so i ask if you are also in a dark place reach out because it cant help the person helping you just as much...if that makes sense

[chiauve]

Enemy Mine - days 10-13

Summary: Chris has succeeded....or has he?

Note: I forgot a little tidbit last time and added it in the last post.

Cover art by Pelissa.

        Along with the promise of jobs and prosperity, Umbrella had pledged to back the construction of a modern hospital in Raccoon City, a pledge that would now remain unfulfilled for an unknown amount of time. Chris didn't regret his decision to alter history, but he'd forgotten to what extent Umbrella's downfall would affect the town. He was reminded now as he stood watch over the Wesker children as they took turns being looked over by the overworked doctors and nurses of the single, small clinic that serviced the town. Outside of that were a few family doctors that ran a clinic out of their homes and made house calls. A couple of them had answered the late night calls and came to assist handling the 'poor lost children'.

         They'd arrived at the RPD without incident, the children disturbingly docile to the point Gary worried they were in shock. The mere mention of it made blankets appear and Jen the dispatcher started making hot cocoa. The fact they looked at the sweet drink like they didn't know what it was was depressing.

         It was in the midst of getting the children's fingerprints and making calls to social services and the next town over for missing child records that Orellana noticed markings under one of the boy's collar. Rolling back a few sleeves revealed old scarring on some of them. This and the current minor injuries (and the fact that Five smashed Seven's face into the wall earlier) made them hasten through the fingerprinting and get the kids to the clinic before any questioning or attempt at proper identification.

         The bus arrived to take the children just as the mayor practically kicked in the door in stressed fury and Chris, Gary, and Lake were happy to take the out and left Captain Orellana to handle the initial reports and the mayor and Chief Lowe.

         They mostly just stood around, trying to stay out of the nurses' way as they ushered children about. He didn't miss Two quietly informing a nurse he would like more cocoa. The Wesker children were being compliant, yes, but not polite. They didn't ask for things but told people what they wanted and apparently expected to get it. One doctor's eye was beyond twitching as Twelve, or Alex, told him how she would deal with her own injuries since he was clearly incompetent.

         Chris kept an eye on Albert and took note when he was guided to an examination room by one of the nurses, a doctor following soon after. When that doctor emerged a little while later he couldn't help but inquire about Wesker's health.

         "He was the only one who struggled earlier," he explained when the doctor gave him an odd look, "I just wanted to make sure he was okay."

         The doctor shrugged. "He's dehydrated and a bit malnourished. After a couple of good meals he should be fine. All the children have old scarring and signs of injury of varying degrees. These kids have been put through hell, but it looks like they were given medical attention afterwards so it could have been a lot worse than it is." His voice dropped low, allowing out some of his anger, "Still, what sick people do this to children? Some of these injuries are years old! This was out at that mansion in the mountains? Is that fancy 'Lord' Spencer involved in this?"

         "I can't say anything for certain right now," Chris lied.

         Gary was still trying his luck with Seven since she'd been the most forthcoming so far. She was even more so after getting her head smashed, glowering at Five and explaining away clearly just to spite him.

         "When did all the adults leave you guys?"

         She gave a small tilt of her head in a shrug like it hardly mattered. "Two days before you all began trespassing, I suppose."

         "Two days all by yourselves? The place was pretty well lit up."

         "Of course. We must always ensure the mansion is welcoming in case Father comes home."

         "And who is Father?"

         She gave another tilt of her head and said nothing.

         Gary didn't bother pressing that line of questioning, there'd be plenty of time for that later and most likely not by him. "Did you guys have food during those two days? Did anyone make sure you could take care of yourselves?"

        "We can take care of ourselves. We were told to wait, so we did. Thirteen broke into the kitchen stores yesterday. He's not supposed to do that but he always disobeys. Since it was already stolen we took it from him for ourselves."

         He sighed. "You could all share, you know, and then no one has to be hungry."

         Seven wrinkled her nose at him like the idea was abhorrent. "If you can't defend what you have you don't deserve it."

         Chris watched the exchange sadly, feeling bad for both Gary and the children. Gary looked a bit distraught but he didn't understand the depth of how twisted these children became. Had they survived would they have been just like Wesker? Or was it, as far as Chris knew, that he was the only one to return to Umbrella what damned Wesker to his mad end? Had the others actually managed to create somewhat normal lives for themselves before it was brought to an end by the T-virus?

         He didn't know in his own time, and he'd probably still never know in this one. Once all this was done with the children would be handed off to social services and would no longer be of concern to him. They were free of Umbrella.

         "Hey," Lake leaned on the wall next to Chris, "Didn't get a chance to ask earlier, but how'd you know that one bugger's name?"

         "What?"

         "The crazy one, Thirteen, you called him Albert or something when he was tryin' to cut up Gary. How'd you know?"

         "Uh, well… There were some names attached to the clothing order. I just yelled out the first one that came to me."

         "That's pretty damn lucky," Lake said, his voice betraying he didn't believe it.

         "It's been a pretty lucky night. Could have gone a lot worse."

         "True. But I wasn't expectin' to find any kids, to be honest. Who'da thought we were about to get into bed with those Umbrella sickos. What were they tryin' to accomplish?"

         "Who knows."

         The doctors' findings were about the same, the children were overall healthy if underfed and so they were herded back onto the bus and returned to the RPD. The exhausted tactical unit handed them off to awaiting uniformed officers and went to find out how many more grey hairs Orellana gained this night. Chris watched Albert as he was ushered out of sight by the officers, an odd feeling in his gut, and then followed after his teammates.

         Chris tried very hard to never compare Captain Orellana to Wesker, but sometimes he couldn't help it, especially when the Captain looked like he was about ready to eat someone's face. That happened a lot when government officials were around. Chief Lowe didn't look much better as the mayor vented his frustrations on the loss of Umbrella and the promise of city progress, not to mention how making such connections with revealed kidnappers and child abusers would make him look.

         The judge had signed the warrant but Mayor Lundgren had made his displeasure with the whole affair known to everyone. Storming Spencer's mansion, which had been a staple of the Arklay Mountains for over seven years, would damage relations with Oswell Spencer by offending him and making them all look like fools if they were wrong. And how could they not be wrong? Kidnapping? Brainwashing and experimenting on children? What nonsense.

         Mayor Lundgren had prepared for the impending apology; he'd been up all last night writing his statement and condemnation of the police force for not performing their jobs properly. He was not at all prepared for twelve abused children to be extracted and dumped into his police department.

         Chris didn't give a damn about the mayor's reputation or the lost opportunities for progress. Something else would come along eventually or it wouldn't. If anything they'd have to make up some reason to use those electric trams underneath the city and would try to entice another company out to Raccoon City. Construction of the chemical plant Umbrella was to use had already begun so surely someone else could make use of it.

         He was suddenly tired. Physically from the night's work but also a weariness from the sheer anticlimactic succeeding in his mission. The Wesker children were free from Umbrella, which was now exposed. Spencer and his people fled.

         It was over.

         Chris didn't feel cheerful or even assured.

         Seeing his men outside the door, Captain Orellana excused himself from the Chief's volatile office and made his escape, shutting the door behind him with a long-suffering groan.

         "Everything hunky-dori as ever, huh?"

         "Shut up, Wright. Debrief tomorrow morning and I'll need your full reports before the end of the business day. This is a mess and it's only going to get worse before it gets better so get a good night's sleep. Hell, debrief at eleven o'clock; I want some sleep at some point too," Orellana said, rubbing at his eyes.

         "What about the kids," Chris asked.

         "I'll keep you informed best I can but they're not really our concern anymore. They're going to be questioned tomorrow, probably be given psychological assessments to see how bad the damage is, then handed over to social services who are going to try to locate their families."

         And that was that.

         Chris went back to his lonely house and crashed, earning relief from any dreams and sleeping the rest of the night through. The debriefing included the K-9 unit's full report, including the discovery of the body of the missing child beneath the mansion in space being dug out for unknown purposes. (Chris knew, of course, but said nothing.) Initial report suggested she'd drowned but it was hard to tell as she'd been cut open and apparently experimented on. The coroner of course would have the final word. Nobody said anything when Lake excused himself to throw up when photographs were shown.

         Files on the children had been uncovered and then promptly locked away, the depth of Umbrella's disgusting acts to be seen only as needed in the case of the children's care and not for the public. Mayor Lundgren was in damage control mode and Chris suspected much of this whole incident wasn't going to make it to the public's attention.

         In the end the official word was that a cult had kidnapped the children as infants and was raising them as child soldiers out at the mansion for the usual cultish revolution. It was close enough, Chris thought, and despite the fact that Umbrella's involvement was glossed over its marriage with Raccoon City was finished.

         Umbrella was finished.

         It should have been over, but Chris lay awake at night, wondering. The Wesker children were liberated, yes, but Spencer was still out there, as well as Marcus and Ashford (well, one of them), so while the name Umbrella might be done what was to stop them from trying again elsewhere? Would they start over? Would Spencer give up on his Project W entirely and merely focus on his search for immortality through Progenitor viruses?

         Or… what was to stop them from continuing the project as is?

         Chris went cold at the thought despite his mound of blankets. The children had been released into the world sometime in their teens to seek out their own paths, what if all Chris had done was move that release date up?

         The staff had fled and left the children behind. Children who followed orders and did not resist when the RPD came to take them away.

         Except Albert. Had he attacked them in defense or was it as Alex said in that he was actually trying to get away and Gary just happened to be blocking the door?

         If he was right, then Umbrella could come back for the Wesker children later.

[theoverworld]

There Is No Such Thing As Area 51

There is no such thing as Area 51. Sorry! And the fact that it’s the golden egg of conspiracy theories worldwide is exactly what the US government wants. I’m writing this in a bit of a rush and I don’t have any of my thoughts organized, so I’m just going to break it down as follows:

Groom Lake / Paradise Ranch / Edwards AF Extension / Restricted Training Facility UX104

These are a few names for the place you know as Area 51. I don’t know much about its history, but essentially it was intended by the US Air Force to be a secret weapons-testing facility during the Cold War. It had a few on-site extensions; one of them was for developing experimental rocket and jet engines, one was for training contingents of troops for nuclear warfare and post-apocalyptic survival, etc. But much like the third Star Wars movie, the site and its purpose got out around the time of the Roswell incident, and a media frenzy popularized the base. The government tried at first to quell speculation about it, but then adopted another strategy: feed into the hype, and simply move the base a few dozen miles away.

Today, Groom Lake (Area 51) is a small but functional military airport and base. It’s got a bunch of bunkers mostly housing low-security servers, and some munitions tests are performed there. Staff are regularly moved in and out, mostly folks who are low on the totem pole and trying to climb up the ladder to the real facility. There are some very outdated nuclear fallout shelters that are still maintained and used for storage. The facility consumes an enormous amount of power, and everything possible is done to make it look like a well-guarded military base that is engaged in some huge, secret operations.

The employees really do fly there every day from Las Vegas on conspicuously inconspicuous jets marked as “JANET,” sometimes referred to as “Just Another Non-Existent Terminal.” And they want you to notice. And wonder. They want you to wonder where those jets are going.

And they never want you to spend one second thinking about where they came from.

The real “Area 51”

This is the most exciting part, because as far as I can tell in my limited and clandestine researching, nobody has ever divulged the real secret before. It’s pretty highly guarded, and they straight up murder people who are stupid enough to share it. Murder isn’t even the right word. They erase people from existence. Sometimes entire families. That’s why the government freaks out when they find that one of their employees is terminal and has nothing left to lose. It’s why if you’re an employee there, you only see their doctors, so that they know about your health before you even know about it. They want you to die real quick of a sudden heart attack, so that you never have a moment to think about how you might do a public service and air their dirty laundry. And sometimes they induce those heart attacks when they determine you to be an HMT, or “health-motivated threat.”

But I didn’t need to see a doctor to know that I am suffering from the same malignant tumor that killed my father: glioblastoma multiforme. Every three months we get a health evaluation, and every six months we get a CAT scan. I simply didn’t report the very damning symptoms this past eval, and I’ll probably be gone before they scan me next. I really wanted to do this instead. Maybe just to be the first, I guess. The only other thing I’ve ever done with my life is fix computers.

The real secret military base is McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

The history of the airport was always bound up in military involvement. Before and during WWII, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Air Force were building, storing, training, and doing all sorts of things there. Basically the government (and its corporate benefactors in the military-industrial complex, of course) acquired full ownership of the airport around the time Area 51/Groom Lake exploded in the public eye. It was a rush job, and a simple solution.

For all intents and purposes, McCarran is an airport. It moves civilians in and out and all over the world just like any other airport on earth, but its subterranean operations are really something else entirely.

First of all, you have to understand the structure of this military base.

Because it serves ostensibly as a business of public transportation, every single aspect of the base has dual functions. This is called “masking,” and it is deployed with remarkable effectiveness at McCarran. To name a few examples, the constant take-offs and landings of airplanes provides sound-camouflage for cutting-edge engine tests. The public completely ignores these sounds and dismiss them as the standard cacophony of airports. Some of the jets themselves are even equipped with technology under test, while others are used to transport hundreds of government employees dressed as vacationing civilians. At any given time in McCarran, up to six of the gates* (corrected by a reader; I initially said terminals) are filled with employees of the highest echelons of the US military and government. They sit around on their iPhones, dressed as college kids in their pajamas or weary businessmen. And they’re paid to look the part.

The entire base is heavily guarded by plainclothes soldiers. Military police, tactical specialists, counter-terrorism forces, and all kinds of soldiers scurry about the airport dressed like cops, airport security, and desk attendants. Their weapons are usually concealed sidearms; the real firepower is packed by the boys waiting around underground. Assault rifles and armor-piercing weaponry is stored around the airport’s public spaces in various places. It’s not hard to do, because nobody’s looking for it. And of course they hire a good number of civilians to work the TSA and other positions; this is called “mixing” and it’s necessary. What kind of airport would never post any job listings?

Have you ever watched the mechanics ducking in and out of the planes outside, or seen your luggage loaded onto the plane as you board? Well, all of that cargo transport activity acts as a cover for the mass movement of special forces, lab equipment, military hardware, exotic building materials, etc. It’s not hard to do. They drive one of those rigs by with all the luggage spilling out of it, and then you instinctively don’t question what’s on the other four rigs behind it. We even have mix-ups and spills occasionally, and nobody bats an eye.

You’re always exposed to some level of radiation while flying (and McCarran, by the way, is why the standard of safe exposure is set where it’s at), but excess radiation from weapons-testing is vented into the earth and out of the nearby desert. Having an airport to explain the radiation is an effective means of ridding the base of nosy folks with Geiger counters. But the true genius of this top-secret military installation is at the largest scale: the base was built under an airport because of the enormity of its power consumption. But it consumes a lot more power than a regular airport, so it was built in a city that consumes a tremendous amount of power – Las Vegas. So the base is hidden from view, even on the electric power grid. Area 51? Not so much. And that’s on purpose.

Inside the base

So if Area 51 is the distraction, what do we call the real one? It has many names, but it’s usually referred to as the “NEXUS.” That’s an acronym, but not many people know what it means. Not even me. Everything about the Nexus, from its operations to its structure, is compartmentalized. That means everything is need-to-know, and virtually nobody knows anything more than their own specific task. You could work in an office in the Nexus doing something like accounting, and never have one single clue what the woman next to you does. Or the guy down the hall. They say not even the President knows exactly what’s going on there, just a few generals and some dudes in the CIA.

The business culture here is insane. It’s like North Korea. Everyone is smiling, everyone is fine, and everyone is happy to say just a few phrases about what it is they do (when we’re allowed to socialize, which is not much). Every line is bugged, every room has a camera in it, and nobody knows who’s watching/listening or when. So that makes you think, nobody here is telling me the truth about anything. Not even the guy I share an office with. I wonder if any of us know why we are here. People you’ve worked with for a long time will suddenly get “reassigned” or have a “medical emergency” and you’ll never see them again. And nobody will remember that person, no matter how many people you ask.

I actually got hired to do some programming for the Navy when I was in my early 20’s out of college, and then got sent to Groom Lake to do server tests. They liked my IT/networking skills, so after a series of strange psychological tests and mountains of non-disclosure agreements and background searches, I got offered a job “at a facility near Las Vegas proper.” Here are a few stipulations of that job, by the way: It’s a $1,500,000 after-tax lump sum plus a $220,000/year stipend, housing/car/medical paid for – but psychological breakdowns, anxiety attacks, grave health conditions, and family issues void the contract. I also sign approximately 2 new non-disclosure agreements per week, most of which read “under penalty of death” somewhere. Employees aren’t allowed to leave the grounds for 5 years, and we all live underground. Term of service is 5 years, then 4 in debriefing, wherein we get to live in Vegas but report to another facility four days a week. We are discharged and observed for the rest of their lives. Our passports are permanently void; we cannot ever leave the continental US. I heard a statistic that 20% of former employees commit suicide. I don’t know if it’s true, but if it is, I bet it’s actually “suicide.”

The base is underground. It’s a network of large structures called hives, which form what is called the “Colony” or the “Nexus.” We make lots of Resident Evil jokes, by the way. Except unlike in that movie, the government doesn’t try to make its employees feel comfortable with fake forests and windows overlooking digital cityscapes. It is a dark, dreary, Soviet-style labyrinth of halls and bunkers, replete with all sorts of submarine-like features: water- and air-tight hatches, trap doors, reinforced blast doors, etc. The only exception are the office ‘buildings’ inside where chair-moisteners like me work. They look just like the office you work in. Except the men with guns standing guard 24-7 everywhere, looking over your shoulder. Oh, and the beautiful, almost surreal glow of the cutting-edge laboratories that pock the lower levels of each building. I’ve never been in them, but I’ve passed by a few times.

There are 4 hives to my knowledge (although I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more). I work in Hive 1. I run some of the servers with a few other guys on one particular floor (there are 16 floors in our hive), but we monitor and maintain all of the servers in Hive 1 so we move around a bit. I’ve gotten to skim some of the data that passes through, and from what I can tell, we’re the most boring hive. I’ve compiled the following list based on the things I’ve intercepted on our network and also from hearsay from other coworkers. The Nexus has multiple networks and they’re all decentralized, but there are some ways in which they communicate, and it is via those lines of communication that I am privy to some sensitive information. Here’s what I know:

Hive 1: finance, accounting, operations/organization divisions, troop training/housing, and some small-scale weapons testing.

Hive 2: Chemical engineering, some nano-tech research, and “advanced psychological fitness,” whatever that means, for elite military forces. Probably black-ops stuff and how to survive thirty years in solitary confinement at a Siberian prison. I also have reason to believe this is the hive where the bigwigs meet and live.

Hive 3: Upper levels = bioweapon and disease research/testing. If the government has zombies, they’ve got to be here. I’ve wanted to make so fucking many zombie jokes over the years, but I never know which of my coworkers is a rat. Lower levels = Advanced space-travel and space-warfare technologies. Particle engines and gravitational beams and the like (guessing, no real evidence). Science-fiction stuff. I once saw an email with all sorts of coded language, marked “A-B,” which is widely believed to refer to “astrobiology.” That’s alien life. Maybe it’s just some single-celled organisms or fossilized plants from some meteor, or maybe it’s something much more advanced. Whatever it is, there must be some reason it’s not on the upper levels with all the biologists.

Hive 4: Total informational blackout. There are encryptions and firewalls and network security features protecting this hive that I’ve never seen before, not even on top-secret Navy projects I worked in the past. I’m being very nonspecific in the language I use to describe our server clusters and networks because I don’t want to tell them exactly who I am. They’ll eventually find out anyway. But there’s a widely-whispered rumor about Hive 4: allegedly, the most terrifying thing in the world is in that structure on floor 15.

There are a few unusual things about Hive 4. First of all, none of the top brass has clearance to get in there. They access it remotely via video feed in their conference rooms, and materials are often transported from 4 to 2 for physical review. I don’t know why our bigwigs won’t go into 4, but maybe it’s because it’s too dangerous? There was one guy who worked in 4 a few years ago when I first started, and he caused the first Nexus-wide lockdown I’ve ever seen. He was being escorted through 1 thumpers (what we call the squads of black-booted soldiers that grant access to different hives), and he started shrieking about IDA’s. I didn’t hear his screams, but I heard the gunshot while I was eating lunch. They put a bullet in the back of his head before he could finish his sentence. IDA’s, by the way, are inter-dimensional anomalies. I have no further information on what those are.

Another thing I’ve read minimally about are “the twins.” I don’t know who or what these are, but they’re the “above-top-secret” gem of Hive 4. It is treasonous to even correspond about them on our secure networks unless you are cleared to do so, and only four employees are. I’ve only seen a few things about them. One was a medical record. No vitals, unusual vocalizations that manifest hallucinations and psychosis in nearby employees, and skin that produces violent nausea when touched. The document was basically speculation that the skin functions much like the Australian stinging tree or a jellyfish.

I read documents about people who worked with them as well. In 4, a woman was remanded to the psychological ward after being in the same room with them, and a soldier who stood outside of the laboratory where they are kept basically killed himself. Specifically, he peeked inside during a routine access, then began bashing his own brains out with the butt of a pistol while singing an Irish folksong. The woman who was remanded to psych was even weirder: during breakfast with her colleagues, she grabbed a fork, stood up, walked out of the mess hall, stripped all of her clothes off, blinded herself in both eyes, then somehow managed to make her way all the way up to Floor 1 where the access corridor to Hive 3 is located. How she managed to operate the dozens of keycard readers, passcode boxes, and retinal scanners is still under review. Last email regarding her was sent in 2012, about how she sits in the dark of solitary on Floor 11’s psych ward with a permanent and blissful grin on her face.

One of my colleagues whom I trust told me that he saw the twins once through hacked access to a video feed. He said they are woman-like, about twice as tall as a full-grown man, with unidentifiable black growths dangling from their heads (like hair but thicker), and they basically float a few inches off the ground and drag their toes lightly as they move. They’re utterly pale. He never saw the faces, but he claims that they appear to distort reality (or at least the video feed) in such a way that space looks bent around them. Perhaps these are the IDA’s that earlier dude was screaming about.

This is all I have for now. But hopefully the world knows the truth someday about what goes on down here. We are all basically prisoners. We have very limited and supervised access to the internet, so if you don’t hear from me again, assume they figured me out.

[xtruss]

Aluminum Wrap Used to Protect Homes in California Wildfires

— By Scott Sonner | September 18, 2021

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Martin Diky said he panicked as a huge wildfire started racing down a slope toward his wooden house near Lake Tahoe.

The contractor had enough time to do some quick research and decided to wrap his mountain home with an aluminum protective covering. The material that can withstand intensive heat for short periods resembles tin foil from the kitchen drawer but is modeled after the tent-like shelters that wildland firefighters use as a last resort to protect themselves when trapped by flames.

Diky, who lives most of the time in the San Francisco Bay Area, bought $6,000 worth of wrapping from Firezat Inc. in San Diego, enough to cover his 1,400-square-foot (130-square-meter) second home on the edge of the small California community of Meyers.

“It’s pretty expensive, and you’d feel stupid if they stopped the fire before it got close,” he said. “But I’m really glad we did it. It was pretty nerve-wracking when the flames came down the slope.”

The flexible aluminum sheets that Diky affixed to his $700,000 home are not widely used because they are pricey and difficult to install, though they have saved some properties, including historic cabins managed by the U.S. government.

Fire crews even wrapped the base of the world’s largest tree this week to protect it from wildfires burning near a famous grove of gigantic old-growth sequoias in California’s Sequoia National Park. The colossal General Sherman Tree, some of the other sequoias in the Giant Forest, a museum and some other buildings also were wrapped amid the possibility of intense flames.

It comes after another aluminum-wrapped home near Lake Tahoe survived the Caldor Fire, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of Diky’s home, while neighboring houses were destroyed.

The wrapping deflects heat away from buildings, helping prevent flammable materials from combusting. It also keeps airborne embers — a major contributor to spreading wildfires — from slipping through vents and other openings in a home. With a fiberglass backing and acrylic adhesive, the wraps can withstand heat of up to 1,022 degrees Fahrenheit (550 Celsius).

Until about a decade ago, most wildfire damage was blamed on homes catching fire as flames burned nearby vegetation. Recent studies suggest a bigger role is structure-to-structure fires that spread in a domino effect because of tremendous heat that causes manufactured materials to burst into flames.

The company where Diky bought his wraps gets about 95% of its sales from the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service. Firezat Inc. founding president Dan Hirning estimates the Forest Service has wrapped 600 to 700 buildings, bridges, communication towers and other structures in national forests this year alone.

Firefighters on social media liken the wraps to a “big baked potato.” One who helped install some said he felt like he was “wrapping Christmas presents.”

Forest Service officials say they have been using the wraps for several years throughout the American West to protect sensitive structures. At Lake Tahoe, they have wrapped the Angora Ridge Lookout, a nationally registered historic fire lookout tower, said Phil Heitzke, an agency battalion chief.

“Many times, Forest Service structures are wrapped well in advance of the fire,” he said in a statement. Crews often can then focus on protecting other buildings or other work.

Firezat sells fire shield rolls that are 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide by 200 feet (61 meters) long for about $700 each. Installation by a contractor typically costs thousands of dollars.

“People think we should be selling tons of these things, but it’s not as much as everybody thinks,” Hirning said. Despite the cost, he said a building won’t burn unless “fire falls right on it.”

A mechanical engineering professor at Ohio’s Case Western Reserve University published 10 years of research about protective wraps in the Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering journal in 2019, saying they “demonstrated both remarkable performance and technical limitations.”

The aluminized surface blocked up to 92% of convective heat and up to 96% of radiation, Fumiaki Takahashi said.

The wrapping is most effective if a wildfire burns past with exposure of less than 10 minutes, he said. It’s less effective in areas with high-density housing, where spreading infernos can burn for hours without being stopped by firefighters.

The wraps “show promise in being effective, but further research is needed to develop more efficient yet still lightweight” protection against severe fires, Takahashi said in an email. He said he wouldn’t recommend them for everyone because they require proper installation.

“But once the installation methods are established (like a standard), I would,” he wrote. “There have been multiple successful stories for saving historic cabins by the U.S. Forest Service.”

Hirning said most of individual buyers he’s had over the years are looking to protect “really expensive cabins, really expensive homes, resorts, etc.” They include homeowners on $5 million lots in Malibu, California, who are asked to sign an agreement that the Forest Service isn’t responsible for protecting their property in some cases.

A Wyoming rancher once put Hirning on a conference call with a fire commander and insurance adjuster who was going to reduce his rates if he wrapped a cabin worth about $1.5 million.

“Often it’s people who can’t get fire insurance or their insurance has been dropped. They want to wrap it to protect their investments that way,” he said.

Diky suggests getting extra help putting up the wrapping.

“They recommended three people could do it in 3.5 hours. I brought four contractors with me and worked all day into the night ... busted our butt for 12.5 hours,” he said.

As far as sales taking off as a result of recent wildfires, Hirning emphasized that it’s “an extremely seasonable business.”

“The first five years, new competitors were coming on each year. And at the end of each year, I got a phone call: “Would you be interested in buying our inventory?’’’ he said.

Once it starts raining and snowing, he says he often doesn’t sell anything for nine months straight. That could change, however, as climate change contributes to more intense weather and more destructive, nearly year-round wildfire seasons.

[nombuleloblr]

What are we without mental health?🤷‍♀️

From my early teenage years, I have found myself to be the red dot in the mist of white dot, and because I didn’t know better, I always tried to cover my redness. I’m the peculiar person in the group that cares about the things that nobody else cares about, I look deep into the things overlooked. Ever since I got to understand the term ‘mental health’ I have made it a point to advocate for the importance of it any chance I get. I guess you can call me a MENTAL HEALTH ACTIVIST. When it comes to mental health, I mostly relate to a quote by Robert Frost, which say “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”  

From infants to the elderly mental health impacts our lives all the same, regardless whether we overlook it or hold it dear to our hearts. I come from a rural community that suffers for the patriarchal gender roles, the community lives by a set of values and beliefs even though it results in a generational cycle of poverty. Men are believed to be the head of the household; women are meant to take care of children and the home. Since it’s a community that is rural it means that the men need to go live to a place closer to work, which actually lives the women as heads of the households every month. Mothers are believed to be these “strong, superwomen” beings, but do we ever stop to wonder whether our mothers are actually this unbreakable “Imbokodo” or they are strong because they feel they have no other choice. Mental health problems in women are prevalent and are determined by circumstances of day-to-day life that are beyond individual control, and by gender-based risks, which may result in disability, reduced quality of life (Fisher et al., 2014). Though this might be the case, mental health of women is still not addressed enough especially in these low socioeconomic areas. Yes! of course, women are strong and powerful, but we really need to stop ad ask our selves this- have we glorified being strong so much that we’ve made struggling with mental health seem like a shameful weakness for women?

The picture above is a clear depiction of the life of some of the women in different communities. Women get consumed so much with taking care of everyone in the home and neglect to take care of themselves, and that is where we depression, anxiety and all mental issues come from. The first year after child birth has a lot of changes for women and that often results in feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness which makes them vulnerable to depression (Rosander et al., 2020). My friend Ms. X, gave birth in the year 2019 to her beautiful baby girl, recently she disclosed that 6 months post giving birth she felt anxious, alone and hopeless. She hid her struggles because she felt it would have appeared ungrateful to her family because they were taking care of her child for her while she was continuing with her studies. She did not feel comfortable with venting to her friends as she figured we would not understand as she did not understand herself. This got me thinking to my thinking process back then, I assumed she was happy because she said she was and she had no stress st the baby was being taken care of. As the saying goes “a child is a blessing”, how many mothers out there are ashamed to be vulnerable enough to say they are struggling mentally even though they have the blessing in their hands? At the communities I am working at I have seen many mothers come to the clinic for their baby’s health, but now when I see them this question arises in me. Which is why I make it a point to speak to them about mental health even if they say they are “fine”.

We ought to advocate for women’s mental health, because in doing so we get to uncover the deeper truths and reasoning for mental health being overlooked in our communities. Although women are living longer, they are not necessarily living better or healthier lives (Douki et al., 2006). It is important to enquire about every patient’s mental health even if they only present with physical conditions, this will ensure that as occupational therapists we are being effective/impactful and holistic. In one of my home visits in the community of Mariannridge I met Ms. K who is a 77-year-old woman who lives with her 72-year-old brother who require 24 hr. care. She also suffers from arthritis, but she still makes sure to care for her brother everyday with assistance from family members sometimes if they visit. In that home visit it was my responsibility to not only assist his brother and advise her on her physical health, but also to advocate for her mental health even though she is an older woman. it is my responsibility to ensure that she prioritizes her health and I saw my positionality play a huge role in my services provision as i was talking with  her and giving her ways she should use to care for her mental health. Incorporating my positionality into my practice has opened my eye to the inequality, patriarchal and prejudiced way of living in the communities and how women are possibly bleeding in silence due to the desire to keep up with societal expectations.

Cultural beliefs guide our way of living and they have a range of implications for mental health for in community members. When voicing our “activist points” we should heed the people’s opinion and be conscious of their culture. My beliefs and personality traits are bound to impact the way I deliver my services to the community, I am an emotional person and I tend to put myself in other people’s shoes and I believe that traits enables me to deliver the best treatment. But as a professional I should be able to back down and not enforce beliefs and ideas that people do not want into their lives, our personality traits can affect all aspects of life, including interpersonal relationships and job performance (Masmouei et al,. 202). We can not change how a person thinks unless they want to change, but all we can do to advocate for women mental health is to incorporate it into conversations every chance we get. For example, if we see a teary woman underneath a mask at the clinic, we should always offer a shoulder to cry on and if she is not comfortable be understanding and still make her aware of the possible mental ill-health, she is faced with don’t just leave her there hoping se will eventually feel better. Incorporating women’s mental health in the programmes we run in community will ensure that the subject is not ever overlooked as we will be constant reminders that these are the issues that we need to normalize talking about to smash the stigmas in the communities.

At Mariannridge community we will be implement a p6 week program that is in alignment with my positionality, but it will be more focused on maternal mental health. This program will open up a platform to encourage women to speak about their mental health before and after giving birth. I believe we will make a huge difference in the community with this project because I truly believe that many women suffer from postpartum depression. The Inanda community can also greatly benefit from such a program especially because the rate of teenage pregnancy there is high. Which is why I believe that we should open a forum discussion around the issues of women’s mental health to the Inanda community to uplift the community and communicate change.

We cannot pour from empty cups indeed; this means we ought to take care of ourselves before we even attempt to care for other because by doing that, we would be more effective. We should advocate for women and let them know that taking care of yourself before caring for other is not selfish or irresponsible but it’s necessary. We should promote the widespread understanding that women’s mental health is an essential part of their overall health in our community practices. As OTs working in low socioeconomic communities, we are likely to meet women that suffering from sexual or domestic abuse, poverty, and they are likely to be the main caregivers for their children. So, we should raise awareness on anxiety, depression and other mental health issue to work towards creating change in the interest of preserving women’s mental health ("Oregon counseling", 2021).

References

Douki, S., Ben Zineb, S., Nacef, F. et Halbreich, U.. (2007). Women's mental health in the Muslim world: Cultural, religious, and social issues. Journal of affective disorders, 102(1-3), 177‑189. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2006.09.027

Fisher, J., Nguyen, H., Mannava, P., Tran, H., Dam, T., Tran, H. et Luchters, S.. (2014). Translation, cultural adaptation and field-testing of the Thinking Healthy Program for Vietnam. Globalization and health, 10(1), 37. doi:10.1186/1744-8603-10-37

Masmouei, B., Bazvand, H., Harorani, M., Bazrafshan, M.-R., Karami, Z. et Jokar, M.. (2020). Relationship Between Personality Traits and Nursing Professionalism. Journal of client-centered nursing care, 6(3), 157‑162. doi:10.32598/jccnc.6.3.267.2

Oregon counseling. (2021). Retrieved 12 August 2021, from https://oregoncounseling.com/article/3-ways-to-support-womens-mental-health/

Rosander, M., Berlin, A., Forslund Frykedal, K. et Barimani, M.. (2020). Maternal depression symptoms during the first 21 months after giving birth. Scandinavian journal of public health, 140349482097796. doi:10.1177/1403494820977969

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[menmamaster]

Love

Have you ever felt the feelings when you feel love? A force that push you to do something special for someone? A feeling that ruins your reasons why you do something and became a motivation for your entire life to make that someone happy?

Love precedes care for someone, sometimes it pushes me to overthink if she is safe or not. Sometimes it makes me feel lonely as well if I failed to do something because of my limits (e.g., financial problem, lack of dating skills, venting out negative thoughts, failed to reach her expectations, failed to make her happy). I also see it as my weakness spot that I tend to do something that I might regret in the future, such as hurting her because of my subjective feelings.

I can’t turn off my mind when thinking about her, sometimes redirecting my thoughts to a more productive way helps me to overcome such overthinking. Love makes me energetic if I feel positive, but it tends to put me down if the bad bullet from it hits me. I remembered before that my performance in work plummeted because of rejection from someone I love. It ruins me and my productivity if I feel hurt that’s why I tend to avoid it as much as possible because of bad consequences of this feelings.

While love is a feelings, loving is the action of love. The act of loving can be seen in love languages, such as act of service, physical touch, words of affirmation, gifts, and quality time. However, the act itself can be use to manipulate someone without the real feelings of love that you actually care for your special someone. The act of loving without love is manipulation, while feeling love without act of loving is useless.

I just thinking if it is possible to love while controlling ourselves not to hurt someone because of overthinking but maybe I already answered that question. We can redirect our minds to other events, such us doing our own business while keeping our mind busy, but sometimes it is not enough. Then you can write your feelings in a sheet of paper and publish it to social media.

Just my thoughts for now. I don’t know, I don’t care if you gonna like it or not, just want to express this, That’s all.

[technicalcare]

Facts About Air conditioning companies Revealed

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[songbirdspells]

Local Cultus, One of Many Introspections

There is no singular Greek religion.

Instead, what we think of as the “Greek religion” is a mishmash of multiple city state’s local cultus that share overarching themes and deities. Mingled with the panhellenic ideals of manhood we come up with a generalized idea of a religion that we can all claim to share, even if individual practices vary widely and wildly. The idea of one person worshiping all the aspects of a deity as listed in a place like theoi.com is antithetical to how the ancient society of Hellenes (ancient Greece) would have considered. Instead, each city-state developed rituals, aspects, epithets, and cults that suited themselves and their needs. I will be answering the questions: what is local cultus? How did the Greeks utilize local cultus in their own practice? How can we take that knowledge and use it when building our own practices?

What is local cultus?

Local cultus is the idea and ideal that an area develops practices and beliefs that make sense for that area. Local cultus can be found in multiple areas but there is an origin point. The mystery cults--especially Eleusinian Mysteries--are a great example of this phenomenon. The Eleusinian Mysteries were celebrated by many ancient Greeks all across of the ancient colonies but the epicenter and where the cult developed is in Eleusis. This is why part of the rituals often involved traveling to Eleusis itself. While there were satellite temples (so to speak) who could perform the ritual it was considered best, if possible, to travel to the original site.

Delphi is another example of local cultus that spread beyond its own city-state borders to influence the rest of Greece. “Apollo could be consulted in so many places that the Greeks called him the wandering god. Interestingly, Apollo’s temples as a rule used men as oracles. Only in Delphi did women speak on his behalf” (The Oracle, pg 19, Broad) In a more typical Apollo oracle temple the priests would use less dramatic methods of receiving the divine guidance from Apollo and they functioned in more typical priestly manners, as explained by Broad, “In ancient Greece, priests tended to be symbolic intermediaries between the human and the divine. By contrast, the Oracle merged with the most illustrious of the gods in a holy marriage. She became Apollo’s mouthpiece and her words were the incarnation of his authority”(The Oracle, Broad, pg 11).

Also, they would not limit the types of questions received from the worshipers. Just like Dodona is the only Zeus oracle temple to use the rustle of doves’ wings and the sighing of the trees to hear the god--Delphi is the only oracle temple we know of to use the local landscape. Delphi could not be replicated in another location. In addition, Delphi is the one of the only known locations in which Dionysus and Apollo co inhabited the same temple. During Apollo’s fallow times and at night time, the temple was a celebration of Dionysus, not Apollo.

Instead, in one of antiquity’s most psychologically arresting twists, Apollo’s rowdy younger brother, Dionysus, took control of Delphi, and his devotees joined him in orgiastic rites. Exactly when such worship began is unclear. But certainly by the time of Clea, Plutarch’s friend, Dionysus had held sway at Delphi for at least a half dozen centuries” (The Oracle, Broad, pg 40).

Local cultus is why the historical books and papers will often broach a topic--like priestly duties--but then list many examples of how various locations differed from each other.

But in a cult of many manifestations, which varied according to the sanctuary and the god, the role of the sacrificer was not the only duty of the priest. At Eleusis one of his essential functions was to reveal the sacred objects to the initiated in the course of the ceremony of the epopteia, or the initiation of the second degree. At Ephesus the high priest, later to be known by the persian name of Megabyxus, went at the head of the annual procession in honour of Artemis, and for this he was apparelled in purple and gold, with all his priestly and royal decorations. It was his task to represent the goddess at games and festivals outside the shrine. At Claros the priest might on occasion assume the duties of the prophet.

-Daily Life in the Time of Homer by Emile Mireaux, pg 82-83

I know the quote is rather long but in that one paragraph the author has mentioned three different practices, despite the fact the basic underlying duties remain the same for priests across ancient Greece. Panhellenic (all of Greece) practices do occur--the basics of libations and offerings, the idea of regular social ritual and festivals. But the interpretations of it and why it was done tends to vary from place to place.

So what is local cultus? It is rituals that are localized to your area and your own practice. In Delphi, they grew close to Apollo (and Dionysus) by breathing in mind-altering fumes. In Dodona they listened to the wind and the birds sacred to Zeus. In Athens they honored the great statue of Athena by draping her in the finest work the city could offer. In Eleusis, they found through ritual a way to their own enlightenment and salvation.

How did the Greeks utilize local cultus in their own practice?

“The religion of the Homeric Greek, of all of ancient Greece for that matter, was essentially official. Each city had its gods. It selected them as a rule from the Pantheon of the great deities common to the Hellenic world; but it frequently also had secondary gods of its own. It was bound to these divine deities by a sort of pact which created reciprocal obligations. These deities were in truth members of the city. They had their dwellings there, they had land--a temenos, which was a veritable concession, granted by the state--and they maintained servants. By reason of the services they rendered the community, they had a right to a collective tax, or grant, in the form of sacrifices and ceremonies.

-Daily Life in the Time of Homer by Emile Mireaux, pg 227

Nevertheless, the hard core of Greek religion is to be found in its observances: these took their shape among men whose focus was first the hearth and then the city-state, men moreover whose life and livelihood were tied to crops and herds and the annual cycle of nature. Urbanization brought changes, but we must not make too much of them, for in Greece proper there never was a cosmopolitan city like Alexandria and even the Athenians did not wholly lose touch with the good brown earth.

-Greek Folk Religion by Martin P. Nilsson

Long quotes but all state the same idea which can be found over and over again in historical literature about Greek religious practices; that individual practices were used in the ceremonies both public and private and that they differed from region to region both through necessity and tradition. Just as not everyone celebrates the international duck calling contest every year, not every city state or even town would celebrate the same festivals or use the same observances for shared festivals.

Some examples would include Athens, and the Greater Panathenaea. While all city states who celebrated Athena would come together for typical ritual and festivities, only Athens would spend the better part of the year before the festival with its best weavers carefully putting together a saffron robe to adorn the great statue of Athena. It was their own local way of honoring Athena that was not shared in other city states. While other city states might clothe their statues (a trait shared with other religions of the time), only Athens invested the time and money into providing for the weavers to make the truly gargantuan outfit and would include the drapery in their parade towards the temple.

How and why did local cultus form instead of a country-wide and/or culture-wide religion?

The short, sweet answer is the unique geography of Greece lent itself to small, focused communities. Each city state was often separated by either mountains, sea, or otherwise inhospitable terrain. Travel was common, absolutely, but it was difficult outside of designated paths. Few city states could boast rich soil for good agriculture (part of why olives flourished and flourish in Greece is its poor soil quality is perfect for olives) which further divided the city-states between those who could roughly sustain their own populations and those that required trade to stave off starvation.

Examples of how strongly the local geography can affect the worship practice and religious thoughts of the people we can turn to actually five of the great temples and known worship centers: Delphi for Apollo, Olympia and Dodona for Zeus, Athens for Athena and Sparta for Ares.

Delphi exists high in the mountains in an easy to defend and difficult to find region of Greece. This geographical isolation allowed the temple there to flourish mostly untouched for many of its years. Before it overtook Dodona as the center of prophecy for Greece it was still a place of prophecy with its unique geography allowing it a relatively unknown form of rapture--the steam vent that was uncovered during tectonic shifts that produced an altered mental status. Through this unique geological feature Apollo’s fame as an oracular god spread and Delphi became known as the place to go for grander and less personal prophecies. Because of its eventual fame and staggering wealth, Delphi became a hotspot for statesmen, philosophers and ambitious countrymen alike to mingle--which led to such things as the Delphic Maxims, which were carved on the side of the temple itself and said to come from either Apollo himself or the Seven Sages. However because Delphi was elevated to such a high status in the lore of the time it did not function at all like other Apollo temples.

Olympia--the city-state is mostly known now for the Olympics. But in its heyday it was a hive for oracles, trade and, yes, sports. The flat land surrounding the temple lent itself to truly massive playing fields including a track that could allow up to 40 chariot teams to race at once. Sports of all kinds were widely practiced and celebrated across Greece--to perfect one’s body was seen as a virtue--but the mixing of sports with an oracle temple was unique to Olympia, especially on the scale seen at the temple. Only in one of the few flat plains of Greece could such a temple exist and it lent itself to large, over the top celebrations versus more private and intimate festivals.

Dodona: a study in juxtaposition. When one thinks of Zeus what image is conjured is often big, brash, loud. Dodona reveals in near silence. The true heart of Zeus’ oracle tradition--in Dodona they listened to Zeus’ answers in the soft cooing of the doves or the rustle of the sacred oak leaves. After some time someone introduced singing brass bowls and gongs to Dodona and if the leaves and the doves would not speak the priests would consult the bowls instead.

After a long, arduous trek through the mountains to the quiet valley, visitors would wait their turn to ask Zeus whatever they wished. Some came to thank him. Some came to ask favors. Many came to complain to Zeus about unfair treatment or beg for the proper weather for their crops. While Dodona did have a few peaks of lavish decorations and festivals--it continually returned to its humble roots. Dodona is different from the other temples of Zeus due to both its location and the fact it was originally the sacred place of a different sky-god--of the people who were there before the Greeks. Just like the double-headed axe was added to Zeus’ sacred objects from another sky-god, Dodona became Zeus’ sanctuary only after the Greeks successfully colonized the area. To this day, Dodona remains a quiet place, given to reflection and contemplation.

Athens is the city-state that we know the most about so I will be fairly brief. However, Athens won for both the land it had to use (a decent amount of arable land, a well-sized port, slightly less mountain than most of Greece) and the centralized location to most of Greece. Because of where it was situated it naturally developed a strong line with surrounding city-states as well as a steady back-and-forth with nearby countries like Egypt. And because of this constant flow in and out of the city what Athens truly excelled in was trade, diplomacy and culture. It relied on imports to support itself but that wasn’t a problem for the city that controlled most of the foreign trade market inside Greece.

Due to its location and place within the League, Athens needed a god or goddess that reflected its values of careful thought, witty speeches and bravery. So while Poseidon would have exemplified Athens’ bravery and trade as well bolstered its reputation of a strong, sheltered port, only Athena would do as a patron goddess. Especially since Athens was known for its braggadocio when it came to relations with other city-states and often found the need to defend itself--either through counsels or war. And Athens is a fantastic example of how even one city could have multiple local cults about one goddess with distinct epithets, customs and fulfill different worship needs. In the Pantheon complex alone you can find temples to three different cults of Athena.

Sparta is one of the few city-states that venerated Ares above all others. While all soldiers would participate in rituals honoring Ares, only in Sparta were numerous temples found devoted to the god of war. The Spartans were noted for sacrificing dogs on his altar and participating in various festivals throughout the year that were not noted anywhere else. While the other deities were worshipped in Sparta--there is one particularly barbaric yearly ritual of young boys being whipped on a festival day for Artemis--Ares ruled supreme in a way he did not in other city-states.

The reason for his unusual popularity goes beyond the obvious answer of the fact that Spartans molded their entire society around war. And that reason is found in the Spartan history. No other city state forewent trade and cultural development to the extreme that Sparta did and yet Sparta worked when other city-states would be forced during war time to return to their normal pursuits to sustain the damage and strain that fighting troops can bring to resources and the surrounding landscape.

And why is that? Well, the Spartans had a dirty not-secret. The Spartan region was colonized by the Greeks well after another group of people had settled there for thousands of years. The colonizing Greeks in that region chose not to live side by side with their original settlers (as some other city-states, such as Olbia, did) but chose to subjugate the native peoples. We know them now as “helots”. Helots existed in an odd in-between state between true slave and a free people. They were not bought and sold as slaves were but they were forced to work their family’s plots as sharecroppers and were given meager to no rations by the Spartans who took over their family land.

In addition, they were conscripted into the Spartan army and forced to fight for Sparta. They dressed either like poor people or were forced to wear ridiculous clothing, depending on who you asked, as an outward mark of their social standing. And while not “slaves” they could win their freedom on the battlefield (usually from protecting Spartans). As anyone in logistics knows--at most only about 10% of a fighting force actually fights at any given time. The rest is resources and support. The Spartans maintained their extreme war-like culture, attitude and behavior only by using the helots as their “logistics” while they then spent their time preparing for battle.

Rhodes was the bringing together of two distinct city states, “In 408/7 BCE the old Rhodian city states of Ialysus, Camirus and Lindus united to form one polis and create a joint capital called Rhodes at the northern tip of the island” (Schipporeit). In doing so the people of the region were forced to bring together their cultures and customs as well in order to create a new way of doing things. And so in doing so, despite the fact that Helios was by far the “patron god” of Rhodes--with a distinct local cult, statues, temples, shrines, festivals--all devoted to Helios--there also existed a thriving and evolving local pantheon. While several deities enjoyed local cults within Rhodes, Athena in particular was a particularly strong presence since she had a famous temple at Lindos before the unification.

Rhodes is an interesting case of local myth being shaped by the events of a particular area since there is some proof of why Helios, a relatively minor god outside of Rhodes was chosen as the patron. “Diodorus Siculus (XV 56), quoted above, narrates how the god dried the earth after a flood and fathered a new generation of inhabitants. A slightly different version of the myth is told by Pindar in his seventh Olympian, where he praises the athlete Diagoras of Rhodes after his boxing victory at the Olympic Games in 464 BCE. After the gods divided the world among themselves, they realized that they had forgotten to include Helios in the process. Although Zeus offered to start all over, Helios refused: he had spotted an island still covered by the sea, made it rise and claimed it as his share. Then he coupled with the nymph Rhodos, and from this union were born seven men, the Heliadai.” (Paul) The story of the flood landed can be seen in almost (possibly all?) ancient civilizations speaking to a global event, but Rhodes in particular used it as part of the creation myth of both their island and their people. From there it was a natural choice to choose the god that made their island possible, rather than a ‘more powerful’ deity that already had shown favor to other places.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, I would like to highlight what brings all these examples I examined together. FIrst, the idea that one must embrace the entire deity--with all their aspects--is a very modern idea. I believe it is one brought over by the Christian mythos since it is an idea I myself succumbed too. But as those in the city states outside the cult centers did not worship Demeter as a judge or Aphrodite as an abstract being of lust or Posideon as an oracle god; if we are being true to historical accuracy we do not necessarily need to embrace all aspects of a god. After all, as R.P. Lister mentions in the introduction to The Travels of Herodotus, “The Greeks originated two revolutionary concepts that affected human history and have affected it ever since. [...] THe other was the idea of philosophical and scientific enquiries made in a free spirit, with the sole desire to ascertain the truth.” (pg 27) By using this philosophy we can turn to ourselves, our deities and also our observations of our nearby areas to discern if the deities are present in our lives or our local living spaces in a way that is not historically attested. The deities were living, growing creatures at their height but there is no reason they cannot live and grow the same now. Perhaps in an urban city Demeter is the goddess of the local mediation courts or the goddess of the cottage industries. Artemis could be the goddess of the local CPS.

While we always should strive to be respectful to the gods, it is clear that the ancient Greeks desired their pantheon to be in every aspect of their daily lives and invited the deities into areas they were not typically rulers of. And most of these cults and worship centers stayed for quite some time, implying that the deities welcomed the worship even if it wasn’t technically their normal patronage; and/or that the worshipers received some measure of satisfaction and fulfillment from worshiping a deity outside their normal spheres.. And by using the ancient local cultus as a guide I believe we can invite the gods into our local areas--even if that means that we “ignore” another one of their aspects or worship them for something that perhaps isn’t on their Theoi.com list of patron areas. Our local cultus practices should reflect our unique areas and their struggles and triumphs and, as in ancient Greece, that means our local worship practices may be similar to others but should not be carbon copies of each other.

Sources:

Books: Daily Life in the Time of Homer by Emile Mireaux The Oracle, by William J Broad Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity, Katerina Zacharia (ed.) Greek Identity in the Hellenistic Period, Stanley Burstein Greek Folk Religion by Martin P. Nilsson Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece by Angus Constam The Travels of Herodotus by R.P. Lister The Traveler’s Guide to Ancient Greece: A Guide to Sacred Places by Richard G. Geldard

Articles: Mystery Cults in the Greek and Roman World by Kiki Karoglou The New Order of Time and Cult in Synoecized Poleis by Sven Schipporeit Local Pantheons in Motion: Synoecism and Patron Deities in Hellenistic Rhodes by Stephanie Paul Personal protection and tailor-made deities: the use of individual epithets by Jenny Wallensten Religious Innovation in the Ancient Mediterranean by Greg Woolf

Articles reference but not directly quoted: Dedications to Double Deities: Syncretism or simply syntax? by Jenny Wallensten Objects and Ancient Religions by Jay Johnston Visiting the Oracle Shrine at Dodona by Visiting Greece (the website)

Podcasts: Myth and History of Greece and Rome by Paul Vincent, particularly episode “Chapter Thirty: Men of the Polis” The History of Ancient Greece by Ryan Stitt, particularly episode 10 “Panhellenism”

[joeyrob1]

Customer Acquisition & Retention with Help Desk Support SaaS

Customer Acquisition & Retention with Help Desk Support SaaS

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Cloud computing came into existence operationally in 2000 even before the dawn of mobile apps. It matured and gained traction five years ago which enabled a new wave of technology consumption trend to emerge. One of them would be to view software as a service (SaaS) instead of as a product. The advantage is obvious here. You can save on significant upfront software investment cost. In addition, you would can deploy and scale your help desk solution much faster. There is also the advantage where businesses don’t have to buy and maintain their own hardware for help desk. All they need is a reliable connection to the Internet.

All you need to do is to pay affordable monthly subscription fees to the software vendor and the vendor will be responsible for continuous upgrading of the hardware and software. The vendor would benefit from a steady stream of subscription income instead of lumpy revenue when software is sold as a product (e.g. High revenue during initial product launches and lower revenue later). This trend is applicable not only to personal but also business consumption.

SaaS in Cloud Computing

Given this win-win condition, it is not surprising that SaaS had caught fire. According to market research firm Gartner, worldwide spending on enterprise application software would grow approximately 7.5 percent annually from $150 billion in 2015 to $201 billion in 2019. SaaS would account for 50% of this enterprise software spending.

The emergence of the cloud had allowed various computing solution to be hosted there. We would use a slightly dated chart from Gartner’s 2013 studies to keep things in perspective for SaaS in cloud computing.

Source: EnterpriseIrregulars

While SaaS is a sizable market by itself, it is only small piece of the technology pie in the cloud computing application. Today we are going to focus on one particular segment of SaaS and that would be help desk management.

Importance Of Help Desk Support

Source: Statista

As the above Statista chart shows, help desk management had grown steadily from $13.5 billion in 2005 to $19.9 billion in 2015. The only time that it dropped was in 2009 during the Global Financial Crisis. This chart also underscores the importance of help desk Support for enterprises.

An organized and scalable help desk software is vital for any successful organization. It would be the single point of contact for customers who would like to enquire about their products and services. The help desk function would also organize the various channels for customers to approach businesses to solve their various problems.

Help desk defines the customer experience when they come into contact with businesses. A good customer experience would allow businesses to acquire and retain customers which would spread their reputation. After all, free word of mouth recommendation has greater marketing power for businesses than other forms of advertisement. Hence in order to satisfy their customers, enterprises continued to invest in help desk software. Despite the difficult financial conditions, business spending on help desk recovered in 2011 as it is essential to their continued survival.

Background of Solutions Providers – Freshdesk and Zendesk

While the concept of satisfying your customers is simple, it is hard to implement in practice.You would need a comprehensive system to ensure nothing fall through the cracks.

Freshdesk and Zendesk are arch rivals and among the best in this competitive field of help desk support. Zendesk is the incumbent dominant force until Freshdesk came along in 2012 to steal its lunch. Ever since, Zendesk responded by cutting its price and offering better products to prevent losing customers to Freshdesk.

Zendesk was started in San Francisco in 2007 and Freshdesk came about in Chennai (India) in 2010 after its founder won the Microsoft initiative Bizsparks. Bizsparks is a talent show for startups to display their business talents and win rewards to finance their business. While both of them started to target the small and medium businesses, they were so good that they encroached on SalesForce target clients of big businesses.

Source: BuildWith

While Freshdesk started in India, it acquired most of its customers in the United States. In terms of customers, Zendesk announced that it has acquired 60,000 clients on August 2015 while Freshdesk has announced that it has 50,000 clients also on August 2015.

Help Desk Features

Any respectable help desk software must have the following features:

Ticket Management

Knowledge Base

Notice Board / Updates

Community forums

Analytics and Reporting

Ticket management is the backbone of any help desk system. This is the central database where all clients contact with the company is being recorded and processed. They can approach the company through email, social media (e.g. Facebook), voice and online chat. The advantage of ticket management is that you can track the start and resolution of a problem and assign it to the best suited person to manage.

A smart ticket management system will also answer commonly asked question with a pre-defined answer (called macro) and anti collision rules to prevent 2 agents from working on the same case at the same time.

It would also merged repeated questions from the same client who asked from different channels (e.g. Email and Chat). Therefore you can provide a coherent answer and the customer service agents can put in Notes for future reference. All emails to your help desk will automatically be ticketed.

Both Freshdesk and Zendesk do their core ticket management well but Freshdesk has an advantage here as it gamify its help desk to encourage your staff to work for their badges.

Source: Freshdesk

Knowledge base is the depository where you answer frequently asked questions. This is useful when your clients want to find help outside of your normal operating hours. They can find useful answers which can be in the form of text, pictures, webinars and videos. Other users are likely to have encountered these problems before and they can help themselves.

This is especially useful when you aim to scale your businesses and also for your own employees to reference solutions like a dictionary. Considering that employees change job frequently, this is also a good way to manage your enterprise knowledge.

Notice boards is self explanatory so I wouldn’t go in depth. Community forums are a place for your customers to discuss their issues. You can then moderate it and also proactively solve their problems. It is better for businesses to create an internal forum for their clients than for their clients to cross over to external forums to vent their anger. On the good side, they can also expressed their appreciation of your service.

Analytics and reporting allow you to see how well your employees are performing compared to industry standards. They also allow you to see where your product weakness where you receive more client’s complain. The age of tracking your analytics through Microsoft Excel had long been gone.

Source: Zendesk

Pricing

Before either platforms charge their clients, they offer 30 days free trial period. After the 30 days trial period, only Freshdesk has a free version in its tiered product offering. Both competitors offer cheaper pricing if you were to sign on for 1 year.

Freshdesk Zendesk Sprout – $0 per agent/month (first 3 agents free) 4th Agent – $15/agent/month Essential – $5 per agent/month (annual billing; $9 for monthly billing) Blossom – $16 per agent/month (annual billing; $19 for monthly billing) Team – $19 per agent/month (annual billing; $25 for monthly billing) Garden – $25 per agent/month  (annual billing; $29 for monthly billing) Professional – $49 per agent/month (annual billing; $59 for monthly billing) Estate – $40 per agent/month (annual billing; $49 for monthly billing) Forest – $70 per agent/month (annual billing; $79 for monthly billing) Enterprise – $99 per agent/month (annual billing; $125 for monthly billing)

As you can see from the table above, Freshdesk consistently undercuts Zendesk in terms of pricing as it has a 30% lower base due to its Indian programming hub. For example, Freshdesk’s Estate is comparable to Zendesk Professional. What Zendesk charges for a annual payment of $49 per month ($49 X 12 = $588 upfront payment), Freshdesk allows you to pay it monthly.

The no-refund policy dictates this pricing. So if you were to pay for 1 year and use up 3 months, you forfeit the rest of the 9 months. It is less costly if you were to pay for it monthly in terms of forfeit.

Besides the standard features which I mentioned above, there are other items in help desk such as integration with other software such as website analytics, time management for billable hours (e.g. Lawyers) , asset management (inventory tracking) and so on.

Conclusion

Zendesk used to dominate the field until Freshdesk came around to offer comparable services for a lower price. While there are other service providers, these 2 provide a strong suite of help desk functions that will keep your customers happy.

The case for adoption has always been simple. It saves you time and money over the long term where you need less agents to deal with the same workload of customer complaints. If you don’t do it, your competitors will and you will lose out both in terms of pricing and customer retention.

This article is contributed by Ong Kai Kiat. He is a professional freelance writer who enjoys the process of discovering and collating new trends and insights for an article. He adds value to society through his articles especially those related to finance and technology. He is reachable at ongkaikiat86@gmail.com.

Brought to you by the RobustTechHouse team (A top iOS and Android developer in Singapore).  If you like our articles, please also check out our Facebook page.

Customer Acquisition & Retention with Help Desk Support SaaS was originally published on RobustTechHouse - Mobile App Development Singapore

[shirlleycoyle]

Target’s Delivery App Workers Describe a Culture of Retaliation and Fear

In late October, Ashley Johnson, a single mom and seasoned gig worker in a quiet Seattle suburb, tweeted about the decline of lucrative work on Shipt, the Target-owned grocery delivery app.

“Shipt has taken the […] model of hiring so many shoppers per area that those of us who have given our blood, sweat, and tears can no longer even get orders unless we pre schedule shifts. I haven't had an order in WEEKS. WEEKS. I'm hungry, shipt,” Johnson wrote. “I went from making $200 a week with shipt to making $0-25.”

Last year, Shipt flooded its markets with new workers and began rolling out an algorithmic pay model in certain cities, like Seattle, that many workers say has left them scrambling to piece together gigs and took a chunk out of their paychecks, as Gizmodo reported.

An hour after tweeting, Johnson received an email from Shipt telling her that she had been “deactivated” and was not “eligible to reapply” for her job, according to an email reviewed by Motherboard. The letter provided no explanation for her removal from the app. (On gig economy apps like Uber and the like, “deactivation” is the same thing as getting fired.)

We don't know why Shipt deactivated Johnson's account, but the company has a track record of censoring and retaliating against workers for asking basic questions about their working conditions or expressing dissent. In particular, on its official national Facebook group, known as the Shipt Shopper Lounge, which has more than 100,000 members, Shipt moderators selected by the company frequently censor and remove posts, turn off comments sections, and ban workers who speak out about their working conditions, according to screenshots, interviews, and other documentation provided to Motherboard. The same is true on local Facebook groups, which Shipt also monitors closely, according to workers.

Motherboard spoke to seven current Shipt workers, each of whom described a culture of retaliation, fear, and censorship online. They told Motherboard that posts asking for advice on getting higher tips and how to avoid liabilities on the job never get approved by moderators.

According to the Facebook group’s “About” page, the shopper lounge, is intended to be a “helpful community for all Shipt shoppers.” But workers lament censorship online and joke about their First Amendment rights. “The last post I commented on got deleted…I’m not even from the U.S. but I know we all have freedom of speech here, right?,” one worker wrote in a non-company controlled Facebook group where workers complained about censorship.

One of these workers, who lives in a Midwestern city, and asked to remain anonymous due to fear they would be retaliated against, said they were deactivated in early February after writing a comment on a post announcing the new corporate logo, a green shopping bag.

“No one actually knows what gets you deactivated. They never tell you. It’s like you’re always walking on eggshells.”

They had criticized the new design, and later that day received two emails within 15 minutes of each other. One was from a Shipt social media specialist informing them they had been suspended from the Facebook group; another, also from Shipt, said they had been deactivated.

After the worker shot off a series of emails to Shipt and threatened a lawsuit, they said, the company followed up to tell them that their deactivation had been a mistake: Signing off as “Shopper Success,” a representative for the company said it wrongly took their post to be “inappropriate” and “discriminatory,” and would reverse its decision. But the worker was still shaken. “What they did was wrong. They can’t go around firing people,” the Shipt worker told Motherboard.

According to workers and emails reviewed by Motherboard, Shipt never provides explanations for why workers are deactivated.

“No one actually knows what gets you deactivated. They never tell you,” Willy Solis, a Shipt worker in the Dallas area, said. “It’s like you’re always walking on eggshells.”

“If something rubs people the wrong way, it gets deleted,” Michael, another Shipt worker who works as a security guard by day on the Gulf Coast and asked to use his first name only because he feared retaliation, told Motherboard. “The Facebook group is supposed to be a resource of information to help workers. But if you say something, someone doesn’t like—a Shipt moderator just removes the thread, or removes you from the lounge.”

He said he was kicked out of his local Facebook group, also moderated by Shipt, for arguing with a moderator about a comment he made about the demise of good paying gigs on the app. “I got honest and made some comments about not working the regular schedule anymore, and then me and one of the moderators got into a pissing match,” Michael said. “It took me a couple days to realize I had been banned from the group.”

“Shipt’s official social channels exist as a supportive online community and shoppers are asked not to post inflammatory, rude, insulting, attacking, trolling or threatening posts or comments," a Shipt spokesperson told Motherboard when asked about censorship and deactivations on social media. "Shipt, however, does not make deactivation decisions based on shopper feedback consistent with those guidelines. We do have written agreements with all shoppers that outline possible causes for deactivation including consistent performance issues resulting in a poor customer experience or unlawful behavior.”

Shipt, a major rival of the grocery delivery platform Instacart, was founded in Birmingham, Alabama. The app launched in 2014 and got its foothold smaller cities in the South and Midwest before spreading to coastal metro areas like Seattle and Washington DC. (Because of Instacart’s hold on San Francisco, the app is not popular in Silicon Valley.)

When Target bought the company for $550 million in 2017, Shipt rapidly expanded its same-day delivery to half of its stores. Today, Shipt has more than 100,000 gig workers, according to the company. The company has tripled its geographic reach since 2017.

Shipt workers told Motherboard that customers who order from Target often seem surprised when independent contractors in plain clothes driving their personal cars show up at their homes with massive deliveries from Target. Because Shipt classifies its workers as contractors, not employees, workers pay for all of their expenses—including gas, wear and tear on their cars, and accidents—out of pocket. They say the tips on large orders from Target, sometimes with hundreds of items, can be meager.

Workers say Shipt customers often live in gated and upscale communities and that the app encourages workers to tack on gifts like thank you cards, hot cocoa, flowers, and balloons onto orders (paid for out of their own pocket) and to offer to walk customer’s dogs and take out their trash, as a courtesy. Shipt calls this kind of service “Bringing the Magic,” which can improve workers’ ratings from customers that factor into the algorithm that determines who gets offered the most lucrative orders.

“If you say you want to create a post [on the Facebook group], it has to be approved by a moderator and they never approve anything except for the super syrupy stuff,” said Solis, the Shipt shopper in the Dallas area. “People show off giving customers balloons. A lot of over the top things. It creates a false sense of what to expect. It sets up other shoppers to look bad if they don’t do those things, and we’re not even employees.”

One of the four rules on the Facebook group is to avoid “venting”: “Everyone needs to vent every now and then, but let’s keep that between you and your friends. While we definitely appreciate feedback and have a whole forum dedicated to sharing feedback, we are successful because we maximize and focus on the positive!”

“Any time people say things that are important, they are shut down,” said Solis. “You have to make Shipt look good and say all the happy things.” Solis told Motherboard that his comment was removed from the national Facebook group when he commented on a photo of a worker walking a customer’s dog, saying doing so as an independent contractor could present a liability to the worker.

In February, other workers also posted complaints about Shipt’s new logo announcement on the Facebook group. One worker commented: “I don’t think no one cares about the new logo no offense. What’s going on with the pay system and tips?” Shortly thereafter, a Shipt moderator shut down the comments section, according to a screenshot Motherboard obtained.

One of the biggest causes for concern among workers, as of late, has been the switch from a clear, commission-based pay model ($5 plus a 7.5 percent commission on all orders) to a new model that “take estimated shop time, substitutions, street traffic, and estimated travel time into consideration,” according to emails provided to Motherboard. But, similar to other gig economy apps like Instacart, Shipt does not tell workers how each of these factors is weighted, causing concern that Shipt could tinker with pay whenever it wants, resulting in significantly lower earnings over time. Workers in some markets say their pay has already dropped by 40 to 50 percent, according to Gizmodo.

In Kalamazoo, Michigan, one of the markets where the new pay model rolled out in January, shoppers say their pay has dropped significantly.

“Our best estimate is that payouts are now 30 percent less, and up to 50 percent on orders,” one Shipt worker in Kalamazoo with two years under her belt, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, told Motherboard. “I fluctuate between extreme anger and despair. It’s been three weeks since this has been implemented, and one of my good friends told me that she’s down the equivalent of a car payment.”

“I fluctuate between extreme anger and despair. It’s been three weeks since this has been implemented, and one of my good friends told me that she’s down the equivalent of a car payment.”

Another Shipt worker in Palm Springs, California provided Motherboard with receipts for a 181-item order that included six Snapple cases, five La Croix cases, and 12 packs of soda. They had to wheel three shopping carts out of a Ralph’s grocery store and deliver them —and earned $12.68 for the job. The customer did not tip. (Under the older, more transparent pay model, they would have earned $44.19.) “That’s a real slap in the face,” they told Motherboard.

When asked about the new pay model, a spokesperson for Shipt told Motherboard that it could not go into detail about the specific markets where the changes had been rolled out, but claimed that pay was constant if not higher in these new markets.

“Our goal is to maximize our shoppers' earning potential and ensure they get the best value for their time,” the spokesperson said. “We are testing a new pay structure in select markets to better account for the time it takes to complete and deliver an order, including regional factors like drive time.”

Many Shipt shoppers say they were initially drawn to the app because of its friendly marketing and commission-based pay. But with the new lack of transparency, many are realizing that working for the app is no longer worth it.

Do you work for Shipt or another gig economy app? We'd love to hear from you. You can email Lauren at lauren.gurley@vice.com, or connect securely on Signal 201-897-2109.

“I was actually quite a cheerleader for Shipt for a while compared to Instacart. It puts on a happier face,” said Johnson, the worker who was deactivated after tweeting about her working conditions. “But my deactivation felt really petty. It was really frustrating to work super hard for them, filling 200-pound orders across three cities and getting good ratings, and then have this happen. If they’re going to pay low, that’s what they’re going to do. I just wish they’d be more transparent about it.”

“I used to tell my friends and family members that Shipt was so great,” said Solis, the Dallas worker. “But I can’t rely on the platform anymore. They stamp out resistance by flooding the market with new workers […] and they’re actively monitoring all the social media groups. That’s why everyone wants to be anonymous. We’re going to be deactivated if we speak out.”

Correction: This article originally said that Willy Solis was removed from the national Shipt Facebook group. Solis' comment was removed, but he was not removed from the group. Motherboard regrets the error.

Target’s Delivery App Workers Describe a Culture of Retaliation and Fear syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[guerrillamamamedicine]

“Wages Against Housework”

Silvia Federici

Power of Women Collective and Falling Wall Press, 1975. [PDF]

They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work.

They call it frigidity. We call it absenteeism.

Every miscarriage is a work accident.

Homosexuality and heterosexuality are both working conditions…but homosexuality is workers’ control of production, not the end of work.

More smiles? More money. Nothing will be so powerful in destroying the healing virtues of a smile.

Neuroses, suicides, desexualization: occupational diseases of the housewife.

Many times the difficulties and ambiguities which women express in discussing wages for housework stem from the reduction of wages for housework to a thing, a lump of money, instead of viewing it as a political perspective. The difference between these two standpoints is enormous. To view wages for housework as a thing rather than a perspective is to detach the end result of our struggle from the struggle itself and to miss its significance in demystifying and subverting the role to which women have been confined in capitalist society. When we view wages for housework in this reductive way we start asking ourselves: what difference could some more money make to our lives? We might even agree that for a lot of women who do not have any choice except for housework and marriage, it would indeed make a lot of difference. But for those of us who seem to have other choices-professional work, enlightened husband, communal way of life, gay relations or a combination of these-it would not make much of a difference at all. For us there are supposedly other ways of achieving economic independence, and the last thing we want is to get it by identifying ourselves as housewives, a fate which we all agree is, so to speak, worse than death. The problem with this position is that in our imagination we usually add a bit of money to the shitty lives we have now and then ask, so what? on the false premise that we could ever get that money without at the same time revolutionising – in the process of struggling for it – all our family and social relations. But if we take wages for housework as a political perspective, we can see that struggling for it is going to produce a revolution in our lives and in our social power as women. It is also clear that if we think we do not ‘need’ that money, it is because we have accepted the particular forms of prostitution of body and mind by which we get the money to hide that need. As I will try to show, not only is wages for housework a revolutionary perspective, but it is the only revolutionary perspective from a feminist viewpoint and ultimately for the entire working class.

A Labour of Love

It is important to recognise that when we speak of housework we are not speaking of a job as other jobs, but we are speaking of the most pervasive manipulation, the most subtle and mystified violence that capitalism has ever perpetrated against any section of the working class. True, under capitalism every worker is manipulated and exploited and his/her relation to capital is totally mystified. The wage gives the impression of a fair deal: you work and you get paid, hence you and your boss are equal; while in reality the wage, rather than paying for the work you do, hides all the unpaid work that goes into profit. But the wage at least recognizes that you are a worker, and you can bargain and struggle around and against the terms and the quantity of that wage, the terms and the quantity of that work. To have a wage means to be part of a social contract, and there is no doubt concerning its meaning: you work, not because you like it, or because it comes naturally to you, but because it is the only condition under which you are allowed to live. But exploited as you might be, you are not that work. Today you are a postman, tomorrow a cabdriver. All that matters is how much of that work you have to do and how much of that money you can get.

But in the case of housework the situation is qualitatively different. The difference lies in the fact that not only has housework been imposed on women, but it has been transformed into a natural attribute of our female physique and personality, an internal need, an aspiration, supposedly coming from the depth of our female character. Housework had to be transformed into a natural attribute rather than be recognised as a social contract because from the beginning of capital’s scheme for women this work was destined to be unwaged. Capital had to convince us that it is a natural, unavoidable and even fulfilling activity to make us accept our unwaged work. In its turn, the unwaged condition of housework has been the most powerful weapon in reinforcing the common assumption that housework is not work, thus preventing women from struggling against it, except in the privatized kitchen-bedroom quarrel that all society agrees to ridicule, thereby further reducing the protagonist of a struggle. We are seen as nagging bitches, not workers in struggle.

Yet just how natural it is to be a housewife is shown by the fact that it takes at least twenty years of socialization – day-to-day training, performed by an unwaged mother – to prepare a woman for this role, to convince her that children and husband are the best she can expect from life. Even so, it hardly succeeds. No matter how well-trained we are, few are the women who do not feel cheated when the bride’s day is over and they find themselves in front of a dirty sink. Many of us still have the illusion that we marry for love. A lot of us recognise that we marry for money and security; but it is time to make it clear that while the love or money involved is very little, the work which awaits us is enormous. This is why older women always tell us ‘Enjoy your freedom while you can, buy whatever you want now…’ But unfortunately it is almost impossible to enjoy any freedom if from the earliest days of life you are trained to be docile, subservient, dependent and most important to sacrifice yourself and even to get pleasure from it. If you don’t like it, it is your problem, your failure, your guilt, your abnormality.

We must admit that capital has been very successful in hiding our work. It has created a true masterpiece at the expense of women. By denying housework a wage and transforming it into an act of love, capital has killed many birds with one stone. First of all, it has got a hell of a lot of work almost for free, and it has made sure that women, far from struggling against it, would seek that work as the best thing in life (the magic words: “Yes, darling, you are a real woman”). At the same time, it has disciplined the male worker also, by making his woman dependent on his work and his wage, and trapped him in this discipline by giving him a servant after he himself has done so much serving at the factory or the office. In fact, our role as women is to be the unwaged but happy, and most of all loving, servants of the ‘working class’, i.e. those strata of the proletariat to which capital was forced to grant more social power. In the same way as god created Eve to give pleasure to Adam, so did capital create the housewife to service the male worker physically, emotionally and sexually – to raise his children, mend his socks, patch up his ego when it is crushed by the work and the social relations (which are relations of loneliness) that capital has reserved for him. It is precisely this peculiar combination of physical, emotional and sexual services that are involved in the role women must perform for capital that creates the specific character of that servant which is the housewife, that makes her work so burdensome and at the same time invisible. It is not an accident that most men start thinking of getting married as soon as they get their first job. This is not only because now they can afford it, but because having somebody at home who takes care of you is the only condition not to go crazy after a day spent on an assembly line or at a desk. Every woman knows that this is what she should be doing to be a true woman and have a ‘successful’ marriage. And in this case too, the poorer the family the higher the enslavement of the woman, and not simply because of the monetary situation. In fact capital has a dual policy, one for the middle class and one for the proletarian family. It is no accident that we find the most unsophisticated machismo in the working class family: the more blows the man gets at work the more his wife must be trained to absorb them, the more he is allowed to recover his ego at her expense. You beat your wife and vent your rage against her when you are frustrated or overtired by your work or when you are defeated in a struggle (to go into a factory is itself a defeat). The more the man serves and is bossed around, the more he bosses around. A man’s home is his castle … and his wife has to learn to wait in silence when he is moody, to put him back together when he is broken down and swears at the world, to turn around in bed when he says ‘I’m too tired tonight,’ or when he goes so fast at lovemaking that, as one woman put it, he might as well make it with a mayonnaise jar. (Women have always found ways of fighting back, or getting back at them, but always in an isolated and privatised way. The problem, then, becomes how to bring this struggle out of the kitchen and bedroom and into the streets.)

This fraud that goes under the name of love and marriage affects all of us, even if we are not married, because once housework was totally naturalised and sexualised, once it became a feminine attribute, all of us as females are characterised by it. If it is natural to do certain things, then all women are expected to do them and even like doing them-even those women who, due to their social position, could escape some of that work or most of it (their husbands can afford maids and shrinks and other forms of relaxation and amusement). We might not serve one man, but we are all in a servant relation with respect to the whole male world. This is why to be called a female is such a putdown, such a degrading thing. (“Smile, honey, what’s the matter with you?” is something every man feels entitled to ask you, whether he is your husband, or the man who takes your ticket, or your boss at work.)

The revolutionary perspective

If we start from this analysis we can see the revolutionary implications of the demand for wages for housework. It is the demand by which our nature ends and our struggle begins because just to want wages for housework means to refuse that work as the expression of our nature, and therefore to refuse precisely the female role that capital has invented for us.

To ask for wages for housework will by itself undermine the expectations society has of us, since these expectations – the essence of our socialisation – are all functional to our wageless condition in the home. In this sense, it is absurd to compare the struggle of women for wages to the struggle of male workers in the factory for more wages. The waged worker in struggling for more wages challenges his social role but remains within it. When we struggle for wages we struggle unambiguously and directly against our social role. In the same way there is a qualitative difference between the struggles of the waged worker and the struggles of the slave for a wage against that slavery. It should be clear, however, that when we struggle for a wage we do not struggle to enter capitalist relations, because we have never been out of them. We struggle to break capital’s plan for women, which is an essential moment of that planned division of labour and social power within the working class, through which capital has been able to maintain its power. Wages for housework, then, is a revolutionary demand not because by itself it destroys capital, but because it attacks capital and forces it to restructure social relations in terms more favourable to us and consequently more favourable to the unity of the class. In fact, to demand wages for housework does not mean to say that if we are paid we will continue to do it. It means precisely the’ opposite. To say that we want money for housework is the first step towards refusing to do it, because the demand for a wage makes our work visible, which is the most indispensable condition to begin to struggle against it, both in its immediate aspect as housework and its more insidious character as femininity.

Against any accusation of ‘economism’ we should remember that money is capital, i.e. it is the power to command labour. Therefore to reappropriate that money which is the fruit of our labour – of our mothers’ and grandmothers’ labour – means at the same time to undermine capital’s power to command forced labour from us. And we should not distrust the power of the wage in demystifying our femaleness and making visible our work – our femaleness as work – since the lack of a. wage has been so powerful in shaping this role and hiding our work. To demand wages for housework is to make it visible that our minds, bodies and emotions have all been distorted for a specific function, in a specific function, and then have been thrown back at us as a model to which we should all conform if we want to be accepted as women in this society.

To say that we want wages for housework is to expose the fact that housework is already money for capital, that capital has made and makes money out of our cooking, smiling, fucking. At the same time, it shows that we have cooked, smiled, fucked throughout the years not because it was easier for us than for anybody else, but because we did not have any other choice. Our faces have become distorted from so much smiling, our feelings have got lost from so much loving, our oversexualisation has left us completely desexualised.

Wages for housework is only the beginning, but its message is clear: from now on they have to pay us because as females we do not guarantee anything any longer. We want to call work what is work so that eventu· ally we might rediscover what is love and create what will be our sexuality which we have never known. And from the viewpoint of work we can ask not one wage but many wages, because we have been forced into many jobs at once. We are housemaids, prostitutes, nurses, shrinks; this is the essence of the ‘heroic’ spouse who is celebrated on ‘Mother’s Day’. We say: stop celebrating our exploitation, our supposed heroism. From now on we want money for each moment of it, so that we can refuse some of it and eventually all of it. In this respect nothing can be more effective than to show that our female virtues have a calculable money value, until today only for capital, increased in the measure that we were defeated; from now on against capital for us in the measure we organise our power.

The struggle for social services

This is the most radical perspective we can adopt because although we can ask for everything, day care, equal pay, free laundromats, we will never achieve any real change unless we attack our female role at its roots. Our struggle for social services, i.e. for better working conditions, will always be frustrated if we do not first establish that our work is work. Unless we struggle against the totality of it we will never achieve victories with respect to any of its moments. We will fail in the struggle for the free laundromats unless we first struggle against the fact that we cannot love except at the price of endless work, which day after day cripples our bodies, our sexuality, our social relations, unless we first escape the blackmail whereby our need to give and receive affection is turned against us as a work duty for which we constantly feel resentful against our husbands, children and friends, and guilty for that resentment. Getting a second job does not change that role, as years and years of female work outside the house still witness. The second job not only increases our exploitation, but simply reproduces our role in different forms. Wherever we tum we can see that the jobs women perform are mere extensions of the housewife condition in all its implications. That is, not only do we become nurses, maids, teachers, secretaries-all functions for which we are well-trained in the home-but we are in the same bind that hinders our struggles in the home: isolation, the fact that other people’s lives depend on us, or the impossibility to see where our work begins and ends, where our work ends and our desires begin. Is bringing coffee to your boss and chatting with him about his marital problems secretarial work or is it a personal favour? Is the fact that we have to worry about our looks on the job a condition of work or is it the result of female vanity? (Until recently airline stewardesses in the United States were periodically weighed and had to be constantly on a diet-a torture that all women know-for fear of being laid off.) As is often said – when the needs of the waged labour market require her presence there – A woman can do any job without losing her femininity,’ which simply means that no matter what you do you are still a cunt.

As for the proposal of socialisation and collectivisation of housework, a couple of examples will be sufficient to draw a line between these alternatives and our perspective. It is one thing to set up a day care centre the way we want it, and demand that the State pay for it. It is quite another thing to deliver our children to the State and ask the State to control them, discipline them, teach them to honour the American flag not for five hours, but for fifteen or twenty-four hours. It is one thing to organise communally the way we want to eat (by ourselves, in groups, etc.) and then ask the State to pay for it, and it is the opposite thing to ask the State to organise our meals. In one case we regain some control over our lives, in the other we extend the State’s control over us.

The struggle against housework

Some women say: how is wages for housework going to change the attitudes of our husbands towards us? Won’t our husbands still expect the same duties as before and even more than before once we are paid for them? But these women do not see that they can expect so much from us precisely because we are not paid for our work, because they assume that it is ‘a woman’s thing’ which does not cost us much effort. Men are able to accept our services and take pleasure in them because they presume that housework is easy for us, that we enjoy it because we do it for their love. They actually expect us to be grateful because by marrying us or living with us they have given us the opportunity to express ourselves as women (i.e. to serve them), ‘You are lucky you have found a man like me’. Only when men see our work as work-our love as work-and most important our determination to refuse both, will they change their attitude towards us. When hundreds and thousands of women are in the streets saying that endless cleaning, being always emotionally available, fucking at command for fear of losing our jobs is hard, hated work which wastes our lives, then they will be scared and feel undermined as men.

But this is the best thing that can happen from their own point of view, because by exposing the way capital has kept us divided (capital has disciplined them through us and us through them-each other, against each other), we – their crutches, their slaves, their chains – open the process of their liberation. In this sense wages for housework will be much more educational than trying to prove that we can work as well as them, that we can do the same jobs. We leave this worthwhile effort to the ‘career woman’, the woman who escapes from her oppression not through the power of unity and struggle, but through the power of the master, the power to oppress-usually other women. And we don’t have to prove that we can “break the blue collar barrier”. A lot of us broke that barrier a long time ago and have discovered that the overalls did not give us more power than the apron; if possible even less, because now we had to wear both and had less time and energy to struggle against them. The things we have to prove are our capacity to expose what we are already doing, what capital is doing to us and our power in the struggle against it.

Unfortunately, many women-particularly single women-are afraid of th~ perspective of wages for housework because they are afraid of identifying even for a second with the housewife. They know that this is the most powerless position in society and so they do not want to realise that they are housewives too. This is precisely their weakness, a weakness which is maintained and perpetuated through the lack of self-identification. We want and have to say that we are all housewives, we are all prostitutes and we are all gay, because until we recognise our slavery we cannot recognise our struggle against it, because as long as we think we are something better, something different than a housewife, we accept the logic of the master, which is a logic of division, and for us the logic of slavery. We are all housewives because no matter where we are they can always count on more work from us, more fear on our side to put forward our demands, and less pressure on them for money, since hopefully our minds are directed elsewhere, to that man in our present or our future who will “take care of us”.

And we also delude ourselves that we can escape housework. But how many of us, in spite of working outside the house, have escaped it? And can we really so easily disregard the idea of living with a man? What if we lose our jobs? What about ageing and losing even the minimal amount of power that youth (productivity) and attractiveness (female productivity) afford us today? And what about children? Will we ever regret having chosen not to have them, not even having been able to realistically ask that question? And can we afford gay relations? Are we willing to pay the possible price of isolation and exclusion? But can we really afford relations with men?

The question is: why are these our only alternatives and what kind of struggle will move us beyond them?

New York, Spring 1974