#uni has been great and also taxing as fuck

[fudgecake-charlie]

sorry for the lack of art! I’ve been really feeling it and I don’t really have the energy to get on my laptop too much and draw. please take this silly grian laughing his ass off as an apology [+ rambles in the og tags whoops]

[pythagoreanwhump]

9. Education, training or literacy

Are kids taught torture is good actually or just to not question authority? Does the language restrict thinking and expression like in 1984?

Yes i do compare everything to 1984

Ahahaha valid and yeah I'm gonna start by answering the language and 1984 thing because OH BOY i have OPINIONS

like LOOK. I think the Sapir Whorf hypothesis is cool and totally makes sense. A person's thoughts and and perceptions are ABSOLUTELY influenced by the words available to describe them, the structure that their thoughts are organized into to be able to be expressed by language (honestly that sentence ((not,, actually a sentence either)) probably didn't make sense but wtv), and how different parts of the language relate to itself. But I think it's KINDA BULLSHIT to say that language can just strictly control thought. Languages evolve naturally and you can't police exactly how it's used. People think outside of words. People invent new words. Just look at fucking France lmao it is simply not possible to control exactly how people use language

anyway, rant over, back to the VMD

the VMD language is honestly just like,, very natural lmao, I didn't really try to play with any funky linguistics yknow weird stuff with it. It's a combination of two real existing languages (Kalaallisut aka Greenlandic and Icelandic) and it's just like. It's pretty normal. There are certainly some Quirks that relate to their culture a bit, and I made it RIDICULOUSLY agglutinative just for shits and giggles, but like honestly it's just a normal ass language

another reason that like language controlling thoughts wouldn't really fit into the vmd is like, honestly you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that isn't bilingual, and even those that can't speak another language fluently have definitely been exposed to other languages and have had to learn one in school for many years. Like you can't really be like, oh our language controls your thoughts if people can just, use a different language lmao. Especially with military officers, like, they're probably the people that you'd expect to be the most "brainwashed" or indoctrinated or whatever you wanna call it, and officers are all required to be fluent in at least one foreign language

anyway, so I guess this is a good spot to transition into education. First off, education on languages ig? Yeah like in primary education, all schools teach a foreign language, but kids don't usually get a choice in which one. Sometimes the language that different schools offer is a factor in parents choosing what school to send their child to. In secondary education, students get to choose what languages they're studying, and they also don't have to learn it like, all the time. There's just a minimum number of classes they have to take over six years.

education in general, honestly, pretty great! like everything is free and they're generally pretty chill, there's not like too much pressure to yknow go to like a High School and uni and whatnot, skilled labour and like polytechnic/college education is very much valued and you're very unlikely to be judged by many people for not going to postsec at all. hmmmmm it was honestly more of a mess before the revolution, but look for all their faults the military did make education a LOT better for everyone, and honestly like if I get into the history this is gonna get way too long. But yeah the way things stand during the rule of the junta, there are like? sort of? no private schools? like ig they have like, charter schools sort of. that kind of do their special thing and are competitive to get into, usually with entrance tests and whatnot, but it's all tax funded. The military government has really tried to make education accessible to everyone regardless of socioeconomic status, but u n f o r t u n a t e l y yknow if you're wanted for terrorism you're probably not sending your kids to schools run by the people that want to torture you. and again yeah this would get WAY too long if I get into like what the rebels were doing for education later on

as for the torture. well. i mean. it's complicated. the VMD just,, culturally,, have always had a Thing for like physical pain as punishment and like a way to show loyalty and whatever, but it was never shit like what the military was doing now. The current narrative fed to children just tend to be stuff like oh yknow they're bad people who deserve it, they knew the risks and they basically chose to get tortured for their cause and it doesn't matter what their cause is (it's bad btw you're not supposed to support it) they made that choice themselves so it's okay to torture them, and yeah definitely don't question authority unless you wanna get tortured too. Within the military though, like with the ""hazing"" that's basically straight up torture of lower ranking members and cadets, yeah again they have a long history of it and it's always presented as like, oh if you want the power and honor of being in the military you're gonna have to give something up and that something is your pain, and it's just very normalized

[bitchesgetriches]

Hi Bitches! I write to you a few weeks ago about deciding between a call center job and a publishing interview. I just wanted to thank you for the detailed and as always amazing advice!!! And update u. I stuck with the call center job and turned down the interview. Even after I explained that another company was after me and that I’d pick the Publisher over them in a heartbeat and I really need the interview to be at ANY other time, they just sent me a generic response. After the interview and steps I had I felt like they liked me a lot so this was both shitty and as you said a major red flag… Another red flag is I looked up the company on my country’s tax system (how much a company spends a year on salaries and how many employees it has is public record here) and saw horrifyingly low figures for the # of employees. I also saw many bad reviews on our version of glasssdoor. So I might’ve fucked up a once in a lifetime opportunity, or I might not have. The job I chose ended up great as a starting place and a place to make money until I can move and find a job in my actual field. It pays as much as my friend’s corporate job where she’s a manager having been there for 5 years, it’s more than double the min wage and 20% above the national average wage, it’s a 9-5 mon-fri, low stress since it’s like one call per half hour, customers r nice since it’s a luxury brand, and I work from home (the publisher insisted on even all the interviews being on site and it’s 1.5h commute there). Am I justifying my reasons to make myself feel better? Yup. But what’s done is done. I feel kinda weird liking a call center job - most ppl react as if I work at McDonalds after I got a masters degree from a top100 uni and I kinda do too… but I do value no stress the most right now since the degree burned me out GOOD and I can only hope this isn’t for forever. Anyway thank u bitches again! I used your guide for financial decision making so I feel a lot better about the choice than if I’d just winged it hahahah! Hope u both have an amazing day!

Congrats, I'm so glad it worked out for you!! Low stress, work from home, and more than double the min wage?? Fabulous.

[doorsclosingslowly]

This Is the Time of Our Great Undoing

“Do you think Kaz could fuck someone in a full-body bondage suit?” Jesper whispers, more to distract Inej from what’s on the screen than anything else, but still—the idea won’t leave Kaz alone.

5.8k | modern AU | Kaz[/&]Jesper, part of a polycule

content note: despite the premise this is about cuddling, gambling addiction and existing during climate change

It starts the way most things used to start: with all of them piled onto ancient couches on the fifth floor of an otherwise empty building on the edge of Amsterdam, also called the Slat. These days, it’s harder and harder to get everyone together. Nina and Matthias are both in Rotterdam now, doing associate degrees that Kaz doesn’t care about. Wylan’s got room and board and a plan for the future and a social worker, and she already disapproves of Jesper as a bad influence so it’s not worth it, generally, for Wylan to come back to his old squat and hang out with the whole gang of ex- and current reprobates.

And Inej—fuck, Kaz wishes she was just a little less righteous, less concerned with how the world’s going to shit. She’s faced off against more cops now than he has, probably. Water cannons and charging horses and riot shields. She knows criminals all over the country, Europe, probably the world—but they’re the kind of criminals with morals and worthless targets, with bandanas and badly sewn patches, who will talk about Federici and sea levels and the Invisible Committee and use value if you don’t leave quickly enough. The kind that live on trees, as Inej’s going to do in a few days. The kind that don’t make any money. The kind that have even less of a chance of making it out of a job alive and free than Kaz does—and with the enemies she’s talking about, politicians, banks, Shell, he doesn’t even know if he’ll be able to extort her out of jail next time.

For now, though, they’re all together in the big room, watching some ancient movie on the massive 8k screen with mood lighting, etc, the works, that’s in the Slat courtesy of some MediaMarkt manager desperate enough to save her marriage to bribe Kaz into silence, but not so desperate she wouldn’t fuck two other women in the breakroom.

It’s impossible to know whose fault it is that they’re currently watching Pulp Fiction.

Kaz is inclined to blame Jesper, because most things are his fault in some way or another, and he’s supplying the login data for an old uni flatmate’s streaming accounts, which is where they found that film, front and centre, paid to rent until tomorrow. Who even pays for films? If that’s the calibre of people they send to university these days, it’s no wonder the planet’s going to the dogs. Jesper, though, swears he wanted to watch some goofy horror flick, so he’s splitting the blame with Nina and Matthias: Matthias, for growing up in a cult and having never heard of what’s apparently a film classic and mentioning that to Nina, who of course cooed over her boyfriend and insisted on it, even though actually none of them have watched it before either so it’s not like it’s an important cinematic milestone. Or just not b horror, crime, some weird arthouse thing with complicated morality… It’s weird and has crime but there is nothing to figure out, so Kaz is bored. It’s Inej’s fault, because instead of vetoing it she said yes, just because she has a heart-shaped soft spot for Nina. Wylan could have done his oh I’m still an innocent barely-two-years not a minor this looks bloody thing, and Kaz might not even have mocked him this time if he'd insisted on Jesper’s pick instead just so he could hide in Jesper’s arms for the most minor decapitations.

Jesper’s been talking through the whole film. Kaz got used to that a long time ago: the landing and failing of small non-sequitur jokes like rain against the window, whispered to Wylan who’s cuddled into his side on the left, or to Inej who’s burrowing under Jesper’s outstretched right arm. Sometimes Jesper thinks a quip will land better with Nina, so he shouts it over to the futon where she and Matthias are always just shy of engaging in heavy petting, and the really mean and bleak jokes he saves for when he’s made eye contact with Kaz.

Now, though: in this scene Mr Motorcycle and the gang boss are captured in a pawnshop and dragged into the basement, and Gang Boss gets raped. Inej’s hand is white-knuckled on Jesper’s arm, and Jesper’s talking non-stop. He’s talking about the flooding, and asking whether Inej thinks Doggerland will happen again but here, soon, you can never know when the scientists are so wrong about the speed of climate change, and apparently it all flooded in a day because something broke off Norway, and then he abruptly pivots to some demo where he bashed in a shop window and got new shoes, and then if she’s got dates for more street fights because then he’s in but please, don’t trick me into another book club, I don’t care about why the cops are bad I already know I just want to hit them—not topics Kaz would have chosen, exactly, but he’s rooted in his red leather armchair off to the side, not even able to hold her for comfort, not like Jes does now, and why didn’t they think to look up the content beforehand, why did they assume it was tame just because it’s an old film—and then, long after it’s over, Jesper idly asks, “Do you think Kaz could fuck someone in a full-body bondage suit?”

Wylan groans. Kaz wishes a sound existed that could express his own current emotion.

“You saw the guy, right?” Jesper turns over to Wylan, while still stroking Inej’s hair. “There was no skin on him. All leather. And that’s the trigger, so—might solve all our problems. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!”

“I don’t see a huge difference,” Nina snipes. “Kaz is already in all-black, with gloves. Though I guess, that hood would hide his atrocious haircut…”

“Stop being so mean to Kaz, Jesper,” Matthias mumbles. “Although he does deserve it.”

Kaz downs his entire glass of vodka. When he tops his drink up for the second time—he exed the first refill right in the kitchen—he brings the bottle and some maracuja juice over and refills Jesper’s, too, because Jesper’s been anxiously glancing over at him, every moment he thinks Kaz has turned his head away, since he shot his stupid mouth off and actually, it’s—Kaz isn’t thinking about it now but it just might—maybe it could work—well, he fills up the glass to stop Jesper from worrying himself into yet another mental crisis and also so he can bend over Jesper’s ear and whisper lovingly, “I’m going to make the leather for the suit out of your skin.”

“We should look for an Ed Gein film next!” Jesper laughs, much more brightly than the joke warrants, and Kaz refuses to interpret the look on his face.

+

By the time Kaz gets back to the Slat, on a day roughly three months later, it’s long past two in the morning. He’s in a foul mood: of course Haskell won’t even reimburse him for the taxi he had to take because he missed the last metro. Of course he just told Kaz to take a night bus. Haskell won’t even apologize for the last minute details he wants included in his casino’s tax returns. The old man’s not even mentally capable of understanding the extra work he caused. Yes, Kaz is good at filing taxes creatively, exactly tailored for the business to pay nothing whatsoever and meticulous enough to never arouse any suspicion, but that takes work. Things have to balance. Haskell thinks Kaz just has to press a button, and that he’s paying Kaz so he doesn’t have to press the button himself, and that it’s only worth it because he doesn’t want to sully his mind with ‘the Spreadsheet Program’. Which is also why he’s loaning Kaz out to a friend of his, which he just remembered to mention today, for that guy’s mattress store slash money laundering business, so that’s even more work for nowhere near enough money.

Sometimes, Kaz amuses himself with the idea of sneaking in small ‘mistakes’. Enough for even the stupidest tax official to unravel the whole sordid scheme and land Haskell in prison for tax fraud, whereupon he’ll also be discovered to be involved with drug smuggling, blackmail, murder, … none of which will ever trace back to Kaz. But the one time he was livid enough to try, nothing happened. He’ll never manage to plunge the true depths of stupidity of an average bureaucrat, apparently, and is thus doomed to failure.

And anyway, it’s good regular money for little work. Usually. He can’t really complain. Especially not to his friends, because three are going legit, Inej will just rant about the uselessness of defrauding the Belastingdienst for a few measly million euros a year when the world’s being set on fire every day, and Jesper’ll tell him to quit, again, because they live in a squat after all. It’s not like they’re paying rent. Jesper’s never heard of forethought, or gratitude. He doesn’t know how many of his bills Kaz has paid off.

Kaz’s leg aches after the climb to the third story. Two more to go. As usual, right at this point he remembers the joke Jesper made eight months ago about fooling someone into installing a stair lift, and as usual, he dismisses it in disgust after two more steps. Stomps harder on the next flight of stairs, with grim satisfaction at the shooting pains in his knee. He doesn’t need help. He doesn’t need to move to a house with a working lift, and he doesn’t need a stair lift, either. Fuck you, Jesper. I’m the actual functional adult with a job in this household. I don’t need a stair lift.

That’s what he would throw at Jesper’s head, but it’s nearly three o’clock, and Jesper’s probably out. Over at Wylan’s, if he knows what’s good for him, but given how evasive he’s been all week, how manic… Inej’s still camping high up in some forest to save the frogs or something, but no news there is supposed to be good news. If the cops had chucked her off a tree house, it would have been on tv. About everything else, he can worry after he’s slept.

He doesn’t bother with the lights in his room. The streetlight coming in through his open curtains is more than enough, and anyway, he found the empty tenement he turned into the Slat five years ago, fully moved down here three years ago when he met Jesper, and he knows every single thing in his room by heart. The antique dresser he made Jesper and Matthias carry up with the threat of cutting off a finger for every scratch it received is next to the door, the place where he leaves his gloves and wallet and phone and cane. The coat rack beside it, where the hangers for his suit are, then the hamper, and at the foot of his bed the long black linen nightgown that Jesper’s never, ever allowed to see, and—

There’s a black shape on top of his bedcovers, Kaz realizes when he’s pulled on his nightgown.

Kaz takes his cane back. He hasn’t made any new enemies recently as far as he’s aware—none who know his name—but he was careless, brutal, desperate when he was a lone kid getting by on the streets, and those victims had gangs, families, business partners. Just because no-one’s ever traced little Kazzie the bastard rabid dog back to the Slat-that-wasn’t-then doesn’t mean a thing. The fact that the friends he started collecting press-ganged him into doing more behind-the-scenes embezzlement and fewer turf wars because ‘they’re watching us, they have all our faces and fingers and DNA on file and cameras everywhere and did you hear about that informer having kids with the activist he spied on?’ or the more pragmatic, ‘If you don’t stop fucking up your leg on purpose I’m going to send you to a kink party you fucking masochist’…

None of it means safety, not really, and Kaz is glad he’s alone now. They’ve all moved on, and even Jes… well, if he’d been here tonight then the whole squat would be trashed because Jesper doesn’t come quietly. And now, if he comes back to find Kaz gone or his throat slit… Jesper’s going to fucking collapse. He’s been one phone call away from going hysteric all week. Who knows, though—he has Wylan now, and maybe it’ll be the push he needed, the path none of them could ever find, to get his life back on a solid track.

All of that is presupposing that Kaz loses, of course.

And he does not intend to.

The weird black ninja on Kaz’ bed hasn’t reacted yet. They’re curled into a foetal position and they’re snuffling, quietly, because they’re asleep.

Not even assassins dressed up as b movie henchmen expect the toll taken by Per Haskell’s technical naïveté and utter disrespect for Kaz’ work-life balance, apparently. He got back home so late he missed his own murder. Well, then. Kaz hasn’t tortured anyone in two years and he may be out of practice, but the films he’s been forced to watch in the meantime have, if anything, made him more creative. He’ll teach them not to underestimate the brutality of Kaz Brekker, even when he’s moved up a few rungs in the ladder of Amsterdam’s underworld and landed a desk job.

He’ll—but Kaz hasn’t had to stalk silently towards his prey in two years, either. He’s underestimated the extent to which his lame leg’s gotten worse.

Also, someone’s pulled a box out from under his bed.

Kaz stumbles, and in the split-second before he catches himself on the edge of the mattress he wonders—will they have a gun? I can still bash them in the head before they fire, I haven’t gone that soft—and then the would-be assassin stretches out their lanky body as they wake up.

With their arms raised over their head, Kaz can see the bright white light of the street lanterns outside reflect off the gleaming black PVC fabric they’re wearing. Sleek and skin-tight, no ornamentation except a few steel buttons glinting at the crotch, and a full-cover leather hood over their face adorned with one-euro-sized rivets at the jaw, the forehead, the bridge of the nose, the large buckle around the neck. More buckles, at the back of the head and hanging off the right side at eye-height. The open silver zipper at the mouth reflects the streetlight, too, as does the padlock that hangs off it.

Oh no. Kaz knows that mask. Not even shoving it all the way back to the furthest corner under his bed allowed him to forget the way it looks.

Oh no.

Jesper yawns loudly. “Morning, boss. Evening. One of those. I thought you were finishing work early?”

“Haskell had some last-minute revisions to his tax returns.” Kaz sighs. “Don’t cook tomorrow. I’ll be out late for the whole next week—don’t expect me before three am. New client. I need to create a whole year’s documentations from scratch.”

“Just fuck him over, boss. He doesn’t appreciate you, and you don’t need the money. We live in a fucking squat.”

Sweet, financially illiterate nuisance Jesper, who probably doesn’t even know what that awful mistake he’s dressed in right now cost. The thing he’s dressed in. Which was hidden under Kaz’ bed. In Kaz’ room. Which they are inside right now. “You broke into my room,” Kaz rasps. “Again.”

“You know, Kaz,” Jesper replies with poorly feigned innocence, ”this thing is a little big for you. Fits me pretty well, though.”

“I told you I don’t keep cash under my bed. I told you that, the last time you tried to steal from me to pay off your gambling debts. I like my room organized as it is, and so I don’t keep any money here. Not under the bed, not in the wardrobe. And you won’t find any of my actual caches, because I’m smarter than you.”

“You’ve lied to me before.”

“You’ve stolen from me before. Remember last year? Remember you made Inej cry? I though you were clean. I thought you promised Wylan, when you asked him out, that you were done gambling. Maybe we all had too much trust in you.”

Jesper pulls his PVC-clad shoulders up to his en-leathered ears: a ridiculous sight, and Kaz doesn’t know what’s worse. That a bondage sex slave could actually look this dejected and humiliated and alone, or that Jesper does. He’s almost ready to call off the assault. It took a while to figure out, but as usual Inej was probably right, because she’s been researching and discussing the mental health industrial complex in general, and the traumatizing nature of modern life, with her comrades. Even though Kaz is neither the kind of person to touch people with kid gloves, and nor does he like thinking of Jesper as someone who needs that kind of handling—when Jesper’s in a shame spiral this deep then any criticism will drive him even deeper into the arms of the next casino. So the adrenaline and dopamine can wipe out everything else, or to feed his self-loathing even more by being exactly the person he’s terrified people think he is—Jes couldn’t quite explain it himself during the Intervention, except that everything is too much sometimes, even more too much and faster than usual.

He’s a pitiful creature. Kaz almost has pity. Then, though—

“It’s not working, boss. I know why you’re reminding me I fucking relapsed, again, and tried to steal from my best friend, again, and that I’m going to beg you to lie to Wy, again, but I still haven’t forgotten I’m wearing a bondage suit that you’ve been keeping under your bed for—two months now, is it?”

It’s just one month, actually. The manufacture and shipping took six whole weeks.

Two can play that game. Kaz might be very slightly embarrassed, but Jesper’s relapsed into the combination of addiction, theft and deceit that destroyed his life three years ago, and nearly did so again, two-and-a-half years ago and one year ago. “Careful. I haven’t even yet agreed to lie to Wylan, Jesper. About your problem. That you promised you’d tell him about.”

“Also, I notice it fits me, not Inej. Not Nina. Not Matthias. Not even Haskell, I bet. Me. Almost like it was made for me.”

Kaz ignores his insinuations. The answer’s obvious, anyway: yes, he did take clothes from the main washing pile in Jesper’s room and measured them. Yes, he used the measurements when he ordered a bondage suit. Yes, that’s creepy. Yes, a decent person would have asked. No, he’s not sorry. Jesper knew who Kaz was when he moved in with him. And it’s not like Kaz is the one who’s really at fault here. If Jesper just stopped gambling, he’d never have found out.

“Even attempted theft is illegal, Jesper. Completed robbery is worse. I cover my tracks, but you… you should be careful what you say now. They���re still looking for whoever robbed that jeweller last year.”

“Inej’s gonna cut off your head if you try. It’s like you never read her hoodies. All cats are beautiful, et cetera, Kaz. Thirteen-twelve. Keep up.”

Sometimes, the only thing that keeps Kaz from tossing Jesper out of the Slat is that Inej hates landlords and landlord-adjacents just as much as the pigs. If only he’d known back when he let the drunk penniless fancy uni boy who jumped into a fight to defend Kaz from some thugs—a fight Kaz would have won regardless—if only he’d known, before he let Jesper crash on his floor for a night or two, where all of this would end. “I’ll never mention anything about tonight again if you don’t either. Forget it. It was a bad idea. A failed plan. That’s all.”

“Without even trying it?”

“I will zip your mouth shut,” Kaz rasps. “I’ll lock it. I’ll throw the key into the harbour. Fuck you.”

Jesper, though, somehow got even mouthier when he put the bondage suit on. Less respectful. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. “Come on, Kaz,” he wheedles. “I put it on, right? So I’m fine with it, if you’re worried. Aren’t you curious? If our places had been reversed—well, if you’d found it in my room you’d have murdered me, so we’re not exactly identical, but still. Come on, sit down next to me. This is—PVC right? Good job choosing me. Inej would hate it. So much plastic.”

“It’s less like skin than leather.”

“Not complaining, Kaz. I have some juice with a straw over there to keep me hydrated in case I sweat like a pig, but I haven’t, yet. I can probably camp out in this for a few more hours.” He tries a patented Jesper I’m flirting in an over the top way to make you laugh which is my flirting style for when I’m genuinely worried about the reaction because this way I can pass off exasperation and mockery as the response I intended look, probably with fluttering eyes, but since Kaz can barely make them out through those open zippers and the rest of his face is a complete mystery, it falls flat. It looks ridiculous, though, so it also works, and Jesper has the nerve of complaining about Kaz’ eight-dimensional chess plans. He’s worse. He’s worse, and animated by Jesper’s ridiculous, familiar movements the bondage suit doesn’t look like a pathetic attempt anymore. Not like the desperation of an emotional cripple. It just looks like Jesper, with an extra layer on his skin. Jesper, probably making a duckface, purring, “Don’t you think I’m sexy?”

Kaz looks away. “Are you serious right now?”

“Of course,” Jesper replies instantly, as if there was never any reason to doubt him. As if he doesn’t blame Kaz for doubting, simultaneously. As if Kaz is allowed to try. To fail. To fuck up, risk hurting him. There is a reason why Kaz never even considered someone else for the suit. “Come on, get on the bed.”

“We have to talk with Inej first. And with Wylan.”

“One-track mind,” Jesper replies, and just like that Kaz is ready to murder him again. “We’re not fucking. We’re not doing more than normal, except maybe touch. We don’t even know yet whether this helps you. I’m not risking it. We’ll just try touching, and if you think it’s triggering, we stop. We’ve got all the time in the world to work up to more. Until this city sinks into the ocean and the grid collapses from heat, which might be tomorrow, so. Or the fascists win.”

“You’ve been listening to Inej.”

“I do try to keep up.”

“Well, stop. Or listen more carefully, until the end, when she gets to the doomerism is the opiate of the masses part.”

“Just get on the bed, Kaz.”

Kaz puts his bent good knee onto the mattress and pulls himself over to Jesper. The fabric of his linen smock rubs against his heated skin: not like corpses, not like that, not like Jordie and he won’t even think about him or this will be over but—it just feels like his own familiar coarse age-softened nightgown that Jesper hasn’t even made fun of yet, his thin nightgown that in a second will be one of only two layers between him and Jesper.

He rolls over so he can sit down next to Jesper, at first. Daringly, he leans an arm against his best—well, they’ll figure that out later.

“Okay?” Jesper asks. He has to crane his head a lot to look through the thin eye slits of his bondage mask at Kaz’ face, and even then he’s probably mostly seeing the gleaming teeth of the eyehole zippers. And still he leans forward forty-five degrees and twists his torso and neck so he can look up into Kaz’ face, carefully keeping the arm that’s touching Kaz as motionless as possible, because he’s being careful with Kaz. Kaz has told him a thousand times he hates being coddled. He’s not a poor little abused dog, he’s a vicious murderer who destroyed his leg and his ability to be close to people while he was murdering, that’s all he ever told Jesper. That lie. And yet—even if he’s only fooling himself because this scene is so patently ridiculous, and the psych ward he got sent to once for the crime of rough sleeping while underage would stamp every single thing about what they’re doing as deeply unhealthy, and he can’t see Jesper’s soft concerned expression under the hood… Whatever it is, Kaz feels warm all over. He feels good. Safe.

Jesper can tell, apparently. “Want to touch my chest? Or climb into my lap?”

Kaz moves over, carefully smoothing down his nightgown before he sits down on Jesper, angled so he can lean with his left arm pressed against Jesper’s chest. It’s safer, somehow, than giving him the back, but perhaps someday…

Jesper loosely wraps his arms around Kaz. They’re just there, barely touching, the hands lax on top of Kaz’ right knee. You can leave at any time, they say, I’ll let go as soon as you’re uncomfortable, and Kaz would have known that regardless. Jesper’s never usually this still, unless he’s lost in concentration: and Kaz, who’s seen how gambling can destroy someone’s life, how it is currently destroying someone’s life, would still bet everything he has ever owned that Jesper’s concentrating on every single aspect of Kaz’ body language right now.

It’s not necessary, though. Those hands are gleaming black PVC. They don’t look or feel anything like Kaz’ memories.

He drops his own naked right hand onto Jesper’s gloved one. Joins them. Anchors Jesper. “How much do you owe this time, Jes?”

A beat. Jesper’s face drops down towards Kaz’ lap. Trying to hide his shame, and he’s forgotten that he’s wearing a full bondage mask, that Kaz can barely make out his eyes through the slits of the zippers. If he’s trying to deny everything, Kaz will just beat it out of him. He’s done it before. A year ago, when it was bad, but Jesper promised he got it under control. But Jesper’s promises were never worth much, not for this. If they were, they’d never have met.

“Four grand.”

“To?”

“Tom Geels. One of Big Bol’s old friends—”

“So he put you up to—”

“I was already playing when he walked up to me, Kaz,” Jesper grinds out. Aware that he could save himself from at least a little of Kaz’ disappointment by casting Bollinger as the tempter. Simultaneously aware that Kaz promised to feed Bollinger to a marine propeller last year if he ever took Jesper gambling again. Noble, to try and save Bollinger’s life—or to save Kaz from committing another murder—not that either of them deserves his loyalty. “I’ll pay you back, Kaz. I’ll have the money. Give me—give me half a year, Da’s still sending me—sending me rent money, Christ, he’s—I’ll save it. No, you’ll get it straight as soon as I get it, and in six months, you’re paid back in full. I promise.”

“We’ll figure it out. I have some jobs I could use you on. Nothing big. Intimidation, mostly. Some breaking, some entering. Boring stuff, not even worth mentioning to Wylan I should think.”

“Thank you.” Jesper’s forgotten all his restraint. He’s kissing Kaz’ forehead, or rather kissing the inside of his mask that’s pressed against Kaz’ forehead. He’s wrapped Kaz tightly in his long bondage arms too, painfully twisting Kaz’ shoulder and elbow and wrist because Kaz is still holding onto his hand. It’s that welcome pain, and the texture of the bondage suit that Kaz still isn’t completely used to, that keeps him from breaking Jesper’s nose. Keeps him—he isn’t back in the North Sea. He isn’t with Jordie. He should be, but he isn’t, and even if it comes…

Inej taught him about grounding. None of them trust the system as far as they can throw it, so she didn’t send him to a shrink when they started dating, unlike he feared, but—she said they helped her, those grounding exercises she found on the internet, and so Kaz has been diligently practicing breathing techniques and focusing his awareness on details of the present moment. Five things he can see: well, it’s dark, but the way what little streetlight gets through reflects off the folds of the suit on Jesper’s bowed stomach is quite interesting. His own knees. His hand, still clutching Jesper’s. The cane, on the floor. The floor. Five things he can hear: early morning traffic, Jesper’s breath, Jesper trying not to sob out loud in relief or shame or a mixture of both, the rustling of fabric, the squeaking of fabric. Five things he can feel: The old ache of his leg, always. Jesper’s hand. Jesper’s thighs. The hard buttons at the flap over Jesper’s crotch, digging into his side.

Somehow, Jesper’s noticed his shift in focus. At least he’s stopped crying now. “You know, you could have just asked how big I am if you wanted a suit with a dick pouch,” he teases in a voice that almost manages to sound happy. “I wouldn’t even have been suspicious.”

“Just because you have no boundaries, Jes, doesn’t mean I have to sink down to meet you at your level.”

Jesper takes a big breath. To forestall the whole Who bought this bondage suit argument Kaz elbows him in the stomach, hard. Once Jesper’s done coughing—a wriggling movement against Kaz’ side that he’s never even felt before—he mumbles something else, though. “I texted Da my new number. He called last week. Wanted to know how I was doing,” and oh. That makes sense. That’s what did it. “Apparently I’m graduating in seven months, according to that fake schedule you made me so I could keep my lies straight. He wants to come to the graduation. He asked me whether I have a job lined up.”

“I could hire somebody to fake you a degree,” Kaz offers. This should be Inej’s job. She shouldn’t be off somewhere, saving grasshoppers. She should be here. She’s the one who tried to talk Jesper into coming clean to his father, last year. All Kaz knows, all he has ever done, is to keep digging, and it’s worked for him. So far. “It’s all the rage now I hear. Cheap, too. No-one will find out. Just don’t become a politician in Germany.”

Jesper sighs. The air kisses the back of Kaz’ neck. “I don’t even care anymore. I could have a degree, or not, it all doesn’t matter. Universities are a scam to regulate economic class relations anyway. I don’t know that I can keep lying forever, or get a job, just so I don’t have to tell Da I betrayed him. Because nothing matters anyway. We’re collectively throwing the future down the drain. It’s not like anyone needs another mechanical engineer when we hit four degrees. I don’t know what we need. I just know everything I know is pointless.”

“I’m sure Inej can hook you up, if you want to blow up a coal power plant.”

“But what about you, then? What would you do?”

“I could have you kidnapped,” Kaz says. That’s not what Jesper meant. Kaz refuses to think about what Jesper meant. “Fake your death. Colm will be so relieved when they find you that he won’t even care you failed all your studies so you could become a live-in human blow-up doll.”

“That’ll only keep Da happy for a year at most and you know it.”

“Well, then Colm’s just going to have to get used to it. Get used to you, like we did. Real, annoying, good-for-nothing directionless screw-up Jesper.”

Jesper rubs his leathered cheek against the crown of Kaz’ head. “Fuck you. Thanks.”

Kaz runs his fingers over the squeaky PVC on Jesper’s forearms, steeling himself before he whispers idly against Jesper’s neck, “If Inej’s right about the warming and the sea level over the next decades, it won’t just be refugees from the south we’re letting drown, people it’s easy to lock out. Maybe you’re right about the Doggerland thing, and we all get flooded.” He swallows. The words are high up in his throat, trying to spew out. “Then it won’t just be one stupid child with a stupid family going out boating in the North Sea when there’s a storm coming. Not just that one kid thrown out of a sinking boat nearly drowning and clinging to his brother’s corpse. Your blow-up doll skills will be in high demand if everyone else gets triggered by skin contact too.”

Jesper, miraculously, reveals a talent Kaz didn’t even know he possessed: he shuts up. He ghosts his gloved hands over Kaz’ shoulders, and then he starts carding his fingers through Kaz’ hair. Kaz can feel the static electricity building up, the crackles and the safety, and then he realizes his eyes have drifted shut. He realizes he doesn’t know how long Jesper’s been petting him.

“Take off your hood,” he mumbles.

“Kaz?”

“Take it off. Scuttle over so your head’s on the pillow.”

Jesper obeys, like Kaz always knew he would. He looks up at Kaz with something that might be confusion but might also be—trust and deep joy and more, something Kaz can’t quite admit anymore now he’s in his bed, and Kaz puts his head down on his chest. His legs will still fit, and this way, he has the squeaky PVC right where he needs it. Squeaky, rhythmically rising warm dry plastic under him. The exact opposite of a waterlogged corpse.

“I don’t have time to call you an ambulance when you get into a bondage suit erotic asphyxiation incident, just so you know. I have a full schedule for today, remember. I’ll be at Haskell’s until after midnight. I have to break Bollinger’s thumbs. My alarm is at seven. Turn it off and I’ll send you to Colm in bite-sized pieces,” Kaz rasps, and then, with a movement that no-one would call timid if they wanted to keep their tongue attached, wraps his arms around Jesper. “You’ve kept me awake for two hours, so be a good pillow. If I kick you off the bed while I’m dozing, remember. This is your fault.”

[riaxaraco]

I’m watching the newest episode (7 scariest SCPs) of Newscapepro SCP,,, and like,,,shits got me emotional,,,also is what happened to Cory in seasons 1-3 gonna be adressed? Who fuckin knows. I sure don’t, anyway fuckin a dress seasons 1-3 also I want at least one episode where someone is like “yo what if Cory got therapy with a therapist who didn’t die cause the SCP foundation sucks” cause he been through some shit just sayin.

What’s in the coffin, why did Lucy from horror stories join SCP, also is this gonna be all recaps of seasons 4-6? Probably.

so I know that dr bright would be able to talk about seasons 2 and 3, but would anyone know about season 1? I imagine Cory wouldn’t tell just anyone about what happened. Maybe Hooper, and maybe Laura (but she wouldn’t be able to tell them rip.)

Robo 👏 Limb 👏 tommy 👏

Why isn’t Triana here? I mean, at least Dr Bright, Iris, Ruby, Cole, Dr Patience and Crystal are here. I mean, she’s a site director so probably has at least enough power to get away for one day, why isn’t she here? She was friends with Cory, I mean, she at one point referred to them (her, Cory, Laura, and Hooper,) all as one “big happy alpha strike family.”

Also I love the fact that Johnny Bozo got put on death row for tax fraud, iconic.

Cole being there makes me kinda salty about how little he’s been featured in recent episodes. Also apperent Alice’s full name is Alice Elizabeth Parker, that fuckin British bitch.

I know this ep is a recap but I do love it, wish we had more plot during this though. :( I also wish Triana showed up. And for someone to be like. “yo Cory’s life was kinda fucked up cause the foundation killed a lot of the people he loved.”

Dr bright is great, “stay cute Tommy,” -Dr Bright. Iconic, I love him, the current guy is the best dr bright in the series (though I’ve got a major soft spot for Uni!Bright if only for the angst potential of wearing the face of a clone of Cory’s dead best friend.)

Also Tommy and Ruby are such a cute couple I stan,,

[antiadvil]

We’re Getting Married!

PG13, 2.8k

video title: We’re Getting Married! uploaded: December 8, 2019 by AmazingPhil Description: We talk about our relationship with each other, our audience, and appropriate creator/audience boundaries. Sorry we couldn’t find a wedding venue that would fit three million people!

read more or read on ao3

A/N: *** indicates a jump cut. this is filmed in Phil’s bedroom bc in an imagined universe with joint content I can fulfill all my nostalgic fantasies oh also warning for discussion of the vday video if you're not into that

“Hey guys! Today I’m here with a very special surprise guest-”

Dan’s voice interrupted Phil from off camera. "Are you not going to put me in the thumbnail?"

Phil laughed. "I mean, probably."

"So I'm not much of a surprise."

"I guess not. Anyway, we have a special announcement-"

"Phil. They read the title. Why do your video intros always assume no one reads your titles?"

"Hey! I haven't decided what I’m going to title it yet."

Dan came into frame and flopped onto the bed with him. "Sure you haven't. You know exactly what will get this video the maximum number of clicks, you goddamn-"

Phil threw his hand over Dan’s mouth. “Stop.”

He yanked it back almost immediately. “Did you just lick me?”

Dan smiled. “Maybe.”

“You’re disgusting. I’m going to go wash my hands with bleach,” Phil said, climbing off of his bed.

“Can you bring me a glass of water?” Dan called after him. “I’m thirsty.”

Phil called something back. It was entirely bleeped out.

***

“Count of three,” Phil said. “One, two, three-”

“We’re getting married!” Dan’s normally large hand gestures were carefully constrained by the glass of water in his right hand.

“Some of you are probably confused-” Phil said.

“Some of you are probably hyperventilating,” Dan interrupted, “And I’d like to say that while you’re valid, get a life that is not vicariously lived through our relationship. Please.”

“So let’s do a bit of background first,” Phil finished. “So I think most of you who follow us know that Dan and I met on the internet in 2009 and then we met up later the same year, which is when we filmed the first Phil is not on fire.”

“What you probably know if you watched my coming out video is that the whole time, we were super gay for each other,” Dan added. “What I didn’t really get into is that we’re still super gay for each other.”

“Wait, we are?”

Dan shrugged, setting his water on Phil’s nightstand. “I mean, I’m still super gay for you.”

Phil frowned. “I don’t know if I’d describe it that way.”

“Well, this is awkward,” Dan muttered.

“Anyway, we’ve been dating ever since then, and we thought we’d give a quick little recap of our relationship for those of you who just got here. So, I already mentioned that we met in 2009-”

“Obligatory disclaimer, we don’t endorse travelling a hundred and fifty miles to meet a guy who’s four years older than you that you met on the internet, even if you were the one who stalked him first.”

“Hey!” Phil laughed.

“But anyway,” Dan continued, “Phil and I met in a public place before going to his house and it turned out he wasn’t an axe murderer, so everything was fine.”

“What would you have done if I was?” Phil asked.

“You know, that’s a really great question. I maybe should have thought a little bit more about that.”

“So, we’re not even five minutes into the video and the biggest takeaway is that you should never have come to meet me?”

Dan nodded. “Our entire relationship was a mistake. I’m sorry, everyone, time to go home.”

“So poor life choices aside, we met in 2009, filmed Phil is not on fire, and just generally hung out a lot.”

“Hung out is one word for what we spent most of our time doing, but since this is Phil’s channel, let’s leave it at that.” Dan winked.

“Hey!”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Look me in the eye and tell me that is not what we spent most of our time together doing.”

“That is not what we spent most of our time doing.”

“Okay then, if you say so-”

“I do-” Phil insisted.

“Then we’ll leave it at that. We visited a lot, but, full disclosure, long distance sucks, which was a big factor in my decision to attend uni in Manchester. You probably already know how that went down.” Dan rolled his eyes.

“Apart from the uni part, though, it was really nice being so close by, so we moved in together in 2011.”

“And then there was what you will probably know as the Valentine’s day video,” Dan said with a grimace.

“Dan and I don’t really feel comfortable discussing the details of that whole thing because that video was very personal to us.”

Dan smiled in Phil’s direction. “I still have a copy.”

“But seriously, if you’re not me or Dan, I’d really appreciate it if you’d remove any copies you’ve posted on the internet and delete any copies you may have saved, out of respect for our privacy.”

“Believe me, I know nothing I can say will make that video disappear. My entire life is just proof that anything you put on the internet is permanent. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it now, but I want people to understand that all the speculation about my sexuality that came up when that video resurfaced really hurt me. Don’t do that. Seriously. If you think a celebrity or a YouTuber or whoever is hiding their sexuality, just let them. You don’t know what’s happening in their lives, and honestly, you’re not entitled to, either.”

Phil nodded. “Also, that was a really hard time for us as a couple as well as personally. I don’t think a lot of people realize the pressure being constantly under a microscope has on a relationship, which is one of the reasons we chose not to share our relationship and why we still don’t feel comfortable sharing everything about it.”

“Which is fine! Neither of us are ashamed of our relationship. We’re not hiding anything. We just aren’t really looking forward to reading newspaper headlines about our relationship, which really doesn’t seem like it should be news. Like, it’s our relationship, not the entire world’s relationship,” Dan explained.

“Really, it seems so weird to us that people even care about it. Like, it’s flattering and all, don’t get me wrong, but it was also a bit scary at first when we weren’t out.”

“It’s like, remember in my coming out video how I mentioned that when that guy said I gave off a bi vibe it really scared me? Having strangers on the internet tell me that my relationship with Phil was obvious was scary when even my parents didn’t know. The shipping was fine. It was mostly the speculation that was scary.”

“But we made it.” Phil put his hand on Dan’s leg and smiled.

Dan smiled back, almost forgetting the camera in the room. “God, there were some days I thought we wouldn’t. But we did. And I love you.”

Phil smiled even wider and swiped at his eyes.

Dan’s smile grew to a smirk. “Are you crying? Oh my god, you are such a dork.”

“Your mum’s a dork,” Phil muttered.

Dan reached for his phone. “I’m telling her you said that.”

“No!” Phil threw his shoulder into Dan’s chest, sending him sprawling against Phil’s bed.

Dan laughed. “Ow. Hey, Siri, call Mu-”

Phil put his hand over Dan’s mouth. “Stop.”

Dan’s phone chirped from the other side of the bed. “Okay. Calling Mum.”

Dan scrambled to reach it. “Oh shit, oh fuck, should I hang up?”

“Dan! You can’t call your mum and then hang up on her.”

“Shut up, rat, this is your fau- Oh, hey, Mum!”

“Hi!” Phil said.

“Oh, hello, Dan! And Phil. Is everything alright?”

“You need to call your mum more often, Dan, if every time she picks up she asks if something’s wrong,” Phil said.

Dan’s mum laughed. 

“Shut up, Phil. No, Mum, nothing’s wrong, just wanted to catch up.”

***

“So, I’m never jokingly asking Siri to call anyone ever again,” Dan said.

“Why? Was calling your mum that horrible?” Phil laughed.

“Shut up, Phil. That was your fault.” 

“Does your mum watch your videos?” Phil asked.

“Not really.”

“I’m sending her a link to this one.”

“I hate you,” Dan said quietly.

“You too.”

***

"Now, Phil, we've been dating for a pretty long time." 

Phil shrugged. "Only like ten years.”

"So, Phil, why did we wait so long for this?"

Phil nodded. "Well, first of all, it wasn't legal for a pretty long time."

"Right. Civil partnerships were a thing in 2004, but I'm lame and traditional, and same sex marriage was only legalized in 2014. That's half of our relationship, for some perspective."

"And, fun fact," Phil added, "Same sex marriage is still illegal in Northern Ireland."

Dan frowned. "That was not a fun fact. That was a very sad fact."

"But it's a true fact," Phil protested.

"Moving on, again!" Dan said. "I also wanted my family to be there, and, well, I'm a mess who didn't even come out to them until like six months ago."

Phil patted Dan's shoulder comfortingly. "You're not a mess."

Dan stared at the camera. "I'm a mess."

"Okay, fine. You're a little bit of a mess."

Dan turned to Phil in mock outrage. “You think I’m a mess?”

“No! I-”

Dan turned back to the camera. “You heard it here, folks. Phil is judging me because I took my time coming out. Phil hates closeted people.”

Phil glared at him. “I’m never agreeing with you ever again.”

“This relationship is off to a great start!”

***

“So back to the original question! Why now, Dan?”

“Well, Phil, now that I’m out to my family we can have a proper wedding, and now that we’re out to our viewers we don’t have to worry about one of our own personal stalkers finding our marriage records.” 

“Also, marriage does come with a lot of cool perks,” Phil added.

“Gotta get those sweet, sweet tax benefits.”

“And that sweet, sweet, societal recognition of our relationship.”

“Also, it makes buying a house and general joint property ownership way simpler, which will make it a lot easier to take all of Phil’s subscribers in the inevitable divorce.”

Phil laughed. “What?”

Dan blinked. “Sorry, I didn’t say anything. Did you hear something?”

“Well, I thought I heard you say you were going to divorce me and take my subscribers.”

Dan shook his head, his expression deeply offended. “Why would I say that? Who would do such a thing?”

Phil stared solemnly at the camera. “Gaslighting is a form of abuse.”

“Thank you for the PSA, Phil.”

“Just documenting the abuse I’m currently suffering under so that I can take all your subscribers in the divorce,” Phil said.

Dan frowned. “Okay, I wasn’t going to say anything, but you sounded really serious just then so I now feel the need to clarify that I am not abusing Phil and also, domestic violence is not funny.”

Phil laughed. “No actual abuse.”

Dan sighed. “We’re terrible people, aren’t we?”

“I mean, we’re not terrible people.”

Dan laughed. “We’re just bad people, with terrible senses of humor. That’s so much better.”

“We can edit it out if-” Phil started.

“I mean, it’s your channel-” Dan said.

They stared at each other for a moment before shrugging in unison. “Whatever,” they said, still in unison.

***

“So, Phil, what’s changing for our viewers?” Dan asked.

“Literally nothing. We’ll be taking a short break from uploading-”

“Which I do all the time! So I doubt you’ll even notice.”

“But we’re not going to change the types of videos we upload. This isn’t a relationship channel.”

Dan winked. “As much as you might want it to be.” 

“Seriously, though. We’re not even changing our names. Nothing’s changing,” Phil assured the camera.

“But in case it wasn’t clear, here are some FAQs.”

Phil pulled out a stack of notecards and put on his best announcer voice. “Are we invited?”

Dan smiled. “No.”

Phil flipped to the next card. “Kiss!”

“That’s not a question, but somehow, the answer is still no.”

Phil laughed. “I think a photo of us kissing would actually break the internet.”

Dan shrugged. “Really, we’re just being kind to your internet providers.”

“Lester-Howell or Howell-Lester?”

“We already answered that, Phil. You really need to screen these questions better, especially since you wrote them.”

“Answer it anyway,” Phil pleaded.

Dan sighed heavily. “Neither. I would never saddle my child with two last names.”

“Child?” Phil turned to the camera with an exaggerated gasp.

Dan smiled. “That’s all you’re getting. Let the fanfiction writing begin.”

Phil paused. “Wait, so whose last name-”

“Honestly, I was just joking because neither of us are changing our names, but if you want to have a Dan versus Phil to see who gets to name our child-”

“I’m good.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Phil turned to the next card. “Wedding photos?”

“Is that a question or a demand? Please don’t hack my hard drive.”

“Top or bottom?”

“There is no way anyone actually thinks we’ll answer that.”

“Probably not.” Phil flipped again. “And last, but definitely not least, why are we telling our viewers?”

“Well, I think it’s safe to say that we’re telling a lot more people than our viewers. But I never had any healthy models for queer relationships when I was a kid, and if I can provide that, I don’t see why not.” Dan’s voice was surprisingly serious.

“Think of us like your parents,” Phil added. “We’re here to show you how healthy relationships work, but we’re not here to show you everything. Partly because we need some privacy and partly because that would be gross.”

Dan was wincing as soon as he heard the word “parents.” “Phil, Phil, please stop. Do not encourage our audience to think of us as their parents. Did you learn nothing from our tumblr tag? Please never say those words again.”

“Fine, I’ll edit them out.”

Dan shook his head. “You said it, Phil. You can’t escape it.”

“Okay, well, at least give another response so I can decide if I want to keep it in,” Phil persuaded, in the soft, natural, voice he normally saved for off camera.

Dan gave an exaggerated sigh. “Honestly, hiding a relationship is just so much work. Especially a marriage. And you guys are total stalkers. Like seriously. Get a life. Please.”

“That’s better! And much more fitting with who our audience is.”

“Phil, I’m the one who gets to insult our fans. You’re the one who says we love them and appreciate them.”

“We do!” Phil insisted.

“Do we?” Dan asked skeptically.

“Yes.” Phil laughed, staring at Dan in disbelief.

“Kidding,” Dan muttered, flashing a smile at the camera. “Please buy my merch.”

Phil sighed. “Danielhowellshop.com?”

Dan smiled. “Also, while you’re at it, check out my good friend Phil’s merch at amazingphilshop.com!”

Phil stared straight at the camera. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“You know what, we’re such close friends that we also have a joint merch shop, danandphilshop.com. You could begin there, Phil.”

“Is it too early for a divorce?” Phil asked.

“Yes. You’re stuck with me.”

“Am I really?”

“Just think about the tax benefits. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and remember how much money you’re going to save by marrying me.”

Phil shook his head. “It’s not worth it.”

Dan pouted.

***

“For more videos like this-”

“Phil. We’re never making another video like this again.”

“For more videos not like this, click on my face to subscribe to my channel, click on Dan’s face to subscribe to his channel-”

“I have plans to actually upload a video this year-”

“And for our joint channel, click here.” Phil raised their joined hands.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to edit this video, upload it, and disconnect my internet for at least a month.”

Dan turned to Phil. “That’s not a bad idea, actually. I’m not sure I want to open tumblr for the next six years.”

Phil cringed. “Me neither. Guys, please try not to go too crazy. I lost friends over the protip incident of 2016.”

Dan shuddered. “So many people refuse to talk to us now. I’m not even joking.”

“We appreciate the support!” Phil insisted.

“Just like, maybe on our videos instead of completely random ones,” Dan suggested.

Phil nodded. “Anyway, if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up, or leave a comment. Like I said, Dan and I will be taking a short break from YouTube and social media for the wedding and honeymoon, but we’ll be back soon with plenty of content.”

“I don’t want to see any of your conspiracy theories about how we’re leaving YouTube out there, I promise it’ll only be like a month.”

“And that’s the normal amount of time between two Dan videos,” Phil interjected, “So-”

“Hey! I said I would upload this year.”

Phil smiled. “Never said you wouldn’t.”

***

“Count of three again?” Dan asked.

Phil nodded. “Three, two, one-”

“Goodbye!”

[dimancheetoile]

I’m sorry for my ignorance, but could you please explain why the protests started?. I tried looking it up on YouTube and the like but it’s a little......... all over the place. Plus I’d like to hear it from your side. Thank you 💛

(also answering people in the notes of the original post: @theinconvenientlifestyle @crimsonphaquer)

Sure, it’s ok, thank you for paying attention to what’s happening. It’s making me hope to see so many people sharing what we’re suffering through. The more people know, the less my government can afford to fuck up. The reason why it’s confusing, it’s because the protests started against a law and are now against a wildly different thing that is linked a lot more to French society and protesting against the violences we endure every week. Also, keep in mind I’m just one person, and I’m constantly switching between two languages when I write those posts because the vocabulary I’m familiar with during protests doesn’t always translate well. Might I also add that there are some protesters who don’t follow the general reasons why people are protesting, but what I’m explaining here goes for the vast majority.

So, when it started, the yellow jacket movement was a response to a law the government wanted to pass, which would increase the price of car gas through a tax that is originally for the environement. Which, great, I’m all for it. The problem is, that instead of taxing, let’s say, oil companies, that tax was reflected directly in the price everyone pays when they’re filling their tank. Now that ties into French society in a special way. Because of History, France is a very unbalanced country. I’m not going into details because that’s an entire essay in and of itself, but Paris is nothing like the rest of France, and most people don’t view parisiens as French, and parisiens don’t view the rest of France as being the same as them. That also translates into the fact that most jobs are centralized so the average French has to take the car an insane amount every day, and that tax was so ridiculously high when you take into account just how much people drive, that most people would pay more in gas than rent every month. That made a lot of people angry, especially because as the government was talking about being eco-friendly and taxing polluting gas and blablabla, it was also signing nuclear agreements and making a bunch of extremely eco-unfriendly deals all over the place.

You must have heard somewhere that we like our strikes. We do. So when the tax was announced, the yellow jacket movement was created, and we striked. The protests were pretty mild, they were kept within the boundaries of “a few hours each saturday” for the first few weeks. But then Macron announced that he would cancel the wealthy tax (the one that makes millionaires pay an amount of tax that makes sense considering how much they make each year). That really pissed people off. So now they were protesting for the gas, and the fact that Macron was appealing to the rich by removing the tax. But the thing you gotta understand, is that this had been brewing for a long time. Two years ago, there was a nationwide movement against a law that was eventually passed through a measure called 49:3 which is a dictatorial measure that allows the government to pass any law that congress disapproves of if they say it’s important enough (spoiler alert: it wasn’t, it was a law to fuck over people who work jobs on the side, the youth joining the work force, etc.). Then last year there was the student protest that I covered here, which ended in so much violence that people my age were sent to the hospital and high-schoolers and middle-schoolers were protesting with us (uni students) and facing the police. You can’t even imagine how many times I’ve heard from my parents, my family, my family’s friends, my teachers, even my doctor, that “it’s going to break someday. You’ll see, one day, it’s going to explode.” 

I’ve been hearing that for at least five years. Five years of adults oblivious to the way they were grooming my generation to be angry, to be weary, to be suspicious of everything the government was doing, until we started it all two years ago, and now here we are.

But you may think, how did it go from protesting two taxes to the blood bath that it is now? Police violence, is how it happened. Or, to go back even further, it’s a story of how the government fucked up. They thought that sending the CRS (security police) would calm the protests and they would eventually die down. What happened was police officers fucking up repeatedly, until the government was forced to recognize what was happening and apologize, but by then there had been too many injured, too much fucking up from the gov not owning up to their mistake and the police saying they never hurt anyone (when we had freaking video evidence). And as the weeks went by, it shifted from the gas tax (that Macron cancelled in hopes of calming things down, but too late) to protesting against police violence, against the unfairness of how we’re treated, against the laws the police itself is breaking multiple times a month. And now, it’s not even about why we’re fighting, it’s about fighting period. That’s why I said in the post that this is a civil war. Because the reason we fight now, is to defend ourselves. Because if we stop going into the street, we’re dead. They’ll pass laws to silence us, laws to forbid us from protesting, laws that protect the police when they do things like drag me and my friends by the hair and order minors to kneel in rows, hands behind their heads, while pointing guns at them like we’re in fucking Nazi Germany.

Right now, it’s a fight between us and them, the people vs. the power, and does that not stink of civil war to you?

[talkingismylifewrites]

anon here is v curious about your headcanons for john/veronica/roger pls share

Okay you had no idea what you were getting yourself into when you asked me this. I will not apologize for my passions

My wife @candidroger​ and I have built out an elaborate world wherein John/Veronica/Roger are together and pure. It’s gonna be long, so STRAP IN! (long rant below the cut)

okay so it starts like this: roger and ronnie grow up in the same town and are bffs and  when they’re like seventeen roger realizes that he might..not..be straight?? he’s like definitely bi but more into dick than vagina

and he has STRICT parents who are homophobes so he’s like oh shit this is bad

and ronnie realizes that she has STRICT parents who just don’t want to see their baby girl go off and live her life in london like she’s always dreamed of? like they’re like, we can’t have you live ALONE in the BIG CITY where you could DIE so why don’t you stay here in town and just never leave the nest

so ronnie and roger are commiserating together over a bunch of wkds because they’re trash when they come to the realization that if they marry EACH OTHER they can not only make roger’s parents think he’s straight but also have ronnie’s parents let her go to uni in london

AND THEN THEY DO! they get married and roger’s parents are SO PROUD and ronnie’s parents are like, ugh FINE (minus Grandma Tetz but she deserves HER OWN STORY because that woman is hell in a handbasket and i love her)

So Ronnie and Roger move down to London together and they proceed to just fuck shit up. They have an excellent report with each other because these kids are inSANE. like they write up a prenup that is basically just that when they divorce, whoever has had the most sexual partners during their wedding wins their whole liquor stash, and that the cats (Mrs. Fuzzles [he’s a boy] and Gilgamesh [she’s a girl]) have a very detailed custody agreement. Its written on the back of a take away menu and they got it fucking notarized because they’re ~extra~

Ronnie also takes sick pleasure in trying to sabotage Roger’s chances of winning the liquor stash by kicking down his door while he’s in flagrante and being like “WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN BED WITH MY HUSBAND!”

She’s only supposed to do it the morning after, but she’s competitive and in it to win

(That’s how they meet Freddie)(he refuses to leave because he lives for the drama)

Anyways so fast forward and Queen is now a thing like they are picking up steam and they’re looking for a bassist

In comes Mr. John Richard Deacon born August the 19, 1951 

Roger is his usual flirty mess who is hitting on men and women left and right and John is like, ah gotcha, this guys just the usual player like i think he’s the prettiest guy i’ve ever seen? but he’s kinda just a fuckboi okay gotcha gotcha gotcha

And then one day they’re playing and he sees this GORGEOUS woman in the crowd and he’s like fuck that’s the one I Love Her and he’s making eyes at her across from the bar and she’s making eyes right back at him and hes!! so!! happy!!

When the set finishes he goes and puts the Disco Deacy Moves™ on her and she is just so fucking into it and John’s like hell yeah hell yeah hell yeah

Only for Roger to come bounding up to her and is like “John! I see you’ve met my WIFE Mrs. Veronica Tetzlaff-Taylor (Tetz for short)” 

And Ronnie is like yup, this is my husband, can you believe we’ve been married for 6 years???? (they wear rings john just doesn’t pay attention poor lad)

And John is just...heartbroken. Like he is CRUSHED. Here was his perfect woman but not only is she MARRIED she’s married to his bandmate who is also a serial CHEATER

and he sits on it and stews for months because Roger keeps cheating but always goes home to their apartment and Ronnie is just so much better than him?? and she doesn’t deserve this!! but what can he do?? if he tells her he ruins the band but if he doesn’t then she’ll just get more hurt? 

Basically he spends it trying to avoid her because she’s aggressively hitting on him (hey the lady’s married to roger she’s learned some shit along the way) 

Then one night, they’re all out at a bar and Ronnie like corners him and he’s drunk and she just goes for it and she plants the kiss of a lifetime on him and is like “i know you want me like i want you” (a trademark Roger Taylor Line™) and john just snaps

“What about Roger?” and Ronnie’s like “He’s going home with someone else it doesn’t matter” because she might be brilliant but she’s Dense

“I’m not going to just be with you in order to get back at Roger,” he says and pushes her off him. “I’m not your whore.” 

And he leaves and locks himself in his apartment and spends the weekend alternating between eating too much ice cream and crying and watching shitty movies and feeling all around shitty

and when the next practice comes around, he shows up looking like shit with sunglasses on and is like “alright, roger is gonna kill me for kissing his wife and i’m gonna get kicked out of the band” 

Roger is FURIOUS and he immediately just slams John up against the wall and is like “You MOTHERFUCKER who do you think you are calling Ronnie a whore?” 

And john is like wtf no i didn’t and for your information SHE kissed ME

and Roger is like “I will fucking kill you for looking at her she doesn’t DESERVE YOU she is BETTER THAN YOU!”

John is now angry and is like “Oh yeah? Well she deserves better than YOU you fucking wankstain CHEATER!!” 

And Freddie is the one who's like okay...there’s clearly some miscommunication because Roger isn’t cheating? And johns like they’re MARRIED and he’s GOING HOME WITH OTHER PEOPLE

and Roger’s like oh fuck no one actually told you??? we all just...assumed you knew...

And johns like knew what

and then roger explains how they’re married in name only so that his family won’t cut him off and so her family would let her go to her dream university and hey the tax break is fantastic so they just kept at it and it works cuz they’re best friends

Johns like...”who the fuck gets married for a tax break” 

and together freddie and brian are like “roger and ronnie do”

So John shows up at Roger and Ronnie’s flat with flowers and is like I didn’t know and I’m sorry and I really want to take you out to dinner if that’s okay with your husband

And roger is like “bring her back by nine and no funny business”

and ronnie’s like “i can blow him in the car if i want roger and we’ll be back when i want to come back you hypocrite” 

And they start dating. And then John moves in with Roger and Ronnie because Ronnie can’t abandon her husband??? And it goes from Roger&Ronnie to Roger&Ronnie&John

Two years later, John has the worlds most awkward conversation with Roger where he’s basically like, hey can you um, get a divorce from my girlfriend so i can ask her marry me??? 

And Roger at first is THRILLED because John and Ronnie are couples GOALS and he LOVES them SO MUCH and they DESERVE HAPPINESS

So they get a divorce (Roger wins the pot of alcohol but Ronnie gets Mrs. Fuzzles and Gilgamesh) (Roger cries) and Roger is like okay, cool, i’m now single this is great!

and he just spends his newly single nights hooking up with everything that moves but he just keeps feeling sadder and sadder

Until he wakes up one night two weeks before the wedding and is like Oh Fuck I’ve Fucked Up and Fallen in Love with My Ex-Wife and Her New Husband

and just shuts down and is like okay well there’s nothing I can do now they love each other and i will never ruin their happiness so I’ll just SUFFER like a MARTYR

And he gives Ronnie away at the wedding (Ronnie and John couldn’t decide who would have him as their best man/MOH and it caused their biggest fight so they decided neither could have him and they’d just have him walk her down the aisle and give the big speech at the end) and is like i will never let them know that this is Killing Me.

After the wedding he’s like, okay guess I’ll move out now? At first its okay? because he’s now got all the hot water he wants, and he doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night to Ronnie and John going at it and Ronnie doesn’t leave her hair in the sink and John doesn’t drink all the milk and put the carton back in the fridge

But he’s Lonely 

Ronnie and John go on their honeymoon and Roger goes to Freddie’s to get the drunkest he’s ever been and he confesses his feelings but is like whatever i can be strong (spoiler alert he’s not he’s very sad)

Meanwhile, in Paradise, Ronnie and John are beginning to realize that they’ve never been alone this long without Roger

And John is like, has Ronnie always talked this much without Roger there to cut her off?

And Ronnie is like, had John always breathed this loud?? why is he wheezing?? wtf???? 

And they’ll never admit it to each other, but they’re really really REALLY excited to get home and see Roger again

But they can’t say that to each other?? Because it’s their honeymoon and who wants to hear from their new spouse that they’re more excited to see their best friend/ex husband than have sex with them

So they get back and they’re like ROGER!! WE’VE MISSED YOU!!

And Roger is like I Can Never Let Them Know I Love Them

so he just plays it cool and starts to distance himself from them because he doesn’t want to ruin their newlywedded bliss

But Ronnie and John keep fighting about everything (the milk the talking the fact that john will not stop dropping his wet towels on the bathroom floor wtf john) and they keep trying to see Roger but he’s always busy now??? he has no time for them??? because he “doesn’t hang out with married couples”????

Finally it comes to a head months later where Ronnie and John are just screaming at each other from across the kitchen when Ronnie finally just screams: 

“I WOULDN’T HAVE MARRIED YOU IF I KNEW IT MEANT LOSING ROGER!”

And john’s like 

“WELL ME THE FUCK TOO, VERONICA!” 

And they stop and stare at each other and they’re like, whut

so they pull out the wine and spend the night unloading how somewhere along the way they both fell in love with Roger?? And that they can’t love each other unless Roger is there because he is their Missing Piece

But clearly Roger doesn’t love them the way they love each other

They cry and hold each other and decide that even if they can’t have Roger like that, they’ll settle for just having him in their lives as their friend again because he’s been so distant lately

So when they’re in the studio next, John pulls Roger aside and is like, look i know things have changed, but I want you to know that no matter what Ronnie and I consider you to be our best friend and we miss you so please tell me what i can do to fix this?

and roger’s like...you can’t. because its my fault and i don’t want to be like, ruining everything

and johns like just tell me i can fix it!

and roger’s like you can’t

and john’s like try me

and freddie’s like, uh, let’s not do this here--

and john’s like i just want to know why he’s ignoring me and ronnie just because we got married

and roger’s like it’s because you got married

and john’s like, fuck, is this what its about? sorry you had to get divorced but like, i wanted to marry ronnie and--

it’s not that

“then what is it roger?”

And roger just goes fuck it and is like “I wanted to be the one married. To you. Both of you. Because I love you both. Like, love love. But you’re married to each other and it sucks but i’m working on it and it’ll take some time but we can be friends once i stop yknow. Loving you. Both. The two of you. Together.”

And john just stares at him because his whole brain is rebooting. and then he just kinda goes, “okay. I uh, need to uh, talk to my wife.” 

And then he leaves

He goes home and he tells Ronnie and they get so excited they have sex right there in the front hall and then they get dressed and they go to roger’s apartment all ready to be like WE LOVE YOU TOO WE WANT YOU TO COME BACK AND MARRY US FORVER

but roger is GONE he has fled the country

with freddie

they have vanished and ronnie and john are distraught like where the fuck is he??

Crystal is like you can’t break me I’ll never tell because drummer solidarity! And john is like fucking tell me or i’ll bring out the big guns and crystal is like you don’t fucking scare me

and the Veronica comes in and he breaks in >30seconds because Ronnie is terrifying and also she knows Too Much

Roger and Freddie are in Peru

Why? Because once John left, Roger panicked nd was like I HAVE TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY!! And because Freddie is the ultimate bro he took him to heathrow and got them trashed on duty-free vodka and was like okay bb you choose where you wanna go

and roger ends up talking to this nice new age couple who were like, we just hiked all of Mechu Pechu and we have come back cleansed of all our negativity and issues and we are now so much better than we ever were before and roger in his drunken glory was like yes that there i wanna go there cleanse me of my negativity

(they hike for exactly thirty minutes before they give up and check into a 5star spa and spend the days in face masks and chugging champagne)

Ronnie and John end up hiking the trail for two whole days before they realize that there’s absolutely NO FUCKING WAY Freddie would have done this

They think Crystal LIED and Ronnie is ready to kill him and strangle him with his own intestines when John spots a head of golden hair from across the market place 

(”fuckin’ romantic nerd,” roger teases later right before ronnie twists the shit out his nipple in retaliation)

And that’s how Roger gets his declaration of love screamed at him while 200 Peruvians and tourists stare on in horror as John dips Roger backwards and tries to swallow his tongue

(”I FUCKING LOVE YOU YOU PIECE OF SHIT! YOU MADE ME GO HIKING! JUST TO TELL YOU THAT I’VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU EVEN BACK WHEN WE WERE MARRIED!” Ronnie screams)

They end up back in Roger’s hotel room wherein they proceed to dom the shit out of him like we’re talking praise kink and body worship and ronnie’s riding roger while john’s pounding him though the mattress

and the whole time they’re telling him that there is no us without you and we couldn’t work together unless you were there because we love you and you are ours and you can never leave us again and roger is loving it

and then they come home and the first thing they do is move roger into their new marital home and buy a giant mattress

Ronnie introduces them as “this is my current husband and our boyfriend my exhusband” and roger is like “this is my ex wife and her trophy husband they are both my lovers” and john is like “this is roger and veronica” 

and they spend the rest of their lives together having crazy hot sex and a billion babies

because you know Mr. I Have Six Kids and Mr. I Have Five Kids spend their days seeing who can get Ronnie pregnant the most and they are LOVING their giant ass family

and they all live happily every after

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk I hope i have converted you to the bright side 

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

okay, y’all, i’ve gotta back on my tl;dr bullshit soapbox about something:

so, the other day, i was just mindlessly scrolling through my corporate & capitalist hellscape facebook™️ (i.e. LinkedIn) and came across this totally trite mostly bullshit meme that was shared by some corporate executive search man (whose name i decided to crop out bc eh):

so i obviously agree with the last three points on this list, bc god yes my life would’ve been a bit better if I didn’t get all my dialogue about mental health only from teen mags and horrible portrayals in teen tv shows (and also this hellsite). and hell yeah everyone, and I mean EVERYONE needs to learn that failure is okay many situations (like failing a class in uni or school) bc everyone fails at something sometimes. and dealing with failure is HARD. and time management is something that I’m pretty sure everyone lies to fuckin hell about on their resume, bc lots of people really suck at it, myself included. so yeah. that needs to be taught. and i also agree with the “how to manage your health” point. bc thats becoming ever more prevalent and important with career burn out etc.

but entrepreneurship? people management? conflict resolution? creativity? how to manage money? public speaking? like y’all. three of those ARE taught/learned in school, who the fuck wrote this meme? 

for anyone who actually paid attention in maths class, (which is probably very few people outside of the top performing classes), there WAS A WHOLE FUCKING UNIT that focuses on financial maths (in australia anyway). I ignored this unit as well as maths in general at school, bc I generally hated maths and was convinced that I was somehow never going to get a job. but i remember the gist of the overall topic and its subtopics. one subtopic teaches you how to calculate your wages in various contexts (overtime, double-time and a half, holiday payments, im pretty sure maternity leave pay was jammed in somewhere? idk if other countries would have double time & a 1/2 like australia though). another subtopic teaches you how to calculate interest on bank loans and credit rates on credit cards. a third subtopic teaches you how to calculate savings (obvs in terms of discounts in shops)....im sure there was a bit about budgeting in there somewhere? im pretty sure there were some questions were about tax payments somewhere as a subtopic enrichment exercise? but you get my gist. are these not money management skills? in some sense? like if i could find one of my old maths textbooks or old maths books i’d give an example of a question, to make my point stronger. but the problem, like i said before, is that a load of people (myself included) just zone out in maths in high school and stop trying with it. they forget what they’ve learnt, and just remember how much they hated algebra and how they’ll never use it again. maths was one hell of a fucking strong bitch, guys. but maybe i’m wrong.

creativity? excuse me? have people forgotten about art classes? drama classes? english classes? music classes? need i go on? okay don’t get me wrong, most of these classes did focus a lot on memorising quotes or facts about people (artists/writers/poets/composers/dramatists etc) or specific  periods/movements in art or theatre or literature for example.... but the amazing sculptures/paintings etc people created in art for their final projects in year 12, or even in year 10 were works of their imagination. the scripts people write in drama or maybe english (if you had a fun teacher who did a screenwriting unit, for example) are creative asf. especially in year 12 when they do their major projects, where they may produce a monologue or a short movie, and then there’s a group piece. drama students might even make their own costumes for these performances. LIKE AIN’T THAT A LOT OF CREATIVITY RIGHT THERE Y’ALL????? and english. lowly old english. THEY HAVE A WHOLE FUCKING TOPIC ON CREATIVE WRITING FOR FUCKS SAKE. the original music people might create for their final projects too in year 12? does that not count as creativity? like yes, i know a lot of these things do still have to meet bs assessment criteria (especially in catholic schools, where the main things are you don’t offend the catholic education office and jesus/god lmao) to be considered worthy of a mark for your year 12 exams. but FUCK. HOW THE FUCK AREN’T ANY OF THESE SUBJECTS COUNTED TOWARDS BEING CREATIVE???????? like fuck your corporate creative ideation or w/e bullshit, Callum. drama and english even lend themselves to improvisation in some instances, like public speaking, which is examined further, below.

next, we move on to public speaking. this shit is basically taught from the first goddamn day of “show & tell” in kindy/kindergarten, and this fucker has the gall to say that it’s not fucking taught in schools? someone call in miley cyrus/hannah montana to throw the fuck down in this motherfucking hoedown BC THIS STUPID-ASS MEME-FUCKER HAS NERVE. i hated public speaking. absolutely hated it. even though it was ironically one of the places i ended up excelling in in english classes. even when i fucked up in my english speeches with like “oh, fuck.... said nelson mandela,  i’ve seem to’ve lost my palm card. wait, shit! there it is... excuse me while i pull it out of my ass. whoops, sorry miss” *bats eyes and finger guns at my year 9 english teacher who has her head in her hands and is done with my shit, while the class laughs at my gaffe* i’d still end up with like 73% or like 26/30. it was baffling. but for people who weren’t the class clown/smart alec like i was from years 7-10 (and like i actually wasn’t once i moved schools).... public speaking is like the leading cause of anxiety, right? like by the time i got to doing speeches/presentations at uni i was having panic attacks... the thought of presenting to my classes made me fucking sick with fear and anxiety. nearly every subject i did at uni (even when i tried to avoid subs with public speaking assessments) and throughout school had some type of presentation/speech whatever you want to call it project/activity in it. even fucking SPORT/PDHPE at school and even philosophy at uni. and these fuckers are saying its not taught in schools. FUCK  OFF. like yeah, i get that they actually mean it in the professional sense.... where people can give the sappy bs motivational speeches or an insightful ted-talk worthy 20-minute presentation... or a great sales pitch. but like??? save that for mike “my dad phoned in to EY and i have a job waiting for me after uni” mcfuck in a business major or law degree? or for clubs like toastmasters? fuck. ok enough of the skills we learn in school. let’s move onto the businesslike-sounding ones of “people management”, “conflict management” and fucking “entrepreneurship”. like. what the fuck? okay in some sense people management and conflict management could potentially be used in managing friendships and relationships in your personal life. but like. i can feel the business underpinnings and i dont like it lmao. like why do you want fully functioning adults straight out of school, franklin? and there’s extra credit conflict management subjects at uni??? or at least my home uni had it... and i never did them bc they were intensive courses during summer break lol. but the one that pissed me off the most was entrepreneurship. LIKE ARE KIDS NOT FUCKING ALLOWED TO BE KIDS NOW????? well  apparently: “NO! YOU MUST ALWAYS THINK OF MONEY MAKING WAYS TO BE RICH! YOU MUST BE ENTREPRENEURIAL!!!!!! YOU MUST GENERATE BUSINESS IDEAS FROM THE TIME YOU CAN FUCKIN’ WALK!!!!! AND SPEAK!!! CHILDHOOD AND BEING A TEENAGER DON’T EXIST WORKER BEE!!!! CAPITALISM FOR ALL!!!! WORKER BEES!!! CAPITALISM IS YOUR FRIEND!!! OWN A BUSINESS BY THE TIME YOU’RE 8 YEARS OLD!” like it’s insidious asf. and it doesn’t acknowledge that most entrepreneurs are already privileged people anyway, who usually have some type of money to start off their venture (or that’s what it feels like anyway). and yeah throw all the “THIS BOY IS AN ENTREPRENEUR AT 18!!! 18!!!???? BY STARTING HIS OWN BUSINESS AT 12!!!! WHAT A CHAMP! 😁🙃” clickbait news stories at me, but i don’t fucking care. the concept and perceived over-importance and almost preaching mindset of entrepreneurship is slowly becoming insidious and toxic asf. call me paranoid. but that’s what it feels like.

but with those last three topics, i want to make a point that school curriculum’s (in australia at least, and probably worldwide) are so jam-packed already with sport (which is pointless and shitty), geography (ok how to read maps is important, but i never bothered to learned to do it properly), history, science, english etc etc etc..... that like.... where the actual fuck are the gonna jam the above bs (people management”, “conflict management” and entrepreneurship) into the curriculum???? and also teachers are already over-worked enough as it is, they don’t need another load of shitty subjects pushed onto them. and they sure asf don’t earn enough (especially in the states) to have this bs pushed into their subject schedules either. keep them at uni, where they should be. or just in the workplace/in the general public where they belong. and if people suggest that you could probably push these subjects into the year 11/12 business studies programs or elective commerce courses in years 9/10, save your goddamn breath. like i remember looking at business studies hsc papers in years 11/12 to see what they did.... and it was pretty chock-a-block anyway. and my experience of my year 9 commerce was horrible, to say the least. let kids be kids, for fucks sake. they shouldn’t have to be fully functioning adults in the workplace, by the end of high school, for fucks sake. AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS NOT AN ESSENTIAL SKILL????!!!! FUCK OFF WITH THAT SHIT, WILHELM. anyway. that’s my rant over about how i hate how corporate people are trying to be #relatablewiththeyouth🙃 with their shitty versions of “10 things i wish we learned in school” memes.... and failing.... without realising that this is why millennials are suspicious and cynical about meme usage by corporate people/corporations.

[aquarianlights]

Happy Personal Update Time!!

I know I promised to do this forever ago, but things got busy. So here I am!

Most of you know this is my personal blog, but it has become a lot less personal since pursing medical education. I’m still here, though, and I still love coming here to read all the asks I get and interact with all my followers and all that good stuff. What I really miss is being able to post text posts. They have always been my way of venting and letting go of inward pain, anger, frustration, etc... Text posts/ranting have always been super cathartic for me. But my life is great now and I’m happy to just jump back in to give a long overdue update every once in a while because I miss doing it and I know I still have longtime followers somewhere in that list of people. Haha. Exciting stuff is happening, though!! And I’m very excited to share it, as well.

SO.............this is gonna be long because THERE’S GREAT STUFF HAPPENING!! :D AND I WANT TO SHARE IT ALL!! I hope someone will read this coz man oh man have I come a long fucking way from the whiny little drug addicted suicidal little boy I used to be. Haha. :)

This fall semester is going to be just lovely. I’m going to have the opportunity to work with one of the clubs I’m joining to teach high schoolers how to properly do dissections. I’ll be taught how to properly clean equipment like microscopes and auger plates and such. And I’ll be working alongside a couple of my professors and other club members to mentor high schoolers in some cool biology stuff. :)

The other night, I finally got official international membership with Phi Theta Kappa and also got international membership with the Omega Nu Chapter. I’ll be receiving all that good proof stuff soon like certificates and such, but the reason I’m primarily excited about that is because that opens me up to a TON of scholarship opportunities. Both of those societies give out a fuckton of money every year for academic achievement and with me transferring schools, I’m hoping to be lucky enough to snag some of that.

One of my professors recommended me for a student council officer position and I found out recently that he spoke with another professor in the same department that had me as a student and she got on board with that, but I’m not entirely sure I want to go that route because while I was writing up my essay to submit to the current SGA explaining why they should choose me for one of the officer positions, I really didn’t feel all that passionate at all about it, so I’d much rather someone with a passion for the position have it, but it made me feel good that my professors have that kind of faith in me. I’m still debating on it, though.

Another professor of mine submitted my name for an internship position with a student partnership that eventually leads you to an invite-only online community where you can be set up with more internship opportunities and helps to make connections in your field and all sorts of stuff. The internship has a $200 stipend for the first semester that you do it and a $250 stipend for every following semester that you do it. 

I was going to try it out with her this summer semester, but I had *NO* idea there was so much involved. By the time I had completed my 10 hours of training, I was in shock by the amount of work I was going to need to do to prepare for the role so I’ll actually be taking it on for the first time during Fall semester instead of summer, which is annoying because part of this internship requires you to make a short presentation in every one of the classes that the professor has that term for the students their class (and any other professor in the department who uses the software who may need you), record said lecture and put it up on canvas with the professor for anyone who missed the 1st day of class and for any online classes, be open for any questions after the presentation from both the students and the professor, hold at least 2 hours worth of office hours during the first week, and a *TON* of other stuff that happens prior to the semester before this and after this throughout the semester that would take forever to list. This is annoying that I am having to start in the fall because summer semester has less than HALF the students that fall has. There’s barely anyone there in the summer at all and summer classes are usually very laid back. The teachers are so chill in the summer and usually don’t care much, whereas the Fall semester is serious business and there are TONS of incoming freshman all confused about where they are going and everyone is lost and in a hurry and nervous and it is just total chaos literally everywhere on any campus you go to. So we really wanted to test this out during summer, but there’s just no way. The amount of representatives I have to meet and sit down with and hash out certain details with prior to even making this presentation is going to take me at least a couple weeks and summer semester starts next week. Lol. I only had like 3 weeks from the time my professor submitted my name. Was not nearly enough time.

It’s a very overwhelming internship and the work is... daunting. I mean, it is going to be a *LOT* of work and it is something I have never done before and it will be a style of leadership that I have never had placed on my shoulders before, but everyone has to take that first step at some point in their life. I hope I can do it. I’m going to try... I won’t say I’m not nervous about standing in front of a lecture hall full of students... but I’m probably not as nervous as some would be. I used to hold rally’s in my town square when I was younger to inform the public on the dangers of puppy mills, so I’m quite comfortable with public speaking, but I will say that it has been a good minute since I have done it and I have never stood up in front of a lecture room full of college students who are the same as I am and tried to pretend to know exactly what I’m doing. That’s a little scary to me. Ngl. Lol.

I’m going to be taking American Sign Language as a fluff class to boost my GPA, so I’m really excited about that because I’ve been wanting to learn it really badly. Just wanted to throw that in there haha. :)

That’s about it for the really BIG things for Fall Semester right now, not including like... the normal hard classes, graduating and switching uni’s soon and stuff. Which I’m super excited about!!

BUT!!...This summer is gonna be lit as well!

I got a volunteer position that I’m going to be in orientation for sometime soon (I think next week is what she said) where I’m going to a local shelter and all I’m doing all day is walking dogs, socializing dogs (basically playing with them and getting them comfortable around humans and other dogs so they’re more adoptable), bathing dogs, and basic training (sit, stay, etc...). It is basically my DREAM volunteer position!!

I just remembered reading an article at one point that said “most people don’t know that shelters really need people to just walk the dogs because regular volunteers usually don’t have the time”. And I remembered volunteering at the Humane Society when I was more able bodied than I am now and that was not something I could do now. It was much too physically taxing. Cleaning kennels, washing over 100 dog bowls in a massive sink that I had to stand on a stool to reach, washing tons of worn out dog blankets and toys, carrying heavy loads of laundry, carrying heavy water dishes out to the play yard, filling up buckets and carrying them, scrubbing the floors with a scrubber thing, etc etc etc... like, I could barely do it as able bodied as I was then. There was no slowing down because you had to rotate the dogs out and you only had a certain amount of time to clean the few bowls and toys/beds/towels we had and only a certain amount of time to power wash/spray down the kennels they were in. It was very very fast paced work and one large break in the middle of the day and I had to leave early and I know I could not do that now. Not in a million years. 

Dog walking is something I can do with any size dog. Dog washing is still something I can do and something I have done professionally many times in the grooming industry. Dog socializing is wonderfully cathartic for me AND them. And I’m quite good with basic training, despite what it may seem with Echo...lmao (he just hasn’t been around consistency, which is a huge problem).

So I’m very very excited to get through my orientation and get started on this volunteer position! They were so kind and said that my physical disabilities would be no problem and they could work with me on my pace. I’m really looking forward to this and I’m hoping I can maybe fit it into my schedule when school starts up, even if I have to cut it down to just a couple hours, one day a week.

AND THEN........

In my PERSONAL life...

I’ve made a really cool circle of friends who isn’t intertwined with one of the most toxic people in my life that I really love and will most likely keep in my life forever because I truly believe they can unlearn the toxic behaviour and they’re one of my platonic soul mates. So I now have this really awesome circle of friends that I’m experiencing and learning all these new things about myself and about New Orleans and I keep getting closer with them.

((I may or may not post a rant I wrote up about that, coz it’s painful to talk about. And this is a happy post so it doesn’t go here!!))

I’m learning how to cook through one of those friends. I don’t have enough money to throw at a Hello Fresh subscription, but one of my next door neighbours in my apartment complex has turned into my really good friend and she has a Hello Fresh bi-weekly subscription and it usually is a 2-serving dish and we both live alone and we are both learning to cook for the first time, so we are doing it together. :D She invites me over to her apartment whenever she’s cooking and we’ll just muddle through learning how to cook together. It’s going to be a lot of fun honestly because I have SOOOOO much to learn!! :) Recently got a NutriBullet so I can make protein shakes, but I need to look at recipe’s coz mixing protein powder with just milk or water is awful. Ugh.

I’ve made up my own 30 day challenge for exercising and basically just becoming more healthy and getting my heart and muscles in better shape. June has 30 days so I figured what better way to do a 30 day challenge than on a month that has 30 days lol. Easy to keep track of, right? I made myself a chart and put it on my fridge and everything. Going to keep a log. I’m very excited to see the difference between day 1 and day 30. Going to take pictures for comparison. Idk if 30 days will make that big of a difference, honestly but... we’ll see??? Lol.

I guess this should go up in the school section, but I’m also working on quite a few scholarship entries so we’ll see how that goes!! I had NO idea so many easy essay scholarships were out there!! Keeping it to 1k words is the hard part. :( Eeeeeeeeeeep!!

Been studying for the MCAT’s and tryna find a medical math tutor. It’s gonna be hard, but... we’ll see. Hopefully the MCAT prep classes will help.

I’m in love with deep cleaning and organizing and my neighbour is gonna pay me to clean her apartment and then I’m going over to her mother’s house that she’s renting out (her mother passed away recently and she couldn’t handle staying in the house anymore) to help her Marie Kondo the place. We’re just gonna kind of... go at her own pace, slowly thank everything for doing its job, and get rid of everything that we can and deep clean everything while we are doing it. Probably just take it a day or a week at a time. I’ll be there with her to support her through the process...like if she needs to cry on someone when she sees a certain item or something. I’m excited to help with her journey to recovery and I’m so honoured to be given the chance to be someone’s rock. I love the bond me and my neighbour are developing. I just feel so honoured.

I’m going up to my parents house, then up to Virginia, then hopefully MA towards the end of the summer. Looking forward to the trip quite a bit. :)

HONESTLY... 

I’m just so freakin’ excited. My life is going so wonderfully. Everything is so great. My apartment is wonderful, my relationship with my mom is on the mend because of how well in school I’m doing (you all know that’s all she cares about lol), I have wonderful friends and a great support group, my therapist and I click really well, I’m making opportunities happen and having opportunities open up to me in return, I’m meeting new people and seeing new things, I’m feeling physically healthier than ever (even though my chronic pain is worse than ever), I almost always wake up in a good mood, I’ve been getting a good amount of sleep almost every single night, school is good, connections in the professional world are growing... 

The ONLY thing holding me back right now is money. I’m pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and it is killing me. The amount of things I *WANT* to do but don’t have the money for is just killing me. I’ve been wanting to take dance lessons, but I don’t have the money. Been wanting to sign up to a yoga studio and FINALLY found one IN MY AREA(!!) that had instructors trained in dealing with people with ehlers danlos syndrome (which is crazy coz lots of yoga instructors turn me away when they hear I have ehlers danlos type 3), but I can’t afford it. 

I can barely pay my rent. :| I’m lucky I have EBT, otherwise I literally would not have had any food over the past 2 months. I would have had to choose between having a roof over my head or having food, so thank FUCK I have EBT coz I have a full cabinet and fridge right now. Fucking bless. Lololol.

I’m just so content. There’s a lot of stuff going wrong here and there and a lot of stuff stressing me out, but OVERALL... I couldn’t be happier.

Things have really taken a turn in my life and I have been waiting for them to all come crashing down for 2 years now and they still haven’t and that’s amazing to me.

And there’s my update lol. Hope you enjoyed the Killian Chronicles.  😂 😂 😂 Love and missed you all!  😘

((PS: This has not been proofread and most likely never will be. Free-flow-thought writing is my specialty lol.))

[larissaloki]

Larissaloki homelife rants

Ok this is a major rant to get things off my chest and f have trigger warnings for suicide and depression and such things, dont read. Ps this post i an absolute mess of a rant.

Ok so I’m only 2fucking4, and i am already wanting life to just bloody end. Literally life is killing me. Not to be a whiny millennial but life is fucking difficult for any singular person to get by. Everything in governments are pretty much based (at least it seems in the uk) on relying on a good network of people around you.

I have a loose network of people and none i can depend on financially. I mean this as nicely as possible and ill explain why. My best friend that help me is dealing with trying to find her own way in life and save money and i working nearly all the time to get by. All grandparents are either working full time still at their age or medically unable to help out.

When i was childless i had an ok life but i was still with mum unable to save up to move out. At least not by myself. But i had plans for uni out of my home county. Courses that require me to not be pregnant.

I fell pregnant as contraception failed me. The guy i was with didn’t want kids but I’m against abortions unless needed. I was medically healthy and at the time i had lots of support from my mum so I made the decision to keep. I managed to get a fairly good job that worked around my lifestyle and my mums hours and was coping great.

Then things slowly fell apart. My mum kept changing hours to the point i was unable to have a stable baby sitter for when i needed to work. The other grandparent works full time and so would be unable to help. So i regretfully had to resign from work to stay home.

Now a lot of people see to think people on benefits live great lives and have lots of money. No we don’t.

Bills still need paying. They rack up while your waiting for said benefits to go through. I already suffer anxiety and depression and this just really set me off. Ive only been on benefits for 1 year and a half but i can already see the difference in spending. When i first started i could spend 30 out of my 60 I get a week for minimum amount of food and the rest for bus fair for appointments or to get around as i had a child in a buggy. The rest went on bills and replacing things that seemed to keep breaking and my rapidly growing child (i got a further 70 from another benefit a week which wa used on the stuff i just mentioned) i never had extra one so Christmas was a far off dream and pretty much sucked. I never felt so bad as unable to get anything great for my kid other than a few small items or cheap stuff or had my mum help me with.

Over the course of my time on benefits I’ve ended up spending more on food weekly as food prices (often nearer to 60-70 a week now) or bus fair rises (3;50 to being 4 pounds). My benefits don’t. From before where i had no extra money to begin with I’m nowhving to try and rebudget.

Over the course of the year my laptop broke that i use to battle depression by writing and job searching. My phone has broken and at the moment I’m burrowing old models from my best friend. I own literally nothing. Yet these things are required to be able to function in everyday society. I cant use library much as it requires bus fair to get to each day if i wanted to go and. Can’t go in each day anyway with a child that refuses to stay still. My son is energetic and even at 3 doesn’t sleep through the night. Wakes up 5;30 each morning at the moment.

As it is I’m sat at home each day every day wondering how the fuck am. Going to adjust next week money to pay so so bill?! Im already spending nearly 15 on jut electric alone at the moment. 12 for tv license, 40 for water and 10 for gas and finally 20 for council tax. Take in what i earn above plus adding once a month I get 80 which. Use for my water bill and bus fair each month.

All this is before i even get to my actual tv packages which are basic and my phone contract to be able to keep on the net and contact with family members that all live outside of my county.

If I didn’t have my son right now i honestly would have given up on life. I’m just tired of just fuckng going hungry to make sure my kid if healthy and happy. My body has pretty much gone into survival mode where every bit of food i do eat is stored in me making me actually gain weight even though i eat like a mouse!

I’m fucking tired of government trying to make it worse by cutting back certain benefit and yet giving themselves wages that rival footballers.

My son i what keeps me going his cheeky smiles and love and innocence gives me life to keep on. My bet friend also deserves thanks as without her support despite her own struggles and buying me food every now and again i would not be driven to do certain projects or would of had complete meltdowns. Bless zach’s other grandma that helps us as well when she can an buy’s us food occasionally.

Don’t take those that help you for granted. Cherish those that offer a hand despite everything else.

[emetoandotherthings]

A/N: So @ocsickficsideblog is being super patient and amazing by collabing with me! (April you are actually the best! 💙). This is with her new boy Oliver, and my old boy Jack when he was still using. TW: Drug mention, also lil bit of omo.  I hope you enjoy as much as I did writing it! 😊

When Oliver staggered home that evening after buying himself a meagre dinner of a stale pizza slice and on the turn meat from the reduced section of the supermarket, all he wanted was to lay down and sleep. You wouldn’t think it was very tiring, begging - after all, it’s just sitting on a street or in a doorway waving a paper cup. But it was mentally taxing; there was the humiliation, the people who berated you for being a layabout, and then the people who ignored you completely, staring through you like you were a ghost. Oliver almost preferred those who yelled at him. At least that reminded him he was alive, he was human.

So when Oliver staggered back to the squat to find some strange boy sprawled out on the mattress he claimed with eyes as big as dinner plates, he wasn’t happy. He nudged the boy irritably with the toe of his shoe. “Oi, you! Shift yourself! That’s where I sleep.”

The boy stirred, opening a bleary eye and looked up at Oliver. “An’ righ’ now it’s where I’m sleepin’...”

“No you ain’t. Move it or I’ll tip you off,” Oliver threatened. “What the hell have you been takin’? I keep tellin’ all the others that I don’t want anythin’ to do with that shit.”

“Jus’ - jus’ lay down beside,” he slurred, waving his hand slightly haphazardly. “There’s plen’y space… I’m - I…” He trailed off into nothing.

Oliver sighed irritably. He shoved the boy to the side and curled up beside him, not quite mean enough to tip him onto the floor, but not about to take the floor himself. “You’re an asshole.”

“Don’t I know it…” He mumbled, then Oliver saw him grimace. “Agh..”

Oliver frowned. “What?”

“Ach...nothin’...” He muttered, but he was shivering where he lay.

“You get used to the cold,” Oliver mumbled to him. That was a lie - or at least getting used to the cold took longer than the nine months Oliver had been on the streets, but it seemed like the right thing to say. Lies could be very comforting sometimes - at least for a while.

“I-know,” he shivered, his teeth chattering. “ ‘t’s not… it’snot…”

Oliver rolled over. “Are you alright? Really? You better not be OD-ing. I’ve seen a couple of guys go that way, fuckin’ scariest shit I’ve ever seen.”

“‘M not…” He opened his eyes, they were glazed over. “I don’t… I don’t know…”

Oliver propped himself up on one elbow, looking the boy over carefully. “Are you on the streets? What’s your name? I haven’t seen you around.”

“I’m… I’m…” He started, then seemed to crumple, his face screwing up, as he pushed himself up slightly. “I’m so stupid!”

Oliver frowned. “Whoa, hey. What’s goin’ on?”

“Oh god…” He sat upright and prompted swayed so badly that he fell against the wall with a large thump. “I dunno what I’m doin’ - why am I here? I…”

“Mate, chill. You’re alright,” Oliver said, rather flustered. “Look...you’re too well-scrubbed to be homeless. Let me take you home, yeah? Do you ‘ave family? Friends?”

“No…” He whined, clapping his hands to his face. “I fucked up… again!”

Oliver took hold of his wrists. “What’d ya do? Come on, mate, it can’t be that bad.”

“It’s - I jus’ always do… Jack the bloody fuck up,” he muttered, sagging down into himself.

“So you’re Jack,” Oliver said unhelpfully. “I’m Oliver. And mate, if you’ve got good friends, unless you’ve killed someone or fucked someone’s missus, they’ll forgive ya. And they wouldn’t want ya lying here off ya face in a squat.”

“That’s wha’ I keep doin’ wrong…” He moaned, running his hands through his hair and tugging at it harshly. Oliver tried to grab his hands again.

“Stop hurtin’ yourself! You mean you’re addicted? What’re you pushing?” He asked.

“Wha’ am I no’?” Jack didn’t seem able to keep himself steady, every time he pushed himself away from the wall he ended up sliding back down again.

Oliver held his shoulders tight, swearing. “You’re a fuckin’ mess. I’m takin’ you home.”

“No… I jus’,” Jack slurred a little. “Jus’ give me a minute, I’ll go…”

Oliver scoffed. “As if I’m lettin’ you go off alone!”

“I’ll - I’ll be fine,” Jack said. “I always am…”

“Bollocks. I’m comin’ too,” Oliver said stubbornly.

“You… You don’t have -” Jack slowed to a stop. Oliver frowned.

“What? You alright?”

Jack slumped forwards, his head was spinning and the room seemed to be following with it. He took a few short gasping breaths in, trying to make everything stop whirling around. Oliver swore again, gently pushing Jack’s head down so he was hanging over his lap. “Careful. Fuck, how much did you have?”

“I… I don’t know…” Jack’s voice was barely more than a whisper; his head was pounding so hard he could feel it in the back of his eyes. He felt shaky and cold all over. “I need… move…”

“You need to move?” Oliver asked, not understanding. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”

Jack swallowed hard, all of his insides felt like they were in a tight knot, and Oliver’s features seemed to be dancing about on his face. “ ‘m gonna be sick…”

That got Oliver moving. He leapt up at once, out of range, but he moved behind Jack and kept hold of his shoulders. “Look at the fuckin’ mess you’re in… This is why I don’t take shit.”

“I’m s-sorry…” Jack howled, trying with difficulty to crawl along the mattress to the end of the room where a patch of damp was growing up.

“Jack?” Oliver called, feeling slightly guilty. “Come ‘ere, would ya? Stay fuckin’ still.” He went over and gripped his shoulders again.

“I don’t - don’ wanna get sick on your bed,” Jack forced, his voice strained as his throat tightened involuntarily, and he bit back the heave.

“Doesn’t really matter. I can sponge it off okay. ‘Ere, you focus on the task at hand. Breathe when you can,” Oliver said, massaging Jack’s quivering shoulders.

“Oh..oh god,” Jack leant forward, his shoulders jerking as he tried to stop the heaves. “Hmmrrkk!” He retched dryly, then rubbed his hand across his chest. Oliver wrapped an arm around his waist to keep him steady.

“That’s it. Just spew it up, mate, you’ll feel better.”

“Ohh…” Jack groaned, closing his eyes and breathing in through his nose. “G’kkklluuuuuurrrggghhhh!” Suddenly Jack couldn’t breathe, his nose and mouth were full as a massive gush of liquid came flooding up from his stomach and splattering on the floor. He coughed and spluttered, his eyes watering as he tried to get a breath in.

Oliver cringed a little, looking away, but he rubbed between Jack’s shoulders blades. “Ugh - um, doin’ great.”

“Huh - sorry…” Jack mumbled, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, but he mistimed as his stomach gave another squeeze and another wave of puke deluged down his front.

“Shit, now you’re covered, mate,” Oliver said regretfully. “I’m definitely draggin’ you home after this.”

“Oh…” Jack said, looking down at himself almost in confusion. “Hmmmblllrruuuhhh!” Something was caught in Jack’s throat, he gagged repeatedly, unable to clear whatever it was; he felt light headed and the only thing keeping him upright was Oliver’s hands. “Hrrrk!” His stomach was still cramping, but now he felt something wet and warm dripping down his leg and when he looked down he could see a large damp patch from the crotch of his jeans spreading down his legs. “Fuck…”

Oliver didn’t notice at first, thinking he was just reacting to vomiting so harshly. It wasn’t until a puddle started growing across the grubby floor that he caught on. “Oh…”

“Hmmlk!” Jack retched dryly again, then muttered mournfully. “I - I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay, mate. Seen it before,” Oliver mumbled awkwardly, his pale cheeks pink.

“I didn't… I'm - ugh - sorry,” Jack flustered. “Thanks…”

“You can tie my jacket around ya waist. You empty?” Oliver asked.

“Yeah…” Jack wiped his mouth again with his dirty sleeve. “Shit I'm fucked Oliver… I didn't mean for this…” He sounded choked, emotional.

Oliver wasn’t great with tears either. “Hey hey, you’re alright. Ya can get cleaned up at home, yeah? Come on, ya need a warm place to sleep.” He tried to help Jack stand up.

Jack wobbled, steadying himself by putting his hand on the wall and looking precariously like he might be about to fall into the puddle of sick.

“Yeah,” Jack said, subdued. “You can too…”

Oliver slung Jack’s arm over his shoulder. “Where are we goin’ then?”

“I'm, I stay up by the uni,” Jack answered, his knees taking a bit of time to work again. “I'll - I'll direct. “

Oliver nodded, half-carrying Jack in the general direction of the university. He knew the area well; he knew the best places to sit and beg at each part of the day, he knew the places most likely to be monitored by CCTV, he knew the places where you could curl up in a doorway and usually be left alone.

“I’m up in here,” Jack mumbled when they drew close to the apartment building, but he hesitated, still leaning on Oliver. “God Blake’s gonna murder me…”

“That your boyfriend?” Oliver asked, pulling Jack along with him. “Come on, may as well grab ‘im by the horns.”

“Nah, my best friend,” he said, “he’s forever telling me to stop.”

“Well, I fuckin’ agree with ‘im,” Oliver said dryly.

“‘M sorry…” Jack mumbled. “Everyon’ does… I just can’t.”

Oliver sighed sadly. “I’m not gonna judge ya. Everyone has their demons. I don’t know you from Adam, I don’t know why you’re doin’ this. Come on, let’s go face the wrath of Blake.”

“Why you doin’ this?” Jack asked, frowning at Oliver.

“Doin’ what? Helpin’”

“Yeah… like, you coulda just kicked me ou’ and left me,” Jack shrugged. “Most people do…”

Oliver paused. “When I first ran off, I learned a lot, ya know. I’ve seen people do shit that would make ya sick. And I know ‘ow much a tiny bit of kindness makes ya feel better. Like the bloke who gives me chocolate and drinks for free, and he’s only got a little shop, he’s not even makin’ much. Or the old guy who always buys me a cup of coffee on Fridays when I’m beggin’ near the church. They don’t remember it, but I do. So that’s why I’m helpin’ ya. ‘Cause sometimes it’s all that keeps ya goin’.”

“You’re… you’re so nice,” Jack made this sound like it was unusual and Oliver gave a little chuckle. “It’s this door,” Jack pointed, fumbling in his pocket trying to find the keycard to let him in. “God, I can never ge’ my fingers to work…”

Oliver rolled his eyes at him. “Give it ‘ere, i'll do it.”

Jack handed over the card and Oliver waved it across the box, the light turned from red to green and the lock on the door clicked. Oliver pulled it open.

“I’m on t’ second floor,” Jack said, leading him over to the staircase. In the full glare of the flat hallway Jack could see the state he was in, his trousers still damp and vomit all down his front. Oliver practically dragged him up the staircase, letting Jack lead him to the right door and knocking loudly.

There was a pause, then the door creaked open and a pale face with a mop of curly brown hair peered out.

“Oh, fucking hell Jack,” the guy muttered, flinging the door wide and rushing out to support Jack. “Aiden! Aiden! He called over his shoulder into the flat. “Oh Jack! What’ve you done now?”

“It’s alright, mate. He’s not dying. He’s walkin’ and talkin’, makin’ sense. He’ll be fine,” Oliver said. “You’re Blake?”

“Yeah,” the boy nodded, half dragging Jack into the flat hallway as another red-headed boy emerged from one of the rooms. “Come in.”

“Oh… ‘S alright. I was just makin’ sure Jack got ‘ome safe,” Oliver said, looking flustered, but Jack’s hand shot out and grabbed Oliver’s jacket.

“Com’ in,” he said firmly, tugging him inside. Oliver had no choice but to follow, rolling his eyes fondly. He had to admit, the warm air in the house felt good when it hit his face. He looked around with a sigh, feeling a tug of melancholy. He’d stayed in any number of places in his life, posh places, poor places, flats and bungalows, tidy places, messy places - but none of them had felt like home.

Jack was sagging more against Blake, his eyes half shut and bleary.

“You brought him home, you're staying,” Blake told Oliver. “Aiden - come help, we need to hose Jack down.”

“Make sure he takes a piss before you put ‘im down to bed,” Oliver advised. “Don’t want ‘im wettin’ on your sofa. And put ‘im on ‘is side. But I guess you know that.”

“Oh yeah,” Blake nodded, “We're well experienced… Look - that room there is Jack’s, use it - I think I'll be up with him for a while.” He pointed to one of the doors, trying to tug Jack more upright.

Oliver hesitated. “Don’t you want me to ‘elp?”

“Nah, it's fine,” Blake shook his head. “I'm used to this.”

Oliver sighed and gave him a sad smile. He went and perched awkwardly on the sofa, peering at the photos, wondering why those guys trusted him to be left alone. He could have taken anything - and he was tempted too. But Oliver couldn’t do it, not to these guys. He’d just delivered their friend home, off his head and coated with vomit and piss. He wasn’t about to rob them too.

The door pushed open, and Blake reappeared, carrying a towel in his arms.

“Sorry, I didn't ask your name,” Blake asked.

“Oliver,” he said with a nod. “Don’t worry, I could see you were occupied with Jack.”

“Thanks for bringing him home,” Blake said. “I really appreciate it… Look, we'll be ten or fifteen minutes cleaning Jack up, then he'll sleep through with me so I can check on him. The shower’ll be free then, and just help yourself to whatever’s in the kitchen, and use Jack’s bed… he bloody owes you!”

Oliver paused, considering. “You sure? ‘Ow’ed you know I needed a bed?””

“Positive,” Blake nodded, then he smiled. “Most people that ever bring Jack home, or contact us about him could do with a helping hand too - and I ain't meaning charity!” Blake put his hand up firmly. “Jack’s bloody lucky he's got folk… I know not everyone does.”

Oliver smiled wryly. “He’s bloody lucky he’s got you, let me tell ya. Okay, if you’ll ‘ave me, I’ll stay.”

“Honestly, you’re more than welcome!” Blake said genuinely. “Bed, shower, food, whatever - okay?”

Oliver couldn’t help but smile at him. “You sure you don’t want ‘elp with Jack? Wouldn’t be the first time I ‘osed someone off.”

“It’s not ours either,” Blake smiled, but he looked a little tired. “Aiden’s training to be a nurse, so he’s always the best at it. You chill…”

Oliver nodded. “Okay. Thanks, mate. Really, I mean it. This...sort of thing means a lot.”

“It’s no problem,” Blake headed to the door. “Absolutely none.”

[mc-slowwalker]

delta’s kicking our asses down in australia too. plus our vaccine rollout is just terrible. like I don’t think imma be travelling anywhere till like next year at the earliest and certainly not anytime soon. I 100% would overthink any reaction so much it’s be easier to just like not. idk I have a weird thing about meeting ccs

noooo not the year book. we had like a grad ceremony I guess you could call it like out on a field and everyone dressed up like it was formal and we were all sat socially distanced seats and the parents were all in cars behind us and there was a stage where people got up and said stuff and they gave us all plants at the end of it. my dog destroyed mine on like the second day 😔✌️

I got so much worse as a student because of corona. minimal studying went down to zero. like I already got distracted and bored too easily in school staying at home and doing school was an absolute nightmare. I finished tho and did well enough to get into the course and uni I wanted so we vibing now.

but most importantly mcc!!! mcc was so fucking good oh my god. it was soo fun !!! red rabbits were such a great team to watch too their dynamics were wonderful. they were all so encouraging too it was great !!quackitys song was so funny lmao. imma be going back and watching pink and yellows vods but ahhh red!! and the way the brought it back in survival games holy shit that was insane and fucking sapnap oh my god did so goddamn well. and dream and sapnap duo was so good !!! absolutely perfect. the game order was so weird too but like wow it was very entertaining. dream’s sands of time stressed me the fuck out though like damn. I’m still not over survival games!! AND SAPNPA HOLE IN THE WALL AND FIRST OVERALL FINALLY S TIER AND FUCK REDDIT!! AND QUACKITYS FIRST WIN!!! and even pink parrots did so well and ranboos first mcc !!! plus the captains curse is broken!! (technically it was broken by green guardians lmaoooo) I’m still not over survival games and the way they brought it back. sapnap and dream in survival games like damn. like there’s so much to say. they popped off tho that’s the main thing. this was a great mcc very enjoyable 10/10 will watch all the vods. I have more to say but I can’t remember cause I woke up early for mcc (curse time zones) and I’m so tired now

lmao it’s funny how we’ve moved like practically completely away from dream smo character analysis

L to your vaccine rollout. America has a pretty good vaccine rollout but uh….. people aren’t taking them. There’s so many vaccines going to waste because people just aren’t showing up really pisses me off. I really hate it here!!! I would feel the same about traveling but I learned that if I am not on campus for school I actually cannot do work so I’m headed back down there in the fall. I’m anxious because despite delta everyone is basically “over it” so restrictions are going wayyy down. I’ll also have a roommate so catch me wearing my mask even in my own room

You say you got plants I say they gave your dog a salad /j but that sounds sweet! My friend got something similar to that. I would have gone to my grad but they were like “yeah afterwords we’re going yo get a group photo (there are like 500 of us how in the socially distance world-) and then a cook out with parents” and I kinda went yeah no I’m good. But I’m really happy a large amount of people got to have a safe graduation!

Ashkdh same with the uni stuff except I have not been vibing and have been crying it’s been hard for sure didn’t have the easiest first year but I’m going to make the most of it from this point on

Mcc was sooo good! I’ll also be watching the pink parrots and yellow yaks back but I’ll probably watch the cyan creepers too. The game order was so weird!!!! When I saw parkour tag and sky battle first I kinda accepted that red rabbits weren’t going to win but hell they pulled it off! Really enjoyed sapnap putting dream on a child leash because that was wild. Can I get a thank you michael mcchill because man stuck to dream so good despite dream being in a “watch this” mood. Dream’s sands of time was stressful because man was so afraid of being put in baby jail again. I was loving in the end when dream was jumping around and unconsciously picking up tomatoes only throw them all at tommy when he remembered he had them. Listen I’m biased but if you’re in manhunts you’re automatically s tier in my book. It’s really interesting though because the hunters have a step up on dream teamwork wise. Dream isn’t really used to working in group while the hunters have team work almost down pat. I also enjoyed how scuffed it was! It’s always a good mcc if someone has to sub in ahdkfjkd. Have they gone a single event without having to pause? Either way huge enjoyer and I hope they never fix that. Connor’s audio shit? Dream starting his stream 2 minutes late? Amazing. What more could I ask for

Lisetn we decided that c!tommy should do taxes and c!skeppy is a dentist I think that is top tier analysis

[kaleidoscopic-writing]

Mind Over Matter

Chapter 5: That Gold Mine Changed You

        The first few days back home were taxing to say the least. Mum and Dad were trying to be on their best behavior, and so were Ali and I. My dad was just a loud and boisterous person as it was, so he was up to his usual antics. My mum was clearly annoyed at my dad for his existence it seems most of the time, but she was trying to not call him out. Alison and I just had to deal with this and my mum’s ability to cut you with her words. 

       When we were at dinner the first day, I was telling them how I finished my first semester. I had all A’s, although two of them were A-’s. I slaved over these grades; I was happy with these grades. I was in the top decile of GPA’s for my class at UCL this semester, and all my mom responds with is “Try harder next semester. Minus reflect poorly.” There was no humor in her voice; she was serious in her reprimand of me. She didn’t know me to know how hard I worked for these grades and how they don’t come easily at UCL. 

      My mom never even went to uni, but that is a whole other story. My dad didn’t either until later in his life. Alison, of course, went to the Tisch School of the Arts in New York University. She had been acting long before she went to uni, but it was still a testament of how good she was that she got in there and graduated from there.

All those things happened in the past few days. It was morning and a fresh start to the day. Walking down the stairs for breakfast, I spotted my mum and Ali sitting at the kitchen table. Both had a plate in front of them and a cup of tea in hand. With a creak in the floor beneath my foot, both their heads turned to greet me. 

“Good morning, Edie. There is some eggs and toast on the stove,” my mum said before turning back to Ali. They continued their conversation as I made myself a plate before sitting down next to Ali and across the table from mum. “We were just talking about my new movie,” Ali filled me in. “Was just telling mum about Brady.”

I turned to mum with wide eyes. “Brady Cooper, mum. He is sooo fit.”

She raised her eyebrows at my seriousness and let out a small laugh. 

“Is this a big budget or indie film?” My mom asked, turning about her attention back to Alison, not responding on my comment.

“It is an indie film, limited theatre showing. I think it could really help my portfolio though,” Ali said with a sip of her tea.

“Big awards contender,” my mum questioned.

“Possibly. Depends on how it is received,” Alison said, nerves evident in her voice. To me. I don’t know if my mum notices her apprehension to her questioning. 

“Well let’s hope,” my mum said with a small smile.

Dad entered the kitchen then with a loud “Good morning, beautifuls!’ He was too loud and too happy as usual. He walked in the room, walking over and giving mum a kiss on the forehead. She smiled at the contact, but it almost seemed forced, like there was a moment where I could see the annoyance on her face. But, my dad pulled away, and my mom’s face was neutral again.

“What are we ladies talking about,” my dad asked over his shoulder while pouring himself some tea.

“Alison might be in an award contending movie,” my mum cut in, raising her head slightly to speak over my shoulder line.

Before my dad had a chance to respond, Ali cut in, “I don’t know if it is an award contender. It is just a project I am doing.”

Mum just barely rolled her eyes when I looked at her, Ali and my dad were looking at each other, so only I saw my mum’s reaction.

“Well, that is amazing. Big things for my big girl,” dad said as he came down and sat next to mum, completely our square at the table. 

“Dear god, dad. Stop saying that. It is so cheesy,” Alison scoffed.

“Never,” my dad jeered. 

“Are you going to the Oscars this year, Ali?” Mum spoke again.

“Haven’t got the invitation yet but I assume so. I’ve gone the past two years,” Alison said. I could hear the slight annoyance in her voice. She was getting tired of mum’s prodding question. 

“Well let’s hope they invite you again. Oscar appearances are always great for boosting your image,” mum said with indignation in her voice. Almost like she was trying to teach Ali lessons, as if Ali didn’t know her or industry, or as if Ali wasn’t already one of the UK’s most well known actresses. Mother knows best.

I forewent watching the movie with my parents, opting for some alone time. After sitting in my room for sometime, I decided that I wanted more books to read, and that I could grab some from the library and take them back to school. I knew my father had the book somewhere in the house, as I had seen it in the library before, so when I ventured into the quiet library, I then had to figure out where the book would be amongst the bookshelves. Mum and Dad were very unorganized, partly because they didn’t speak to each other enough to have a cohesive organization system but, also, because I don’t think they appreciated literature as much as I do. No one in my family did; I had always loved reading. Mum, Dad, and Alison were always so artistic in their own rights, but I don’t have much creative ability. I have always been obsessed with literature, though.

 I could never come up with my own universes, my own stories, or characters with enough interpersonal struggle to warrant a story worth telling. So, reading was an escape. Whether it was romantic novels, classics, or alternate universes of dystopian reality, I had always been in awe of literature’s ability to allow you to step into another character, another life. I walked along one of the bookshelves, my fingers spread out, running them lightly along the books and feeling the bumps by the different sizes and widths of the books. 

I had a good portion of the books in here, at least, but I promised myself that one day I would read all the books in my parents’ library. To read all that they have read. To have those connections to them and to understand books that have moved and shaped them.

After a few minutes, and taking a few books off the shelf to bring back to my room, I was still looking for my dad’s copy of The Great Gatsby. I had read a few of Fitzgerald’s novels this past year, and I had finally gotten around to wanting to read The Great Gatsby now. I had seen the movie a few years back with Leonard DiCaprio, another major love of mine, and I knew I would have to read it someday. It had always been one of my dad’s favorite books, if not his number one favorite book. He used to tell me about it when I was younger about Jay Gatsby’s rise to affluence from a means of nothing. I think my dad always felt like he could relate from the aspirations of Jay, coming from nothing and gaining wealth, fame, and reputation from his music. I don’t know though how Dad must relate to the fragility of Jay’s empire and the consequences of striving for too much. I mean, my dad has always had his struggles, but he still has all that he holds dear.

Finally, a green bound leather book, with gold lettering that I have seen many times over my childhood on my Dad’s desk sat right in front of me. My fingers stopped brushing along the rows of books, taking a second to feel over the spine of the novel and feeling the leather under my skin. I was so excited that I could finally read it. I hadn’t told my father yet that I wanted to read it, but I know that it will make him happy. Hopefully. I don’t really know with him these days. I don’t know how he couldn’t be happy, to share his favorite world with me as I am excited to glimpse it. 

But, then, one of those moments happened.

It feels like time stops — that you experience a moment you would give an entire world to reverse but never can. A moment where the sheer odds of occurring are one in a million, and yet, somewhere out in the cosmic universe, the odds decide to play a cruel joke on you, yanking you from your blissful ignorance and placing you in your utter reality. A reality that you should be completely used to at this point, but each time these moments happen, you feel like someone threw an ice bucket on you. It’s that shocking feeling when you realize some things will never change, no matter how hard the things’ appearances might, or in this case, how hard someone appears to have changed.

When my fingers had pulled out the little leather book, the sound of a packet falling made my world stop. Even when I first looked down to see the packet between my feet on the floor, I was still in complete confusion at the twist in events. It wasn’t clicking that there was a packet hidden in the bookshelf with my dad’s favorite book. It wasn’t clicking that this little packet had a white power on it. It wasn’t clicking, until it did. 

My dad was hiding cocaine in his bookshelf. Which still seemed hard to process because my dad had been clean for years. He had been clean since…

“This wasn’t right. Something is wrong,” I frantically thought to myself. But as my eyes stayed on the little white package, I realized the only thing that was wrong was my Dad. This packet between my feet confirmed every wall and blocks that I had put around myself. The reason I was so closed off, and it all comes down to this white packet on the floor. 

“What the actual fuck,” I finally spoke aloud, to no one but myself.

I bent down and picked up the packet. I must have stared at it for minutes, wrapping my head around the impossibility of the predicament I found myself in. I could have very easily picked every book in this library off the self except that one and gone on my merry way, unaware of my father’s secret. But, I chose the one book that revealed my father’s lie to me. 

I guess he did relate to the fragility of Jay Gatsby’s life style and the dark secrets he held.

With the packet in hand and anger boiling within, I slammed the book down on the desk adjacent to the bookshelf. Storming out of the room, my feet were walking faster than my brain could process. I should take time to go to my room, figure out how I was going to handle this situation and address my dad for his bullshit. But, I didn’t do that. Before I could blink, I was entering the living room. Whatever movie they were watching was still going on. The lights were dimmed but still on. However, they flashed to full brightness when my finger reached out and turned them all the way out.

My chest was burning and my eyes were stinging by the time all three heads in the room snapped by way, startled by the saddle turning on of the lights. Their confused looks didn’t stop me from my march to the center of the room. Rounding the corner, I heard mum call out my name, sounding confused, but I didn’t answer.

I stopped in front of the three of them, all sat comfortably on separate chairs. I threw down the packet on the coffee table in front of them all. My chest heaved uncontrollably. I could hear my heart beat in my eyes. All their eyes were on the the table and the little packet I just threw down, but mine were on my dad. His wrinkled forehead pulled down in confusion, his eyes squinting. And, when he realized the situation, all the air left his body, shoulders slumping. His head tilted downward in what I hope is shame but my as well but annoyance he was caught. 

Mum and Ali didn’t speak then. Their eyes had risen to mine; I could feel their gazes in my head. They knew what was about to come. An explosion of family catastrophe.

It was utter silence until my dad finally raised his head slowly, sad eyes meeting mine. His mouth opened to speak, but I surprised even myself when I spoke quicker.

“What the fuck is this,” I almost yelled. Anger clear in my voice, and tears visibly welling in my eyes.

“Eden, please let me explain,” he said softly. His hand reached out to touch my arm, but I stepped back.

“How long,” I cut him off, with a shaking voice.

“Eden,” my dad spoke again. 

He clearly did not want to answer my question. He was avoiding the truth, which proved to me that this facade had been going on for quite a long time.

“HOW FUCKING LONG,” I screamed, tears rolling down my cheeks. I could feel the heat in my face. “Has it been this whole time? Everything we’ve been through, everything YOU PUT ME through, was all for shit.”

In the quietest voice I have ever heard my loud-spoken dad speak in, he said through the silence, “A few months after I left rehab.”

The incident occurred two weeks before my thirteenth birthday. He entered rehab a few days after being released from the hospital, almost went immediately from the hospital to the facility. Of course, I didn’t see him during that period. I didn’t see him for almost a year. I couldn’t look at him after the incident. My center of reality had completely shifted. My world had completely tilted over because of my dad. Now, five years later, he hadn’t learned any lesson. I realized he never would.

“You are sick and selfish. I have tried to forgive and forget because I thought you had gotten better, but I know now the only thing that got better was your ability to hide it,” I said. My body trembling and my knees weak. Ali, finally not being able to stand my duress, stood up and came to stand by my side. Her arm wrapping around my back and gripping my other side. Her arm gave me support not only physically but emotionally to feel her standing beside me. My dad’s head hung downward, in guilt, shame or sadness, or maybe even all of them. I could hear my mum sadly sigh. I turn my head towards her. She seemed uncomfortable and sad, but I was past the point of compassion. 

“Did you know,” I bite out to her.

With the solemnest of motions, she slowly nodded her head. I tried to scoff, but it turned came out as more of a sob.

“You are both unbelievable, insane, and devastating.”

“Eden, it hasn’t been like it has been before. Your father has it controlled.” My mum tried to reason.

I shook my head.

“Dad clearly has no control if he has resorted for years to the thing that quite literally killed him and has chosen to lie about it rather than rebuilding the foundations of this family that he broke that night.”

There was silence. No objections from my parents. All I felt besides sheer anger was the squeeze of comfort on my arm from Ali. I could see her mouth quivering and tears falling down her cheek.

“I am leaving. I can’t be in this house since it is clearly all a lie. Don’t even think about trying to contact me.”

With that, I stormed out of the room just as I had entered it. The entire path to my room seemed like slow motion. Everything had piled up in just a few minutes, and I felt like I was being suffocated underneath it all. Once I got into my room, I slammed the door behind me and fell down to the ground. Scrunching my legs up to my chest I wrapped my arms around my legs and cried into my shoulder. 

After a minute or two, I felt the overwhelming urge to move, to get out. Standing up, I grabbed my suitcase from the corner and began pilling all my stuff back in. Rushing over to my dresser, I pulled out more clothes. I had planned to bring more clothes with me back to school, but now in such a hurry, I couldn’t grab as much as I wanted. Finally when my suitcase couldn’t fit anymore, I closed it up and grabbed my backpack of my desk, stuffing my computer and books inside of it.

It was in my hectic pacing that I heard the subtlest knocks on my door, and I was not surprised when Ali stepped in a few seconds later because I knew my parents had just enough reason to give me space. Her face looked so sad; her eyes taking in the scene of my scattered but more barren room with my things packed. 

“I can’t go home with you, Eden,” she spoke softly. 

I stopped my pacing to look up to her. She seemed really cut up, but I don’t understand why she wouldn’t leave.

“What? You won’t? But, you saw.. you know,” I trailed off, eyes beginning to burn again.

“Eden, I would much rather be with you in a heartbeat. I didn’t know about dad, and if I did, things would not be what they are right now. I’m not staying to be with mum and dad. I told you I have that meeting with the director on the second here in Manchester. It’s massive; I can’t reschedule.” 

Ali stepped forward to me, arms outreached. I hugged her back without hesitation. We held each other tightly. I knew she understood my anger. She wasn’t there when everything went down, neither was mum, but no one understood the effect it had on me more than Alison. No one knew me better than Alison.

“Can you drive me to the train station?” I said to her as we hugged.

“Of course. Let me go grab my keys,” she said pulling away.

Once again, I was alone in my room. My eyes wandered over my life within these walls. Pictures from my childhood littered the walls. This home was so happy, but I couldn’t stand it right now. My dad and I had our rocky times, but my final year or two home when I was in college were good to us, when he was home, that is. He was a way for a good portion of the year due to his music, but when he was home, we were comfortable to each other. I could relate to him more as mum and I came to more of blows. He was away enough to not see mum and my fights, but here enough to understand my mum was unruly. But now, I was saddened by him. I have had conversations with Katherine in the past about whether he uses when he was on the road. I told myself that he wasn’t because I don’t think a person could break themselves with a habit like that after what it had done to them, like if you have a harrowing enough experience to something you can finally cut the straw. I should have known better I guess. My dad should have known better.

Grabbing all my things, I gave my room one last look over. My entire childhood was in this room — the good, the bad, and most importantly, the ugly. Turning back and walking out, Alison met me outside her room in the hallway, and together, we walked out of the house. I didn’t spare a glance anywhere besides my path to the front door. I didn’t know where my parents were; I didn’t want to know. The house was completely silent, unsettling.

Alison and I drove to the train station in silence. Both too caught up in our own heads to begin the conversation. How did we both go on from here? What did this mean for our family? Our incredible fucked up family. I was just over it. Everything that came with my parents life was cancerous. The fame. The money. The drugs. I couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t normal. All I wanted in life was stability, and the cautionary tales of fame and fortune just seem to be proven again and again in my family. It will never be me. 

Once Alison parked outside the train station, we sat in silence for a moment. But, Alison was the first to break. 

“Kathryn is going to pick you up from the train station. I texted her,” she said softly.

My eyes begin to burn again as I turned towards Alison and hugged her so tightly. Alison may be like my parents in lifestyle, but she could never be them. She understood me and why I have been pushed to the opposite side of the spectrum from Mum and Dad. She took care of me.

“Thank you, Ali! Please come home quickly,” I said as my breathing began to calm.

“I will, Eden. I’m sorry that you have to go through this.”

“It isn’t just me, Alison. You are stuck with this fucked up family too.”

I pulled away and stepped out of the car. Opening the backseat door, I grabbed my bags and gave Alison a parting ‘I love you.’ Walking to the train, I was leaving behind this disaster of a trip. I was worried coming home. Leaving for college took me away from the toxicity of my family, but I guess, I will never escape it.

Finally getting my seat on the train, I slumped down into it, which made me realize just how exhausted I was. I was just drained of everything. Within minutes of the train beginning to pull out of the station, I was pulled into sleep. My eyes were closing and the nothingness and reprieve of sleep was calling my name. I wasn’t fighting it. Soon enough I would be home, my real home in London, and I would be away from all that has transpired today.

I’m glad this is how I get to end my last two days of 2017. My life is a joke.

[lord-wellesbrook-ix]

The Problem with Modern Politics by Me, an unqualified, out of touch late millennial/early gen Z Brit.

Advance warning this is gonna be a long post, essay is below the break for those who care to read.

Ok, good, welcome! So yes, time for some personal details, because apparently such things are crucially important now to what one has to say. I’m 19, I’m white~jewish (ethnically, not religiously. And I list both because the distinction is...spurious at best imo), with some limited asian heritage (grandfather is Burmese, you’d not know it to look at me though). I’m bisexual, with a loving trans boyfriend, tragically kept away from me by that most perfidious of enemies, the atlantic ocean. I used to think I was trans, and started hrt, before deciding against it. I don’t know what my gender identity really is at this point, but I use he/him, and was assigned male at birth. Oh and despite my immediate family having some significant prestige (my dad is a VERY specialised doctor, only 8 people in the country can do what he does), because Britain and NHS, I’m also poor enough that I qualify for financial assistance through uni, and all that other fun stuff, so assign me whatever class you want, but I’ve never really had access to money or the like. All of these factors will undoubtedly somehow colour what my thoughts are.

So! Let’s tackle this on two fronts - My beef with the modern left, my beef with the modern right, and my beef with all the current “alternatives”. The Left   Why do you make me hate you so?  I want to be able to side with you. Economically, we’re almost perfectly aligned. Fuck big corporations, they abuse their workers, and are broadly detrimental to societal progress by merit of the power they wield. The state should use the money of the wealthiest, to help uplift the poorest, bringing everyone as close to a comfortable range of wealth and living standards as is feasible. Wealth taxes I’m against, if only because I look at things like FIRE with some measure of hope, because I find it infeasible that I’ll be able to work a “proper job” my entire life, and equally infeasible that the state will support me before I’m in my 70s. Unsurprisingly I’m all for trans and lgbt rights, and their advancement is imperative. Likewise racial and ethnic discrimination needs to be combatted (though I have a caveat insofar as how), and linguistic minority rights are ESPECIALLY important (not to out myself as Welsh...). Minimum wages, yes, and higher! Benefits should be more generous and more accessible! All of this! And yet. And, yet. I can never stand with any significant left wing party. Because of how they behave on other fronts. The general solution to racial discrimination seems to be mandates, and quotas, which are just...not a great idea? Because they’ll only work insofar as they are maintained, and at that point you’re not solving it, you’re just leaning on people to make it LOOK like the problem is solved. Instead perhaps, a better system would be something akin to a more continental system. Pictures are banned on CVs, as are any obvious racial or sex or gender markers. Further anonymising most processes, to further make any people making significant choices unable to determine race, sex or gender of the people they’re choosing about, allows for a truly blind process. The same, incidentally, should apply to class distinctions (personal story there to follow, because there class mandates have stabbed me personally).

Moreover, however, both left and right these days seems to be based on these vicious and disgusting ideas of guilt and hatred, only changing who receives them. The modern left want me to hate myself, and hate my country. My skin means that I am somehow inherently advantaged, and thereby everything bad that happens to me is fine, my country has committed sins long before anyone alive today was born, and thereby any bad thing that befalls it is right and good. I am guilty of the crime of...being born a certain way, in a certain place, to certain people, and because of that, because of my privilege, I must apparently have the road of life made that much harder to walk for me. I must be told throughout education that this country is evil, that “Britain” and the “British” are evil, with no consideration for the fact that, well, that’s me. Telling someone that they’re evil as they’re growing up is uhhhh, not exactly a good thing. I believe in this nation that reared me. Moreover I believe in its values, I believe in Britain, and I believe every person should have the right to believe in their country. People as a whole aren’t fundamentally evil. And whilst yes every country has sins, great or small, and Britain’s past leans closer to great, that doesn’t give people the right to try and engender a sort of national self-loathing in the population for it. I won’t venture into America (because America breaks my whole everyone should be proud of their country thing, because a lot of areas should frankly be made independent from the US). And as a part of my...I don’t want to use the terms patriotism or nationalism because both have been massively tainted by groups trying to claim them for years now, but as a part of these beliefs, I stand with the British monarchy. Hell, I actually argue they should be allowed slightly greater freedoms. That they should be allowed to speak out when they are slandered (naming no self-entitled actresses), and equally, that they should be allowed to have some limited vocalisation of other political opinions. We let celebrities do it today, and they influence elections far more than the crown could ever hope to. And let’s look at things that Chucky boy, our next king unless they do something VERY silly and skip him, has gotten into trouble for speaking about: Not wanting brutalist modern architecture, which has actually been proven to make for housing that doesn’t last as long, and negatively impacts mental health. And Being an environmentalist.

And

Wanting this country to treat the mentally ill better. Ah...such controversial, evil points, made by a despotic tyrant princ-oh wait no they’re just valid things. I don’t want them to be given the power to ENFORCE their ideas, that way lies absolutism, which runs against the ideas of a constitutional monarchy. But let them speak, there are people who speak freely with greater sway and influence than they could ever have, and far less accountability. 

The Right

Oh boy, oh boy. Economically villainous. I despise nearly every economic ideal they stand for. They hurt the poor to help the rich, and just like the left, screw those in the middle. All I can credit them for on that front is that they don’t have as much of a tendency to support ugly, cheap mass housing, but only because they instead support no housing. 

Socially...ugh. I look at the modern right as a two headed beast there. There are those like those on the left, who hate Britain, but instead of just hating us and wanting some vague utopia, they hate us and want us to become a corporate hellhole like america, which is arguably worse. 

Then there’s the others. Those who take my ideals and corrupt them. Racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, rinse and repeat, and yes I know this is the hazard inherent in enjoying tradition and one’s nation anywhere, but can those traditions not be adapted? Anglicanism is already christianity minus any spine or sense of self, let it allow gays and trans people and all of that. Also uh yeah, don’t be racist. I don’t really know how to phrase that in any other way because...it’s not hard. Just don’t be racist. Treat people as people, not as their race. Do not treat me any different for being a jew, or having an asian grandfather, do not treat someone differently for being a person of colour, do not treat someone different for the circumstances of their birth, quite simply put.  Alternatives

So, the non mainstream (LIBLABCON) parties? Let’s see.... UKIP/Reform - Ah racism, fuck off. Plaid - Ah, vote to...leave the country I love? And to be run from Cardiff by people like Drakeford, or Woods, or really any of the major players in modern welsh politics? No.  Any flavour of communist - Last I checked they all want me to hate myself, so nah. Greens - Cool. You still want me to hate myself, and have really dumb economic ideas, but you’re a one issue party and I support that issue, so tentatively the lesser of all the evils.  Idk why I had this rant, I am just very upset. There is no voice for people like me, and it seems there never will be. And I’m nowhere near rich enough to start a party to become that voice. 

[janiedean]

Question, I'm working on a fic with a character born and raised in Roma. Do you have little tips about the fic he'd like to do/go: we're speaking about a giant scientist nerd with not much money and a giant anticlerical atheist attitude. Thanks for the help!

PS: Because I just realized I forgot about this. The character also has a unhealthy addiction to caffeine. Thanks :)

Roma anon: He's in his late teens/start of twenties. So born in the 90s.

hmmmmmmmm okay I’d say (also pls link me this thing when you’re done because ATHEIST CHARACTER RAISED IN ROME I wanna read it):

depends on when they grew up but if it was pre-nineties they’d probably think about the times when they walked through the center and it was full of cats and taxis were yellow and now it’s all white taxis and no cats (I swear all of us who grew up in the 90s have the OH GOD I MISS THE CATS AND YELLOW TAXIS moment, the cats were more or less driven away at the beginning of the 00s and the yellow taxis as well) I wrote this before you specified so they probably don’t remember the yellow taxis and shit but their parents might

thing is, SCIENCE stuff here isn’t that great but if they grew up before the 90s/in the 70s they might have enjoyed going to the historical planetarium which used to be in the center near the main station but then it was closed and moved to the EUR in I think 2004 and now is in san lorenzo so if they grew up in between 80s/90s they missed that window, if they grew up in the 00s or were teenagers in the 00s they might have gone to the EUR one, this is the website - it’s supposed to be in english but obv it’s NOT but maybe you can figure something out? > post specification: if born in the 90s he DEFINITELY went to the planetarium u__u

if this person’s into animals he definitely would have visited the local zoo/the bioparco in villa borghese which has a lot of animals and is actually pretty ethical as far as I know, I personally never was much into it but it’s a favorite with kids (also back in the day you could pay to ride a pony always in villa borghese, I’ve done it a couple of times and it was fun so if they’re into horses they might have done that but it was like mid-90s I have no idea if they still do it), there’s also the zoology museum inside the bioparco so they might have liked that as well

these days there’s a cat colony in piazza argentina so if he likes to pet cats (which are all neutered/kept clean thanks to volunteers) he can go there once in a while

OR if he’s into physics there’s the physics museum in enrico fermi’s house which opened in 1999 that he might like to go to

that’s for the science stuff you could do other than going to libraries and check books out and stuff, sadly this city never was The Science Place, but about the rest:

if he’s atheist/anticlericalist, there’s two most likely ways it might have happened: his parents are also atheists and never baptized him, or he comes from a catholic family (either REALLY practicing or enough to baptize him/get him to take his sacraments) and changed his mind later. this brings to two fairly different outcomes/possible backstories.

if option one: he’s never taken the religion hour in elementary/middle/high school (you can opt out), he most likely was the only one in the class or maybe two people unless he had jewish/muslim/other-religions people in his class but a lot of people don’t opt out even if they’re not catholic, he thought it was weird af when his friends talked about going to catechism and stuff, he might have tried going to church with relatives once in a while and found it highly boring af, he never got the point of it and then got fed up with the church and stuff when he realized that they don’t pay taxes to the state and the various other church misgivings TM;

if option two: he probably didn’t get the point of sacraments but went through with them (and catechism) to make the family happy and took religion hour while hating it, at some point decided he was atheist during his teenage years or so on, he’d insist to not take religion hour and depends on how practicing the family is, that could have brought him a few issues because people actually do argue horribly about this and there’s the immortal BUT IF YOU DON’T GO TO CHURCH YOU’LL MAKE YOUR GRANDMOTHER SAD;

obviously it varies but those two are the most common atheist experiences around here as far as I know - if your entire family is or if they’re lowkey practicers it’s fairly fine, if they’re practicing it might cause you problems (unless he has enlightened parents who respect his choices ofc), but count that option two tends to make you a lot angrier at the church/at religion in general, like someone who comes from an option two background is a lot more likely to have the dawkins approach than to just appreciate him as a scientist lol

also: when you take religion hour, you’re put with a teacher who’s supposed to do something *alternative* with you. every time it happened with me, they asked me if I didn’t take religion hour because I was Jewish, then when I said no they went through a few other religions before going like ‘... wait, Muslim?’ until I went like ‘no I’m atheist’ and the last reply was always, ‘but then why don’t you try religion out’. always. at some point you just laugh so you don’t cry.

THAT SAID someone who’s into science and who’s an atheist AND MILITANTLY SO would totally read dawkins, hitchens and be into that shit a lot so like, consider that xD like it’s the magical combo ;)

if he’s a Proper Nerd he saves money to buy books at fahrenheit 451 in campo dei fiori;

(guys srsly fahrenheit is a staple of roman independent bookshops I love that place, also they have a signed bradbury copy of that book in the entrance made just for them and they also sell like science books and stuff so someone who maybe is also into scifi would totally love that place)

(if he’s desperate for cheap stuff there’s used books sold for not much in a small market in front of termini station though)

this person most probably wouldn’t like to hang around the vatican - like he’d go there to bring friends and stuff and he’d go to the vatican museums once in a while but unless you’re an art student you tend to avoid that area

also remember that john paul II died when I was in high school and it was what, 2005, and the funeral day all the schools were closed and for the previous two weeks you couldn’t move through the center/the vatican because it’d be full of people going to pay respects to his burial chamber and so on so like if he remembers it he’d probably be very ‘I don’t get what’s the deal about all of this’ about it (and anyway if he was going to school he definitely missed that day since they were closed for the entire city)

this person also would not go to churches in general if not for a) tourism, b) weddings, c) funerals and they most probably would try to avoid baptisms and further sacraments if they could (obv if it’s they’re little brother’s they would go but if it’s a cousin or smth they’d just tell their mother to say hi from them)

they might want to be an uaar volunteer;

also if they’re as lucky as I was, nine times on ten they say they’re atheist to someone they don’t know they get the usual horrid questions ie ‘how do you get up in the morning, how do you live without God, so do you think it’s fine to kill people since you don’t believe in heaven, so are you a satanist’ and so on. they might lie and say they don’t practice if they don’t want to have an argument. or they might tell those people to fuck off if they’re done. or they might try to argue. anyway you usually try to not touch the subject if you’re not sure of how people might take it especially if you don’t know them and especially if you’re older than you;

if their parents are atheists they most likely give the eight thousandth of their taxes to the waldensian church (they only use it for secular purposes) and he would too if he lived in italy and paid taxes there; he wouldn’t give it to the state because that money ends with the catholic church anyway;

if the parents are not atheists they might have gone to a nuns’ run kindergarten. spoilers: everyone I know in italy (catholic or not) except maybe two people has horror stories about kindergarten with the nuns so it could totally be a the reason why someone starts having issues with religion;

(if they’re atheists obviously they sent them to a normal kindergarten)

at some point he has read the bible so that he could tell people that no, reading it didn’t make him want to convert;

coffee stuff:

most people around here like espresso as all italians do, and you start drinking it at SOME POINT in high school (I started at fifteen/sixteen but I know people who started later and who never got any until uni for one, but they’re a rarity);

if he’s like me, he started drinking espresso made at home and then couldn’t stay awake through high school for six hours in a row so had always one or two at the school’s coffee machine (at some point when I was seventeen/eighteen I drank like six espressos per day DON’T DO IT IF YOU HAVE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE)

anyway most of us addicts make it at home with a regular moka

but if he has money to splurge once in a while or if he wants to treat himself/others he might go have coffee at sant’eustachio, it’s a historical bar in the center that has the Best Coffee Ever and IT COSTS A LOT BUT IT’S WORTH IT

random:

if he doesn’t have much money he most likely goes around with public transport. the public transport is shit. always has. always has been. the 00s weren’t a good time. if he lives on the A metro line he hates that it’s full all the time, if he lives on the B line he hates that and that it has old-ass trains from the 80s still, if he lives outside any metro area it takes him at least forty minutes to go anywhere with the bus so he hates that, the bus company and both metros for not reaching his place, if he lives in the center sometimes he thanks his lucky stars

he most definitely doesn’t use taxis if he can’t absolutely help it

he might have lived to see the ending of the emos vs truzzi debate of the 00s. to give you a context: you remember emo music? people who were into emo in the 00s used to hang around piazza del popolo all the time so like the place was full of people dressed in black and singing evanescence and shit, and those people were picked on by truzzi who were basically... like, outskirts kids without manners who listened to hardcore rap music and shit, idk, in english it’d be something like hicks, you know those people who dress brightly and have no manners and speak terribly and think they’re the center of the world? more or less. anyway these people hated each other and there was an entire culture of making fun of how they hated each other and like it sounds dumb but is2 it was a fundamental part of our high school experience so idk if this guy went to middle school in the 00s he’d... probably know. and think it was ridiculous. I’m sorry this probably makes no sense but like let’s just say it was srs young subculture to make fun of this rivalry shit I DON’T EVEN KNOW and you probably don’t need it but here now you know it’s ano option

he was probably very politicized in high school. most likely went to marches especially if he had pOLITICAL ideas about the vatican. in the way 15yo people are anyway, but like italian high schools are all politics arguing where everyone thinks they’re communist or fascist no in between and especially here it happened

he most likely did like a thing we all did in hs where for a week every year students would organize lessons instead of teachers and talked about stuff they felt strongly about/know more about and he might have been a students’ representative

if he’s gay/bi, he’d probably go near the coliseum to find a date because there’s the so-called *gay street* nearby and most bars have rainbow flags outside and back then if you weren’t straight and wanted a date you’d go there

if he wanted to buy cheap stuff but decent quality he’d go around campo dei fiori for anything other than books

especially if he wanted good cheap-ish alcohol and absinthe (which btw is banned here but you could get for cheap in most bars in campo dei fiori bless them)

if he does cosplay and stuff he’d go to romics which is our... cheapass horribly organized comicon

he’d remember fondly the nokia 3310 that never got destroyed and you could only use to call, text and play snake

... I hope it helps if you need anything else just ask :)