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fdhfjdafdajfa · 6 years

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PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST: I need to raise money for myself and a friend, both currently homeless.

THE SHORT VERSION:

-I am in India without access to my money due to a pickpocketing and bank-related technicalities.

-I am without housing due to repeated, egregious, explicit discrimination. This has depleted most of my funds and I relocated to Calcutta due to air quality, low cost of living, and beef.

-At the same time, a close friend and her partner (located in Delhi and Paris, respectively) have brought to my attention a friend of theirs who is literally being physically restrained in an abusive marriage. We are talking black eyes and bruises. It's a horrific situation but I need her also because she speaks Bengali. So the house hunting process is stalled until she escapes.

-I am staying at an airbnb very close to her place. Even after we manage to get her physically removed there'a more stuff we have to do like filing a police report etc. The airbnb is expensive by Calcutta standards, but it's cheaper than rent anywhere I've lived in the USA.

-I need money for two reasons: to pay the deposit on our flat, and to keep me alive until I can sort things out with the bank, which may not be possible until after I move into a permanent place.

THE SHORTER VERSION:

-Idiot foreigner and victim of ongoing battering need rescue funds so we don't die.

PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST THIS

Paypal here.

https://www.paypal.me/pcoolpearl

Further details under cut.

ON THE PICKPOCKETING AND BANK ISSUES:

-I was pickpocketed in the market about two months ago. That's life. It happens. Welcome to India. Some idiot got like 200 rupees so that's great for them but I had to cancel all my bank cards. Not really much I could do. I just got home and realised my wallet wasn't there anymore.

-Delhi does not have a functional mailing system at all. This means that the banks were more or less at a loss for how to get the cards at me. This is part of why I relocated to Calcutta. That's Bank Account A. The easy one, but also the far smaller one.

-But as for the larger and more consequential Bank Account B, which contains easily enough money for me to live off of in Calcutta for quite some time, they do not have any kind of policy for what to do in the event that someone ever manages to escape the land of the free and the home of the brave. This is the one tied to my social security payments, and is where all my money lives.

-So when I called Social Security they did that thing they do where they try to play gotcha with inconsistencies in your story. In my case I had already tried to get a replacement card weeks earlier, for reasons unrelated. "If it didn't get there weeks ago, wouldn't you have called weeks ago?" "What the fuck? No, I didn't solve any of the problems so why would I have called again and wasted my fucking time on this fucking phone line for no reason, again?" This was after a good 15 mins or so of this kind of grilling, which I find especially grating now after almost a year of living in countries where nobody can lie for shit and so there'a no point in every single fucking person pretending they're a TV detective whose purpose in life is to stop Moriarty from abusing welfare benefits. "If you're going to raise your voice at me, what I'm going to do is I'm going to place a security hold on your account and you'll need to verify your identity." Let me reiterate that she stated explicitly that this was in retaliation for raising my voice and not due to any real suspicion about my identity. In later calls to Social Security it would be revealed that she could

have easily seen on her computer that the card never got to me. That is information very easily verifiable by the World's Greatest Goddamn Detective over there.

-So the next person I called sent me on a wild goose chase to the American Embassy to pick up a form called a Memorandum of Understanding. Judging that the very limited funds I'd had stockpiled in my dresser was not best spent on an auto ride, I walked nearly an hour from the metro station to the embassy. There was a dust storm in this period and I read later that over a hundred people fucking died in it, but I just kept walking towards it because that's where the embassy was. Also I'd never seen a dust storm in my life and had no idea what it was or why the sky was pink.

-When I got there they told me straight up that 1. they don't do mail pickup, which is why the card hadn't gotten to me, and 2. they don't do memorandums of understanding. They offered to send me a different form for 50 USD. "Can't you borrow it?" they asked. "That's not a reasonable thing to say to someone who lives in India," I said straight up. "That's not a real amount of money that people in India have." That's American for "fuck off". So they wrote me a different letter in an attempt to verify my identity. I send this in with my only other forms of identification: my passport and an expired driver's license from Washington state. Waited 3 business days as instructed.

-They told me they can't use these because of issues relating to my legal name change a couple years ago. Social Security had not been updated as regards the change. "I have my birth certificate and my court certification for the name change, and I can fax those in."

-"What you'll have to do is go to you social security office in person--" "Look, I'm gonna cut you off there. You can see my current address right? Read that off to me. What city is that in." "New Delhi." "That's right, New Delhi. What country is that in? Great. So can, can you tell me where my local Social Security office is here in India?" She could not tell me where my local social security office was in India. There aren't any. That's why she couldn't tell me that. But again, no protocol for this situation and if an American bureaucrat breaks their protocol I'm 90% sure Obama's legally allowed to kill them.

-What I'll need to do is a complicated process involving appointing Americans to act as proxies to go in and file paperwork on my behalf. There are other ideas, but none of them are more sure or less complicated, and they all require me to have a permanent address.

ON WHY I DO NOT HAVE A PERMANENT ADDRESS:

-Those close to me know that I have had a hell of a time finding housing in India. It's not all that bad for an Indian to find housing and when my Indian friends have tried they've consistently been able to find me something in a few hours. But that something is living alone. Which 1. is depressing and 2. is tactically disadvantageous when you don't speak the language of a country because how you will tell the food panda guy where to go...

-So I moved in with an Indian girl who seemed nice enough, and her sister who seemed if anything even nicer. This was about a week before I was pickpocketed as described above.

-In India there's this big thing about vegetarianism where it's a highly important in determining one's role in caste hierarchy. Unfortunately for me I do not give a shit and think the caste system is dumb and scrambled myself some eggs. The disgust my caste Hindu roommates displayed towards me from that point on was palpable. Within another week they were asking me to leave. They got the landlord on their side fairly easily because that's how the caste system works and I was given less than a week to vacate. (To my knowledge there is no law like in USA saying they can't do that.) (Also if you're going to try to argue with me about how caste works shut up, I don't care, not the time.)

-The next day I would eat a straight-up poisoned "cheeseburger" and be sick for the following two weeks.

-Regardless of this I managed to miraculously line up a living arrangement with a Muslim roommate who expressed her approval of my award-winning omelettes and stated a willingness to go with me on beef crawls. (It's technically illegal in Delhi but if you know where to get it you can.)

-But it took about two weeks for the landlord to run my papers. I'm not sure why. Previous landlords had it done in 20 minutes. Most of my information about the landlord comes from this roommate, who is not a reliable narrator for reasons which will be explored shortly.

-During this period of 2 weeks, I, with alarming competence, managed to collect money from various friends and places to pay the deposit. I left my boxes of things at the old apartment and couch surfed around Delhi for like a week and a half while this was pending.

-To be honest I don't know what the fuck this roommate's problem was. She was just not a good person. She'd previously agreed to help me cash the contents of my paypal account through having it transferred to her bank, but now she was saying that if she stepped outside even for a second in this heat due to fasting.

-"Then you should not be fasting," I said, matter-of-factly. Look. Islamic law is my literal, actual field of study. You can't really pull one over on me as regards it. This is the ruling accepted by everyone who's not a goddamn lunatic. She didn't buy it though. Because she was lying. The next day she went to her cousin's house and somehow managed not to perish in the heat. Also, she'd previously explained to me how you can call the bankers to your house in India and do work that way. Then she tells me I am paying rent for the entire month despite moving in on like the 20th. "That's how it works everywhere in India," she told me. Wrong again, because this was literally the fifth house I'd moved into and none of them were like that.

-I now believe that this was something she made up on the spot because everything she would say for the remainder of our relationship would be.

-At this point my sense of stranger danger is going fucking haywire and I know I don't want to live with this person. I announce that I will leave in a matter of days. This was a GOOD decision.

-Citing "feeling unsafe" because I had raised my voice in an earlier argument, she invited her brother's sister-in-law(?) basically to troll me on etiquette because "people do not yell in India" which I actually laughed at because, not to claim expertise in a foreign culture, but ya-huh. "Not us," she clarified, "we are women from good families." Ah. A gender and caste thing. "What do you mean good families? My dad's in jail," I said, a statement about 20% likely to be true; I don't fucking know. I'd already agreed to vacate anyway. Anyway then she looked at me like I stabbed a cat in front of her.

-For the record, I didn't stab anything. But that night my roommate (Abaa) would invite her ex-boyfriend to stay the night. The next day he'd investigate a few of the claims Abaa had made.

-"Don't you agree this is a little threatening? Throwing boxes at her..." "What?" I asked. "Throwing boxes?" "She said you threw that box at her," he said, pointing to a container made of thin tin or aluminum which had been full of popcorn when I bought it. The tin drum was sitting on my desk, undented, full of medications and things. "I didn't do that," I said, truthfully. "She also said you grabbed a kitchen knife and tried to stab her." "What? And you believe this?" "She is my friend. I have to believe her." God bless this guy but he was not regarding me as one would regard someone who had just tried to STAB a friend of his. Also the kitchen knives sucked and would not have been practical stabbing implements; if I were going to attack someone surely the better choice would be the brass punchers I carry on my person at all times.

-She also called the police on me twice. I don't know what she was claiming, it was never explained to me. But both times they basically told her to chill, this isn't an ethno-state.

-Even on the way to the train station to Calcutta she's calling my cab driver trying to get him to turn around so she can yell at me over misplacing the key to the apartment. She texts me this:

In her defence, I had accidentally taken the key, but still, not done, man. She blocked me after saying that so I couldn't arrange a way to get the key back. I guess she wasn't from such a great family after all.

TO CALCUTTA:

-Rent in Calcutta is about a quarter as expensive as in Delhi. Also, Delhi is kind of an overcrowded polluted place where people go to be slaves to capital and die of smoke inhalation and indigestion. The "cheeseburger" gave me my worst case but I pretty much never didn't have indigestion there. Also it's like 45 degrees every day with an Air Quality Index of like 350. So I felt pretty good about going to Calcutta where beef is legal and there's an active art scene and I have almost as many friends as in Delhi and AQI rarely tops 50 and everybody's a communist.

-On the train ride over, a very close friend and her boyfriend (who live in Delhi and Paris, respectively) alert me to a friend of theirs who is in a physically abusive marriage. She needs help escaping. After that, the two of us should get a flat together. They think it'll be good for her to live with me because I'm an abuse survivor who is strong and independent and has experience in DV counseling. Truthfully, they're right. And I didn't stop needing an Indian roommate or anything. So I enthusiastically agree.

-The place that had agreed to host me for my first stretch in Calcutta until I get a permanent place has two complications. One, to get to where my new roommate lives, I need to pay 500 rupees for a 1 hour uber ride, or I can ride the train for 3 hours. Secondly, and perhaps more pressingly, the family I was staying with were forced to vacate because the father's debtors had threatened to kidnap his daughter.

-So I get an airbnb about a block from where my new roommate lives so that she can head over easily when she gets the chance. That is where I am now. It's a little over ₹600 a night. I'm pretty much stuck here until she manages to escape and we manage to get a place, although I have other people working on it as well. Frankly this suits me fine. I'm tired. I've had basically no downtime in like two months. The food here'a fucking fantastic. If I can spend a few days just stuffing my face with ₹40 beef biryani and momos and gain back the weight I lost by having indigestion for six straight months then fuck me up.

Compounding issues is the fact that my computer broke. Fortunately it's under warranty but I had to type this on an mp3 player and it took two hours good night.

ON MONEY:

I need some. If I raise €50, I'll be fine. If I raise €100, I'll be comfortable. Assuming the Apple store doesn't blindside me tomorrow. I'm really hoping for €60 or more.

PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST

PAYPAL HERE

https://www.paypal.me/pcoolpearl

#ramadan #laylat al qadr #zakat #sadaqah #signal boost

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badsjw · 4 years

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Knight Blades Larp The Underworld Campaign

Jorge Paiz Larp Noob:

This past weekend I Jorge Paiz, went to my first ever LARP, (Live Action Role Play) the larp I attended was called Knight Blades. In Knight Blades new players pick what kind of character they want to by choosing a race a and class. Such races and classes include Dwarfs, Orcs, High elves, Silver elves,and Humans. There are also many classes such as Clerics, Mages, Warriors, and Rogues. In Knight Blades you can make your own unique character such as a High elf Rogue, Orc Warrior, Human Mage. etc. As well as your own unique name. now creating your own character is a tip of the Ice berg. What comes next is what helps you get through the game and that’s combat!

In a larp combat one usually has many ways to enter in well armed. One thing that most larp players use is a boffer sword, which a is foam sword used for larping. You also can use latex weapons as long as they are well padded and have two inches of foam at the tip for thrusting. Also if you are a spell and magic user you use things called spell packets or spell components in game that are made of 7 by 7 inch square fabric and a table spoon bird seed. What you do with with these packets is say the incantation depending on your class and throw them at your enemy. Some spells cause damage some stall and hinder your enemies.

What I really enjoyed about Knight Blades was entering the town of Stormhammer. The town of of Stormhammer is like entering a whole new world with many different unique characters as if you were in an actual MMORPG Stormhammer resides on the boarders of the Kingdom of Boronia which is ruled by the Good King Henry XXI. The town has many guilds and company’s in which players can be a part of to gain professions to earn gold, magic abilities and Items. When your in Stormhammer you are no longer in a world where cell phone, internet and laptops exist, you are in a realm were you are literally back in time and you must role play as if you are in that time period. Your going off on quests, fighting monsters, trolls, ogres, goblins, giants, and even dragons. You get given assignments by leaders of company’s you join as well as the mayor and the king him self. This being my first Larp as my character Kazarneth was quiet thrilling I enjoyed being a high elf earth mage and combating many enemies. i also enjoyed the experience of being part of the mage guild and the company known as ”The Company of The Silver Dragons” I enjoyed protecting both king and country with them in the game. Also a bit of advice if your a noob going into knight Blades or any sort of larp a bit of advice drink a lot of water between battles and stay alive.

Jenny Rota Larp Veteran;

I Jenny Rota also attended Knight Blades this weekend. i have been playing knightblades for just over a year now. I play as a Silver Elf fire mage. I was the one who dragged Jorge here into larping. “The Company of the Silver Dragons” is a very nice group of players who helped me out when i was a noob to larping. and now I am currently an officer in the guild. this means I can tell Jorge what to do. and also provide some guidance on combat.

There are a few things that you should really know before you enter any larp as a player. One of the most important things is the monsters that we all fight are also human beings behind all their masks, makeup and other costuming. You don’t want to hit them hard enough with your sword to the point where it causes actual pain to the NPC. It is very important that you respect the NPCs just like you respect the other players in game. you could potentially cause enough pain to the monster that they would not be allowed to role play as other monsters to kill. Besides, the more monsters to kill the more fun your larping experience will be. Another thing you should be aware of is the set of rules that both the players and npcs fallow. there are certain lists of abilities that everyone should know what they do. for example, in Knight Blades there is a skill called “Waylay” that a lot of the players have. When used properly, the ability knocks the target unconscious for five minutes. Also know that every larp has its own set of rules and regulations in regards to armor, weapons and the play style of the game. it is very important that you familiarize yourself with the rules before you enter the game. One last tip I offer is know what your character can do ability wise before you enter the game. if you are a spell caster such as a mage or cleric, know your spell incants. These are short lines that you say to tell people around you what you are casting, and how much damage the target will take if you hit them with the spell packet. It is crucial that you say the incant right. If you do not you waste the mana even though the spell was not successfully cast. if you are a fighter class it is just as important to know what your character does and now much health you have when you start off.

This past Knight Blades event many exciting things have happened. one of the most eventful things that happened was we finally sealed all the 7 deadly sins back into their realms where they will remain forever. Also a fallen dark god known as the Ravenger is trying to take power once more. He is currently trying to take the place of another god, putting the grey god Sepsis out of power. In the land of Baronia there are many gods that are worshiped. you can worship gods of the light, dark, or grey which are the neutral gods. there are a lot of mixed feeling with the Ravenger coming to power which is causing tension within the people of Stormhammer. A little advice for new players, keep which god you worship to yourself. Only tell those you trust which deity you fallow if you wish to.

For the next event I am expecting most of our combat to be against followers of the Ravenger, and possibly the Ravenger himself. I also expect followers of Sepsis to be out as well. Whatever we face I am sure that it will be a blast and I am looking forward to next event.

For more information about Knight Blades, click the link at the top of the article or the link at the bottom.

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