#May 2021 Group Gift

[sunshine-theseus]

Angel In Disguise | Esme Morgan x Reader

Word count: 2k

Summary: life’s hard when all your students prefer your footballer partner over you.

Warnings: fluff, children? idk how the English school timeline works and the Australian one doesn’t match up with the story so I’m just saying school starts in like September and ends in late May??

Request for: @wlwskyy i hope this is good! it's probably not as good as I hoped but i'm still pretty happy with it

Being a primary school teacher was hard. Trying to help students who struggle with the content while also helping others progress. Being strict while also wanting to be fun. My biggest struggle though, was a very me specific one.

Esme Morgan loves to visit me or help me out at school from time to time, and just like everyone else she meets, the kids fall in love with her. From the first time they meet her, they’re begging me to bring her back.

“Ms L/n it’s so cool you’re dating a footballer! Can you bring her back tomorrow? And the day after that and the day after that one until forever?” and once they realise that she actually has her own job to do, they beg I bring her in at least once a term.

It was my first year teaching after university, the first time she’d come to work, and it had been a complete surprise.

After she broke her leg in 2021, Esme struggled to fill her time. She’d made about 27 bracelets in the first 3 days, then tried to bake a little, although it went rather poorly. She then watched all the original Disney movies in release order. I think she got to Mulan II before she decided enough was enough.

I was in the middle of teaching the times tables when there was a light knock on the door. I could see her cheeky smile through the small pane of glass and rushed to open it for her. Esme stumbles through the door, her moon boot and crutches making it difficult for her to fit through the rather narrow frame.

She pecks me on the lips and the room erupts in childish giggles. Romantic affection was something so foreign to 8 and 9 year olds.

“Es… what are you doing here?” I whisper as I pull a chair for her sit on.

“I got bored, and I miss yoouu.” She smiles up at me and I can’t help but smile back.

“Oh! And I brought gifts for the kiddos!” she holds out a paper bag and I peak inside.

My heart melts at the pile of hand-crafted bracelets, ranging in colour and design, that fill a significant proportion of the bag.

She spent the rest of the day surrounded by my class. Eventually I had to stop teaching because they were so in love with this angelic limping figure who brough them friendship bracelets. I don’t think Esme prepared for them all to assume she was every single one of their best friends.

~~~~~

It was nearly Christmas break when she first met my class for this year, and everyone knew who she was. For the first time, I didn’t have to introduce her or tell them what she does for them to get hyped.

“I WATCHED YOU IN THAT FOOTBALL THING” and other similar phrases are shouted many times when she enters the room.

When I looked at her it was hard not to smile. She was playing and talking with kids and giving them all little bracelets, just like she does every year.

As she was crouched in front of a small group who were excitedly asking her questions, Marley, a rather shy and quiet girl, walked up to Esme and lightly tapped her shoulder. She fiddles with her fingers and avoids looking at anyone as she waits.

“Excuse me Mrs Esme?” Esme is already smiling when she turns to look at Marley.

“Hey kiddo!”

“Um you’re my favourite player of all time. I watch all your games and wanna grow up and play just like you.” And Esme’s smile grew bigger, something I wasn’t sure was possible.

“That’s so cool! Can I give you a hug?” Marley nods and giggles into the embrace, and then they begin to talk about Marley’s interest in football and Esme’s work.

I’d been struggling to get her to talk for 2 months, and Es came in and got her to talk within minutes, but I can’t stop staring lovingly at the angel of a woman in front of me. There was a part of myself I saw in Marley. I’d struggled to be very open for a long time until I met Esme. She just had this gentle, caring nature that was hard to ignore.

-

Marley misses her the most between visits. They’d made a secret handshake and love to chat and giggle on the oval at lunch, kicking the ball around.

In between visits Esme and Marley both interchangeably would give me something to give the other; a bracelet or a packet of lollies or a flower they found randomly. It was so hard for me to not burst from how cute their friendship was.

It had changed Es as well. Obviously, she has always been welcoming and warm-hearted but she’d become more confident about her play and sometimes I would catch her bragging to her teammates.

“I’m Marley’s favourite player!” it took them a while to realise who Marley was, but they found it adorable.

-

We’re in our last week for the school year, just in time for Esme to make one more surprise appearance before she has leave for camp for the France Olympics. I’d told the kids she wasn’t sure if she would have time to make it between finishing up the season and preparing for the Olympics, but that didn’t stop them from begging me to bring her in.

It’s the last day, everyone already buzzing for their long holiday, and admittedly from the lollies I gave them. I always try to make the last day super fun, activities and music and a surprise guest.

By midday I’d already had to apologise that Esme couldn’t make it. 17 times and counting.

And by 1, there was a knock on the door. A knock the kids were all too familiar with, and Esme rushes into the room, kids swarming her from all angles.

“Hey kiddos!”

“Hey pretty lady” she turns to me and kisses me quickly. Gags and loud ‘ewww!’s echo out.

Marley waits patiently with a small bag in her hand, still considerably shy. Esme wastes no time in getting to the young girl, with a similar bag in hand.

“Hey Mar! I got you a little something.” Esme hands the bag over, and everyone watches carefully as she pulls out whatever lays inside.

I see the familiar light blue peak out, and recognise the jersey design I sport most weekends. The present is clear when Marley starts jumping up and down in excitement.

“It’s one of my spares so don’t tell Gareth, ok? I got all the girls to sign it.” Marley is wrapped around Esme before she can finish the sentence.

“Thank you!” she scrambles to put her bag in Esme’s hands before tugging the shirt over her head.

I nearly scream when I see Esme pull out a black and purple jersey, colours I know from all the pictures Marley shows me of her games, usually with a trophy in her hands. Her last name and the number 14 adorn the back with a tiny ‘Marley’ in black sharpie on the ‘1’.

“Oh my god Marley this is so cool! I’m going to keep this forever. In a few years time I’m going to see you playing for England and know I got the first ever Marley jersey and signature. And of course you’ll play for Manchester City yeah?” the little girl eagerly nods her head.

-

The day goes on and the kids go home for the last time. Esme leaves after an hour of helping me pack up the classroom, to start dinner and I don’t finish until 5:30.

By the time I pull into the driveway, I’m exhausted, but satisfied with my work for the year.

I leave most of my gear in the car to unpack another day and walk to the door. I struggle to open it for a moment but when I do, I’m hit by the smell of my favourite meal cooking and the sound of Esme singing, albeit not well.

I drag my feet into the kitchen and wrap my arms around my wife, kissing her back as I just rest against her.

“Hello my love.”

“Hey sunshine.” I pause for a moment.

“You’re so good with kids.” She hums as she turns the stove off.

“And you helped Marley so much.”

“She’s a good kid, it’s hard not to like her.” I pull away and reach up to kiss her on the cheek before looking for the small gift bag.

“What are you doing?” Esme questions as she begins to plate to the food

“Well we have to measure Marley’s shirt for a frame so we can hang it up don’t we? I want to be able to boast to the world in like 8 years time about how I taught her and how we have her first ever signature.” I poke her in the side as I grab my plate.

“Well how about we do that tomorrow? I just want to cuddle with you tonight before we have to pack and get ready for camp.” I let out a loud groan.

“I can’t believe you’re taking me to France, and we’ll barely be able to do any of that gross romantic shit together.” Esme smiles down at me, regret floating behind her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Noo I’m so excited I just think they’re cruel for making players do their job or whatever.” I jokingly roll my eyes before I lean back into her on the couch, both our plates sat in our laps.

“I promise to take you to that restaurant on the top of the Eiffel Tower before we leave.” She kisses my forehead.

~~~~~

“This is light work for the defender, tapping the ball passed Courtney Nevin and chipping it passed the Australian goalkeeper! IT’S A GOAL FOR ENGLAND AND THEY FIND AN EQUALISER IN THE OLYMPIC FINALS!”

I cheer at the goal with the rest of the stadium, hugging the small girl next to me as she bounces in excitement.

“Did you see that mumma? She scored! Mar Mar scored!” Reese shouts over everyone else.

“I did! It was amazing, wasn’t it?”

When the game ends, I pick Reese up and we rush down to the pitch with the other family members, celebrating as we make our way. It takes us a few minutes to spot the players we’re looking for but when Reese points them out, I put her down and she runs toward them without a single thought.

“Congratulations!” I pull Esme into a kiss before turning to Marley. The 16-year-old smiled brightly at me before hugging me tightly.

“Your goal was fucking phenomenal Marley! They should make you a striker.”

“But then she wouldn’t be just like her favourite player” Esme buts in, our daughter falling asleep on her hip. We all laugh and continue to talk with the other girls and celebrate until we decide to head back to the hotel to put Reese to bed.

“I’m so proud of how far you’ve come you know?” I pull Marley into my side as we wait for the elevator.

“From ‘shy little 8 year old who refused to talk to her teacher’ to ‘number 14; defender and debut scorer for her country at the 2032 Olympics at 16 years old’.”

“And one of the youngest and best signings for Man City!” Esme chimes in

“Thank you for always believing in me.”

After we say goodnight to Marley and make sure Reese is definitely asleep, I climb into bed with Esme.

“You’re so amazing.” I stare at her. Sometimes I don’t understand how I was blessed with such a kind-hearted, gentle woman.

“I try.” We break out in giggles and I slap her lightly on the shoulder.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” we don’t say anything else.

She kisses me hard before I rest my head on her chest, her arm wrapping around me as we fall asleep. She’s my angel in disguise.

#woso x reader #woso #wwc 2023 #olympics 2024 #esme morgan #esme morgan x reader #womens soccer

[thepastisalreadywritten]

By Leslie Patrick

1 August 2023

Anne Boleyn (c. 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536), King Henry VIII's second queen, is often portrayed as a seductress and ultimately the woman responsible for changing the face of religion in England.

In reality, she was a fiercely intelligent and pious woman dedicated to education and religious reform.

But after her arrest and execution on false charges of adultery and incest in May 1536, Henry VIII was determined to forget her memory.

Her royal emblems were removed from palace walls, her sparkling jewels tucked away in dark coffers, and her precious books disappeared from the pages of time.

One of Boleyn’s books that has reappeared is the Book of Hours, a stunning prayer book, printed around 1527 with devotional texts designed to be read throughout the day, features hand-painted woodcuts — as well as a rare example of the queen’s own writing.

In the margins of one of the beautifully decorated pages, she penned a rhyming couplet followed by her signature:

“Remember me when you do pray, that hope doth lead from day to day, Anne Boleyn.”

The book vanished with Boleyn’s execution in 1536, then resurfaced around 1903 when it was acquired by the American millionaire William Waldorf Astor (31 March 1848 – 18 October 1919) after he purchased Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn’s childhood home in the English countryside.

The hiding place of the disgraced queen’s devotional tome had been a mystery for centuries, until recent research by a university student uncovered hidden signatures that helped trace its path through history.

The discovery

The book’s whereabouts in the 367 years between Boleyn’s death and its reemergence remained puzzling until 2020 when Kate McCaffrey, then a graduate student at the University of Kent working on her master’s thesis about Anne Boleyn’s Book of Hours, found something unexpected in the margins of the book.

“I noticed what appeared to be smudges to the naked eye,” recalls McCaffrey, assistant curator at Hever Castle since 2021.

Intrigued, she borrowed an industrial-strength ultraviolet light and set it up in the darkest room of Hever Castle.

Ultraviolet light is often used to examine historical documents because ink absorbs the ultraviolet wavelength, causing it to appear darker against the page when exposed.

“The words just came through. It was incredible to see them underneath the light, they were completely illuminated,” the curator recalls.

McCaffrey’s theory is that the words were erased during the late Victorian era when it was popular to cleanse marginalia from books or manuscripts.

But thanks to her extraordinary detective work, these erased words turned out to be the key that unlocked the tale of the book’s secret journey from certain destruction at the royal court to safety in the hands of a dedicated group of Boleyn’s supporters.

The guardians

Indeed, various pages throughout the text reveal the names and notations of a string of Kentish women — Elizabeth Hill, Elizabeth Shirley, Mary Cheke, Philippa Gage, and Mary West — who banded together to safeguard Anne's precious book and keep her memory alive.

While it’s unclear how the book was initially passed to these women, Anne Boleyn expert Natalie Grueninger suggests it was gifted by Anne to a woman named Elizabeth Hill.

Elizabeth grew up near Hever Castle, and her husband, Richard Hill, was sergeant of the King’s Cellar at Henry VIII’s court.

There are records of the Hill’s playing cards with the king, and there may have been a friendship between Elizabeth and the queen that prompted Boleyn to pass her prayer book on before her execution.

“This extended Kentish family kept the book safe following Anne’s demise, which was an incredibly brave and bold act considering it could have been considered treasonous,” says Grueninger, podcaster and author of the book The Final Year of Anne Boleyn.

Anne’s Book of Hours was passed between mothers, daughters, sisters, and nieces until the late sixteenth century, when the last name makes its appearance in its margins.

“This story is an example of the women in the family prioritizing loyalty, friendship, fidelity, and a personal connection to Anne,” says McCaffrey.

“The fact that the women have kept it safe is a really beautiful story of solidarity, community, and bravery.”

The book, currently on display at Hever Castle, is a touchstone of the enigma that was Anne Boleyn.

Castle historian and assistant curator Owen Emmerson points out that the book contains Anne’s DNA on the pages from where she touched and kissed it during her daily devotions.

“This was a really beloved possession of hers,” says Emmerson.

“Because of what happened to Anne Boleyn, we don’t have a vast amount of information in Anne’s own words. But the physical remnants of her use of the book, and the construction of that beautiful little couplet, have her identity in them.”

While Anne’s Book of Hours has finally found its way home, the research into this intriguing historical mystery is not yet over.

McCaffrey continues to chart the book’s provenance through the centuries to find out where it was hiding all this time.

The discovery of the inscriptions illuminates the book’s furtive journey, providing us with a glimpse into the controversy, loyalty, and fascination that Anne Boleyn has engendered for the past 500 years.

#Anne Boleyn #King Henry VIII #Book of Hours #William Waldorf Astor #Hever Castle #Kate McCaffrey #University of Kent #ultraviolet light #Natalie Grueninger #Owen Emmerson #Elizabeth Hill #Elizabeth Shirley #Mary Cheke #Philippa Gage #Mary West #The Tudors #House of Tudor #British Royal Family

[choicesficwriterscreations]

January Creator of the Month: Jerzwriter

Each month, CFWC highlights one of our talented fanfic writers or artists, and this month’s creator of the month is CFWC's own @jerzwriter.  The writer is selected at random. More info can be found on the navigation page.

Quick Links:

Tumblr Blog Complete Masterlist

How do you want to be known on Tumblr? 

Elsa

More below...

1- When did you start playing Choices? What was the first book you played? 

It was sometime in 2017, and the first book I ever played was The Royal Romance, Book 1.

2- When and why did you join Choices fandom?

I joined a couple Facebook groups in 2019. I just wanted to discuss stories with others who were interested, as no one in my real life reads Choices. I didn't even know I was entering a fandom. lol I started reading fanfic on Tumblr the following year, but I found Tumblr intimidating, so I was mostly a silent reader. I didn’t start writing and contributing until May 2021, mostly because Open Heart was ending and I was in denial. 🙂

3- How did you pick your blog name? 

It’s pretty boring, actually. I’m from NJ, and I write. I wanted it to be JerZwriter, so people would know it is Jer-ZEE-Writer, but that wasn’t doable, so it’s Jerzwriter, and most think it is Jerz-Writer. Oh, well!  

4- Pull up the first and last posts in your archive, and tell us about them!  

My first post was the first chapter of my Ethan x Casey x Tobias love triangle, Delaying the Inevitable (OH).  It was my very first fanfic and I really didn't think I'd write anything beyond that.  I was so green back then, not only to fanfic but to the fandom as well. I’m really glad that I was naive because I don’t think I would have had the courage to post it if I had, but I’m glad that I did. 

My last post was Falling for You, a little drabble I wrote for Tobias x Casey (OH), and it featured a commission by the talented artist @weetlebeetle. It was a light, fun piece that took place early in Tobias and Casey's relationship, and it shows Tobias at his absolute simpiest. Lol 

5- Do you write fanfiction, create fan art, or are you one of those really gifted people who do both? 

Oh, how I wish I could draw, but I can't.  So, I’m strictly a writer. I may try giving drawing a go again, but I don't expect much to come of it. lol

6- How long have you been creating for Choices and for any other fandoms?

Choices was the first fandom I ever wrote for, and I started in May of 2021.  So, just over two and a half years. I have written a little bit for some other fandoms since that time, but I primarily write for Choices.

7- What is your favorite Choices book, and what is your favorite Choices book to create for?

Tough question.  I write for Open Heart, Crimes of Passion, and Wake the Dead, and they are three of my favorite stories. I also loved Desire & Decorum, but I never wrote for it.  Though, I’m planning a re-read, and you never know. 🙂

8- Share your first Choices fanfic or fan art that you posted with us. Do you still like it, or would you change it if you were creating it today?

It was the first chapter of Delaying the Inevitable. I was so green when I started that series that I’m sure there are things I would change, but I’m still very proud of it.  That series will always have a special place in my heart.  I’d like to revisit it one day to “clean it up”, it could use some condensing. But I would never change the storyline.

9- What is your favorite piece of fiction or art that you created? 

This is such an unfair question. lol The Delaying the Inevitable Series definitely comes to mind, but I’m also very proud of my Eli Sipes prequel stories, A Mother’s Journal, Coming Up Blank, and The End of the World. But Tobias and Casey are my favorite pairing, and I simply love the world I created for them. And while my headcanon for them is my favorite, I cannot pick just one fic for them, and I'm not going to! lol But, I've also written a bunch of AUs for them, and Friends* is one of my favorites.

10- Do you have a fic/art that you didn’t expect to be well received, but it was? What about one you expected to do well but found it could use a little more love?

Yes, to both! The fandom is much smaller today, but back when we were more active, I learned you couldn't predict how a fic would be received.  There are too many to name, but I will say whenever my smut does well (and quite a few of them have), I’m always astounded. lol 

11-  If you could write only angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why? 

This is such a difficult question because I believe the best stories incorporate a little of each, and, as a writer, exploring all three helps spur creativity. Also, my absolute favorite is angst with a happy ending, so there is definitely some fluff in there (and I'm never mad at a little smut being thrown in!) But if I were forced to choose, it would probably be angst.  I think that's where I am strongest, and I just love raw emotion. I think that’s where character development really occurs. I have not written as much angst recently, and I miss it.  Perhaps I need a change in 2024. 

12 - Do you ever recognize yourself in any of your MCs or in your writing?

There are definitely parts of me in my MCs and OCs, but I do my best to prevent them from becoming self-inserts.  I'm not as cool as any of them, that's for sure! lol That said, I do find inspiration for my fics in real life, so there is bound to be a little crossover. When using real-life inspiration, I try to change details so that the fiction is not a carbon copy of the real-life event. Normally, by the time I'm done, they're hardly recognizable.

13 - What element of writing/art do you struggle with most? Where do you feel you are strongest?

I struggle most with setting a scene. Dialogue is my strong suit, and that just flows for me. It flows so much that sometimes I forget to describe what's going on around the conversation. I think this is particularly easy to do in fanfiction because so much of the "world" has already been provided for us, so I recognize this more when I'm writing original works.

The other thing I struggle with? Brevity. I know I can go on, and on, and on. lol I've gotten much better at this, but there is still room for improvement.

14 - Do you have any neglected work you really want to finish?

(Elsa leaves the room, quietly crawls under her desk, and hides…) YES!!! Far, far too many, and no matter how much I share those posts that say, "You don't have to finish! If you're not feeling it, move on!" I don't believe it! lol I really want to make wrapping them up a priority in 2024.  But I also know writing - particularly good writing - cannot be forced.  So, it's a goal, but I'll only do it if I feel it’s right. 

15 - If someone you know in real life (who isn’t involved in fandoms) asked to see your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you show them first? 

It would depend on who asked.  I’m not ashamed of writing fanfic at all, but if I believed the person would be judgemental, I wouldn't be willing to share.  A few of my friends have read select pieces of my fanfic, and I’ve always received positive feedback from them. I wouldn’t be opposed to sharing more.  What I'd share would depend greatly on the person asking.

16 - Are there any writers (published authors and/or fanfic writers) who influenced your writing or art? Are there any artists that influence you?

There are many published writers that I admire, but I don’t think they've influenced my writing here. Within the fandom, there are many writers who have inspired me in different ways. There is no way I can ever name them all. But I'd like to give a shout-out to some.

@jamespotterthefirst and @bex-la-get were among the first writers I read when I joined Tumblr. I found their passion for both canon and the worlds they created inspiring, especially as Open Heart was nearing its end and all of us addicts needed our fill. Reading their works helped keep the story alive for me and so many others, and it inspired me to try my hand at it as well. To my shock, they were both so encouraging and supportive of me when I arrived, and I'm forever grateful. Back then, I thought they were rockstars - and they are! But now, they're also friends. I wasn't familiar with @alwaysmychoices from the start, but when I came across their work, I was just blown away.  Weekend with Dr. Ramsey will live rent-free in my head forever, and that headcanon about Charlie calling Ethan the night before she marries someone else. (I faint.) Ohhh, the delicious angst! The way she made me feel what Charlie felt was just mind-boggling, and it encouraged me to really dig into my character's emotions and bring them to life in a more meaningful way.

Early on, I read @utterlyinevitable, and the thing that impressed me the most was how Dom was willing to "write stories that “went "go there.”  They tackled issues that others wouldn't touch.  In their world, everything wasn’t perfect, including the characters themselves. I admired that vision and, frankly, bravery, and it definitely encouraged me to write what I wanted to and not what I felt was expected of me.

More recently, @mydemonsdrivealimo inspired me to explore parts of my MCs that I have not delved into in the past.  In particular, Casey's bisexuality. It can be challenging to represent a bisexual character when they are in a straight-presenting relationship, and you risk alienating readers no matter what you do (looking at all readers here.) So it becomes easier to be lazy and ignore it. But that's a disservice to the character as much as it's a disservice to people living similar situations in real life... like I have many times. Through MJ's writing and our conversations, they've helped me become more aware and do a better job in this regard, and I'm not even sure if they know this - it may totally be news to them lol - but I'm eternally grateful. Now, I feel my girl Casey is free, and OMG, how I love our characters playing together in HC now!

Then there are @lilyoffandoms and @storyofmychoices, who bring joy to all that they touch. Who knew when Lily created a little drabble putting our characters in a new world together, it would end up being one of the brightest fandom spots of 2023? Who knew that so much more would stem from that one work? Seriously, it's been one of the highlights of my fandom experience this year, and it's helped me to find inspiration at times when I felt like it was lost. Thank you both - I am so lucky to have you both here!

There are so many more I could mention, but I'd still forget people and feel horrible, so I want to take the chance to thank every writer in the fandom for sharing their gifts with us. Each of you is an inspiration in your own way; each of you can give someone an idea, and you have no idea where that spark will lead. So, never stop sharing!

17-  Which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series? 

Delaying the Inevitable, Friends*, All in the Past, and the WIP What’s Forever For. I also think some of my Ethan x Tobias works would have made for a good sitcom, and how I wish my Tobias x Casey friendship with Bryce x Jensen would be an epic sitcom. The world needs it! lol   (Jensen belongs to @mydemonsdrivealimo.)

19- Do you write original fiction or create non-fandom art? 

I do. Mostly shorter stories that will never see the light of day, but also some more substantive works... which will also never see the light of day! lol I wrote a novel-length political thriller some time ago. It would need a ton of work to bring it up to 2024, as the political landscape has changed so much. I also have two original WIPs I've been writing. One is an angsty story about a friendship that's loosely based on a childhood friend I lost to cancer a few years ago.  The other is a polyamorous romance about two best friends who fall for the same person. It's really a beautiful, emotional story. If I like the end result, maybe I'll let it see the light of day... maybe. lol

20-  What other hobbies do you have?

I enjoy theater, and I'm lucky enough to live in the best part of the world to partake in that.  I go to a lot of Broadway, Off-Broadway, and local theater productions. I also love going to concerts - they’re like group therapy! Trust me, I got more out of seeing Noah Kahan and Hozier in 2023 than I did from the entirety of sessions with my therapist - and I loved my therapist. lol

Prior to 2020, I did a fair amount of traveling, and I hope to start doing a little more this year.  But I have to admit, since the lockdown, I’ve become more of a homebody, and I like it, so we’ll see how that goes! 

I used to be very involved with activism and advocacy for women’s, lgbtq+, and mental health issues. I still am, but in a different capacity than I was in the past. These issues require people fighting for them, and doing so has always been a huge part of who I am, but it can be draining, and burnout is real. I really reached the end of my rope. So, nowadays, I work as a volunteer for a couple local organizations that really mean a lot to me. I'm not involved in grassroots efforts or taking trips to talk to legislators as often, but I'm helping people on a smaller scale, and that still goes a long, long way.

22: BONUS - tell us anything you’d like (if you want to).

As most of you know, I’m one of the mods here at CFWC, so it was a little weird when my the wheel landed on my name.  But, honestly, it’s happened before, and I've just spun again, even though I am eligible. But this time around, I decided to do it. This fandom really means a lot to me, and I wanted to share a little more about myself and my crazy pixelated people.

I'm truly grateful to everyone in the fandom who does their part to make this a place that many, like me, still see as a place they want to be. We're smaller, it's imperfect, it has plenty of problems, but I am choosing to focus on the good... because there is much more of that than there is bad. So, thank you to each of you... and I hope we all have a wonderful 2024! xo

PS... My header... I know Tobias wasn't technically an LI... which was truly criminal. So, that's what fandom is for, fixing what canon effed up. lol My favorite canon LI is Trystan Thorne (COP). I tried adding their picture to the header alongside Tobias, but it looked terrible, so here I am. :)

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I can't wait to highlight more of you in 2024! :)

#choices fic writers creations #playchoices #choices the stories you play #cfwc creator of the month #jerzwriter #choices fanfic #playchoices fanfic #january creator of the month #open heart #crimes of passion #wake the dead

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Clarence Thomas and the generosity of a far-right dark-money billionaire

Clarence Thomas has set some important precedents in his career as a Supreme Court justice — for example, the elevation of the unrepentant rapist Brett Kavanaugh to the bench could never have occurred but for the trail blazed by Thomas as a sexually harassing, pubic-hair distributing creep boss:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/01/30-years-after-her-testimony-anita-hill-still-wants-something-from-joe-biden-514884

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas/#harlan-crow

Today, Thomas continues to steer the court into new territory — for example, he’s interested in banning same-sex marriage again:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/24/thomas-constitutional-rights-00042256

And of course, he’s set precedent by hearing cases related to the attempted overthrow of the US government, despite the role his wife played in the affair:

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/30/1089595933/legal-ethics-experts-agree-justice-thomas-must-recuse-in-insurrection-cases

Thomas is not alone in furthering the right’s mission to destroy the morale of constitutional law scholars by systematically delegitimizing the court and showing it to be a vehicle for partisan politics and dark money policy laundering, but he is certainly at the vanguard:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/25/consequentialism/#dotards-in-robes

Today, Propublica published an expose on the vast fortune in secret gifts bestowed upon Thomas by the billionare GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, who is also one the most significant funders of political campaigns that put business before Thomas and the Supreme Court:

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow

The story, reported by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski is a masterwork of shoe-leather investigative journalism, drawing on aviation records, social media posts and other “open source” intelligence to expose the illegal, off-the-books “gifts” from a billionaire to an unaccountable Supreme Court justice with a lifetime appointment.

Here are a two of those gifts: a private jet/superyacht jaunt around Indonesia valued at $500,000; and a $500,000 gift to Ginni Thomas’s Tea Party group (which pays Ginni Thomas $120,000/year).

On top of that are gifts that are literally priceless: decades’ worth of summer vacations at Camp Topridge, Crow’s private estate, with its waterfall, great hall, private chefs, 25 fireplaces, thee boathouses, clay tennis court, batting range, 1950s-style soda fountain and full-scale reproduction of Hagrid’s hut.

Summer retreats to Topridge allow business leaders like Leonard Leo — the Federalist Society bankroller and mastermind who set Trump up to pack the Supreme Court — to coordinate in private with Thomas:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/29/betcha-cant-eat-just-one/#pwnage

They also allow top execs from PWC, Verizon and other corporations who may have business before the court to establish a warm, collegial relationship with a judge whose decisions can make billions for their employers. In its reporting, Propublica points out that Thomas got to hang out on Crow’s superyacht with Mark Paoletta, who was then general counsel for Trump’s OMB, and who has opposed any tightening of ethics rules for Supreme Court judges: “there is nothing wrong with ethics or recusals at the Supreme Court.”

Crow and Thomas also hobnob together at Crow’s Texas ranch, and at the Bohemian Grove, the Bay Area’s ultra-luxe retreat for rich creeps. Crow bought Thomas a private superyacht cruise through New Zealand, another through the Greek islands, and a river trip around Savannah, GA. He also traveled around the country on Crow’s private jet — even a short private jet trip is valued around $70,000.

Crow also makes many donations on Thomas’s behalf, from a $105,000 donation to Yale Law School for the “Justice Thomas Portrait Fund” to paying for a 7 foot tall, 1,800 lb bronze statue of the nun who taught Thomas in the eighth grade, which now stands in a New York Catholic cemetery.

This is without precedent. No Supreme Court justice in US history received comparable gifts during their tenure on the bench. Federal judges quoted in the story call it “incomprehensible,” noting that US judges bend over backwards not to owe anyone any favors, going so far as to book restaurant reservations without using their titles.

Virginia Canter, a former US government ethics lawyer of bipartisan experience said Thomas “seems to have completely disregarded his higher ethical obligations,” adding “it makes my heart sink.”

The Supreme Court’s own code of ethics prohibits justices from engaging in conduct that gives rise to the “appearance of impropriety,” but the code is “consultative,” and there are no penalties for violating it. But US judicial officers — including Thomas — are legally required to disclose things like private jet trips. Thomas did not. In general, justices must report any gift valued at more than $415, where a gift is “anything of value.” This includes instances in which a gift is given by a corporation whose owner is the true giver.

Crow is a Red Scare-haunted plutocrat who says his greatest fear is “Marxism.” He was a key donor to the anti-tax extremists at the Club For Growth, and has served on the board of the American Enterprise Institute — climate deniers who also claimed that smoking didn’t cause cancer — for 25 years.

Crow is a proud dark-money source, too, whose $10m in acknowledged donations to Republican causes and candidates are only the tip of the iceberg, next to the dark money he has provided to groups he declines to name, telling the New York Times, “I don’t disclose what I’m not required to disclose.”

Crow claims that the vast sums he’s lavished on Thomas — who, again, presides over the test cases that Crow is helping to put before him — are just “hospitality.” Crow called the private retreats with business leaders and top government officials “gatherings of friends,” and added that he was “unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas” while at his private estates or on his superyacht or private plane.

For his part, Thomas publicly maintains that he hates luxury. In a Crow-financed documentary about Thomas’s life, Thomas tells the camera, “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.”

Judges often have to make determinations about conflicts of interest, and lawyers have an entire practice devoted to preventing conflicts from arising. I doubt whether Thomas himself would consent to have a dispute of his own tried in front of a judge who had received millions in gifts from his opponent.

The Supreme Court’s power comes from its legitimacy. The project of delegitimizing the court started with the right, and Democrats have been loathe to participate in any activity that would worsen the court’s reputation. As a result, the business lobby and authoritarian politicians have had free rein to turn the court into a weapon for attacking American workers, American women, and LGBTQ people.

It doesn’t have to be this way. When the Supreme Court blocked all of FDR’s New Deal policies — which were wildly popular — FDR responded by proposing age limits for Supreme Court judges. When the Supremes refused to contemplate this, FDR asked Congress for a law allowing him to appoint one new Supreme Court judge for every judge who should retire but wouldn’t.

As the vote on this bill grew nearer, the Supremes reversed themselves, voting to uphold the policies they’d struck down in their previous session. They knew that their legitimacy was all they had, and when a brave president stood up to their bullying, they caved.

https://theconversation.com/packing-the-court-amid-national-crises-lincoln-and-his-republicans-remade-the-supreme-court-to-fit-their-agenda-147139

The Supreme Court has moved America further away from the ideals of pluralistic democracy than we can even fathom, and they’re just getting started. They are taking a wrecking ball to the lives of anyone who isn’t a wealthy conservative, and they’re doing it while accepting a fortune in bribes from American oligarchs.

Have you ever wanted to say thank you for these posts? Here’s how you can: I’m kickstarting the audiobook for my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: Mr. Kjetil Ree (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Supreme_Court.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: An altered image of Clarence Thomas, standing in gilded judicial robes on the steps of the Supreme Court. Looming over the court is a line-drawing of a business-man with a dollar-sign-emblazoned money-bag for a head.]

#pluralistic #Mark Paoletta #clarence thomas #corruption #conflict of interest #bribery #gop #fedsoc #federalist society #superyachts #harlan crow #private jets #scotus #supreme court #legitimacy #dark money #bohemian grove #aei #american entertprise institute #club for growth #hoover institution #Justice Thomas Portrait Fund #yale law school #yale #boolah boolah #red scare

[heejinkwan]

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ ASTELLA is a fictional idol soloist managed by Starship Entertainment. Before becoming a soloist she was the main vocalist of the girl group Promise, who later changed their name to Paradise. The group debuted as a six-member group originally in 2017, but when Heejin left in 2021 they continued activities as a five member group. It was unknown as to why she left, her old company said it was due to creative differences, but Heejin’s side of the story said something completely different. She officially sued her ex-manager for emotional distress in January of 2022, a few months after her departure from the group. She claimed that her manager mistreated not only her but two other members! She ended up winning and her ex manager was fired but it was too late, the damage was already done.

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ Astella would make her SOLO DEBUT in late 2021/early 2022 with a highly anticipated pre-release single called Sugarcoat. She debuted in an entirely different company, Starship Entertainment. Home to groups like Ive, Wjsn, and Sistar!

★ ⠀⠀ ! ⠀⠀ At first she was very hesitant in coming back into the idol scene, she was content with not being in the spotlight for a while, but this was her dream! She trained years for it, giving up half of her teenage years and she was not going to give it up easily. She plans to release her 2nd mini album around April/May of 2024, so stay tuned!

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♀ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ ୭̥⋆*｡ ❪ basics ❫

STAGE NAME ﹕astella ( 아스텔라 )

BIRTH NAME ﹕kwan heejin (관희진)

ENGLISH NAME ﹕astella

BIRTHDAY ﹕april 20, 2001

ZODIAC SIGN ﹕taurus

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♀ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ ୭̥⋆*｡ ❪ physical ❫

FACE ﹕minjeong kim of aespa

NATIONALITY ﹕south korean

ETHNICITY ﹕korean

HEIGHT ﹕165cm / 5’5”

WEIGHT ﹕41kg (90.4lbs)

BLOOD TYPE ﹕a

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♀ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ ୭̥⋆*｡ ❪ career ❫

OCCUPATION ﹕idol

COMPANY ﹕bubble entertainment ( 2016—2021 ) , starship entertainment ( 2021–present )

GROUP ﹕paradise (formerly promise) ( 2017–2021 )

REPRESENTATIVE COLOR ﹕pink

REPRESENTATIVE EMOJI ﹕🦌

INSTAGRAM ﹕astella

꒰ ♀ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ ୭̥⋆*｡ ❪ history ❫

Born on april 20th, 2001 in busan, south korea, Heejin Kwan is the child of the married couple Sooyoung and Minjun Kwan. heejin’s parents are working working class parents, her mother is a retired teacher and her father is an surgeon. she has one older brother by the name of Haneul, growing up they had an amazing relationship, they still do to this day!

Heejin has always loved music, she was a big fan of Girls Generation and BTS, the first ever album she got was a gift for her birthday was “I got a Boy” which she still has! She’s shown it her fans once on live and talked about how she got it. In 2016, she was scouted by a fairly new talent agency called “Bubble Entertainment” of course she was skeptical, but music was her thing, thats was she loved so she agreed to being a trainee, for her to only be a trainee for half a year, she improved all the time and debuted in Promise as the main vocalist.

She remained active with the group for 4 years, leaving unexpectedly in 2021, it shocked kpop stans all across the world because it was just out of nowhere. But, she did end up coming back in 2021, but as a soloist this time.

( header creds )

#◟ ⋆ ◟ ⋆ 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐗 𝐈𝐒 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 › heejin kwan ! #◟ ⋆ 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐗 𝐈𝐒 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 › development ! #fictional idol oc #fictional idol community #fake kpop idol #fake kpop group #fake kpop oc #fake kpop girl group #fake kpop addition #fake kpop gg #fake kpop soloist #fake kpop member #fake kpop company #fictional idol group #fictional kpop oc #fictional kpop idol #fictional kpop community #kpop oc

[skz-vivi]

abilities and skills !

she can play the piano, the violin and the guitar.

she knows how to rollerskate and skateboard.

she has a diverse vocal range being the second deepest voice but can also direct her voice to go high.

she can fake cry on the spot.

she is very quick in learning choreos.

her dance style is having sharp, clean movements.

it isn't hard for her to think of a freestyle on the spot.

she is great with little kids.

her aim is very accurate which made her pique an interest in archey.

she can keep her eyes open for a long time without blinking.

she has really good reflexes and intuition.

it is really easy for her to win debates as she has very good thinking and argumentative skills.

interests, hobbies & habits !

she doesn't particularly watch anime but one of her favorite tv shows is 'the disastrous life of Saiki K'.

she’s very interested in fashion. she also likes to draw. by merging those two hobbies together, she sometimes draws clothing designs.

she goes crazy during karoake.

she is the biggest fan of sanrio and has lego pieces of hello kitty, kuromi, cinnamon roll, pochacco and chococat in her dorm.

once she falls a sleep, she'll be lost in a dream forever unless force is used to wake her up.

she tends to zone out a lot.

she adores baking (even though it may not always turn out cooked).

she loves watching kids shows like total drama, miraculous ladybug, victorious and more.

she can differentiate people by how they walk up the stairs (she used to sneak her phone a lot when she was younger).

her favourite youtubers are the beta squad.

she loves loves loves roblox and will never stop talking about it.

when eating, she either eats in humongous bites or stuffs everything down at once.

she has the habit of when someone asks her to do something, she says no but will do it anyway.

she is a foodholic and a sugarholic.

she owns a pink polaroid camera (gifted by hyunjin) she takes everywhere as she loves photography.

she tends to be quite sarcastic.

she has a habit of being loud in general: when talking, laughing, sneezing etc.

miscellaneous !

she auditioned online with tell me by wonder girls.

she joined jyp entertainment in 2019, when she was 18 years old.

she trained for 1 year and 4 months.

she is the 1st nigerian kpop idol.

she is called an ace, the nation's barbie and charisma queen by netizens.

her nicknames given by stay are 떡토끼 (mochi bunny), london princess, 별얼굴 (star face), jelly girl and chubs.

her nicknames give by her band mates are chatterbox, mimimimi (the cartoonish sleeping sound), mickey mouse and cheeks.

she is close with all of the groups under jype and she is also close with tomorrow x together's soobin, le sserafim's yunjin, enhyphen's jungwon, aespa's giselle, and soloist chaeyeon.

her role models are her parents, bang chan and Jesus.

she is a very strong Christian and reguarly goes to church.

her favourite colour is pink.

when she was younger, she wanted to be a paediatrician or an actress.

she has ranked on tc chandler's 100 most beautiful faces ever since she debuted. she ranked 86th in 2020, 63rd in 2021, 31st in 2022 and 11th in 2023.

pre-debut, her favourite kpop groups were: twice - her bias being jihyo; red velvet - her bias being joy; gfriend - her bias being umji and shinee - her bias being taemin.

motto: "love always".

ᰍ̠ - taglist! @mynameisnotlaura ‧ @alixnsuperstxr

send an ask or comment to join

ᰍ̠ - notes! insp by @skz-suki

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡©skz-vivi all rights reserved. do not copy or repost

God loves you ♡

#stray kids 9th member #skz 9th member #stray kids #skz #stray kids oc #skz oc #kpop oc #stray kids extra member #stray kids ninth member #skz ninth member #stray kids addition #skz addition #9th member of stray kids #9th member of skz #stray kids female member #skz female member #kpop addition #kpop added member #kpop extra member #kpop female oc #stray kids female addition #skz female addition #skz extra member

[maya-chirps]

Simbang Gabi: The 9 Days Before Christmas

An image of a red parol from Peakpx.com

The Philippines is well-known for its extremely long Christmas celebration that a lot of foreigners often look at with confusion. Traditionally, Filipinos may start putting up their trees, playing festive songs, and counting down to the 25th as early as September in a season that's colloquially called the "ber months" or the "ber months season" (Petrelli, 2021). This period often lasts up until January or February where some houses may still keep their trees and decor pushing as far as March.

Even with this technicality, however, you'd be hard-pressed to find Filipinos truly celebrating from the very beginning of September genuinely ending it by the end of February. Most often, actual celebrations start after Undas, a period encompassing All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day on the 1st and 2nd of November respectively to commemorate the dead, similar but a lot more subtle than other Catholic countries own Day of the Dead like in Mexico's Dia de Los Muertos and Italy's Giorno dei Morti. This time period is often the start of people doing more Christmas-y things such as Kris Kringle activities leading up to the main Christmas party.

The main markers of the true start in itself is the Advent season, which starts on the Sunday nearest to the 30th in Western Churches like Roman Catholicism and leads up to Christmas ("Advent", n.d.). This is where Catholics would go to Church every Sunday leading up to Christmas to light the Advent Wreath until the final candle on its center on Christmas day on the 25th. As the Philippines is heavily influenced by Roman Catholicism, Filipinos follow the Western start of Advent and most celebrations often fall in the middle of this time period. Even the middle of Advent, however, Filipinos have a waiting period to count down before Christmas - Simbang Gabi.

What is Simbang Gabi?

Simbang Gabi (en. night mass; going to mass at night) is a Philippine Christmas tradition wherein Roman Catholic Filipinos would attend mass nine days every single morning or night before the actual Christmas celebration. Traditionally, the masses were held every morning at 4:00 AM from the 16th to the 24th which would then be capped off by Christmas Eve Mass at night or Christmas Mass on the 25th with its early schedule earning it the name Misa de Gallo (en. mass of the rooster) (Lazaro, 2020). In most dioceses, however, they often have an anticipated mass schedule that start a night earlier than the morning masses (Hermoso, 2022).

Besides being called Misa de Gallo, I had also heard the celebration being called Misa de Aguinaldo (en. mass of gifts) in some places. This shares the same name as the similar Puerto Rican tradition Misa de Aguinaldo which is also a nine-day mass held in the morning, typically at 5:00 AM which is also deeply-rooted in Puerto Rican Christmas traditions (Álvarez, 2018).

History

A vintage greeting card posted by the Facebook group Vintage Philippine Islands 1920-1959 (2020)

Being a Christmas tradition, it is not surprising that Simbang Gabi could trace itself back to the Spanish colonial period.

A common misconception of its origins states that the practice first started in Mexico. Hermoso (2018) states that it started on the year 1587 by Friar Diego de Soria of the Convent of San Agustin Acolman when he requested the Vatican to allow church service to be held outdoors because of an overflow of attendees during the Christmas time. Pope Sixtus V later approved of this request and even decreed that these kinds of masses be held in the Philippines at the dawn of the 16th of December. What this doesn't account for was that the practice of going to church for the Eve of Christmas dates back to even earlier than the 16th century.

The cover for an English translation and compilation of Etheria's writings by M.L. McClure and C.L. Feltoe, D.D. (1919)

The first recorded instance of Christians celebrating Christmas by going to early mass leading up to the actual date was first written by Egeria (also called Egeriae, Etheria, or Aetheria), a Christian Galician woman who first recorded it during her travels to the Levant where she notes the early morning masses and festivities from the time of the Epiphany to the Nativity. She writes in her letters later called the Itinerarium Egeriae (en. The Travel Guide of Egeria; The Pilgrimage of Etheria).

"Octave of the Festival. On the second day also they proceed in like manner to the church in Golgotha, and also on the third day; thus the feast is celebrated with all this joyfulness for three days up to the sixth hour in the church built by Constantine (...) And in Bethlehem also throughout the entire eight days the feast is celebrated with similar festal array and joyfulness daily by the priests and by all the clergy there, and by the monks who are appointed in that place (...) and immense crowds, not of monks only, but also of the laity, both men and women, flock together to Jerusalem from every quarter for the solemn and joyous observance of that day." - Egeria, 381-384; The Pilgrimage of Etheria (trans. McClure & Feltoe, 1919):

The practice of attending early morning masses up until the main festivities of the Nativity was later adopted by more Western Christian communties during the time of Pope Sixtus III when he celebrated what is widely considered the first Midnight Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, not only stemming from the popularity of the Christians from Jerusalem but also the popular belief that Jesus was born at midnight (The Pillar, 2021).

The prayer spoken within the midnight vigil was then called the "mox ut gallus cantaverit" which translates to "when the rooster crows", aptly named because of the early hours the vigil tended to last which then coincided with the crowing of roosters ("Misa del Gallo: origen, historia y por qué se celebra en la madrugada del 25 de diciembre", 2022). The practice was continued by the Spanish with the name Misa de Gallo (also called Misa de Aguinaldo)which later spread throughout the Spanish Empire and could now be seen practiced in countries like Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and of course the Philippines.

There seem to be two variations of this: the nine-day series of masses before Christmas (found in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela) and the single early morning mass before Christmas day (found in Spain and Bolivia). It isn't clear if Spain and Bolivia simply dropped the nine-day tradition or if the nine-day tradition was restarted in these other colonies, however.

In the Present Day

An image of crowds outside a church during Simbang Gabi uploaded to Wikimedia by Erwin Malicdem

Today, the Simbang Gabi continues to be a popular tradtion for most Filipino Roman Catholics, even those who aren't typically as religious most parts of the year. This is given the fact that a popular belief is that when a person completes all of the nine days, they may receive a wish to whatever they desire. This is such a common belief that Bishop Broderick Pabillo, a Manila auxiliary bishop, had to remind people that the point of the tradition is to remember Jesus and his nativity (Punay, 2016). Besides this, it is also a common challenge among Filipinos to try to complete it as is or see how many days out of the nine could they actually attend.

It is not uncommon for churches these days to hold an "anticipated" mass the night before the actual date starting instead on the 15th and ending on the 24th with a Christmas mass, instead of starting on the 16th and ending on the 25th. This newer tradition had come from the reign of Filipino dictator President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. during the Martial Law years in the 70s, when Filipinos were not allowed to go out after a curfew until 4 in the morning (Macairan, 2023). This allowed more people and especially those who may not be able to start their day early or those who may have other obligations in the morning to attend masses at night time, typically at around 6 PM - 8 PM.

The only large controversy that I could remember about Simbang Gabi was back in 2011 when the event was banned from being conducted within the Philippine Center in New York City. The ban came about because of it supposedly violated Canon Law which prohibits religious worship in unconsecrated ground or in other words places that aren't seen as places of worship. In an article by Adarlo & Pastor (2014), Rev. Dr. Joseph G. Marabe, the at-the-time head of the Chapel of San Lorenzo Ruiz and a priest-in-residence at St. Patrick's Cathedral where the ban took place, explains in an interview with news site The FilAm:

"It’s not allowed by law to have Holy Mass in an unconsecrated place. Worship should take place in a sacred place. That was an explanation but not a decision. The Archdiocese decides." - Rev. Dr. Joseph G. Marabe, head of the Chapel of San Lorenzo Ruiz in Chinatown, New York (2011)

The ban was later lifted on 2014 after community leader Loida Nicolas Lewis wrote a letter to the diocese to reconsider the ban which led to the return of the almost 30-year-old tradition that year (Balitang America, ABS-CBN North America Bureau, 2014).

Besides being a huge part of current traditions, a lot of Filipinos, and especially Filipino youth, use the event as an excuse to go out during the night to hang out with friends and even go on dates with their partners. It is not an uncommon sight to see a group of teenagers, often wearing maybe less than typical church clothes, by the edge of the Church seemingly attending mass. Whether or not they're actually being attentive is hard to decipher. Either way, this has led to an explosion of memes almost every year just mocking these kinds of people or making fun of their own.

A screenshot of the "Simbang gabi starter pack" posted by user rhapido on 9Gag.com (2022)

Earlier versions of this meme could be seen posted throughout Filipino social media during the early 2010s

A meme posted by the Facebook page FEU Memes (2012)

The barkada (en. friend group) going to Simbang Gabi had been an older tradition that has found a lot more popularity in the contemporary era because of social media. My mother had told me that she used to use it as an excuse herself back in the 80s to hang out with her friends at night time. This may be a continued past time for especially younger people for years to come.

There's also many street foods associated with Simbang Gabi that may not be unique to the event itself but are nevertheless heavily associated with the event due to their widespread sale during this time period. Foods like bibingka, puto bumbong, kutsinta, and other popular rice cakes dominate the scene which definitely satisfy the hungry parishioners who had, most likely, not eaten breakfast or dinner before going to church. With their strong associations with Simbang Gabii and Filipino Christmas as a whole, I might discuss these on a later date.

Simbang Gabi, from my experience

Growing up and living in the Philippines and especially being raised Catholic within a Catholic town named after a Catholic saint and going to a Catholic school named after another Catholic saint, it probably won't shock you that I, myself, had tried to complete the nine days of Simbang Gabi myself. I had attempted it several times with only maybe trying seriously by myself once in my life. It was quite the experience to just try to dedicate yourself into completing a goal to do something for nine consecutive days straight.

My first attempt was when I was in Junior High and it was with my sister and two people who worked for my parents and had helped watch over us. It was something that I always wanted to try doing and especially since I was gaining a lot more independence at the time so what better to try it out without the rest of the family? With adult supervision, of course.

Since we lived quite away from the actual church, the place was already packed even an hour before the actual mass started. There was barely any seats left and even less standing room leading to a huge overflow of people stuck outdoors, only hearing mass from the outdated speaker system that they had erected in place of the old bell tower.

The mass in our church was often done in the dark during the night out of an deliberate and probably aesthetic choice with only the alter being illuminated by the lights. The rest was lit up by the scattered about Christmas decor throughout the church and the church patio. It always felt like going to some liminal space that other nights at church just doesn't give.

Once the mass has been concluded, people rush out of the doors in thick crowds to find their way into the footpaths leading on to the main town streets. Some opt to stay behind to enjoy the food stalls that had pop-up for the night to eat bibingka, puto, sapin-sapin, and palitaw among other things. Some of the teens had decided to raid the nearby small park and playground as a hang-out spot to talk the night away before they rush home for their curfews. Meanwhile others were just rushing to get home as soon as they can, with people lining up to go to the rudimentary parking space that the church created while the others who didn't own their own vehicles forced to compete for the very few commuter vehicles still riding through the night, hunting for passengers.

This was before we had our own car, so we were with the latter crowds of people, trying to peer through the dark streets only illuminated by the scant Christmas lights that still refused to turn off as the night progressed. Every so often, two headlights excite the crowd and a swarm of them start running in anticipation with not care or tact if they would crush children or separate families all to take a seat on the night jeepneys, some the few commutes left after 9.

My sister was an expert in finding her way through it, reaching out to the doors to form a barricade for herself and the rest of us to prevent others from taking our seats before letting herself in. I still think I would've been left behind if it weren't for her doing that out of sheer competitiveness with the crowds.

We settled into our seats and squeezed in tightly to allow other passengers in so we could all go home as soon as we can. It was a tight but otherwise uneventful commute every night with nothing but tired people waiting for their stops and slowly emptying the once packed vehicle. Since we live in the outskirts of the town, we were often the last few and at times, the drivers would transfer us to other jeeps just so they can go home themselves. This had sometimes instead left us to walk the remainder of the way there through unpaved highway sidewalks.

After a few nights of it, I became more and more reluctant to continue because of the frenzy that it had almost every single night and it was extremely inconvenient for my time and the time of those with me. I didn't complete it then and I hadn't seriously tried until 9th Grade, which honestly was more uneventful.

That attempt was mostly my siblings and I staying in Makati City and Taguig City and going to easily traveled to churches that we could walk to by foot, and high-end malls that have annual Simbang Gabi masses for their shoppers, facilitated by the local diocese and the local fancy church. I was able to complete those easily because I was often dragged either by my siblings or my grandmother who used to never miss a day of church when she was still more active.

It was less about the challenge at that point and more of an obligation which isn't a bad thing and honestly is probably closer to how it should be celebrated.

I hadn't gone to Simbang Gabi since 2019 and I don't have any plans to try this year either. Not really because I don't want to necessarily, but specifically because I physically can't. I still think its pretty fun to do and honestly maybe a good excuse to meet with my friends that I haven't seen in a while. Sadly, I just simply cannot do it now nor in the near future.

Maybe one day I could once again go out at those cold December night to meet my friends and maybe eat some bibingka on my way home but I guess I'll just leave every one else to it.

Sources

Introduction

Advent. (n.d.). In Britannica. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Advent

In The Philippines Christmas Eve Includes A Late Night Street Food Feast, Filipino Christmas, HD wallpaper [image]. (n.d.). Peakpx. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.peakpx.com/en/hd-wallpaper-desktop-wxdle

Petrelli, M. (2021, December 20). The country that celebrates Christmas for more than 4 months a year. CNBC. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/21/philippines-the-longest-christmas-celebrations-in-the-world-.html

What is Simbang Gabi?

Álvarez, F. (2018, November 22). Una tradición matutina la Misa de Aguinaldo. Primera Hora. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://www.primerahora.com/noticias/puerto-rico/notas/una-tradicion-matutina-la-misa-de-aguinaldo/

Hermoso, C. (2022, December 15). 9-day ‘Simbang Gabi’ begins on Dec. 16; anticipated masses to begin tonight. Manila Bulletin. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://mb.com.ph/2022/12/15/9-day-simbang-gabi-begins-on-dec-16-anticipated-masses-to-begin-tonight/

Lazaro, J. (2020, December 11). The Christmas tradition of Simbang Gabi: After five centuries, this Filipino Christmas tradition lives on. U.S. Catholic. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://uscatholic.org/articles/202012/the-christmas-tradition-of-simbang-gabi/

History

Hermoso, C. (2018, December 15). ‘Simbang Gabi’ a manifestation of the Filipinos’ strong faith in God, says bishop. Manila Bulletin. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://mb.com.ph/2018/12/15/simbang-gabi-a-manifestation-of-the-filipinos-strong-faith-in-god-says-bishop/

Etheria (1919). The Pilgrimage of Etheria (McClure, M., & Feltoe, C. Ed. & Trans.). Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm (Original work published 384 C.E.)

McClure, M., & Feltoe, C. (1919). [An image of the book cover of "The Pilgrimage of Etheria"]. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm

The Pillar. (2021, December 21). What time is Midnight Mass?. The Pillar. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/what-time-is-midnight-mass

Misa del Gallo: origen, historia y por qué se celebra en la madrugada del 25 de diciembre. (2022, December 24). Marca. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.marca.com/tiramillas/actualidad/2022/12/24/63a6c106268e3e7c468b45e8.html

Vintage Philippine Islands 1920-1959. (2020, December 25). A Vintage Greeting Card showing Philippine Christmas… Maligayang Pasko from Vintage Philippine Islands 1920-1959 [image]. Facebook. Retrieved 15 December 2023, from https://www.facebook.com/510513375695362/photos/a.1701322009947820/3595821097164559/?type=3

In the Present Day

Adarlo, S., & Pastor, C. (2014, November 3). Fr. Joseph Marabe breaks silence over Simbang Gabi ban (Part 2). The FilAm: A Magazine for Filipino Americans in New York. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://thefilam.net/archives/16127

Balitang America, ABS-CBN North America Bureau. (2014, September 19). Simbang Gabi returns to NYC after a brief ban. ABS-CBN News. Retrieved on 15 December 2023 from https://news.abs-cbn.com/global-filipino/09/19/14/simbang-gabi-returns-nyc-after-brief-ban

FEU Memes. (2012, December 15). eto yung mga madalas ko makita sa gilid ng simbahan e [image]. Retrieved on 15 December 2023 from https://www.facebook.com/PIYUMEMES/photos/a.210778985704527/317211885061236/?type=3

Macaira, E. (2023, December 15). Simbang Gabi: It’s the mass, not the time. Philippine Star. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2023/12/15/2318980/simbang-gabi-its-mass-not-time

Malicdem, E. (n.d.) The Bamboo Organ Church or the St. Joseph Parish Church of Las Piñas City in the Philippines during "Simbang Gabi" or Night Mass on Christmas eve. Photo was part of Schadow1 Expeditions coverage of Las Piñas during Christmas season. [image]. Retrieved on 15 December 2023 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simbang_Gabi#/media/File:Las_Pinas_Church_during_Simbang_Gabi.jpg

Punay, E. (2016, December 19). ‘Simbang Gabi’ won’t grant wishes – Bishop. Philippine Star Global. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/12/19/1654920/simbang-gabi-wont-grant-wishes-bishop

rhapido. (2022, November 30). Simbang gabi starter pack [Screenshot]. 9Gag. Retrieved 15 December 2023, from https://9gag.com/gag/a5Xnzgr

#mayaposts #mayapino #philippines #filipino #history #philippine history #filipino history #christmas #filipino christmas #philippine christmas #simbang gabi #misa de gallo #misa de aguinaldo #long post #very long post #christianity #catholicism #roman catholic #christian history #food mention

[bunnakit]

Not Me Episode 4 Music

Flares - Life in Colour

We immediately jump in with Flares as Sean is experiencing a nightmare. Stretch time but I guess if you wanted you could read this as Sean subconsciously sending up a signal flare for help.

Last Night, Last Night, Last Night - Well Then, Goodbye

This kicks in as Black is leaving Sean in the flashback; this could be a tie in with the 'Last Night' title as in it's a memory Sean is recalling that might feel like they just happened OR there could be a tie with the band name being 'Well Then, Goodbye' as Black very unceremoniously leaves Sean to his fate. (Either way, my ears don't particularly like this song, the reverb gives me ickies. Thank you misophonia.)

To Whom It May Concern - Rap Against Dictatorship (ft. Liberate P, Nazesus, and GSUS2)

The first time I saw the dance scene I got goosebumps and I could tell the show had done something big here. Allow me to infodump a bit. Rap Against Dictatorship uses their platform and their music to bring attention to the ongoing state of Thailand under military rule, especially during election time. They were founded in 2017 and released their first single in 2018. After the release of their single the members were threatened with arrest by police who later backpedaled after the music went viral and the group gained the support of the public. In 2019 they were awarded with the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent* at the Oslo Freedom Forum. During the 2020-2021 Thai protests one member was arrested with other pro-democracy activists and later charged with sedition. Their music is often censored in Thailand due to it's anti-goverment and anti-monarchy message. (I love them so much, your honor.)

*Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent is an award established in 2012 by the New York City-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF). According to HRF President Thor Halvorssen, the prize recognizes individuals "who engage in creative dissent, exhibiting courage and creativity to challenge injustice and live in truth"

Downloaded Truth - Marten Moses

As White and Todd are discussing Eugene and Todd is persuading White to reach out to her this song comes in. It could be just a neat song, it could be that White found this downloaded little piece of truth in the video on Black's phone.

Crushed by A P O L L O

I'm fairly certain this, or a remix of it, is what is playing as White is on his phone texting Eugene? I know I've heard the song before and I have it stashed somewhere, Crushed sounds very close but I can't tell if it's quite right? Sometimes they put a little filter over the song or play an arrangement that's midway through the song and it trips me up a bit. If it isn't Crushed then it's very likely another Apollo piece (though none of the ones on that album, I checked.)

As Gram and White discuss the aftermath of the fire we get a little more Downloaded Truth.

As Nuch, Gram, and White all meet in the garage a bit more of Crushed's beat plays in the background.

3 (Instrumental Version) - Bambi Haze (ft. Lu Ni)

Just as White is hugging Eugene and trying to placate her this song comes in. There are truly no connections to be made here, no leaps or stretches to be found. (Though both this and several of Marc Torch's songs are on Epidemic Sound, a host for a lot of royalty free music, so this could be where GMMTV sources a good chunk of their music.)

Closer - Morphlexis

As Eugene climbs in White's lap this song plays and it could be a nod to Eugene wanting to be closer to Black or that she is physically closer to White, again, if we want to make some big stretchies.

When Eugene wakes up we're gifted with another appearance from Tripping over Danger which also wraps up the episode.

thank you so much to everyone who reads these! i recommend checking back at some older posts as i have made some updates (sometimes i miss songs and realize it later.) i promise to make a masterpost of these once we're done and i'll put together a little list of my favorites!

#not me #not me the series #nmrewatch23 #music #soundtrack #bunn meta

[d-criss-news]

Napa winery offers Broadway star Darren Criss fertile setting for intimate outdoor concert

[UHQ] Broadway star Darren Criss performs at Napa’s Carneros Resort and Spa as part of the Broadway and Vine series on Friday, July 28. (Photo by Bob McClenahan)

Broadway star and “Glee” actor Darren Criss is the latest star to make a compelling case for staging more musical theater events outdoors.

Performing against a backdrop of pink skies and rolling vineyards on Friday, July 28, the San Francisco native and Emmy-winning actor was exceptionally charismatic as he tackled classic show tunes and covered a dizzying array of artists. “Welcome to my wedding,” he joked upon taking the small outdoor stage facing several hundred folding chairs. From there, he was off, serving as a one-man jukebox as his selections veered from British alt-rockers Keane to singer-songwriter royalty Carole King. Between sets, Criss peppered in stories from his strange journey to stardom.

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

The intimate outdoor concert provided a perfect opportunity for Criss, best known for the five seasons he spent playing Blaine Anderson on the popular Fox series “Glee,” to formulate a set list that doubled as an autobiography of sorts. At one point, he introduced a cover of “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds by explaining that he’d originally intended for it to be his character’s last song on “Glee.” It’s hard to say Criss made the wrong choice, given the original number he ultimately wrote (“This Time”) would earn him an Emmy nomination in 2015. But his take on Folds’ lovelorn ballad, played at the piano, was a breathtaking glimpse into what might have been.

Later, he dusted off  “To Have a Home,” which a small subset of the audience may have recognized as one of the songs Criss penned for a Harry Potter parody musical he made with friends back in 2009. It was a gesture of appreciation to an audience built from many factions of fandoms. By the end of the night, Criss had done an admirable job of catering to as many of them as possible. 

Alternating between piano and guitar, he managed to imbue every note with a lively joy, be it a take on Tom Petty, his version of “Grease” torch song “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” or his spot-on Kermit the Frog impression. He even invited fans to make requests of songs his character did on “Glee,” which he then compiled into an improvised medley for his encore.

But the moment that best encapsulated the evening was watching Criss belt a faithful rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as real birds flew past him and merrily chirped away into a backdrop of the Napa Valley sunset. 

And yet, there was another highlight that may have topped it all, this one in the form of an unexpected guest.

As part of the series, each Broadway and Vine show typically includes a duet or group performance where local students are given a chance to sing alongside their idols. On Friday night, Criss welcomed Amarech Mendez, a 17-year-old student at Burlingame’s Mercy High School, to cover Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love.”

Arranged in the style of pop singer Adele’s recent rendition, the presence of Mendez was clearly no favor but a well-earned honor as she belted out her parts with impressive conviction. It was a moment that instantly reminded Susana Gonzalez, 57, of the time her own daughter, Diana, now a student at Stanford, was invited to sing a duet with musical theater star Shoshana Bean in 2021 as part of the Broadway and Vine series’ first season.

“This is a real gift,” Gonzalez said. “Jacob is an ambassador, not only to the community but to the kids. It allows them to dream and think about the fact that they can do anything. I mean, where else do you get a performer singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and get actual birds?”

Nic Meerholz, 40, of Napa, was also impressed with the show, which should be welcome news to Criss, who saw Meerholz’s hand go up twice early in the evening when he asked if anyone in attendance “didn’t give an eff about musical theater” and was “dragged here by their partner and has no idea what’s happening.”

Criss thanked Meerholz for his honesty and dedicated the rest of the show to making a convert of the man. 

At the conclusion of Criss’ 16-song set, Meerholz confirmed the artist accomplished his mission.

“I came into the show not knowing anything about musicals or Broadway and it was just absolutely fantastic,” he said, “ I didn’t even know who Darren was. I’ve never watched ‘Glee.’  Nothing. Magical! It was just a magical evening.”

#darren criss #sfchronicle datebook #broadway and vine's 2023 concert #press #photos #july 2023

[atmosphericradar]

Homelessness is a problem across American cities right now because the systems of society and governance currently in place are striking downward at homeless people.

Here is an example of a small project to extend some basic sanitation services to the homeless people of Seattle, WA (a historically left-leaning major city in the USA): installing some public hand-washing stations.

Here is an article from the Seattle Times trying to identify why a $100,000 community project to install less than 50 public sinks, started in 2020 to help combat the pandemic, yielded only 5 installed sinks as of early 2023.

"It was with urgency that council members approved the $100,000 for the street sinks, based on a cheap and easy-to-install prototype by the Clean Hands Collective — a group formed in 2020 of architects, University of Washington professors and students, and a then-middle-school-age student who teamed up with Real Change, Seattle’s street newspaper. The design uses plants and soil to filter gray water.

An original pitch by the Clean Hands Collective estimated $100,000 could pay for 63 sinks.

Later, after the money was awarded between Clean Hands’ and a more high-tech design, the two groups estimated closer to 43 sinks."

This is a slam dunk project for the city! It's cheap, it's feel-good, and it helps vulnerable people during a time of crisis. Remember that most public places with washrooms and restrooms closed their doors during the Pandemic. These public sinks are intended to provide a temporary solution for homeless people unable to access previously-available sanitation services. In November of 2020 this was an easy political win, so of course the City signed on.

What happened? Well, the City abandoned the public sinks project, letting it slam directly into the wall of bureaucracy that currently impeeds an untold number of other grassroots public works infrastructure projects.

Firstly, the City took six months to actually provide any of the allotted $100,000. Seattle Public Utilities (under then-Mayor Jenny Durkan) "wanted to open up bidding to more people, expand the scope of the project to include things like food waste disposal, and address concerns such as ADA compliance, greywater disposal, and tripping hazards, among a long list of other issues," according to this article published in the South Seattle Emerald. All of these stumbling blocks are common in US politics: feature/scope creep, opening the project to additional bidders, and safety concerns & ADA compliance. The last thing in that list is the most reasonable, IMO.

But the first two are classic American Political Bungles. There's a pandemic, and homeless people in the city are also dying of various other preventable diseases. So instead of moving forward on a cheap and good enough sanitation solution, the City wastes time by: looking their gift horse in the mouth by asking for an additional solution to another unrelated problem, and also by asking around for other organizations to propose a competing solution. And the City did find another competitor: the City directly asked a makerspace in South Lake Union, Seattle Makers, to propose a design. Seattle Makers proposed a more expensive sink design, which successfully won the bid and got 40% of the total $100,000 project money.

OK, so it's now May of 2021. This $100,000 quick-fix public sink project now has two separate volunteer-driven feel-good organizations making two separate sink emplacements (one of which is signifigantly more expensive), and no sinks on the ground after six months. At least the sinks are ADA compliant? Sure, but the cheap portable restrooms that the city has also been deploying during the pandemic (aka "portapotties" or "sanicans") are not ADA compliant. The City is imposing restrictions on this lightly-funded volunteer project that the City won't hold itself to! Rules for thee, not for me.

Now it comes time to deploy the sinks. Except there are rules on where the sinks can and can't be. As the South Seattle Emerald reports: "The Clean Hands Collective hired a contractor to work with the seven district-based councilmembers to identify appropriate sites for 63 sinks — nine in each council district — but the City now requires the sinks to be near a storm drain and a fire hydrant, which knocks many sites off the list. “If we’d known these specifications [from the beginning], we could have saved a lot of work and money,” McCoy said." If the City truly wanted these sinks deployed ASAP, they would have presented these restrictions to the organizations building and deploying the sinks at the start of the project, ideally during the bidding process they demanded occur, so that the organizations signing on have the clearest possible idea of what they are signing up for.

And you had better believe it doesn't stop there, because according to the earlier Seattle Times article: "organizers have not installed one sink on city land due to strict permitting requirements and “outright anti-homeless sentiments.”" That's right, the City refused to allow the sinks on any City-owned land as of early 2023! The same government that paid for these public-access sinks to be installed won't permit them to be installed on public land!

As a result of this, all of the deployed sinks are on private land. And both sink-making organizations are having trouble finding additional landowners who are willing to host the public sinks (shocking, I know).

There have been other hurdles as well. Real Change claims that the City required: "every site had to receive an individual permit, versus receiving a blanket permit that could work across sites." This follows the trend of the City obstructing its own project. Seattle Makers ran into an issue with insurance: "Jeremy Hanson, director of Seattle Makers... spent the first several months getting appropriate insurance so he could haul the sinks and large amounts of water. He also had to get the sink design approved by Seattle Public Utilities." Note that these "first several months" occured after the City's six-month post-approval rigamarole. And why couldn't the city send insured tow trucks or City-owned maintenance vehicles to move these sinks? Surely that would be a better use of time and money, both of which are at a premium as people are dying.

What does the City of Seattle have to say about all this? A lot, and very little. Firstly, the City as an organization clearly understands the need for such facilities. According to the Seattle Times: "[the City] stood up six sinks around the city, separate from the street sink program. And today, the city currently manages three shower trailers and eight hygiene stations." So the City was deploying it's own hygiene project in parallel.

This begs the question of why the City invested in this community-driven public sink project in the first place, if they planned to deploy their own facilities? In the same Seattle Times article as above, the paper reports:

"Jamie Housen, spokesperson for [now-Mayor] Harrell, said he sees this delay as evidence that city-led implementation would have worked better than community-based implementation.

“The city’s staff are equipped to site and install this kind of facility,” Housen said, “as they did when they used their ongoing experience with hygiene programs to quickly deploy portable toilets, sinks, showers and laundry facilities for flood victims in South Park earlier this year.”"

Fuckers! If the City has the best ability to install these public sinks, why isn't it doing anything to help install them??? This was supposed to be a cheap and fast-deploying temporary relief measure! The City is the one holding up the process for years via red tape and denying use of public land!

As of early 2023, Seattle Makers "have four sinks that are built and looking for a home," and Real Change said "a few sinks are built and sitting in storage, waiting to be installed." But it's doubtful the city will ever allow them to be installed. It appears as though Seattle spent $100,000 on optics, then got cold feet and strangled the project. Gallingly, the City also went so far as to deploy 6 of its own sinks, despite the fact that the community project had built sinks available to deploy! In theory and practice this is a good thing, but the City imposed onerous restrictions in order to subdue it's own homeless aid response, from more than 40 sinks down to just 11. And this is just sinks!

Seattle is commonly touted as one of the most progressive cities in America, and its citizen community might embody that, but the City itself certainly does not. It refuses to help homeless people, and it refuses in the most Neoliberal way possible. If it truly cared, it would lift the bureaucratic barriers to helping them. It could clearly deploy all kinds of emergency sanitation services to the South Park flood victims; but those people were homeowners.

Governments should enable the community to help the community. The people of Seattle want to help the homeless, but the City won't let them. I can only imagine what cities with less progressive reputations are doing to their homeless people.

#housing #humanism #bureaucracy #news media #my posts #the opposite of #solarpunk #pacific northwest #long post #healthcare #planning and organization #neoliberalism

[yaskie]

Another surgery, more Chemo

Dear Friends, I got most of my results today. And I got bad days sometimes. It's been how many months eversince I went home after a year of being in and out of HP, and been into ICU. I am in need of another surgery again to remove water in my lungs as it re-occurs almost monthly because of pleural effusion, infection. Which requires medical attention. I have this occurring condition because of my Treatments,  and tumors are occurring all over my body and some of them are malignant which requires so much attention. My illness was earlier detected and in lower stages, and can be cured(I am praying always) to not advance, but it will take time as to how my body reacts. My lungs has a very bad history last 2018, and lately they have found something on my breast that needs further checking as well. My breasts hurts a lot. Unfortunately, the cost of the surgery and the mounting hospital bills that have piled up from my past hospitalization(2021-2022), have become an overwhelming burden for me, my friends and my family. We are also still grieving at the untimely passing of my niece 3 weeks ago. They have already exhausted their savings and are struggling to make ends meet. And also I've been a breadwinner of my Family for a very long time. They depend on me financially.  Weekly Treatments are costly for me too as well. As we have a very bad healthcare system where I live.  And despite having a job, it only pays me $250/monthly which is not enough, because I am renting an apartment. And have a caregiver to check on my welfare, as I have difficulties in movement and series of bad episodes. I am also taking care of my cats and dog,

I am also most of the time in an oxygen so that it will ease my breathing problems. I have bad days, but I am trying my best to ease the pain and smile everyday.💖💝 I am really ashamed to ask help once again, as you all know I made my Etsy store several months ago to help with my expenses, but Etsy permanently suspend it without any proper explanation, despite my appeal. The Laptop which I also use for designing is no longer working, and I need to redesign again to sell, to support my Treatment. I humbly ask for your support once again. As I need to have the procedure to be scheduled next week 24th of May. Update as of June: I am already home but unfortunately my bills have piled up again, and signed a promissory letter.

Please share this post, spread the word, this will help me a lot. Every contribution, no matter how small, will make a significant impact to me.

I am also starting to make an artwork to sell here on Ko-Fi once my procedure is finish. I might stay in HP for 4-5 days. Thank you so much for all the help! And I love you all!

For Donations $149 and above. If you wish to donate more than that please send them into parts(Ex.$300 = $100,$100,$50,$50), because Paypal will hold them usually for 10 working days. Thank you so much for understanding.

For Donors, you can send to me your screenshot of the amount that you have donated here: [email protected] and I will make a small gift for you, a digital art of dog or cat of your liking. Or if you have a tumblr please message me, and I will tag you of the art. It will take time for me to make them, and I ask for your patience about this matter. Thank you so much!

Sorry for tagging you all guys again, if you could tag any fundraising blogs and your friends here on Tumblr please do so. it will help boost my campaign. You can also share my link to your Social Media accounts, and if you can share this outside of tumblr. It will b a great help to me. @leonshin99 @shotce @thelovelywarriorsheart @sparkie96 @c1a1r3r3df1e1d @silvertonguelover @measurelessdreamer @fossil-finder @vietnoodle @irishspringyum @kevinbuiyin I am a Chreon and Geraskier fan as well. I have a small discord group and I appreciate for you to join if you can. It will be lovely to have more friends. DISCORD GROUP

#fundraising #surgery #chemotherapy #womens health #road to recovery #artwork

[moldy-mold]

Hey, long time no update! We’re almost halfway through the year and I’m only just recovering from February. :’)

I got into two car accidents (no one was hurt) back-to-back in February where I was not at fault for either, and sadly, one was a hit-and-run. Due to just… tons of issues with insurance, I am finally getting my car fixed. It was a struggle, but now we can have a happy ending!

We formed a hiking group in the spring when the weather was nice. I won’t lie, it was a really great decision. We’ve been trying to go to a new place each month to see the sights.

So random, but my mom back in FL found a pigeon chilling in the garage, so she picked him up and took care of him. His name is Jorge. Birds are my true love so I am very excited to meet him!

Work is fine and more stable now, compared to 2021 when the struggle was real. I have more freelance work on top of office work that I am kept busy 24-7. It’s been tough trying to draw fanart at home when you’re already drawing at work haha. Last month, I went a little too hard and injured my wrist and had to keep it in a brace for a few weeks. I still have to be careful, even now.

In other news, my roommate of 10 years is finally moving out to discover her life’s calling. It is a bittersweet feeling, kind of like a breakup haha. As a creature of habit, I had resisted the change. It took some time, but I’ve come to accept it. Money is still kind of an issue though (a single person apartment? in this economy?), so I’ve been trying to find a new roommate! With NO LUCK! :)

On a whim, I finally started Xenoblade 3 in April after my 31st birthday. My brother had gifted it to me for xmas, but I didn’t want to open the black hole (or “The Hole” as my friends lovingly call it) until I had drawn all that I wanted to draw for YGO. To be honest, I didn’t end up drawing all my ideas but I hit a road block in my creative drive. Well now I’m in the hole AND I have to find time to draw stuff! I have this dilemma every single day.

My friend and I booked tickets to see our friends in Mexico this October! I haven’t been abroad for 15 years, so I’ll have the pleasure of going to the beautiful city of Monterrey as my first international trip without my parents. I’m so ready…! Let me out…! *rattles the cage*

The Plant Saga

I took this photo a few months ago when the sun was finally coming out and my plants were in bloom again. I was afraid Lorenz (miniature rose) was going to die because he had spider mites… every single year. I managed to fend them off and now he’s doing quite well!

I’m most proud of my handling of MOMO (moth orchid) who is blooming again! I heard it was challenging to get orchids to rebloom, but I honestly didn’t have to do anything?

Other plants include: Zeon (taro) and Gimli (mint) and Shouyo (hens and chicks succulent) with the weird antennae.

The weather in GA has been really temperamental, and it hasn’t been as warm in May as it was last year, so some of my tubers haven’t regrown yet. Guess I’ll take more pictures in the late summer!

#diary

[danpuff-ao3]

Ending Mutuals March on a very special note. PI, @perverse-idyll, my longtime writing crush, and now my friend.

It was love at first sight when The White Road was first posted. I can't remember when I first read it, but it was around the time it was posted for sure. And I've read that fic every year since. At least once a year, if not more. By the time I read When the Rose and the Fire Are One I knew it was true love!

PI's stories have been deeply meaningful to me for a long time. And I have always admired her skill. Prose? Gorgeous, stunning, perfect. With great knowledge and great passion she strings words into gorgeous treasures. Raw stones left to their rough glory, or shaped and shined as needed. Not only a gifted wordsmith, but a wise and empathetic person who understands the human condition, and the complexities of emotion. Someone with great love for beloved characters, but also great understanding. Love born of understanding, which is everything I long for!

We love the same characters, and the same OTP. She does such justice to these characters, and their dynamic. She's always written Snarry exactly how I needed it. I have treasured her works for many years, and they have been my favorites for many years. Of course, in those earlier days I was much too shy to let her know just what her works meant to me.

Then, in recent years, I had my first interaction with PI. On Reddit, of places. I recced one of her fics and she responded to it which blew my mind a bit, since her Reddit name isn't perverse_idyll, lol! So...I tried to be chill, which if you know me, you know how hard that is! Me, but an overenthusiastic fangirl trying not to scare off her faves, haha! If I remember correctly, I finally set about drafting a comment on The White Road not long after that. Long overdue that one!

Then...time went on. During a very rough period with an old fandom group, I turned to PI's works for comfort. And in November 2021, the same month I left that old fandom group, PI's episode on @fanficmaverickpodcast (Ep. 25 interview) was released!

I was over the moon excited to listen to it! But the sort of excited that meant I couldn't dive in right away. I had to run around and squeal a bit and settle myself down in order to listen. It is a long episode, two and a half hours long, but well worth it! The host, ChaosBlue, is a dear friend of mine now, and a very professional and charming host. And perverse_idyll was a fantastic guest, with so much insight and enthusiasm for fandom and for writing. 10/10 recommend it. I ran around and shared the episode everywhere I could.

And then...Reddit. PI shared the episode on Reddit, with encouragement for others to reach out to ChaosBlue to do their own episode. And...I did! God, that's a whole other post in of itself and how amazing ChaosBlue is, but basically...I felt pretty audacious! I had to work myself up quite a bit to reach out. And as hard as it was to reach out, I don't think I'd have found the courage to even think about it without PI's little note. It both inspired and comforted me. And doing my own interview for the podcast was such a great (and terrifying!) experience that I'm glad I did. (See: ep. 32 Interview)

From there...it came over time. PI was so kind and supportive about my interview. I found the bravery to reach out to her directly at some point. And though she is quite the busy lady, she is always so giving of her time and energy in responding when she can! PI is such an encouraging, generous, compassionate, supportive spirit. One I feel very blessed to know. She has so much clear respect and admiration for other creators. So much love and dedication to fandom, however busy or wild life may be.

Other fandom experiences reminded me of why they say to never meet your heroes. But PI spared me from being too wary of folk. PI is an excellent reminder that, sometimes, the creators we admire are even better humans.

PI's works were so meaningful to me for so long. And PI as a person has just as much impact! Thank you for being my friend, PI. Thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for all that you give to fandom; for all that you create, and all the support you give. And thank you most of all for being there for me. And showing such kindness and gentleness in times I needed it most, whether you knew it or not.

Here's to you, my friend. Time for me to wipe my eyes and drop some recs! Maybe by the end we'll have forgotten what an emotional mess I am LOL.

The Afterlight

Harry/Severus. Rated: E. Work in progress. Background case. Mutual pining. Friends with benefits. Denial of feelings. Angst. Hurt/comfort. Eventual happy ending.

Y'all cannot know how thrilled I was when PI posted a new fic. This one! And though it's only just begun, I already feel in my bones it will be a new favorite! PI as ever provides Snarry exactly the way I love it!

After surviving the Battle of Hogwarts, a long convalescence, and a short trial, Snape walks free and promptly vanishes from Wizarding society. Six years pass before he shows his face again. A lot can change in six years, and a romantically disillusioned and inebriated Harry hits Snape up for a friends-with-benefits arrangement. After all, they share an experience most people have never had: they both know what it's like to be dead. Their liaison works surprisingly well until Harry's reckless behaviour as an Auror leads to unethical practices and personal calamities, and things start to fall apart.

Candles Lit Against the Dark

Minerva/Wilhelmina. Minor Harry/Severus. Rated: G. Words: 13,585. Old friends. Postwar. Heavy drinking. Fond bickering. Snapecase 2023.

Many feelings. Very realistic and bittersweet. With all of the realism of life, for all of its rough edges, uneven paths, and the love found along the way.

It's been a few months since Minerva's retirement, and she'd promised Wil a dinner out. Before she knows it, friends start turning up on her doorstep and then at the pub, not least among them a certain spy who came in from the cold.

In Infinite Remorse of Soul | And Mine the Gall

Albus/Severus. Harry/Severus. Revenge. Obsession. D/s undertones. Afterlife. Incest (ish.) Dub-con. Twisted love.

I am obsessed. This is dark and fucky and weird and wonderful and gorgeous. The sequel, And Mine the Gall, features one of the lines that has most haunted out of every fic I've read. Love it love it love it!

Albus Dumbledore never makes the same mistake twice. Certainly not in love.

No Room for the Weak

Eileen POV. Rated: T. Words: 10,444. Dysfunctional family. Mindfuck. Pre-Snarry.

Love love love love love this. Some Snape family history. Eileen is great. Very fascinating look at the woman who bore and raised Severus.

There's a Boy Who Lived and a boy who didn't, and even a mother can't always tell them apart.

The Son

Regulus POV. Rated: T. Words: 5,422. Unhappy families.

First there were two sons. Then there was one.

Warm

Harry/Severus. Rated: E. Words: 11,323. PWP. Fluff & smut.

PWP feels wrong for this. So much sensuality and tenderness and good god the LOVE here. Also, I'm sorry, but Harry and Severus existing as themselves basically is plot, but I digress....PI says it's PWP so it's PWP. I'm not going to argue with her!

Severus still suffers the after-effects of Nagini's venom, especially in winter. Harry knows just how to warm him up.

When the Rose and the Fire Are One

Harry/Severus. Rated: E. Words: 81.619. Confinement. Dysfunctional Relationships. Spinner's End. Dubious consent. Sex magic.

Cool magic stuff. The best OC I've ever met (Odile, my beloved.) Ideas of Spinner's End and Eileen Snape that have lived in my head ever since. Big angst and fuckery. Great characters. Great relationship development. Everything is just...A+, chef's kiss, amazing.

Harry's haunted by guilt. Snape's warded by roses. Each must free the other in order to free himself.

The White Road

Lily POV. Harry/Severus. Rated: E. Words: 47,877. Afterlife. Romance. Redemption. Voyeurism. Incestuous vibes.

Longtime favorite. One of the first fics that fully blew me away. I read this and thought "this does not belong on the internet, this belongs on a bookshelf."

One day, comfortably set up in the afterlife, Lily Evans Potter switches on the telly and gets hooked on the Harry Potter show.

for an explanation about Mutuals March, or to figure out why i wrote you a thing, please check out this post.

#mutuals march #perverse_idyll #i'm not crying you're crying #danpuff's fanstuff #fangirl shenanigans #fandom friends

[brokehorrorfan]

Broke Horror Fan presents Black Friday and Deathcember on limited edition, fully functional VHS! The last few copies of each title are available now at Witter Entertainment.

Black Friday is a 2021 horror-comedy starring Devon Sawa (Final Destination), Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth), Ryan Lee (Super 8), Michael Jai White (Spawn), and Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead). Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump composed the score.

Each Black Friday tape includes a letter from director Casey Tebo and exclusive introductions by actors Ryan Lee and Stephen Peck and writer Andy Greskoviak.

Deathcember is a 2019 horror anthology with segments directed by Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), Lucky McKee (May), Pollyanna McIntosh (The Walking Dead), Trent Haaga (68 Kill), Julian Richards (The Last Horror Movie), Isaac Ezban (The Similars), and more.

Each Deathcember tape includes letters from producers Dominic Saxl and Ivo Scheloske.

For optimal VHS viewing, the films have been cropped from its original aspect ratio to 4:3 full frame. They are officially licensed and approved by their respective creators.

On Thanksgiving night, a group of disgruntled toy store employees begrudgingly arrive for work to open the store at midnight for the busiest shopping day of the year. Meanwhile, an alien parasite crashes to Earth in a meteor. This group of misfits led by store manager Jonathan (Bruce Campbell) and longtime employee Ken (Devon Sawa) soon find themselves battling against hordes of holiday shoppers who have been turned into monstrous creatures hellbent on a murderous rampage on Black Friday.

Deathcember is the world’s first cinematic Advent calendar. Behind its doors lurk 24 terrifying short films by directors from around the globe, turning the season of love into a season of fear, with gifts of blood and terror to unwrap for audiences everywhere.

#black friday #deathcember #bruce campbell #devon sawa #horror #vhs #broke horror fan #dvd #gift #ruggero deodato #lucky mckee #ivana baquero #michael jai white #patrick stump #fall out boy #Youtube

[thewillowtree3]

Korrasami Secret Santa 2022

Hi, Korrasami fam. We are back :)

We’re doing Korrasami Secret Santa for 2022!  (Yeah, I just copied and pasted this from Korrasami Secret Santa 2021 xD). 5 years in a row, let’s go. ;D

The rules are the same:

Korrasami creators will be able to gift one another with Secret Santa gifts. Whether it be fics, art, videos, animations…the fun’s all there! (It doesn’t have to be holiday-themed! It can be whatever you want :)

The Process:

This Secret Santa exchange will be done through drawnames.com, which is a Secret Santa Name Generator. You’ll need your email for this, and you can message me it directly on Tumblr (I’ll gather everyone’s names up, and put them into the generator when it’s time to draw names.)

The due date to sign up is 11:59 PM Dec 5, 2022 PDT (I’d like everyone to have ample time to do their Secret Santa gifts). :)

Most likely, you’ll need to make an account on drawnames.com (you don’t need to, but it’s recommended.  When you get to writing your Wish List on there, under ‘Hobbies and Interests’, make two different lists: One for ‘Fic Requests’, the other for ‘Art Requests’. If a writer draws your name, you’ll have a suggestion for what you want them to write. If an artist draws your name, they’ll have an idea of what to create! (Also, originally, this project only had fanfic and fanart- but if anyone can contribute any other talents, that’d be swell!)

Example: Fic Request- I want Korra and Asami cuddling at home with a fireplace!

Art Request: I want Korrasami going otter-penguin sledding!

The fic and art requests can be the same, or they can be different. Please limit it to one, or if you can’t choose, then two options. You can also note things that you don’t want (i.e. No smut or NSFW work!). You can be as specific as you wish.

Also, everyone else! We recognize that there may be people in the fandom who don’t create content, but still want to contribute! @lamftw​ came up with these great ideas three years ago, if you’d still like to participate in the Secret Santa. You can:

Create Korrasami memes! The more memes, the better :)

Share your favorite Korrasami headcanons! We’d love to hear them.

Share your favorite artwork/fanfic!

Share your favorite moment from LoK or share how much Korrasami means to you.

Create Korrasami memes, write a sweet holiday message/ note of appreciation :)

Also, we can all show some love to our favorite creators, to Bryke, Janet Varney, and Seychelle Gabriel (the voice of Korra and Asami, respectively). :)

When everyone has signed up, I’ll put all the names into the Secret Santa Name Generator. You should get an email, asking you to join the Secret Santa exchange. Just click ‘Join Group’, and you’re good! Once everyone has joined, the names will then be drawn, and you’ll get your chosen individual (you’ll get an email for this too). Please remember to check your email on Dec 5; we cannot draw names unless everyone has joined the Secret Santa group!

The reveal will be on Dec 19, 2022 (the 8th Korrasami Anniversary :D). Post your work on Tumblr, and tag the person you got, so they’ll know what lovely work they got! Also, please tag ‘Korrasami Secret Santa’ so we can save these posts for the future :).

Please note that if you sign up, you HAVE to commit to making something. This is open to all creators, of any skill level, but please please make something if you sign up. You don’t wanna leave anyone hanging!

Last note- remember to message me on Tumblr and give me your email. That’s the way to sign up! :)

This has been organized a bit late this year, but I still wanted to do it ;D. Let’s do 2022 with some Korrasami goodness!! ;D

Spread this to all your creator friends! LET’S GO FAM!!

5 YEARS IN A ROW, LET’S GO!! ;DD

#legend of korra #korra #asami #korrasami #lok #fanart #fanfic #korrasami secret santa #it's back #;D

[mariacallous]

The dramatic collapse of FTX and the recent arrest of crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried continue to send shockwaves around the world, including among many nonprofits and charities. My organization, 1Day Africa, received money from FTX’s charitable arm, the Future Fund. I am struggling with what to do next.

The grant was awarded to support vaccine equity and pandemic preparedness advocacy work in Africa. 1Day Africa aimed to use the money to push for a pandemic insurance fund, an international fund that would receive annual contributions to be used to purchase vaccines for all people during the next pandemic—especially for those in poor countries who have struggled to acquire COVID-19 vaccines.

Five African nations proposed a vote on the idea in 2021 and 2022, but nothing came to the floor of the World Health Organization’s World Health Assembly (WHA). Liberia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Gambia all submitted national requests to the WHA for inclusion of a supplementary item to its agenda. This was done according to WHO’s rules, even though we did not get the proposal on the agenda. There was, and there is, a great need to have other executive board members of the WHA endorse and submit the proposal. Clearly, more advocacy work is needed. This is a long-neglected issue, one I lived through myself as a Zambian. I was elated that there was finally financial support that could help turn the tide.

Much has rightly been written about the suffering that FTX’s fraud caused, and I feel for those who lost their personal funds and savings. But there is another group that will suffer as a result of this fraud as well: vulnerable and poor people worldwide who were lined up to benefit from the projects that FTX funded.

This includes many projects Future Fund supported that were meant to uplift the welfare of others, improve quality of life (especially in poor countries), and save lives. There was money set to help eliminate lead exposure for children worldwide, to help gifted children in poor regions of India excel, and to help develop a wide array of new vaccines, which may never materialize or may be left in legal limbo. For the organizations that did receive promised funding before FTX’s bankruptcy, there has been talk of clawbacks of grant money, but only time will tell.

Even though the clawbacks are also being targeted at nonprofits and charities, there was no logical way for them to know that the money was dirty. At a distance, everything looked solid—Bankman-Fried was a billionaire who was, until the scandal hit, promoted by the mainstream financial press as a genius. Organizations, especially those operating in developing countries, cannot be expected to do due diligence that the media doesn’t do. Furthermore, the panic and anguish that organizations like mine are experiencing must be understood from the point of the grant-application process. Grant applications involve a considerable amount of time and effort, which makes replacing grants within a grant cycle very difficult—without any guarantee of success.

Even beyond the legal considerations, we are now left to grapple with the question of whether spending tainted money, even for humanitarian ends, is justifiable. Does justice demand it be set aside? Does it matter if the money would be returned to institutional investors with billions of dollars or individuals who lost their savings?

As a person who lived in a house without electricity growing up—a person who walked about three miles one way to get to school in first grade at my primary school, crossing rivers and navigating through bushes—I have come to fervently appreciate the impact made by grants in uplifting and saving lives in poor countries. There is abundant, justifiable outrage toward FTX and Bankman-Fried, but the outrage must be informed by the plight of the secondary victims as well, for whom plans were made and money disbursed, and for whom nothing will be done.

The tragedy of FTX’s collapse for nonprofits and charities is an inevitable result of the fact that global governance fails to justly distribute resources and address inequalities. I was delighted to read about how the Open Philanthropy movement sees the situation in the light of the people who continue to need help. They have indicated that grantees impacted by the FTX collapse can apply for grants even though the focus of the grants is primarily on longtermist work.

Meanwhile in Africa, hundreds of thousands of lives are lost to HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and diarrheal diseases every year. To me, these are victims not only of this one scandal, but also of the continual neglect by many who are in a position to help. Getting assistance is not an entitlement, but if we aspire to a common humanity, then the plight of everyone must be in frame.

The state of things—where the survival of hundreds of thousands of people has to depend on individual philanthropists while governments abdicate and look the other way—must change. But we are still left with a system in which a handful of individuals can have massive sway over global public good. Their generosity should be lauded, but it’s an unstable system. At the very least, we must ask: Why are there relatively few willing to operate on the scale of Bill Gates or Open Philosophy’s Dustin Moskovitz? The FTX fiasco should remind us of the fragility of a system built on the generosity of the rich.