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empmoniitor · 3 years

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INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION: WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS AND 09 WAYS TO IMPROVE IT

The Quarantaniversary is here- it’s almost a year since the COVID-19 pandemic dawned upon us all. And we all witnessed a TREMENDOUS change in our workplaces.

Nevertheless, remote work surprisingly assisted globalization, and companies are hiring more people from abroad than ever. With people ready to telecommute, workplaces are getting more diverse. Sure, this scenario isn’t going to last same forever- but we can already witness a lot of challenges that follow remote work- intercultural communication being one of them.

It is no secret why communication tops the list of priorities that a company needs to inculcate among its employees. Intercultural communication makes it trickier to accomplish, especially with people literally working miles apart.

Many organizations are opening their gates soon, and the cultural differences may intensify if you don’t start working on it now. Do you wonder if your employees are happily interacting despite these differences?

In this blog, we will discuss how to-

1. Assess your staff’s intercultural communication skills;

2. Identify the hindrances;

3. And rectify them for good.

BONUS- READ, HOW TO CREATE AND DEFINE A WORK FROM HOME POLICY FOR YOUR COMPANY

WHY IS INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IMPORTANT?

Differences in culture are inevitable, and it takes a lot for people to bridge the gap. Lack of management in intercultural communication paves the way for misunderstandings and a feeling of being left out.

I’ll explain my point by citing an example. The west urges its people to leave their parents’ home and start a family at a very young age, while the east encourages a culture of living with parents and grandparents. It is one of the very few differences that you will find even when working with employees belonging to different cities in your own country.

A workplace that understands the diversity in traditions, customs, and cultures make its staff feel welcomed. It leads to better team communication, which ultimately develops a healthier and dynamic work environment. To be successful in any sector, organizations must understand and meet the communication patterns of their clients, employees, investors, and other associated people.

HINDRANCES IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

KNOW WHAT YOUR TEAM LACKS

Now that you understand the why, let’s get into the what part.

There are four broad cultural differences that you’ll spot among people around you. Your employees are no exception. Improve your intercultural communication by identifying their weak points. Look for the ones that they lack so that you can rectify them ASAP. After all, acceptance is the first step to betterment!

Here are the key cultural aspects that your staff may lack:

1. EDUCATIONAL

School is the second home of a child, and it plays a vital role in shaping our thoughts, mannerisms, and problem-solving skills. Our background depends on our school, teachers, locations, and the associated national and district laws.

Companies hire people for different positions based on their qualifications. When they work together on a project, they implement varied methods based on their backgrounds to tackle the same set of problems. The results can either be pretty cool or a disastrous mess.

2. RELIGIOUS

An employee’s religious and spiritual affirmations have a significant impact on their priorities and behavior. Religious and spiritual beliefs have the power to impact a person’s perception, analytical abilities, and decision-making skills. As a result, they may even have a difference in ethical behavior.

Everyone has a right to express their religion. There could be a possibility of differences in opinions at the workplace and cold wars. Beware!

3. ETHNIC

Ethnicity is different from race. It is not biological and depends on a person’s learned behaviors due to their culture, nationality, religion, ancestry, heritage, and linguistic backgrounds. Jewish, Tamil, Pashtun, Cambodian, Sindhi, etc., are a few examples of ethnicity.

Naturally, separate ethnicities have a different train of thought and exposure. For instance, people who grow up in a spiritual and sacrificing environment avoid conflicts at all costs. Others may be direct in communication.

4. RACIAL

The race is a biologically defined term. Black, White, Asian are a few examples, for instance. Races have NOTHING to do with the person’s ethics and working skills. But they do have an impact on their accent, day-to-day behavior, and stuff like that.

While racial diversity is no big deal in the modern workplace, racist slurs, biased behavior, and mixed perceptions are still prevalent. Strong intercultural communication intertwines people and prevents this from happening.

BTW, HERE ARE 07 MOST IMPORTANT MANAGEMENT SKILLS & HOW TO DEVELOP THEM

5. GEOGRAPHICAL

The location you grow up in defines the environment you are exposed to- leading to developing varied dressing, speaking, eating, and living habits. Working with people from different geographical upbringing may sound cool and all, but it is actually the primary cause of stereotypes.

People who dwell from the same place tend to bond faster. And while that’s no big of a deal, it may lead to groupism and people feeling alienated.

6. LINGUISTIC

Some countries have an official language for their state, while some don’t. It is plausible due to the languages spoken by the natives. While English is the most acceptable among them all, people also come with different accents.

Long story short, language remains a barrier in any workplace that doesn’t stick to hiring only the locals. Paving the way for a friendly yet strong intercultural communication promotes bonding among all and keeps conflicts at bay.

7. GENERATIONAL

The generation you are born in has a darn tootin’ impact on your ideas on professionalism, ethical behavior, collaboration, creativity, and overall communication. Gen Z, for instance, prioritizes career and stability, while Boomers have a softer spot for their home and family.

Different generations are going to look at stuff with different glasses. A GenXer’s creativity and Baby Boomer’s experience may yield the best results. But it requires constant understanding, respect, and fair inclusion of all.

8. SOCIO-ECONOMIC

A person’s income and socio-economic status (SES) speak a lot about the privileges, opportunities, and resources that they usually get. Contrary to popular belief, SES has a major impact on our behavior and analytical skills.

SES contributes to an employee’s functioning, mental & physical health, stress level, and morals. If left to perish, it leads to judgments, biases, and information silos.

IMPROVING INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AT WORKPLACE

There are cultures within cultures, and communication is the only path to collaboration. There’s nothing worse than a lack of understanding among people due to their misaligned assumptions and cognitive biases.

The strategies listed below are vital to creating cross-cultural harmony. However, I have witnessed points 4, 5, 7, and 9 making the maximum impact on intercultural communication:

1. AVOID USING SLANG

The non-natives of your place may understand what you say but may not understand the exact idea and context behind it. Slang, phrases, and idioms are cool, but why not keep it simple? Even the natives may get confused if your language gets too complicated.

Everyone has an interpretation of their own. And it is natural to read between the lines when things are not clear. An inaccurate interpretation, in such cases, will end up confusing or may even offend your staff. Play safe ALWAYS.

2. HANDLE HUMOUR WITH CARE

Cracking jokes is no big deal, and you don’t always have to be a grumpy boss. But remember, not everyone understands humour. So if you decide to go for it, make sure everyone understands it clearly. Cultural appropriation is a prerequisite, and you cannot compromise it for a few fake laughs. Go for neutral jokes that seem appreciated and accepted in all cultures. (for instance, a knock-knock joke)

HRs and management need to understand how culturally leaned behavior affects communication. Fixing it reduces intercultural communication conflicts to a humongous extent.

3. ORGANIZE GAMES & ACTIVITIES

Collaboration is the key to better communication. And what’s a better way to collaborate than to organize non-work-related activities. When people talk about stuff other than work, they feel more connected and start opening up despite their differences.

As a matter of fact, people with a different culture are more interested in a place’s native culture. Games and activities are a perfect way to cheer things up when trying to improve intercultural communication.

4. HOLD DISCUSSIONS & DEBATES

Debates might be the last thing you’d want in your organization, but hear me out- when you encourage people to present their conflicting thoughts professionally, they learn how to be opinionated and yet hold back the offense. Debates are healthy, and they bring sportsmanship among the peers.

Group discussions are also an excellent way of teaching the employees how and why it is crucial to keep things clear and simple in a conversation. Intercultural communication can only strengthen when people polish their verbal as well as listening skills.

5. SPEAK SLOWLY

An intercultural workplace would definitely have employees with varied accents and familiarity with the language. When you speak at your usual pace, you become vulnerable to miscommunication, misinterpretation, and misunderstandings.

Modulating the speed will ensure that your words are loud and clear. But make sure you’re not too slow, or else people would drift off while listening, let alone improve the overall communication. And that’s a bummer!

ALSO READ, HOW TO TURN THE VIRTUAL WORKFORCE INTO REALITY?

6. KEEP NON-VERBAL MISINTERPRETATIONS IN MIND

Your body language is always a part of communication. And it doesn’t matter what your words say- your tone and posture add meaning to it. Focus on keeping your facial expressions and body language very neutral. You don’t always have to smile, but maybe stop crossing your arms and looking at your phone.

Sometimes the non-verbal misinterpretations are not very obvious, and you have to dig a bit deeper. For instance, the Japanese find it rude when someone points a chopstick at them while eating.

7. WORK ON COGNITIVE BIASES

Everyone is biased- that’s natural. But it’s very unethical to let the biases interfere with our decision-making processes at work. It doesn’t matter how you feel about stuff- you have to take a rational and practical approach to get an unbiased and appropriate solution.

Your cognitive bias stems from a lot of reasons and has a direct impact on your conversations. If not taken care of, it may make things bitter between people with a difference in opinion.

8. NEVER FRAME CLOSED QUESTIONS

Avoid direct questions that need an answer in yes or no. Some people find it rude to answer such questions without an explanation. They might as well go with a yes instead of saying no to someone’s face. It might sound a little absurd, but such behavior is also an influence of their background.

Open-ended questions that require a plausible explanation are better in such cases. As a bonus, you always get to understand the thinking process of your team. And you can always assign the right tasks to the right person in the future.

9. ENCOURAGE ACTIVE LISTENING

Out of the two fundamental parts of communication, people tend to only work on their speaking skills. Well, we all know that won’t work. After all, who likes sharing their thoughts with someone who won’t let them finish their sentences? To ensure a healthy and happening relationship among all, you have to make sure that people like each other’s company.

Intercultural communication is a responsibility. Encourage people to come up with doubts, suggestions, and queries. It helps break the information silos, and nothing gets missed or misunderstood.

READ MORE FROM OUR BLOGS,

WRAPPING IT UP!!

Cultural differences are bound to occur in any workplace. The key is to accept and understand them. Intercultural communication can yield creative results when utilized the right way. Try to make the best out of your intercultural work environment and never let your productivity go down.

Is there anything that I missed? Would you like to drop a suggestion/query? Let me know in the comments below. I would love to hear from you.

ANNYEONG!!

Originally Published On: EmpMonitor

#Employee Monitoring #Employee Management #Employee Productivity #Employee Monitoring Software #Intercultural Communication

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adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction · 4 years

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Practicalities of Censorship

Every so often I see a thread cross my dashboard arguing about censorship with relation to AO3 - in particular people claiming that AO3 is bad because it allows basically any story regardless of content, that people are bad for supporting it, or that AO3 should implement some method by which problematic fics get taken down. These complaints are usually met with explanations around the history or AO3, why it was implemented the way it was, and why thinking that AO3 is fine the way it is does not equal being a pedophile. I want to tackle this from another angle - practicality.

Let's assume for the sake of this post that the people making these arguments are correct and that there are some things which shouldn't be allowed on AO3 (or an an alternative fic platform set up to be a better version of AO3 without all the bad stuff - I'll mostly be taking about "fixing" AO3 in this post but the same problems would apply to setting up a new and "safer" fic site). There are a lot of arguments against censorship to do with quality of works produced and whether this results is less good art when people are scared to produce things that might get banned, or whether there is artistic merit to works that display despicable actions. Let's just imagine for the moment that the whole argument is settled and the "let's purify AO3 for the sake of the children" crowd are correct. What would need to happen next? This isn't something I've seen addressed in these posts.

There are a lot of problems with censorship. Skipping over the ethical discussion of whether censorship is good or bad and in what circumstances it should be accepted, let's focus on two practical aspects: deciding what should and shouldn't be banned, and how you would implement such a ban. Let's start with problem one: where do you draw the line?

Let's assume we have some scale of rating from absolutely sickeningly awful deserving of destruction to perfectly clean and innocent with not the slightest thing wrong with it. Somewhere between these two endpoints is a line and everything to one side of it is bad and should be banned/blocked/deleted from AO3, etc. Everything on the other side of the line is fine and should be left available for people to read. Some things may seem easy to define. Fic A is incest porn, where a child is graphically raped in a way that's cleanly meant to titillate rather than horrify and the abuse is glorified and justified in text, and it's full of poor writing, spelling and grammar mistakes, and has no artistic merit as a work (how you judge artistic merit would need a few thousand words to explore as a subject on its own right). Let's stick that on the bad side of the line since that's the sort of thing that people on Tumblr are crying out to be banned. Fic B is a fluff fic where a character makes another character soup because they're feeling ill and they watch movies together. Nothing remotely sexual, just two adult characters being sweet to each other. So we'll put that on the good side of the line, right?

But the problem comes in deciding where that dividing line should be and what should be done about the things that sit close to the line. You could come up with some simple rules. Let's say, "Everything involving underage incest is on the bad side of the line." Seems straight-forward. But what if you have a story dealing with someone's recovery from incest and CSA? The story has a character who was abused in the past and the narrative deals with them getting therapy and overcoming their trauma. None of the abuse is shown in the text of the story, it all happens off-screen as it were, and the story sends a message that incest and CSA are bad but offers hope to former victims. Surely that story would belong on the good side of the line? So maybe we amend the rule to, "Everything involving graphic incest is on the bad side of the line." That would let us keep the story about overcoming the trauma on the good side but block anything that uses incest as porn. But is consenting incest between grown adults treated the same as abusive incest?

And what if you get a story that's more about the trauma but that has a handful of flashbacks about the rape that would count as graphic. These flashbacks are meant to be horrifying not sexually exciting. Would that be okay? Is it the intent of the scene that matters? But in that case, what happens if the author writes a scene that's intended to be horrifying but a reader interprets it as arousing? Would it be okay if the author includes a disclaimer in the notes saying that this is a terrible thing and shouldn't be done in real life? Is it the intensity of the scenes shown directly in the story? In which case, where do you draw the line between something described explicitly and something merely eluded to? Is it the precise terms used? Which terms? Or how many times those terms are use? Is a subtle allusion to an event okay? In which case, what happens with a slightly less subtle allusion?

The stories that are far away from the line are easy to place, but the ones close to it become a challenge. Any attempt to define straight-forward rules starts to fall apart quickly and you get to the point where you have to argue on a case-by-case basis for each story, which would involve a massive amount of time invested to check each of these stories and decide whether or not they're allowed. Once again the practicalities of "how would you enforce something like this?" rear their ugly head but that's a question we'll address later.

We also have the problem that where I might draw the line between the bad and the good might be different from where you would draw the line, and would be different from where someone else would draw the line. Let's go back to Fic B as described above, our perfectly innocent fluff story. I might think that's perfectly acceptable, but if those two characters are both the same gender, there will be some homophobic people who will say that it's wrong and corrupting innocents because it sends the message that homosexual relationships are good. Or even if the characters are different genders, some highly religious people might think it sends a bad message if those characters are unmarried and living together in a relationship, even if nothing explicit happens within the story. Or what if the characters are married but it's an interracial marriage? A KKK member might say that sends a bad message. Different people have a different idea of what counts as bad content.

In the real world, there have been cases of books that address racism being banned because they use the n word. Harry Potter has been banned by religious groups. According to the website www.banned-books.org.uk a sweet children's book about two penguins hatching an egg was banned by a lot of schools and libraries in the US because the two penguins are both male - even though this story was actually based on a true story. The book Black Beauty, about the experiences of a horse, was banned during the Apartheid in South Africa simply for including the word "black" in the title. If you look at that site, a lot of books have been banned for a lot of different reasons and a lot of good literature has ended up caught up in the censorship usually because religious groups objected to in on moral grounds.

You could say "don't let the bigots and racists be in charge of the censorship," but historically, when censorship has come into play in the past, the people who tend to end up the worst for it are minorities. LGBTQ+ groups and people of colour tend to get censored more than straight, white men. Stories about their experiences often deal with problematic issues and therefore they get banned. The groups that generally end up making decisions about what is and isn't okay tend to be the groups that have the most power to begin with, and the end result is silencing of minority voices. This is one reason I'm very wary of anything to do with censorship, because the people who usually end up the worse for it are those who most need their voices heard.

But let's imagine all of these problems are magically overcome and we come up with a perfectly clear set of rules about what counts as good and bad fic and the dividing line is agreed by good, rational people who aren't remotely bigoted and who are able to define the criteria for what should be banned in a way that will only ever block the harmful stuff.

We still have to deal with the practicalities of enforcement we set aside earlier. We've built our perfect set of rules to define good and bad fics and now we want to put them into practice to ban any of the awful stuff. How would you go about doing it?

We could try and get machine filters to do censorship by looking for keywords and particular tags or using more complex algorithms to judge what a piece of content is about, but this ends up with chaos like Tumblr auto-flagging a lot of perfectly clean content, or YouTube blocking videos that just happened to be by/about LGBTQ+ people. Any software based implementation would struggle because someone talking about a thing as a problem contains the same words as someone glorifying that thing, and machines tend not to be great at picking up tone. You would get a massive amount of errors with things being falsely flagged as bad and things being falsely let through despite breaking the rules.

And people would be sneaky. Someone wanting to include their graphic story wouldn't tag it as for over 18s because tagging something as for over 18s would get it banned, so they would tag it as something else. The terms "lemon" and "lime" used to describe fics by older members of fandoms started from exactly this sort of thing. Websites decided to not allow adult content so people continued to post adult content but they used the citrus scale for tagging it so people would still be able to find it. Which works when people know the terms to look for or avoid, but which doesn't work for people not in the know. Is a "lemon" or a "lime" fic more explicit? Do you know what a fic being tagged as "grapefruit" would mean? By their nature, these tags are coded, which is not great for clarity.

Any sort of system that just blanket bans key words or tags would result in people just not using those keywords and tags but posting the stuff anyway. It would actually make the situation worse because there would still be incest porn and the like, only now it wouldn't be tagged. As it stands on AO3, people use the tagging system very well and people who don't want to see the incest porn can do things like exclude that tag from searches, or just not open fics they see that have the tag. If there were rules in place to not allow anything with that tag, then people would stop using the tag, which would actually mean more people would see incest porn they didn't want to because it would no longer be tagged properly, or it would be tagged using code words which only mean something to the inside group. It would be much harder to avoid the things you don't like.

So let's say we don't let a computer decide what's breaking the rules. Let's say there is a system by which readers can flag a fic as being inappropriate to get it banned. Human beings get to decide, but what's the threshold? Does a thing get banned as soon as someone reports it? Or does it need to be flagged by multiple people to be banned? In which case fics written in tiny fandoms might slip through the cracks because not enough people are reading it to them flag it. This is also open for exploitation. Someone who takes a dislike to a particular person might encourage others to flag their fics as inappropriate, regardless of whether or not they are. Someone might create fake accounts or log in anonymously over proxies to spam a fic with flags.

And even if no one acts maliciously to abuse the system, not everyone will be careful about checking the precise and perfect rules defined to mark the difference between acceptable and unacceptable work. People will flag things incorrectly, based on their own viewpoints of what should or shouldn't be allowed, which we've already said is a problem because everyone will draw the line in different places based on their own beliefs.

So what's the alternative to a community-driven method for managing content? You could have specific people whose job it is to go through content and decide whether it adheres to the rules. Maybe a computer system or community flagging could funnel fics into a review channel where human beings check every one carefully. These people would understand the rules and be certain to always judge fics accurately according to the magically perfect rules defined earlier, which are guaranteed to only ever block bad fics but never block a good fic.

So problem solved, right? We have our perfect rules perfectly implemented.

Except where humans are employed to check whether content is acceptable or not, it involves a large number of people checking through basically the worst content out there. Some social networking sites do this sort of thing now and it can be hugely traumatising for people who do that work. It's not good for them mentally to have to be exposed over and over to the worst content being put up online. There tends to be a high turnover in those jobs because they burn out fast, and that's where people are being paid for this stuff.

A site like AO3 relies on volunteers so it would require a large number of people to volunteer to look at the darkest most gruesome content and decide if it breaks the rules or not. Either you have people who hate those sort of fics doing this out of a sense of duty to maintain the purity of the content, in which case they will probably struggle with having to read a load of stuff they really, really don't enjoy. Or you will have people volunteer because they really like those fics and this is the way for them to read them. And that probably defeats the point of doing this, because it means that the people who would be seeking out those stories anyway would be the ones reading them to see if they break the rules.

There are a lot of problems with censorship, both ethically and practically. Even if you are fully on the side of censorship from a moral standpoint, you have to address the practical concerns if you want to propose an implementation.

As it stands, I think the current system works. There is stuff on AO3 that I would not in a million years want to read, but I don't have to. AO3 is brilliant for its tagging system and I can look at the tags and nope past fics that are full of my personal squicks or that I think endorse something terrible. Readers can exclude tags they want nothing to do with or just not click on ones that include elements you dislike. You can curate your own experience, which actually works with the whole idea of everyone drawing a line in a different place. You and I will have different stories we want to avoid, and we can both choose to avoid them based on author's tagging for them, rather than some other person decreeing what is acceptable for either of us to see.

If you still think that AO3 should be blocking or banning certain content, have a think about how this would work in reality. Because when ideas like that are implemented in the real world, all manner of problems happen.

I think the fact that this post is still a couple of thousand words long with me skipping over several parts of the debate is a sign that this is not a simple problem that can be easily fixed.

#censorship #long post

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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

America is a little matryoshka doll of panic right now; pop open each layer to reveal a new, worrying scenario. For months the country was focused on reopening the economy, which had its own complicated set of problems. But only recently has a broader swath of America tuned into the mess nestled inside it, one that parents have been sitting with for months: what to do with the kids.

There has been no federal plan to help American parents with child care, and they continue to wonder whether schools will really open their doors come the new school year. That lack of action is in direct contrast to other crises that have struck America recently. After the financial crash of 2008, there was a bailout and a stimulus plan. After the protests against police over the last few months, officials in cities and states responded with promises of better actions in the future but also, immediate policy implementation: New York state repealed a law that had shielded police personnel files, while the Minneapolis City Council voted to begin a process that could eventually lead to the dissolution of the city police as it’s now known.

But on child care and school, a specific, urgent response has been missing, or at least one that acknowledges our new reality. President Trump threatened to withhold federal funding for education if schools didn’t open back up, counter to schools’ insistence they need more money to provide a safe education amid the pandemic. While the CARES Act, an omnibus COVID-19 relief bill signed into law in late March, gave extra stimulus funding to families with children, schools and child care businesses so they could remain afloat, a Democratic-backed bill to give a $50 billion bailout of the child care industry has gotten little attention. Teachers around the country have voiced doubt that necessary safety measures for in-school teaching will be sufficient, and Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the country’s largest school systems, has decided not to reopen classrooms when schools go back in session in August. Some worry that while distance learning is safer, socially different children and those without stable internet connections or computers — who are already at the margins in normal times — will fall irrevocably behind.

There is no cohesive solution to America’s child care problem. But the relative inattention to this crisis, one that’s so foundational to a functioning society, the economy and family units across the country, is revealing. It shows that for all the changes that have happened in American life — more female elected officials, a MeToo movement and a workforce that is around 47 percent female — our power dynamics remain fundamentally skewed. We are failing to collectively understand what our most critical and pressing problems actually are.

“Care in general has always been seen as a sideline issue,” Vicki Shabo of the left-leaning think tank New America said. “A nice-to-have and not something that’s necessary, and not something that’s central for adults to be productive in the economy.” Of course, now we’re seeing how much of a misunderstanding that is. In a country where most men and women work even when they have children, having child care is inextricably linked to economic productivity — and not having it often hurts women most. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2015 found that in households with children under 6, women spent an hour a day doing child care, compared to the 25 minutes of care provided by men. It’s easy to extrapolate this trend for pandemic times: American women will bear the brunt of the school and child care crisis.

Yet, child care in particular hasn’t often found itself at the forefront of political debate. Experts and activists I talked to for this story all used the same framing to talk about why: an American narrative that child care problems are individuals’ problems, not society’s.

“If you think about child care traditionally before the pandemic, you probably didn’t think about it too much before you had kids,” Melissa Boteach, vice president of income security and child care at the National Women’s Law Center, said. “Then you have kids, you’re in the most stressful and resource-strapped part of your life: You’re operating on three hours of sleep a night, you’re financially squeezed, because at the very time you’re taking off of work, you have diapers and wipes and formula and whatever else. You’re in this total daze of early motherhood. That’s probably not the time when you say, ‘You know what, I’m going to call my member of Congress.’ You’re feeling it like a personal issue.”

Child care isn’t necessarily seen as a macroeconomic issue or a driver of labor force participation or GDP, Shabo said. And because of that, she said, it often takes a backseat to economic issues like wages when lobbying efforts happen. This is not to say that child care issues don’t get attention — in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, which featured several female candidates, child care plans took a more front and center role in the campaign than they had in the past. One leading candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, co-authored a 2004 book, “The Two-Income Trap,” which was about the ways the rising incomes of households with two full-time employed adults belied the heavy costs of essentials like child care. Warren thought child care costs were among the reasons the American middle class was in an economic crisis.

“Our workplaces were built for white men,” said Danielle Atkinson, the founder and director of Mothering Justice, a Detroit-area advocacy group for working families. The fact that parents are left to fend for themselves from birth to kindergarten and then during the after-school, pre-dinner hours, is an American tradition that seems to assume a readily available, at-home caregiver. (Atkinson pointed out the inextricable role black women have played in American child care; enslaved women often took care of white children.) The nuclear family with a stay-at-home parent (usually a mother) is an ideal that persists, or at the very least lingers in American life: only 18 percent of Americans in a 2018 Pew Research Survey thought it was ideal for both parents to work full time.

“This conversation about school is really a conversation about work,” Atkinson said. “The conversation about returning to school is not based on health. It’s about returning those workers to working and not looking after their children, so those children have to be somewhere.” Essential workers in particular are being forced to make difficult choices about their children’s care — many essential-worker jobs are lower wage — and many child care providers are in strapped situations. The work of child care providers, Atkinson said, is often undervalued — their median annual wage in 2017 was a little more than $22,000 annually, which is just above the federal government’s poverty line for a family of three — and as Boteach pointed out, those workers could continue to risk greater infection rates as schools and work open back up. She highlighted the plan put forth by Senate Democrats, the Child Care Is Essential Act — which would provide a bailout to the suffering industry and additional money for those providers to buy personal protective equipment — and cited an estimate that the U.S. child care industry would need a $9.6 billion injection monthly to survive the pandemic.

It’s more likely the next governmental nod to parents and their school-age children will come in the next iteration of the omnibus coronavirus relief package. Congressional Democrats have proposed $350 billion in funds for schools and universities to purchase PPE and clean their facilities. Republicans agree about more funds, though it’s not clear what their proposed number is — some have argued that since many schools will be operating on a partly virtual basis, less federal funding is needed.

The moral tussling that many parents have been doing — go back to work and risk potential COVID-19 infection at day care or school — will likely continue to be subjected to partisan politics. Trump and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have been the loudest voices in recent days about sending children back to school at all costs, much to the chagrin of teachers, many of whom feel ill-prepared for the safety precautions necessary for in-person pandemic teaching. Ultimately, though, it is parents who are forced to make a choice. Atkinson, a mother of six, told me she would be keeping her children home in the fall.

For those who focus on child care, the pandemic has perversely presented an opportunity to advance the cause of greater access to guaranteed services. “This pandemic has created greater alignment of experience, potentially, between white middle class folks who saw this as an individual issue that they were struggling with and outraged by but hadn’t really taken action on and the longtime, long-standing lived experience of lower wage folks and people of color who have struggled for decades with the unaffordability of child care and the lack of care options to meet their work schedules,” Shabo said.

Atkinson said she also hoped the individualism narrative would be shattered by the current crisis. “We want to lift the veil away and help women, especially white women, know that you’ve been lied to. You were sold a bunch of lies: ‘if you just work harder, if you just slay sexism, you’ll be OK.’ But really, it’s a tool to divide,” she said.

The pandemic has shattered norms and paradigms ever since it arrived in the U.S. — our expectations of child care is no exception. What some politicians and activists had long sought to do to no avail — place working parents and their child care crisis on the center stage of American politics — the virus has done in a matter of months.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Clare Malone

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darkvalkyrie6 · 4 years

Text

Time flies by when you’re sleeping

I felt tired one day and thought that I could use a long nap. This story is a result of that thought.

I didn't use any movies, books or series for inspiration the story is my original work. This is just the result of my weird imagination and brain telling me what to write. I hope you like it :)

It’s still just a story, like all of my other stores. It doesn’t have a deeper spiritual, moral or ethical meaning.

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Chapter 1. Cryogenic

A small pod was drifting through space in no special direction. The pod was human-sized and looked like an escape pod, however, something was off about it the pod. The human inside it was in cryosleep and looked peaceful, but alive. In the distance, there was a ship coming towards the pod. As the ship came closer to the pod, it directed a beam of light at it.

The ship was massive. So massive in fact that it was actually carrying a planet beneath it. It was almost as big as the planet it was carrying beneath it. The planet was beautiful, it was surrounded by some kind of shield, with iridescent rainbow colors, protecting it from space, it was blue like Earth, but at the same time, something about it looked magical.

If the human in the pod was awake, he would forget how to breathe and would be speechless from the sheer beauty of the whole scene unfolding before his eyes. Compared to the ship and the planet, the human pod looked like a piece of sand in a sand storm. The beam of light pulled the pod into one of the openings on the massive ship and as soon as it put it on the ground inside the ship, it disappeared.

The pod didn’t open right away, there was a control panel on the pod that had to be activated to open the pod. This was a problem because the robots on the alien ship didn’t understand the language on the pod console. The robots were intelligent so they tried to open the pod in a different way. They removed the top of the console and connected directly to the pod itself. They still had a problem opening the pod because the programing language was so old and rigid that it took them a couple of tries to get the pod open.

When the pod finally opened, the human inside sat up, saw a bunch of robots around him, leaned over the edge of the pod and vomited, violently. The robots looked at each other and stood there until the human was done vomiting.

“Sorry about that guys. I don’t like cryosleep. It always makes me nauseous, this time it really did its job on me.“ The human said.

The robots helped the human out of the pod and put shackles around his feet and arms.

“What are you doing? I’m not a criminal. You could have just asked me to come with you.” The human said and one of the robots pressed a button on the hand shackles. He started levitating and two robots grabbed his arms and pushed him forward while the other followed. “Uuuuu… Levitating shackles. I like that. Thank you science for not making me walk when I’m falsely imprisoned.” The human said with sarcasm in his voice.

As the robots were taking him somewhere, he looked around the ship. The ship walls were white and the shapes clean, oval and smooth. ‘At least it’s not all black and covered in skulls. Maybe these guys are good.’ Ha thought as the robots pushed him through one of the oval doors. The room was divided into two sections and he had no idea what the sections were for. One of the robots pushed another button on his shackles and he stopped levitating. They took of his shackles and one of the robots gave him a box.

“What?” The human asked.

The robot pushed the box into his hands.

“What do I do with this?” The human asked and the robot mimicked taking off his clothes. “Ooooooo… You want me to take off my clothes. Why? Can’t you disinfect me like this?” The human asked but got no answer, just more robot mimicking taking off its clothes. He felt like he was in a cheap striptease bar, but he listened to the robot, took off his clothes and put them in the basket.

The robot took the basket and put it on the table in the right section of the room. ‘Why do they sterilize the clothes separately?’ The human thought because it made no sense. It was a waste of energy. On Earth ships, all personnel went through decontamination with their clothes on. It was faster and more efficient. A robot grabbed his hand and put him in the left section on the room inside a red circle. The other robot did the same thing with the box of clothes.

All of the robots stood back, except one. The one that remained first pushed the yellow button and in both sections, a glass wall came down. A small red light was glowing over the red button and when it stopped, the robot pushed the red button. A cold flow of air rushed through the left section leaving the human whining and twisting from the cold. “I see that nothing’s changed. Prisoners still get cold showers.” The robot waited for the light over the red button to turn off again and pushed it again.

In the left section, a beam went over him. In the left section, a machine came down the ceiling, aimed straight at the box, fired a laser beam and incinerated the box and its contents. “You bastards! My Pokemon trainer badges were on my jacket. I had five of them. Five! I needed just one more to be a Pokemon master! You barbarians!” The human yelled and let out a quiet whine as the robots took him out of the left section ad gave him new clothes. While he was putting the new clothes, he looked over to the pile of dust on the floor of the right section and a tear run down the right side of his face.

The robots put shackles on his arms and legs again and levitated him towards another room. This time, they were walking for a long time, but the ship looked the same everywhere they went. Everything was white, oval-shaped with clean lines. They passed some of the bigger rooms and came to an elevator. One of the robots pushed a button with a strange symbol on it and in just a few seconds, the elevator stopped. This part of the ship looked a little different.

Here there were small rooms with small long doors on the floor and robots standing guard at each door. ‘So this is the prison.’ The human thought. The robots opened one of the rooms and levitated him in. They removed his shackles and closed the door, locking it.

“Is there a biological being I could talk to so we can sort this mess out?!” The human yelled after the robots but got no answers. ‘Why is nobody telling me what’s happening? Am I a criminal? Were the pod and the cryosleep me serving my sentence? But my uniform wasn’t a prisoner uniform. Wait… What’s my name?’ He thought but couldn’t remember. ‘How can’t I remember my own name? I remembered the Pokemon badges.’

He heard about this before. People that were exposed to prolonged cryosleep could experience temporary amnesia. They could remember some parts about their lives, but completely forget things like who are they or what happened to them before cryosleep. This was well known because when cryosleep became popular the prisons implemented it as a way to make prisoners serve their punishment. That way the prisoners were in cryosleep, didn’t have to eat or drink and didn’t kill each other. However, as it turned out prolonged cryosleep had bad side effects on the human brain and the prisons stopped the practice fearing lawsuits.

He was sitting on a flat surface, which was probably the bed, trying to remember his name and what happened to him before cryosleep, but his mind was a complete blank. He decided to look around the room, who knows, maybe something will jog his memory. The room was small, it had a flat surface attached to the right wall, a table, a chair and a door on the left wall. He came closer to the door and they slid open revealing a bathroom. The only unusual thing about the room was that the ceiling was high.

Nothing in the room jogged his memory, but he still had to have a name. On Earth, every time they couldn’t identify someone, they called him John Doe, so he thought why not use that as his name. Instead of concentrating on things John couldn’t remember, he turned his attention to the things he could remember.

He could remember that his clothes were a uniform and that that meant he was probably working on a ship. The uniform seemed filthy and old and that could only mean that he was working on the ship for a long time, as for the filth it could mean that he was an engineer or that it got filthy before he got into the pod.

Suddenly, the small long door opened and a metal tray was pushed inside. There were two bowls, a bigger and a smaller one, and a glass of water on the tray. The bigger bowl had a reddish gelatin-like liquid inside it and the smaller wan a portion of grass. John was still feeling ill from the cryosleep but he decided to at least try to eat something. He scooped out some of the reddish gelatin-like liquid and put it in his mouth. He almost vomited again. It tasted so bad that his entire digestive system cramped. It felt like he just put a watermelon, coconut, grapefruit, walnut, chestnut, almond, a rubber tire and someone else’s vomit. He tried to get rid of the awful taste out of his mouth with the grass but the sharp leaves cut his tongue. With nothing to get the taste out he hurried to the toilet and vomited.

When he felt strong, enough to stand up he returned to the metal tray, drank the water and pushed the tray to the long small door on the floor. ‘What kind of beings could stomach food such as this? I thought I would die just from one bite. Maybe these guys aren’t as good as I thought.’ John thought, sitting on his bed, rubbing his stomach and burping silently. After a few moments, the lights in his room turned off. ‘So it’s night time. I could use some sleep after a day like this.’ John thought, lay down on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

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Chapter 2. Artificial

The lights in the room turned on, but John was still lying in bed, tired. He felt like he slept for only five to six hours so he decided to sleep a little more. John was disappointed that he had no dreams because dreams were god for people suffering from amnesia. They were a good way to jog someone’s memory. He fell asleep for a while. He was awoken by the noise from opening the small door made. Again, a metal tray was pushed into his room.

John was hungry, his stomach was rumbling. He didn’t eat anything yesterday, but with food like yesterday, he feared that he also wouldn’t eat anything today. He lifted his head to look at the metal tray, expecting the two bowls again, but instead of the bowls, there was a light brown brick in the middle and dried fruit on the side. ‘So breakfast is different from dinner. That’s good to know. Let’s see if this tastes any better than the stuff from yesterday.’

John got up and sat on the floor in front of the tray. He examined the light brown brick from all sides and ate one of the dried fruits. ‘Ok, the fruits are a bit bitter, but at least they are edible.’ He took a bite from the brick, it didn’t taste as horrible as the stuff from the bowl, it tasted like it was made from different ground nuts and walnuts. There were no other flavors so John ate it together with the dried fruit, looking suspiciously at the glass, on the tray, full of red liquid. He smelled the red liquid but couldn’t recognize the smell. He tried a sip and instantly spit it out. The red liquid tasted like rotten tomatoes filtered through dirty socks. It was a good thing he had a bathroom and water.

After breakfast, John noticed a small camera in a corner of the room, so he started jumping and waving his arms saying. “Is anyone there? Can I talk to a biological being? I think we got on the wrong foot. Can you let me out? I didn’t do anything and there’s nothing to do here.” John stopped for a second to see if someone will answer him but he got no response. “Ok. If you don’t want to let me out then please don’t give me the reddish gelatin-like liquid to eat, please.”

With nothing to do and still feeling tired, John lay down on the bed and fell asleep. He was awoken by his stomach rumbling. He looked at the floor by the small door but there was no metal tray. It occurred to him that he had no way to tell time. Although if he had, there would be no point. He didn’t know the alien’s day cycle. Earth day cycle was twenty-four hours, but to these aliens, it could be anything. He hoped that their cycle was close to Earth’s because he was starving.

‘He got in the shower and saw a green and a red button and a lever that turned left and right. There were alien symbols on each side of the lever but he didn’t understand them. If this was anything like sonic showers on human spaceships the lever adjusted the temperature of the sonic wave. If you turn the lever left, the sonic wave was warmer, if you turn it right, it was colder. With that logic in mind, John turned the lever halfway to the left and pressed the green button. What followed could only be described as a scream of someone whose tooth was pulled out alive.

John quickly turned the lever all the way to the left thinking that the sonic wave will warm him. That was a huge mistake. The sonic wave was so hot that it burnt the top layer of his skin. When he got out of the shower, he looked like a sausage that walked off a grill. Pissed, he went over to the sink, pulled the lever to the left, and cooled his face with the cold water.

Jon entered the room and tried to find a less painful position to sit on the bed so he could get dressed. He grabbed his shirt and put one arm into a sleeve. He let out a quiet whine as tears started to form in the corners oh his eyes. He went back to the bathroom and took two towels with the intention to put them on the bed and try to lay like that until the pain stopped.

As he finished putting towels onto the bed, he heard the door to his room open. Outside the door was a machine, waist-high, and a robot behind it. The machine entered the room and the robot closed the door. The machine moved forward, not caring that John was looking at it confused and asking. “What are you? What are you doing here?“ The machine stopped a few paces away from John and extended a red tube towards him. The tube stopped and at the end of it, like a hand fan, a platform unfolded.

John looked at the platform and then at the machine and asked. “You want me to stand on that?” The machine started making gibberish noises. ”Why?” He asked and the machine made more of those noises in that gibberish language as if it was answering him. ‘So it’s talking but in an alien language.’ John thought. “I’ll step on it but if that’s a scale I can already tell you I’m not fat, I just have denser bones.” The machine answered in the gibberish language again, but this time faster like it was unpainted so John stepped onto the platform.

In a split second, an oval-shaped bubble surrounded John and another tube came out of the machine and attached itself to the bubble. “Hey? What is this?” John asked and got an answer in that gibberish language the machine spoke. A lukewarm liquid started to fill up the oval-shaped bubble he was in and John started banging on the inside of the bubble yelling. “Hey! Stop it! I can’t breathe underwater! You’re going to kill me! Stop the water!” But the machine ignored him. The water was filling up the bubble quickly, As John was banging at the bubble sides with his arms, legs and elbows, trying to break free, the bubble was already full of water to his waist.

Nothing John did, not yelling and begging the machine to stop, did anything to stop the bubble from filling up with water. When the water reached his neck, he took a deep breath. After a few seconds, the water filled the bubble completely. John could hear the muffled sound of the machine talking in the gibberish language but couldn’t understand it. A few bubbles of air escaped his mouth, so he put his right hand over it. As he did that, he saw the top layer of the skin on his hand peel away piece by piece and he screamed, losing all the air in his lungs. He started to panic because without air he will die, so once again he started banging on the sides of the bubble. Looking at his arms, he saw that the top layer of the skin was peeling all over his body, revealing healthy skin underneath. For a few moments, he forgot that he had no air and was shocked when he realized that he could breathe normally.

When all of his damaged skin was fixed, the machine drained the water from the bubble, the bubble disappeared, the platform folded back and was pulled back into the machine. The machine said something in the gibberish language, the door opened and it left. John was left sitting in the middle of the room, naked and wet. At least he didn’t look like a fried sausage anymore. “Now I have to take another shower. Damn it.” He said.

This time he was really careful while taking a shower and when he was done a metal tray was on the floor in front of the door. ‘Finally, I’m starving.’ John thought and sat in front of the tray. On the tray, there was a small bowl containing a yellowish clear liquid that smelled like a herbal tea, a plate with a big piece of some kind of fruit and a few smaller ones, a plate of greens that reminded him of a salad and a weird black cube. The cube didn’t look edible so he left it for now. The yellowish liquid was a herbal tea and the rest of the lunch was edible, it just lacked spices. It wasn’t even salted.

With his belly, full John turned his attention to the black cube. He picked it up and sat on the bed looking it over. It looked like some kind of a puzzle cube. The cube was the size of a rubrics cube, its sides were smooth and all the sides were black except for one. One side had a small white square in the middle. ‘This is probably a test of my intelligence. They give this to their children to solve and they are giving it to me. If I can’t solve it they are going to think I’m stupid.’ John thought. For a few hours, he tried to solve the puzzle, but couldn’t. That just made him frustrated. He looked at the camera and said. “I’m hoping you’re laughing your buts off now. Can you at least give me a hint where to start?” But he didn’t get an answer.

“God damn puzzle cube. I’m not going to let you beat me.” John said. He knew there had to be a reason why the white square was in the center of one of the sides. He tried pushing it, pulling it, pushing the opposite side of it but nothing he did had any impact on the white square. “Hmmm… I know that the white square has to mean something. But what?” John said aloud, raised the cube towards the ceiling light and saw that it was slightly see-through. He saw machinery inside it that connected the middle square of each side of the cube in a specific way.

John pushed the white square and the machinery for the underside unlocked. He pressed the middle square of the underside and it that unlocked the backside middle square. Pressing the squares in the order they were unlocking John finally unlocked the cube, he solved the puzzle. The cube occupied his mind that he didn’t realize how much time had passed. The small door opened and a metal tray was pushed into his room. There was no bowl with the red gelatin this time. John looked at the camera and said. “Thank you.” The dinner was edible and he even got a sweet candy-like treat. John looked at the camera and said. “I know I solved the puzzle, but I’m not a dog. I don’t need treats.”

For the next few weeks, the aliens kept him in the room and gave him puzzles to solve. Each puzzle was more difficult than the last one. It took time, because some were more intuitive than others, but he solved them all. One day the doors to John’s room opened, the machine came into his room again and started to speak the gibberish language again. “How do you not understand me? I don’t know what you’re saying.” John said.

The machine came closer to John and he said. “Keep away from me. You see I’m healthy. There’s nothing wrong with me so keep your tentacles away from me.” As he said that, the machine scanned him with a beam. A small compartment opened on the side of the machine and the machine injected him with something with a gun-like needle injector. “What did I just tell you. Keep away from me or I’ll shove you where the sun doesn’t shine.” The world around John started to spin, he was losing balance and could barely stand up straight. “You bastard! What did you...” Was all that he managed to say before he lost consciousness.

John woke up, shackled, while two robots were pushing him through corridors. They entered a massive hall. If John wasn’t heavily drugged, he would appreciate all the beautiful sculptures, the ornaments decorating the walls and the magnificent chandelier depicting different animals holding glowing crystals. In the center of the room on an elevated platform were six chares. One stood alone and the others were facing it. The robots put John in the chair opposite the five chairs and attached his shackles to it.

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Chapter 3. Biological

Still under the influence of the drugs, John murmured to himself “Stupid machine… I’m gonna kill it… I’m gonna make him eat his processor...” He looked around and saw the hall and two robots beside him. “You guys sure know how to decorate. I have an apartment on Earth, can I hire you guys to decorate my bathroom?” He said to one of the robots but got no answer. He heard a commotion in the back but couldn’t turn around to see what the fuss was about. The drugs started to wear off and his mind got a bit clearer. He heard footsteps approaching and thought ‘Finally, someone I could talk to.’

Five aliens walked in front of him and sat in the five chairs. They looked like human-shaped deer. They had deer horns, but smaller, elongated faces and black fingertips like hoofs. The biggest one sat in the middle chair. They all had a device on their left ear and the one in the middle chair, told something to one of the robots in the same gibberish language, giving him a similar device. The robot took the device and turned towards John, grabbed John’s head ad put the device on his left ear. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You could have just asked me, you know.” John said.

“What would be the point in asking when you wouldn’t understand?” One of the deer aliens said.

John looked at the aliens sitting in the chairs and said. “You’re not talking gibberish anymore. How?” John asked.

“First things first. I am Shundi, the ambassador of our planet.” Shundi said. He was the biggest of them all and had the posture of someone important. He had brown fur, with a few gray hairs. He was dressed in a robe that was dark blue at the shoulders, decorated with an intricate silver pattern of different stylized animals running through the forest. The robe’s color got lighter and at the bottom until it turned turquoise and depicted marine animals in silver stitched in silver thread. However, the robe was not the thing that made him look like the leader it was the scepter. It was taller than he was and made out of intertwined wooden branches that, at the top, ended looking like deer horns. At the top, in the middle of the horns, the scepter had leaves, flowers and the biggest sapphire John has ever seen. It was bigger than his hand.

“To my right is the defense minister Noxu and his assistant Zerzo.” Shundi said and extended his right hand to the colleagues on his right. Noxu’s fur was black and he was muscular, he had broad shoulders and a look that could squish an ant. Even his assistant looked afraid of him. He was probably the reason that John was up here on the ship for so long.

“To my left is the alien rights minister Saiyani and her assistant Tati.” Shundi said and extended his left hand to the colleagues on his left. Saiyani was the only one that looked normal. She had a red dress laced with a white pattern on the edges, glasses and a small notebook on her lap. Her assistant Tati was so cute. The chair she was sitting in looked five times too big for her. She looked like a three month old puppy you just had to play with.

“It’s nice to meet you all. I’m John.” John said.

“We are sorry we had to keep you here for so long but we didn’t know what you were and couldn’t understand you. The device on our ears is a universal translator and it can translate over three thousand languages, but it couldn’t translate yours.” Shundi said.

“How couldn’t it translate mine? We occupy fifty planets in the galaxy. It should have our language in the database.” John said confused.

“Fifty planets? Are you sure? Because we have never seen any being like you before.” Shundi said.

“Yeah, I’m sure. After we won the galactic war we freed the planets that were occupied and built our colonies there.” John said.

“Hmmm… When our ship picked you up you were the only one.” Shundi said. “With no other way to get information and to know more about you we had to make you talk so our universal translator could translate your words. You call yourself John, is that the name of your species?” Shundi asked.

“No, my species is named Human and we are from a planet named Earth John is the name we give members of our species we can’t identify. What about you?” John asked.

“We are the Godeer race and come from the planet Poin that is underneath this ship.” Shundi said.

Yeah, I’m impressed with your ship. But why are you moving your planet?” John asked.

“Our sun was destroyed by a black hole and we found a similar solar system to our own. So, we are traveling to that solar system to put our planet there. We have been traveling for four generations now.” Shundi said.

“Wait. Four generations. How long do your people live?” John asked.

“Around two hundred years. Why?” Shundi asked.

“So you have been traveling max for two hundred years. Right?” John asked.

“A little less. But it will take us around four hundred years to get there.” Shundi said.

“That means that I have been in cryosleep at least that long. But that isn’t enough for you to not see humans.” John said.

“What’s your point?” Shundi asked.

“What galactic year is this and what galaxy is this?” John asked.

Godeer looked at one another confused and Shundi said. “It’s the galactic year sixty-four thousand, five hundred and twenty-five, and we are at the edge of the milky galaxy.”

“You mean the Milky way galaxy?” John asked.

“If you call it that, that then yes.” Shundi said.

John sat in the chair very still, speechless. He was in cryosleep for twenty-five thousand years and his pod drifted to the outer edge of the galaxy. No wonder that the godeer never saw a human, humans were light years away from here.

“Where is your planet Earth?” Shundi asked.

“Huh?” John was still in shock so he didn’t hear the question. “Sorry, what did you ask?” He said.

“I asked where your planet is.” Shundi said.

“I don’t know.” John said with a blank look on his face staring in the distance.

“I think this is enough for today. We will continue tomorrow.” Saiyani said and the robots took John back to his room. A metal tray was waiting for him in his room, but he wasn’t hungry.

So much time spent in cryosleep explained why he didn’t remember anything. He was now worried that he’ll never remember. He tried to wrap his head around that he was twenty-five thousand years in the future and that he’ll probably never see another human again. With thoughts of despair keeping him awake, even after the lights turned off, he felt like the loneliest creature in the universe.

After the lights turned on, and the metal tray was pushed into his room, John was still lying on the bed awake. The door to his room opened ant the machine came in.

“I mean you no harm. I am a medicine machine and I am here to help you.” The machine said.

John lifted his head and angrily looked at the machine. “I can understand you now. Was that what you were saying all the time?” He said.

“Yes. I am here to help.” The machine said.

“You didn’t help me. The first time I thought that I would drown and the second time you scrambled my brains.” John said.

“I am only trying to help.” The machine said and started moving towards John.

“Get away from me you lunatic!” John yelled at the machine as it was taking the gun-like needle injector out of the compartment on the side. “Stick that thing in me again and I’ll kill you.” John said.

The machine pointed the injector at John’s leg and John kicked it so hard that the machine fell over on its side. The robot at the door heard the commotion and rushed in. He grabbed John and pulled him out of the room. As the robot was putting shackles on his arms and legs, John yelled at the machine. “This time you were lucky that your friend stepped in! Next time I’m going to make you eat your own processor!”

Another robot showed up and they took him back to the same hall as yesterday. They sat him down in the chair and attached his shackles to it. John thought about things that he would ask the godeer. Surely, the technology would have advanced in thirty thousand years, so there must be a way they could send him home, to Earth. As he thought about the questions, the godeer came into the hall and sat in their chairs.

“Hello, John. How are you feeling?” Saiyani asked.

“Alright now that the machine didn’t scramble my brains.” John said and bent over to scratch his nose with his right hand. When he lifted his hand, he saw four of the Godeer hiding behind their chairs and Noxu standing up ready to attack.

“What’s wrong? What did I do? My nose was just itchy.” John asked confused.

Shundi, behind the chair, said. “You told us that the machine didn’t give you an injection today.”

“Yeah, so? What’s the problem? Why are you hiding?” John asked.

The Godeer stood up, looked at each other and sat back in their chairs and Shundi said. “Those injections are mild sedatives.”

“Mild sedatives? Yesterday that mild sedative scrambled my brain so much that I drooled all the way here.” John said. “Why did you even give me sedatives?” He asked.

“We were watching you solve the puzzles we gave you and every time you yelled and threw pieces of the puzzles at the walls or the floor. You even put one in the sonic shower and blasted it with the hottest setting. Another one you almost destroyed by jumping on it, hitting it with your head and yelling at it.” Shundi said. “We also saw you destroying your food. We saw you take the bowl with red Kazu, throw it against a wall, pick up the pieces, throw them in the toilet and urinate on them. After that, you looked at the camera and extended your middle finger towards the camera. What does that mean?” He asked.

“I did that in the spur of the moment, I really didn’t like that reddish gelatin thing. I’d rather not explain what the finger means, trust me.” John said.

“So, after all of that, you can see why we are cautious. You seem to us as a violent being.” Shundi said.

“Oooooooh…” John said. “That’s just a misunderstanding. I tend to overreact when I’m frustrated but I would never hurt anyone. Don’t you ever get angry or frustrated at something and just want to lash out?” He asked.

“What do you mean?” Shundi asked.

“You know. When your wife is angry with you...” John started to say but was interrupted by Shundi.

“My wife is dead.” Shundi said.

“Uff… Sorry.” John said. “Well then, when you tell someone to do something, and how to do it, and he doesn’t do it. Are you not angry at that?” John said.

“Aaah! I see your point. When something doesn’t go as you want it to and you can’t do anything about it you feel irritated and you go home.” Shundi said.

“Yeah, like that.” John said, happy that Shundi understood him. “It’s a bit different for humans but you get the point.”

“Tell me more about humans.” Shundi said.

“Shure, but only if you tell me more about godeer.” John said.

Shundi looked at him and his colleagues said. “We are a peaceful and timid race. We don’t like outsiders. We had contact with other aliens and it never ended well because the other aliens hunted us for meat as if we were common animals. Our planet is mostly covered in water and forests. We built our cities in the forests and we live in balance with the nature on our planet.” Shundi said.

“We put a lot of resources in technology and defense technology because we are not fighters. Only a small percent of us have the courage to go into battle and those are celebrated as heroes.” Noxu said.

“But we did encounter some aliens that were peaceful like us and we traded with them. It all stopped when we left our solar system behind so we are hoping that we’ll met new peaceful races in the new solar system.” Saiyani said.

“Yeah, and if we come across an unfriendly alien race we have the ship and the shield around the planet to protect us.” Shundi said. “Now tell us about humans.”

“I will but don’t judge all humans by what I’ll say. Humans are all different. There are no two humans alike in the universe but we all have one thing in common. You saw that when you were watching me. I’m a good guy, I wouldn’t hurt a living being but I get violent when I’m frustrated or angry. ” John said looking at the godeer faces. Godeer were nodding so he continued.

“The best analogy I found was that humans were like magnets. Every human has a positive and a negative side. The only thing guiding the sides is our moral compass. Some humans are evil, murderers, thieves, liars, while others are good, honest and unselfish. However, unlike you, we are a warrior race. In the past, we were at war with each other almost all the time and at the same time, we were also at peace. I know that doesn’t make sense to you, to be honest, it doesn’t make sense to us humans either. We want peace but we wage war to achieve it.” John said looking at the confused faces of the godeer.

“When we reached the level of technology so we could travel through space, we stopped fighting with each other and started fighting evil alien races that enslaved planets and aliens living there. We were so successful at freeing the occupied planets that the evil aliens united and attacked us. What they didn’t know was that we’ve been at war with each other for thousands of years and knew every war tactic. We destroyed all of their ships and won that galactic war in less than a decade. We lost only two ships out of tens of thousands.” John said.

Godeer were looking at him as if he was some kind of monster.

“I told you not to judge me by what I said. Not every human is the same. We humans know what’s right and what’s wrong. I have a strong moral compass that’s telling me to be good. And humans only fought in the galactic war to free the planets and the enslaved aliens, they didn’t do it just to kill the evil aliens. That’s a noble cause.” John said.

“But you said you made colonies on those planets.” Shundi said.

“Yeah, to help the aliens recover from slavery. We are not the bad guys.” John said. “But what I really wanted to ask you is if there was a way you could send me back to my part of the galaxy. I mean, you have a ship carrying a planet. There must be a way I could go back to Earth.” He asked.

“Maybe there is. However, we don’t know where your planet is. The galaxy is big and finding a planet is not an easy task.” Shundi said.

“I can point you in the right direction. I know approximately where my planet and the colonies are. That would narrow your search, wouldn’t it?” John asked with a hopeful voice.

“It would, drastically. Nevertheless, we still can’t guarantee that your planet will be there. A long time has passed since you last saw it.” Shundi said. “Get the shackles off him.” Shundi said to one of the robots and it obeyed the command.

“Come, let’s see the galaxy map.” Shundi said to John, stood up and walked over to a console. He typed something on the console and the Milky way galaxy appeared before them.

“Whoa!” John said looking at the 3D image of the Milky way galaxy. “Where are we now?” he asked.

Shundi typed something on the console again and a green dot appeared on the map on the outer edge of the galaxy. “We are here. Where is your planet?” He asked.

“Can you zoom in on this section?” John asked.

“Yes.” Shundi zoomed in on the section John pointed and the map showed a cluster of stars and the Helix Nebula.

“That’s it! That’s the nebula closest to my planet and the colonies. My planet is the third planet, blue like yours, in a solar system with eight planets and a dwarf gas planet. Will that help you search for it?” John asked with hope in his voice.

“Yes, it will. However, I don’t know how long it will take. Do you mind staying on the ship until we find it?” Shundi asked.

“No problem. Just keep that medical machine away from me and we’re good.” John said.

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

Chapter 4. Galactic

One day John was in the bathroom washing his hands but the water in the sink was cold even dough the lever was turned right. Curious, he pulled the lever off and saw that the pipe for the warm water was dislodged and that the warm water was leaking. The supporter, for the warm water pipe, attached to the wall was broken. John ripped a piece of his sleeve and tied the pipe to the part of the supporter that was still attached to the wall. He tried to attach the pipe back to the lever part and while he was doing that, he cut his hand and it started bleeding.

“Ouch!” John said, took one of the towels and pressed it against the wound, but the bleeding wouldn’t stop. A few moments later the door to his room opened, he stepped out of the bathroom and saw the medical machine come in. “Oh no! I had a deal with the godeer that you won’t pester me again.” John said.

“I am here to help. You have injured yourself. I have come to help you.” The machine said.

“I’m fine, It’s just a scratch. I don’t need your help.” John said angrily as blood dripped on the floor.

“I can see you are losing blood. An injury like that can become infected. I am here to stop the blood and disinfect the wound.” The machine said.

“But o injections this time. Understand?” John said.

“No injections.” The machine said and came closer to John. It removed the towel and cleaned the wound with gauze. It sprayed it with a white spray that turned into foam and the bleeding stopped. It removed the wound and continued to disinfect the wound. While it was doing that, John saw a dent on its left side and some wires sticking out.

“Is the damage on your left side from me kicking you?” John asked.

“Yes.” The machine said.

“So why didn’t they fix you?” John asked confused.

“I am scheduled for maintenance in three days and seven hours. There are machines that are more damaged than me.” The machine replied. “I have cleaned your wound.”

“Then let me fix you. It’s my fault you are damaged.” John said.

“I am scheduled for maintenance...” The machine started to say but was interrupted by John.

“Yeah, I know. But you fixed me, let me fix you. Open the panel on your left.” John said and the machine opened the panel.

The damage wasn’t severe, there were some loose wires and a bent plate. John looked at the wires and matched them to the corresponding ports. He took out the bent plate, put it on the floor and hit it with his shoo until it was straight. Happy with its shape he put the plate back in place and closed the panel. “So, did I fix the...” John started to say but something about this situation triggered a memory.

He was in a situation like this, fixing a machine on a ship. Yes, he remembered, he was an engineer. He was fixing a machine on a human ship on its way to one of the planets to help the enslaved aliens. As he was fixing the machine, an evacuation alarm activated. Al the people on the ship rushed to the escape pods and he followed. John got in one of them and launched immediately. As the pod was living the ship, he saw an alien ship ten times bigger than any ship they had in their fleet coming closer to the colony ship. It fired some kind of bright light towards the colony ship and the explosion destroyed the ship and the pods close to the ship. The explosion impact pushed the other pods. Like his, in different directions. The last thing he remembered was the low oxygen warning. That’s when the pod probably put him into cryosleep.

“Are you alright?” The machine said.

“Yes. I need to go.” John said.

“But I didn’t bandage your wound.” The machine said but John already left the room.

John told the robot in front of his door to take him to the main hall as fast as he could and when they arrived he walked over to Shundi and asked. “Is there any news? Did you find my planet?”

“I think so.” Shundi said and looked at him. “Why are you in such a hurry?” He asked.

“I remembered something. I remembered a massive alien spaceship attacking my ship. It was bigger than any ship we humans had at that time. I’m worried that they enslaved my people. Can you show me what you found?” John asked.

Shundi zoomed to a solar system he found and asked. “Is this your solar system?”

“Yes, good job. That’s it. That’s my planet. How far away is it?” John asked.

“Twenty-five thousand light years.” Shundi said.

John looked at him speechless for a few moments. He looked at the map and back at Shundi. “I don’t have twenty-five thousand years. My people could go extinct by that time.” He said.

“We can help you get there faster but it’s a one-way trip.” Shundi said.

“Thank you that would be awesome. But I’m still worried about the aliens. If they see me they will kill me on the spot.” John said.

“We will give you one of our ships that has cloaking technology so that they won’t be able to see you.” Shundi said.

“Thank you, but I could never repay such a gift.” John said.

“You already have. You warned us that we share a galaxy with evil species and now we have time to prepare our defenses. Consider the gift repaid.” Shundi said.

“Thank you.” John said and walked over to Noxu.

“Hey, Noxu. I wanted to ask you something. You said that you have weapons to defend your planet. Well, does the ship you’re giving me have any weapons?” John asked.

“Only basic weapons. Why?” Noxu asked.

“In my memory the ship that attacked us was big. It was half the size of this ship and I’m worried that basic weapons won’t do any damage to ships like that. Is there a chance you could put stronger weapons on the ship you’re giving me?” John asked.

“We don’t give others our weapons. They will only use it against us.” Noxu said.

“Look, I won’t tell anybody about you. I don’t even know where you are going. How am I going to use your weapons against you if I don’t know where you are?” John explained.

“I will think about it.” Noxu said.

Noxu was so stubborn that even hearing that he will think about it was a big step forward.

While the godeer prepared the ship for John, he was sitting on the bed in his room thinking about what awaits him on Earth. The door of his room opened and he saw a robot standing on the other side. He stood up walked over to the robot who started walking and he followed. The robot took him to a room with two chairs. In one of them, Saiyani was sitting. She invited him in and said. “Sorry for not coming to get you myself self but this is protocol. I invited you here because this is the only place we can talk freely. The cameras in this room record only the image, not the sound. We will pretend to have an Interview but I have something important to say.”

Saiyani put a small round device on the table, pushed one button and said. “Please sit. I am Saiyani Vorte, the minister of alien rights and I am here to see how you have been treated here on this ship. I understand that your name is John. So John. Would you like to drink or eat something before we begin?” She looked at John with a serious look.

“Yeah, I would.” John said.

“Then I am pausing the recording and we will continue after we get refreshments.” Saiyani said and pushed another button. She got up and pretended to look for glasses and food.

“I heard your talk with Noxu. He is never going to give you our weapons, he’s too paranoid and I completely understand why. Our weapons are based on making space anomalies like wormholes and black holes. They are very dangerous weapons in the wrong hands. However, for the past months, I have seen that you are a good person, so I will have my team attach the black hole weapon to the bottom of the ship we are giving you and hide it with the bottom door hatch. I trust you will not use it against us.” Saiyani said showing him a bowl of almonds.

“You can trust me. Nether I or other humans would use it against you.” John waved his hand and Saiyani showed him a bowl of fruit.

“If you use the black hole weapon on a big ship it might not disappear completely, but the damage would be so severe that it would incapacitate it. So use it wisely.” Saiyani said.

“I will.” John said and nodded. Saiyani put the bowl of fruit in front of him and sat in the chair. She pushed the button on the device again and said. “Let’s continue.”

They continued the interview and when they were finished, John was happy that he now had a fighting chance if he needed it. After two days, everything was prepared for John to leave. They all said their goodbyes, John thanked them once again for everything that they did for him and got in the ship. They explained to him how to pilot the ship, how to activate and deactivate the cloak and he was ready to go. He looked to the left side of the console and saw two buttons, one green, one red, and a small sticker with deer horns on it. So that was Saiyani’s work. Green to activate it and red to fire it, he chuckled a bit and flew out of the big ship.

He heard Noxu say. “Stay put for a while.” He stopped and saw a white beam create a sphere in front of him. “That is a wormhole leading to your solar system. Activate your cloak and go through. After you come out on the other side, the wormhole will collapse. Got it?” Noxu said.

“Heard you loud and clear. Goodbye and thanks again. I wish you good luck.” John said, activated his cloak and entered the sphere. In an instant, his ship was next to Jupiter. He saw an alien ship fly by him towards Earth, he looked at the ship, trying to figure out if it was human or alien. It looked more alien so he followed it. The alien ship docked into one of the bigger ships hangar. John stopped in front of the hangar and waited, he wanted to see the alien that was piloting the ship. The pilot got out of the ship. The alien was tall and lean, its skin and hair were white and it had three tentacles coming from the top of his head, falling down its back.

Those weren’t the aliens humans were fighting against in the galactic war. John decided to circle around the Earth. A fleet of these alien ships surrounded the whole Earth. He descended into the Earth’s atmosphere to fly over the ground and see if there were any humans left on Earth. There were humans on Earth, but as he feared, the white aliens enslaved them. It was probably the same on the other planets, on the colonies. He needed a plan. He didn’t know anything about these aliens and their weapons. If he attacked one ship at a time, they would eventually find him and kill him.

John went back in space and faced the Earth looking at the fleet of ships, thinking how he can win a galactic war with one small ship. He got an Idea and headed out of the solar system. As he left the solar system, he tested the black hole weapon to see how long the black hole lasted. It lasted for fifteen minutes, which was more than enough time. The next test he did was to see what would happen if he fired a black hole into another black hole. The black hole got bigger. That was the result he was hoping for and now he had a plan on how to win.

John went back to Earth, positioned himself in front of the biggest ship in the fleet and deactivated his cloak. As he expected after a few moments a few smaller alien ships came towards him. He flew behind Jupiter where the big ships couldn’t see what was happening and fired the black hole gun. The black hole sucked the small ships as if they were nothing.

John flew back and positioned himself in front of the biggest ship again. This time they sent even more ships after hem, he repeated the same maneuver and circled back to the biggest ship. After a few of the same laps, one of the bigger ships came after him. John flew behind Jupiter again but the bigger ship didn’t follow. The bigger ship circled around from the other side, but it didn’t matter. John fired two black holes at it and the bigger black hole tore it to shreds.

Once again, John was in front of the biggest ship of the fleet. For some time nothing was happening, no ships were coming after him, which meant that they were calling for backup. After some time, a thousand ships surrounded John’s small ship. Three of them were as big as the biggest one he was facing. ‘So four motherships. This is going to be fun.’ John thought. Backup arrived but still, nothing was happening. John activated his cloak to give them something to talk about and moved over one of the smaller ships. Still facing the Earth’s mothership, he deactivated his cloak.

The other alien ships immediately started firing at their own ship underneath him, destroying it. John activated his cloak again and moved to another ship. When he deactivated it, the aliens started firing again, destroying that ship to. He cloaked again, moved away and started laughing. He could win just by jumping from ship to ship so he tried it again. This time the aliens didn’t fire. John returned to his original position, in front of the Earth’s mothership. ’Well, it was worth a shot.’ He thought.

There were still around a thousand smaller ships and four motherships left. John had to get them to attack him somehow. He didn’t have to worry about that for long. Five hundred smaller ships started to charge their weapons. His smaller ship was more agile and a smaller target so he decided to start flying to the edge of the solar system, to Pluto, where he had more maneuvering space. The five hundred ships followed him, firing at his ship.

As soon as he reached the edge of the solar system, he fired multiple black holes towards the sips following him. Six ships turned around and headed for Earth. They were probably going to report how the small ship destroyed so much bigger ships, but John couldn’t let them do that so he fired at them and damaged their engines. They crashed into Saturn. “Ufff… That was a close one.” John said and returned to Earth.

Again, John stopped in front of the Earth’s mothership. This time one symbol on the console was blinking. “I think they’re calling me.” He ignored the blinking symbol and just sat in his ship waiting for their next move. The symbol started to blink again but he just ignored it. A few moments later, the rest of the smaller ships and the three motherships changed formation and started charging their weapons.

‘Finally, some action.’ John thought, turned his ship and headed out of the solar system. The fleet and the tree motherships followed him. When he, by his calculations, was far away from the planets, he stopped and waited for the fleet to catch up with him. When all the ships were in the range of the black hole weapon, he activated his cloak and started firing black holes one after another. The black hole got bigger and bigger and started sucking in the smaller ships whole. John backed away from the black hole and kept firing. The black hole was so massive now that it sucked the mother ships in.

John returned to Earth and stopped in front of the last alien ship, the Earth’s mothership. This time he pressed the symbol that was blinking before and on a screen, in front of him, a white alien appeared with confusion on his face.

“A human?” The alien said.

“Yes, I’m a human. I’m John and I can’t say that it’s a pleasure to meet you.” John said.

“What did you do to my fleet?” The alien asked.

“You know, you have manners like you were born in a sewer. Your fleet is gone. Puff!” John said.

“You will pay for this.” The alien said and the ship started charging weapons.

“I don’t think I will.” John said, aimed the black hole weapon at the alien ship’s weapons and fired. In an instant, the alien ship’s weapons were gone. “You have anything else you don’t need?” John asked.

All kinds of alarms went off on the alien ship and the alien was shouting orders. When he finished he turned towards John and said. “How did you undo the Brakubra?”

“The what?” John asked.

“The enslavement ritual.” The alien said. “How don’t you know about Brakubra?” The alien asked confused.

“Ooooooh… That’s an easy one. I’m twenty-five thousand years old. I wasn’t here when you came.” John replied. “So, let’s see what else you don’t need.” He said and started shooting black holes all around the ship.

“So what did I hit?” John asked with a happy voice.

“Stop shooting at my ship!” The alien said.

“Let’s make a deal. Tell me how to undo the Braku bla bla. Whatever you call that enslavement and I’ll stop.” John said.

“Alright, you have to perform a ritual and chant a specific set of words.” The alien said.

“Wait, let me record this. My memory is not what it used to be.” John said. “Go. Tell me the words.” He said and the alien explained the ritual and said the words.

“Are we done? Can we leave now?” The alien asked.

“Just a sec.” John said and pushed the red button for the black hole weapon a few times. The black hole destroyed the mothership. “Now you can leave.” He said, landed his ship on Earth, performed the ritual to break the enslavement on a group of humans and thought them how to do it.

In a few years, all humans were free and all the white aliens were dead, even those on other planets, on the colonies. John was celebrated as a hero and savour of all mankind. He received all kind of medals, awards and they even named a day after him. There was a statute of him on every planet.

Technology development didn't stop for the last twenty-five million years he was gone. It made a giant leap forward but humans couldn't use it for themselves because of the white aliens. Now that the white aliens were gone humanity used the technology and built all the things they have been building for the aliens. The black hole weapon was a discovery of the millennium and was implemented as a defense system on Earth, ships and all colony planets.

But all of that didn't matter to John. The only thing that mattered was getting his memories back and the thing he missed the most, his name.

One day he went to see the statue they made of him. They totally messed up his chin. Behind the statue was a wall of names and pictures of people that died in the first galactic war. There were more than two thousand names written there. Two thousand for two ships lost in battle and the rest from the ship headed for the colony to help the aliens. On the colony list, there was a picture of him.

Next to the picture, was his name, Leon Dawkins. He put his hand on the wall, next to his name and said. "It's good to finally meet you Leon."

————————————————–

Thanks for reading :) Every comment is welcome

#aliens #galactic war #space ships #slice of life #black holes #robots #tw mass murder #science fiction

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coolvanessadogsbodyfan · 5 years

Text

Redemption returned

Grotesque is a word that got here to thoughts when a woman pulls her legs via the doors of a dirty clinic. She swayed, felt unusual chilly in that notably drained August countryside. But the rough surroundings was not to blame for the chilly surrounding his body. It was his purpose to step in. His world, filled with journey and joy, was now bullied. It had grow to be detached to him.

The woman was able to verify that there was a life that had been combined inside her for 5 weeks – the life she had fairly unintentionally helped to create an unlucky, drunk one night time

She felt the same sudden nausea that was involved each week before within the presence of a double line in a home being pregnant check window. Wait,. . . what do two strains mean? This can’t happen. He tore another check – two bold blue strains. S ***. He stepped out and pulled out without considering of a cigarette that remained secure till he threw it violently into the ground. Ugh, guess it out. He drove to his telephone within the early morning mild, he rolled his identify. He hesitated, then met it, and when the ring got here, he tried as soon as to take away the throat. "Hey, it's me. I'm sorry, I know it is early. Can you… Can you talk about the minutes?"

He had referred to as her to drive to the clinic, which was drained in the morning. Whether moral help or curiosity, he did not know and He was simply the only soul he had informed, principally his catholic colleague, pal, roommate and household he had to maintain in the dead of night. The thought of telling them about this hellish mess was incomprehensible, even horrifying.

Nurse, kindly center an previous lady referred to as her back with a chipper. The woman glanced at her companion, and she or he took her hand rigorously to her, guided her to the exam room and helped her to the desk the place she hurriedly raised her shirt.

"Sorry, I have an hour," she muttered eyes fell. "Remember if we do this fast?"

"Of course", Sick The gunner answered sympathetically with a smile. ”Here we go, this seems a bit chilly for the second time. Let's see. Yeah, take a look at that cluster there? It's your child, honey. ”

The woman stared on the black and white image of the display as her coldness went warm and cozy with a dark numbness. He discovered his father's eyes, sincerely in search of his reaction to direct his personal difficult emotions. "I'm here every step of the way, no matter what you decide," he broke: "We are in this together, okay?"

He nodded and closed his eyes. Scorching, indignant tears nervous and tune his face. His body began to tighten and tremble. He pressured himself to observe his baby once more as a result of the contradictory thoughts ran in. I don't want you. You have been born to a mother who regretted you within the moment she noticed you. What if that is the one opportunity for a kid? What do I see extra? Here the rubber strikes the street. Can I stay with myself if I didn't say to you? I would like you. I want you. I hate you. I really like you.

The woman squeezed her hand and turned to the nurse. "Thank you," he stated, respiration deeply. "Yeah, what's next?"

"It's utterly yours, pricey. It's your body, isn't it? ”

– – –

5. August 2015, I made a decision to cease an individual who might have taken his first life on March 29, 2016. I like those days of mourning a toddler who existed however by no means lived outdoors my physique. I respect her by naming her, talking to her, crying for her, praying to her. For a kid who would have melted my coronary heart regardless of the terrible three. A youngster who would in all probability have stored me at night time in moms angst. The boy's father – and the younger man, husband and father – was robbed of the chance to return.

I mirrored sufferers back to this terrible August, many occasions, many occasions ever since, spending hours and hours hardly ultrasound. It’s wrinkled and worn out of my busy retreat to my hometown's arrow wound; as a result of once I stopped being pregnant, and left abruptly out of faculty, I found little purpose to remain. Each a part of me (theoretically) lives a Catholic, passionate graduate scholar, a hopeful author, an educational, a superb and trustworthy one that was crushed in a number of months. For me, these months have been recognized for years. I spent them buried deep in Netflix, hiding eating and crazy social media, feeling myself in the face of anger and contempt.

I received bone fracturing and nervous nausea. I have shed twenty kilos. My hair started to thin and fall. My skin turned pale, uninteresting, embedded. The art of conversation and human interplay slipped. I literally couldn't convey myself away from bed to eat, drink or even exit if I might help it. My buddies began to fret, however I ignored their call and hid in my room once they tried to examine me out. My household had gone to panic, wondering what was incorrect with me. I used to be astonishingly shortly destroyed my former self in a fragile shell.

When a bright-eyed woman with a vivid shell discovered myself tireless, that was the thing of this unforgivable Evil I had completed. This factor I might by no means take again. This thing, as I firmly consider years later, which I might by no means forgive myself – and by no means forgive by God or man.

It’s typically stated that God's work in our life is a mystery that we might be foolish to attempt to understand. I was so scared to share my nervousness about what I might have completed to a toddler – the soul I might have created together with a careless, lustful renunciation – that I didn't dare to go close to the church for almost a yr. I used to be satisfied that I used to be committed to hell and I was out of all salvation. My desperation stored me so tight that I felt I might by no means smile again. It’s unimaginable to imagine that I might ever love – or be beloved – again. For who might love me after I had carried out one thing so selfish, so terrifying?

And I had carried out this for a simple cause that I felt like I couldn’t be a single mother because I used to be determined to be afraid that my attack on high functioning alcoholism quickly began. I moved with my mother and father and began a job search as a result of the unfinished diploma was virtually ineffective. During this era of unemployment began to mingle eagerly, hopping from group to group, in order that nobody would discover how much I drank. Soon, what I referred to as a "social" drink turned normal on most days of the week – 4 or 5 robust drinks. I typically ran residence to my disgrace once I was quite upset – but I never thought I used to be consuming. Spend the weekends with a spell of different "friends" who did not know me afterwards. Sleeping, sleep deprived on a regular basis mornings have been my new commonplace.

Over the subsequent two years, I was capable of plan workplaces that assorted extensively between publishing and cutting-edge know-how for international intelligence and fundraising, however I never took a long time to get kicked out of each job. I used to be indignant, unknown and boastful, clocked out and in with out problem learning and working with others. I hid my wrestle with the inadequacy of indulging in a corrosive comparability by way of social media with other Millennials who I imagined was a perfect and carefree life. This rising resentment unfold shortly and became firmly rooted in My Character. I used to be miserable and shimmering, unable to be thankful for what I had: a loving household, monetary and emotional help, and pals who pale the recurring storms of our atmospheric and isolated occasions.

escape MO did work,. . . Until it was. July 21, 2017 I was (rightly) arrested for drunk driving.

I consider that in the shadow of doubt, if I had not been arrested, I might have determined to kill myself or one other individual, God's ban. I spent twenty-four horrifying hours in jail until my father and brother saved me. Once we drove residence in hidden silence, I used to be amazed at the terrible implementation of what I might have accomplished. I had found the base. After years of failure – personal, skilled, and religious – I was desperate to vary my life. However how? What might probably be a enough substitute for the fact that alcohol has all the time given me, without failure?

At night time, my younger brother, Tacos, fell sharply, however kindly asked me to get assist with all the things he needed. He advised me that the twister I had come – to tear my approach within the lives of others, in addition to mine – was not acceptable. Simply two weeks after my arrest, I came across a help group for alcohol use. It is a marvelous organization that has helped me to realize and keep respect for alcohol since October 2, 2017. By means of day by day meetings, lively service, religious self-discipline and a singular connection, it has now turn into a mannequin of my life.

Without it, I couldn’t have referred to as the facility to forgive myself, let go of my previous and let God construct with me and do with me the best way He needs. Solely once I search for assist, I might see my despair not as a curse however as a present

Typically, as Paul Newman's Luke Jackson says, there may be no real cool hand.

– – –

Once I ran into this furious group, hungry for the which means and function that had looked at me in Catholicism, I discovered myself wandering atheism, agnostism and Buddhism. My anger in the direction of the Church swept and slowly eroded the assumption every day.

Then, once I was working in the twelve steps, I slowly started to experience mental change and religious awakening. I’ve discovered to differentiate uskonni foaming petition sentimental and superficial sentimentality, which had all the time given me permission to share myself and Mr. Dr. Jekylliin Hydeen. I might be my Catholic Character once I took random sexual encounters which are typically delivered to a fruitless company to destroy my conscience. In my social life, I turned an professional in mask Jungian when anybody else of morphene needed me to be. Without the self-sufficiency of the interior mechanism I’ve discovered to control others to awaken specific emotions that might strengthen increasingly more delicate and fleeting self. I obtained in and went to my beloved one's life as I used to be happy with the livid and chaotic hurricane without remorse.

Once I finally referred to as for the braveness to ask God (and myself) for forgiveness, I used to be not on the lookout for a Catholic priest. As an alternative, my "liberty" and healing got here from David, a self-described brazenly homosexual, seventies, whose deviation from the priesthood forty years in the past induced cruel wounds that persecuted him at the moment. We developed intimate recent friendships that I might be grateful eternally. Through the years, my trauma broke down David's palms late within the night time as he struck uncontrollably as he held me a starry, quiet sky.

"Why are you crying?" He asked for a while. [19659002] "I am… Bad," vapors of the wells. "I can not forgive. I'm a murderer. I have killed my own child."

David checked out me mix of horror and compassion. "But you have not destroyed or convicted. You have got been redeemed via Christ. He beloved you then. He loves you very much. ”

Tears stopped all of a sudden, obtrusive respiration slowed." Is he? "I asked, vast eyes and I was afraid of his answer." How can you be so sure? " 19659002] "Because He is greater than any pain you suffered, suffered now or ever", David replied with a relaxing peace that stopped me on my tracks. "You've heard from us a thousand occasions – pay attention! Get away from God whenever you perceive God. Trust Him day by day. Clear the home every single day, serve others, day by day, and then do it once more the subsequent day. In the future at a time. ”

I might simply stare at him foolish I replied vividly that a tremendous smile, his eyes shining when he stated, "I believe so." You must attempt it. ”

So I did.

Maddeningly slowly but certainly, bodily, mental, emotional, and mental sensitivity began to forgive me the uninteresting pain that was not only struck out I need to reside. I threw myself again into my very own life and confirmed increasingly more to my family members – typically in nice ways, but principally in small ones. Every time I made a mistake, I admitted it instantly and asked God what corrective measures I should take. I gave Him a self-discipline to my wild and obscure spirit as my line of will – which had previously been in riot – was ever nearer to Him.

I started to wish every morning and night for others as an alternative of myself. Although this was initially mechanical, I really began to study what was referred to as to me a man and a lady who continues to be sick. I ended preventing my demons and confessed them. Each time I felt aroused or suspicious, I interrupted and requested God to assume or act, which might give me the braveness to adapt the serenity to the accident.

In the long run, he lit the trail to my house church – when I discovered a unprecedented compassion and a resignation from the same Catholic group that I had wrongly assumed would condemn me strictly. But I'm sad that we acerbic-cultural and non secular dialogue provides rise to unnecessary suffering of different ladies who, like me, noticed solely despair and hope within the midst of demise and new life. I say to them: You’ll never ever be alone.

Is that this a cheerful return house that answers come once I need them to be? Typically. At different occasions I can't see them, and ask him for steerage or pay attention in a different way

Have you ever discovered to be pleased more often than not? Isn't that the case?

It's by no means. I mean by no means.

I mean this: As soon as upon a time my detached world has turn into enchanted. I mean, I started digging my life again. I've discovered to offer myself a dream once more, attempt once more, fail once more, love once more, harm once more – not again.

I even dared to chuckle at myself and with the world again. And that is the miracle.

The post Redemption returned appeared first on Android Illustrated.

#Abortion #Latest #Religion

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yourjuulfriend22-fan · 5 years

Text

Redemption returned

The woman was able to verify that there was a life that had been combined inside her for 5 weeks – the life she had fairly unintentionally helped to create an unlucky, drunk one night time

"Sorry, I have an hour," she muttered eyes fell. "Remember if we do this fast?"

The woman squeezed her hand and turned to the nurse. "Thank you," he stated, respiration deeply. "Yeah, what's next?"

"It's utterly yours, pricey. It's your body, isn't it? ”

– – –

escape MO did work,. . . Until it was. July 21, 2017 I was (rightly) arrested for drunk driving.

Typically, as Paul Newman's Luke Jackson says, there may be no real cool hand.

– – –

"Why are you crying?" He asked for a while. [19659002] "I am… Bad," vapors of the wells. "I can not forgive. I'm a murderer. I have killed my own child."

David checked out me mix of horror and compassion. "But you have not destroyed or convicted. You have got been redeemed via Christ. He beloved you then. He loves you very much. ”

I might simply stare at him foolish I replied vividly that a tremendous smile, his eyes shining when he stated, "I believe so." You must attempt it. ”

So I did.

Is that this a cheerful return house that answers come once I need them to be? Typically. At different occasions I can't see them, and ask him for steerage or pay attention in a different way

Have you ever discovered to be pleased more often than not? Isn't that the case?

It's by no means. I mean by no means.

I even dared to chuckle at myself and with the world again. And that is the miracle.

The post Redemption returned appeared first on Android Illustrated.

#Abortion #Latest #Religion

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little-big-world-in-the-tim-blog · 5 years

Text

Redemption returned

The woman was able to verify that there was a life that had been combined inside her for 5 weeks – the life she had fairly unintentionally helped to create an unlucky, drunk one night time

"Sorry, I have an hour," she muttered eyes fell. "Remember if we do this fast?"

The woman squeezed her hand and turned to the nurse. "Thank you," he stated, respiration deeply. "Yeah, what's next?"

"It's utterly yours, pricey. It's your body, isn't it? ”

– – –

escape MO did work,. . . Until it was. July 21, 2017 I was (rightly) arrested for drunk driving.

Typically, as Paul Newman's Luke Jackson says, there may be no real cool hand.

– – –

"Why are you crying?" He asked for a while. [19659002] "I am… Bad," vapors of the wells. "I can not forgive. I'm a murderer. I have killed my own child."

David checked out me mix of horror and compassion. "But you have not destroyed or convicted. You have got been redeemed via Christ. He beloved you then. He loves you very much. ”

I might simply stare at him foolish I replied vividly that a tremendous smile, his eyes shining when he stated, "I believe so." You must attempt it. ”

So I did.

Is that this a cheerful return house that answers come once I need them to be? Typically. At different occasions I can't see them, and ask him for steerage or pay attention in a different way

Have you ever discovered to be pleased more often than not? Isn't that the case?

It's by no means. I mean by no means.

I even dared to chuckle at myself and with the world again. And that is the miracle.

The post Redemption returned appeared first on Android Illustrated.

#Abortion #Latest #Religion

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unyielding-black-blog · 5 years

Text

Redemption returned

The woman was able to verify that there was a life that had been combined inside her for 5 weeks – the life she had fairly unintentionally helped to create an unlucky, drunk one night time

"Sorry, I have an hour," she muttered eyes fell. "Remember if we do this fast?"

The woman squeezed her hand and turned to the nurse. "Thank you," he stated, respiration deeply. "Yeah, what's next?"

"It's utterly yours, pricey. It's your body, isn't it? ”

– – –

escape MO did work,. . . Until it was. July 21, 2017 I was (rightly) arrested for drunk driving.

Typically, as Paul Newman's Luke Jackson says, there may be no real cool hand.

– – –

"Why are you crying?" He asked for a while. [19659002] "I am… Bad," vapors of the wells. "I can not forgive. I'm a murderer. I have killed my own child."

David checked out me mix of horror and compassion. "But you have not destroyed or convicted. You have got been redeemed via Christ. He beloved you then. He loves you very much. ”

I might simply stare at him foolish I replied vividly that a tremendous smile, his eyes shining when he stated, "I believe so." You must attempt it. ”

So I did.

Is that this a cheerful return house that answers come once I need them to be? Typically. At different occasions I can't see them, and ask him for steerage or pay attention in a different way

Have you ever discovered to be pleased more often than not? Isn't that the case?

It's by no means. I mean by no means.

I even dared to chuckle at myself and with the world again. And that is the miracle.

The post Redemption returned appeared first on Android Illustrated.

#Abortion #Latest #Religion

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st3pback3-blog · 5 years

Text

Redemption returned

The woman was able to verify that there was a life that had been combined inside her for 5 weeks – the life she had fairly unintentionally helped to create an unlucky, drunk one night time

"Sorry, I have an hour," she muttered eyes fell. "Remember if we do this fast?"

The woman squeezed her hand and turned to the nurse. "Thank you," he stated, respiration deeply. "Yeah, what's next?"

"It's utterly yours, pricey. It's your body, isn't it? ”

– – –

escape MO did work,. . . Until it was. July 21, 2017 I was (rightly) arrested for drunk driving.

Typically, as Paul Newman's Luke Jackson says, there may be no real cool hand.

– – –

"Why are you crying?" He asked for a while. [19659002] "I am… Bad," vapors of the wells. "I can not forgive. I'm a murderer. I have killed my own child."

David checked out me mix of horror and compassion. "But you have not destroyed or convicted. You have got been redeemed via Christ. He beloved you then. He loves you very much. ”

I might simply stare at him foolish I replied vividly that a tremendous smile, his eyes shining when he stated, "I believe so." You must attempt it. ”

So I did.

Is that this a cheerful return house that answers come once I need them to be? Typically. At different occasions I can't see them, and ask him for steerage or pay attention in a different way

Have you ever discovered to be pleased more often than not? Isn't that the case?

It's by no means. I mean by no means.

I even dared to chuckle at myself and with the world again. And that is the miracle.

The post Redemption returned appeared first on Android Illustrated.

#Abortion #Latest #Religion

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shenmeizhuang-blog · 5 years

Text

the crowned clown, episode 6

(Yes, I’m really that behind. Despite the cliffhanger, I still plan to write about this more coherently, re: on WordPress before I move onto the next episodes.)

So the finale is airing tomorrow, and though I’ve been surprisingly good at avoiding spoilers, I guess I do need to look into how it ends to...evaluate if I should really actually complete this watch. (Who am I kidding—my completist streak, when it comes to short shows, is really bad, and what if I think differently? At least I’m DEFINITELY watching ep 7.)

I thought, from episode 2, that the show would grab me: if not with trying to have a doppelganger king take over while the real, unhinged, one is still alive and able to wreak chaos (which is happening later, probably), maybe the balance between keeping the nobility happy & implementing reform (*waves at The Firmament of the Pleaides*), or, since it’s going the idol drama route, all the gloriously complex character building and angsting that comes with accidental adultery (that also delves into Yi Heon and So-woon’s former relationship.) But these episodes...I don’t know. Everything just mellowed out from the dramatic ending of ep 2.

I think my problem is that everything’s coming together way too easily, and hence unsatisfyingly: while I do see why So-woon has fallen in love with what she thinks is an improved version of her husband (...a little like his old, idealistic self?) and Lee Se-young certainly gives her character a lot of charisma, I’m not sold on the OTP yet, so I’m not emotionally connected to much here. Episodes 3-6 just started shoving a bunch of OTP scenes in our face: episodes 3-4 at least being some sort of development (though did that have to involve Ha Seon saving the Queen?). By the time we got to the kiss (I mean it was cute/surprising how direct So-woon was), however, it was obvious that the show was just all “here are some OTP scenes because you should be 100% shipping this by now!”

...No? Not that I was keen on shipping So-woon with Yi Heon, for sure not really, but the show promised that they had a complex dynamic. A much more complex dynamic than Ha-Seon is as a character, and hence how Ha-Seon’s relationships are playing out. But now that they’ve made it clear-cut that So-woon was never into Yi Heon, and only fell in love with her husband when Ha-Seon stood in, everything is just disappointedly simplified. (Did I just head-canon a ton of character development for Yi Heon?) Of course, that itself is a HUGE moral dilemma, especially for characters like So-woon and Ha-Seon, but the show is just 100% cutting out all fluidity of desire (so what of their relationship before?!) which fit modern sensibilities but for me is just unsatisfying. :(

(Yeah, I guess if I wanted my angst I should’ve just gone to my c-dramas. I will be watching Goodbye My Princess.)

On the political front (which is, I imagine, why we’re getting so many OTP scenes), it feels somewhat familiar to that mellow stretch in The Advisors’ Alliance. That show was obligated to show Sima Yi implementing the nine ranks system, just like how Ha-Seon (but mostly Secretary Lee) is trying to make the rice payment tax law a thing, but the show also wants to keep more audiences interested, so I feel like they’re padding the rest of the episode with romance. And I have a feeling they’re padding the episodes, in general, to reach that obligatory dramatic cliffhanger scene, and it’s getting strangely painfully obvious. Because I don’t ship the OTP. (Why can’t I just fully enjoy kdramas ughhhhhhh.)

Another thing: if I sit down and think about it, Ha-Seon decided to play the role of king for a surprisingly self-centered reason: making another character suffer to the point of 生不如死. It’s actually a pretty far cry from how noble he comes off as, even though said character obviously deserves punishment, but the way the other characters react to him indicate that Ha-Seon is like the ideal ruler of the people, from the people: from the Queen to Ho-geol to Officer Jang, etc., etc. I mean, he’s basically going along with what Secretary Lee and the Minister of Taxation is orchestrating: which is a noble thing that maybe aligns with his ideals, but that doesn’t mean he should get all the credit? I just don’t like how black and white the difference between Yi Heon and Ha-Seon is coming off as; Ha-Seon is not a product of the palace/toxic court politics, so of course he seems more noble in comparison. His morality also hasn’t really been tested (because this stretch of episodes have been really, really mellow): even though he seems really “nice,” he really is still politically Yi Kyu’s puppet.

So? I’m curious what the coming episodes have in store, but my enthusiasm has kind of died down. MAKE ME SHIP THE OTP (because it literally feels like 80% of each episode)! (Also, does anyone feel the same?)

#i can't write coherently sometimes #but tumblr is where all the shitposting happens #i'm trying to describe this strange feeling of dissatisfaction/trepidation i have with this show #the crowned clown #the man who became king #kdrama

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hollerace-blog · 3 years

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The Shed

One of the salient advantages at growing up at 314 Midfield Avenue was that surprises were many and close between. My dad (and his friends) always seemed to have something in store. Add my mom’s brother, Uncle Buzz, to the mix, and adventure, usually concomitant with fun, was ever on the menu.

That spring Saturday so many years ago stands out. My brother and I awoke to the sounds of carpentry coming from the backyard. Various implements banged in a striking cadence of metal on wood.

Still pajamaed, we raced into the yard, mindless of our grandma’s call to breakfast. We scarfed down her velvety scramblers posthaste. A handful of men worked at the project. Uncle Buzz (a reputed carpenter by trade) led the tradesmen as Dad handled some plans and made measurements.

“IT’S A TOOL SHED. WELL, GONNA BE,” Mom offered. “BUZZ, YOU DON’T NEED A BEER! IT’S GOING FOR NINE!” My mother had a unique way of telling time. For years, I had no idea of actual numerical chronological increments. Our household was limited to a number of phrases that merely approximated real times in hours and minutes. We deciphered code phrases like “going for”; “a little after”; “not quite,” among others.

The concept of a tool shed did little to boost the morale of the Hollerkids, but it’s not every day a new edifice arises in your yard. So, jeaned and sneakered, we ventured out. This foray did not last long, since Buzz delivered yet another hammer blow to a gnarled, already indigo fingernail. A raft of curses ensued, accompanied by Dad ushering us out of earshot. Snagged.

Buzz came to the rescue, proffering his seemingly endless supply of silver coinage for us to go to the matinee at the Marilyn. We celebrated with Milk Duds, Junior Mints and popcorn doused in semi-buttery, mucilaginous petroleum product. A few Roadrunners, some Stooges and jutting-jawed white men shuttling fighter jets in dazzling array kept us at bay for the afternoon.

Back at home, the skeleton was complete. This seemingly massive structure spoke of more than a mere tool shed. My brother and I conferred in our bunks that night, sharing dreams about this mysterious new building.

By the time we got back from Mass the next day, our future shed was just about done. But the mystery lingered on. Over Mom’s paprikas, the subject stayed off the table. After the meal, I noticed Dad had left something behind. It was a clear piece of lucite. A small key dangled from one end. On the plastic, hand-etched in my father’s precise fashion were the words:

CLUB HOUSE AND TOOL SHED

“A CLUB HOUSE!” two boys screamed in concert. We burst out the back door and hit the shed. It was actually a two-room affair; the larger space was for the “club.” Someone had put a couple of old folding chairs and a rickety table about the room.

Somehow, the silent signal made its way to both our noggins. We owned this! No rules! No grown-ups! Nirvana! My brother and I were hootin’ and Holleran. We stomped, danced and otherwise caroused. With nobody trying to simmer us down.

Mom had to drag us out to the real world at suppertime. I made sure to secure the lock; no strangers could violate our Valhalla.

Our fortress was spare. A single, sliding window was the only outlook. To that end, we left the door open most of the time. The wall dividing the shed was made of Homasote, a dismal, gray fiberboard affair, but begging for thumbtacks.

Not to fear. One day, Tom and I retreated to our castle to see some color photos affixed to that wall. Willie Mays, Al Kaline, a crookedly grinning Larry Berra. All these borrowed from Dad’s Sport magazine. We cautiously decorated to our own tastes. A grinning, gapped Alfred E. Newman did not go over well, but remained. For some reason, adults viewed this character as a denizen of some warped Sixties Gehenna.

As school ended in June, we looked forward to quality time in The Shed, as Mom had dubbed it. One day, my brother brought up a touchpoint. “Do we have a club, or what?”

Whoa. The idea of an organized association of any sort was foreign to us. But heck, the Little Rascals had clubhouses. They even put on shows! But what about nomenclature? A cool handle meant everything. We both descended into deep thought. Which didn’t last long.

“I’ve got it!” exclaimed Tom. “The Night Crawlers!” Debate over. We both had seen the sign advertising these varmints at Ted’s Bait Box for years. The moniker was menacing enough, with no swears or other nastiness that might upset adults. Perfect.

Tom voted me president; I voted him sergeant-at-arms. Politics done.

Prospective members became a problem. Word ignited around the neighborhood. I got skinny that guys we didn’t even know—from the other side of the Avenue—were claiming to be members. Of course, Lloyd and Barry Tichey from across the street were charter Crawlers. We had to let in Linda Fortune, who lived in the three-top above the Ticheys. Her dog, Hercules, became our unofficial mascot.

We discussed others. Tom wrote the name of every vaunted associate in chalk on the fiberboard. Inky O’Doul, Johnny Sabo and Swedey Johnson, who was by popular mandate the most popular kid in Park Terrace.

I can’t accurately describe the Night Crawlers as an organization. We never had a meeting. No charter, no dues, no mission statement.

As luck would have it, things eventually went dark. One day, I returned from a sojourn to the local playground (better known as “The Field”). The door to The Shed lay open, as it often did. Only standing in that doorway was one Michael Fanelli.

I could hear him muttering something to my brother, who cowered away. Fanelli wasn’t the most hated kid in the neighborhood; he was just the least liked. He was not of any type other than rodentine. He could have been twelve or sixteen. Black clothing, engineer boots in summer. He seemed to belong to no school or family. .

He was tolerated by the Dirt Kids from Tin Can Alley, mainly because he would treat for candy at United Cigars. Otherwise, no one claimed him as a friend. And I didn’t want him in my backyard.

His mouth was a slash of a sneer as he kept calling my brother “kid” in the snottiest way. I didn’t hesitate. “Clear out, Fanelli,” I said. “Hit the road.”

“Screw you and your crappy club, kid,” said my nemesis. Nonetheless, he shambled down our driveway. I felt Tommy’s sigh of relief in Fanelli’s wake. I clutched him instinctively. He was already tough stuff but I could feel a tremble.

He said, “Fanelli said we had to let him in the club or he’d kick my ass.”I knew the interloper was all mouth and no action. Word was that he would talk trash to guys at The Field and sidle away when anyone had a problem.

I saw no need to consult Bucky Maraglino and Rats Müller about Fanelli bothering my brother, knowing that these older guys would intervene for us. For a while, Fanelli faded.

The Shed served us well that summer. We’d hang out on drowsy days. Our grandmother would make us pitchers of iced tea, levering cubes out of trays to fill an old enameled pot that served as a cooler. Chips and other salt-laden treats were always on hand, and slabs of meat on Wonder were always available for lunch.

Kids would come and go throughout the day. Tom and I ruled over this tiny kingdom. I just enjoyed sitting back, inhaling the still-fresh woodsy aura of the building. I felt safe, protected and independent.

Guys supported us. Wifty Schultz, already a budding artist, dolled up a Newman poster with our club name in two-toned type! Some cool flame decals appeared for window decorations. The space became our castle, our keep. Dad would putter in the tool quarters but pretty much left us alone.

These were heady times, for sure. The days seemed warmer, brighter. The two sturdy maples in our yard brought relief from city heat, slicing sharp sickles of sun that darted through the sparse, dusty patch where grass could find only a timid purchase. In those days of innocent clarity, nothing could stop us. We were indeed Dukes of Earl.

We were fortunate that Michael Fanelli never made a return visit to The Shed. One day, biking up to The Avenue, I peered down an alley behind stores. We used to flip baseball cards back there. I saw Fanelli kicking the wall, his black boots looking odd and scrufty in the heat.

I couldn’t resist, and approached the kid. He looked especially feral; his sneer seemed nastier, more menacing. “They kicked me out of United,” he said. “Caught me stealing.” It was a neighborhood tradition not to nick anything from United Cigars. Old Mr. Kessler, no humanitarian himself, treated the kids with benign neglect.

Fanelli cast his eyes away from me. I was astonished to see he was crying. He said, “I guess I can’t be in your club.” I felt badly for him, for some reason..

“No. You can’t, “ I said. “Not when you threaten to beat up my brother,”

“I didn’t mean nothin’.”

I said, “You should think of that before you open your mouth.” I decided not to make fun of his tears, as much as I wanted to mock him. But I couldn’t resist a final dig. I added, “Just stay away from our house, our club. Or I will kick your ass.”

He shied away, sniveling. I went into United and got a Tru Ade and a couple of Fireballs. I wasn’t sure of any physical prowess over Michael Fanelli. I don’t even know if I ever saw him again.

I rode home and went right to the shed. For some reason, I gave my brother a Fireball and held him close. I said, “Nobody’s gonna bother us anymore. We’re the Night Crawlers.”

Tom and I stood there, clinging to each other, protected by The Shed.

And it was all good.

***

We had a few good summers in that shed. Soon, my brother outgrew me and became MY protector. After Mom sold the house, the new owners tore down The Shed. They also put a statue of a saucy jester in the front yard. That would have driven Dad up a wall.

Many years later, on a visit home from the Left Coast, I stopped by the Sons of Sweden. A lot of the old gang was there; drinks were hoisted; jollity ruled. Some guy I didn’t recognize was reminiscing about the old neighborhood. “Where did you live, anyway?” said Hook Grywalski.

“Barketine Lane,.”said the guy.. This was up on the Hill, a small enclave for the monied set.

Swedey Johnson jumped in, “But you were never a Night Crawler.”

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willwritesablog · 3 years

Text

Pillars of Eternity - Definitive Edition: Impressions, Criticisms and Review

Published by Obsidian Entertainment. Original release date: March 26th, 2015. Definitive Edition release date: November 15th, 2015.

Price: $29.99 MSRP. Current Steam Sale: $7.49. Current Epic Games Sale: $9.99 (with coupon.)

This article has also been published on Blogger.com (Mirror Link)

12/23/20

Over the past week or so, as a part of the Epic Games Free Game of the Week promotion, I’ve picked up Pillars of Eternity - Definitive Edition for free and have been playing it on its Normal difficulty almost nonstop ever since. This being the second video game by Obsidian I have played (the first one being Outer Worlds--releasing four years after Pillars had its original release), I felt it appropriate to share some of my thoughts over the quality and experience of this game, comparisons I have made, and some other miscellaneous observations. It’s worth prefacing this with that I have not fully completed a run through this game and haven’t actually completed the game’s second act as of yet (more on this later)--however, I’ve put close to 70 hours into this, and while others have spent thousands of hours on this video game I feel I can write on this with some authority.

Starting with its strengths, Pillars of Eternity is engaging. There is a lot of content to delve into. Much of its characterization is convincing, and the voice acting that it does have is well-performed. Another YouTube channel that I watch, “Should You Play It,” estimated in their review that “25%-30% of the game is voiced,” which seems like an accurate assessment to me. Regarding its story writing, its overall plot and characters themselves are very reminiscent of a decent or good Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Some tropes can be expected, but overall the plot runs smoothly enough, and the characters themselves are generally rather fun to interact with, even in cases where they're not very original.

The game does suffer from a variety of flaws, many of which aren’t immediately apparent to the player and that bear mentioning. The talent pool that Obsidian recruited to do their voices is incredibly small. Half of my party, as it turns out, was voiced by Matthew Mercer--possibly the most distinguished voice actor of the bunch--with my main character (using the “sinister” voice effects), the story character Aloth, and the story character Eder all being voiced by him. Kana, a character that comes later on, is voiced by Patrick Seitz (famous for many different television, video game and anime roles) and also does a character at the beginning of the game (Sparfel), the voice for the commander of the Crucible Knights, and multiple other additional voices. To my own ears, Richard Epcar had to be the most frequently-appearing voice actor in the game, voicing the Caravan Master at the beginning, Raedric’s voice, the spirit of Od Nua (whom I haven’t encountered yet) and the forge master Dunstan in Defiance Bay, along with other additional voices.

Sadly, Pillars of Eternity’s Credits page as well as the Full Cast and Crew IMDB Page only provide incomplete insight on who voiced which character within this game, and while some message boards exist on the subject I’ve not found a comprehensive resource over this topic (maybe I’ll attempt a full list for myself later on.) It’s a massive rabbit hole to go down nonetheless. The Outer Worlds handles this limitation as well, although that game’s execution of this I’d be inclined to say was a little more successful. Only 1% of Outer Worlds's entire production team were actually voice actors, which strikes me as interesting; the NoClip documentary series discusses details about this as well as how the writers had to plan questlines ahead of time to prevent characters with the same voice actor from interacting with each other, when possible. No definable moments of this happening in Outer Worlds come to mind off memory, although there were a couple of occurrences in Pillars (e.g. Kana and the Crucible Knight commander) where it wasn't avoided.

One of Pillars of Eternity’s major problems is interestingly a feature of its design--its Kickstarter rewards implementation. When you visit the first town, you are effectively bombarded with a number of uniquely-named NPC’s--and when you approach them, you get the opportunity to “look into their soul” or walk away. As a new player I was pretty befuddled by this, thinking that these were details I needed to memorize for some upcoming puzzle, when in actuality it wasn’t anything more than crowdsourced product-placement.

Some games can pull this off with success--LISA The Painful, for example, had a majority of its character names sponsored and selected by Kickstarter backers. As an RPG, this worked; you had a name on-screen detailing who it was that you were going to attack (on a black border above your characters), you kill them, and you move on. Other donor rewards involved creating a party member or a boss battle character, but these were done cautiously, and at least in my own experience, they didn’t hinder the game enough for me to discover that these were Kickstarter-donor characters on my own.

It’s the opposite case for Pillars. In many cases it’s special snowflake-ish. You’ll enter a bar and encounter 5 people named “commoner” and Archduke Franz “Quickfeet” Elfenhein, with a two-paragraph set of memories that mean frick-all to the actual experience. If you read all of these, you *might* encounter one or two funny ones, but what’s the point? You can expect that these were written before a finished product was released. It’s a dilapidated experience. Later in the game you’ll visit a house, with one of these pointless O.C.s effectively “standing guard” for no other purpose than to nick you town reputation points for trying to steal something.

Outer Worlds includes a stealing mechanic as well but it was implemented more fairly. Your character didn’t have to dump a bunch of points into a nearly-useless Stealth skill--instead, it was dictated by NPC line-of-sight. Stealing in Outer Worlds, for the most part, is actually *fun*, in Pillars, it was worth me avoiding entirely.

This may as well serve as a segway into the leveling system--on which I don’t have much to say about it, other than (maybe not relative to other ISO-RPGs, or in comparison to, say, Dungeon and Dragons) that it’s a headache. The story characters that the game gives you access to all have unoptimized and relatively-mediocre starting-stats, so to use all of them (exclusively, without hiring an unvoiced “mercenary” NPC) some creative planning is needed. You’ll also effectively want to min-max your own character’s build to help compensate for inevitable party weaknesses--the game (similar to Outer Worlds) offers a releveling system should you level up the wrong stats, but anything set at character creation is basically unchangeable--which is when the greatest number of character traits needs to be decided. Wizards are good, a priest or two is required (otherwise your party is without a healer), Chanters are bad--but you wouldn’t know this unless you looked it up ahead of time, or unless you’ve played the game before.

And this description leads me to my strongest point--Pillars of Eternity has a habit of setting up unclear rules, punishing players for breaking them, and calling that “replayability.” To be clear, if these “unclear rules” were drawn across moral lines then it wouldn’t be an issue. Fallout: New Vegas has a few main factions that the player could side with and give control of the main world to; all but maybe one of these choices could be argued as potentially being the “best outcome.” Pillars of Eternity (and Outer Worlds to a similar extent) is lacking in a lot of this--*and* game mechanic-wise, the game punishes you for doing normal, explorative stuff and so often sets up inconceivably unwinnable scenarios where you have to be so deliberate about your actions and game mechanic options to actually achieve a (clear-cut) best outcome. Outer Worlds is better with this.

A small example; in the beginning of Pillars, your character encounters some rioting townspeople accosting the owner of a grain mill. If you go inside, the mill owner notes that he is fair in his dealings, although he prioritizes the best of his grain stores to townspeople who need it the most (like pregnant women)--this quest being strikingly similar to one in Outer Worlds’s beginning. If you pass a resolve check of 14, the mill owner will allow for his grain stores to be seized by the rioters. Only if you pass a intelligence check of 12 does he actually lower the prices--and you can postpone solving this quest for an absurd amount of time, waiting until you have the right items and buffs to pass that speech check.

Another example; when exploring the docks at Defiance Bay, your character can notice a shining purple light. If he/she interacts with the light, your character will encounter the memories of a dead child. Should you trigger this innocuous interaction, you will have locked yourself out of being able to talk with townspeople on the disappearance of this boy, which includes the boy’s father, who has since become an alcoholic at the local bar. If you had spoken with the mother first, and then him, and passed a speech check, the man would go back home--otherwise, he’s stuck at the bar forever.

The worst example, *by far* of unfair, “gotcha!” game mechanics has to come from the quests within the game’s DLCs, The White March 1 and 2. Moderate spoilers ahead (warning to anyone concerned with those): you either have to outlaw the study of animancy, make certain dialog choices that lead to a companion becoming an evil crime boss, or lose out on a speech check at the end of DLC 2 when trying to teach mercy and compassion to a “god,” instead getting railroaded into one of two lesser outcomes, *OR* deliberately not finish the game’s second act, do all of the DLC stuff, and then come back if you want all three good endings.

Surely, however, it’s for “replayability.”

It’s punishing in the stupidest ways. Outer Worlds had a few negatives similar to this; you have two major factions that you can ally with, one being cartoonishly evil, and one quest exists where if you neglect to open up some unsuspecting dialog on a computer terminal (and instead delete it straight away) you permanently lock yourself out of a speech check and are then forced to genocide one (or both) of the other factions (or ignore it and get an even worse outcome.) Outer Worlds is metagameable in the sense that you can discover which decisions affect the ending slides ahead of time, and it encourages you to take advantage of its game mechanics a couple of times (particularly with how you can cheese an ending for a certain quest and with how you can cheese stealing a certain poster on Monarch that, by all accounts, an NPC should see you stealing) but certainly nothing to Pillars of Eternity’s scale--and it isn’t as demanding on the player’s time investment, either.

Another criticism--the amount of text present in both games fringes on ridiculous. To quote Philip J. Reed’s review on The Outer Worlds, “ Obsidian’s [writing] tends to be long, meandering, and packed with characters who will never use six words where a twelve-page monologue would suffice.” Pillars of Eternity is no exception to this claim; your character will frequently encounter lore books that most players will pick up and forget where they received them from (their placement usually being an inconvenience to immersion) and I as a player quickly had to learn to tune some things out--especially considering that I was already “metagaming”/looking up other quest analyses beforehand and had more-direct information about the characters on-hand.

A quirk in the dialog that’s consistent in both games is its style of integrating companions into your interactions; both games follow a formula of having an NPC talk to your character, followed up by a companion making some side remark that is hardly ever acknowledged by the NPC--as if your companion is whispering it to you (although the voice acting negates this), or as if it’s a theatrical aside, the companion characters doing a fourth-wall break to react to the events with you--and only you.

One aspect that Pillars of Eternity is stronger than Outer Worlds in, I would say, is in its combat scenarios. Early on in Pillars, the player is encouraged to storm a local leader (Lord Raedric)’s fort. The player has three options on doing this; climb up the side of the tower (using the grapling hook and some small skill checks) and fight through a small number of guards, go in through the main gates and fight most of the guards head-on, or sneak in through the sewer grates and fight monsters after using a strength check. Each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses, as this is early on enough that the loot you would acquire from fighting actually matters and each route can be fun in its own right.

Compare this with The Outer Worlds, where you have a similar fortress assault involving a sewer, a temporary disguise, or direct assault option, where the sewer entrance leads you straight to your objective, the combatants are innocent, non-soldier people (or robots), the disguise you would have falls off after every ten steps you take, and it’s late-game enough that attacking enemies won’t give you any worthwhile loot. Or compare it to the quest “The City and the Stars,” in which you can either stealth through a whole building, or kill the building’s guards and lose town reputation points... or pass a simple skill check where your character can acquire a permanent disguise and not set off any of the enemies whatsoever, allowing you free travel to loot and make it to your objective. Or again, compare it with the quest “Passage to Anywhere” where you as a player are either tricked into spending all of your money on opening up a shortcut, fighting and beating two overpowered enemies (which I did), or blitzing through an alternative route, outrunning all of the enemy characters and potentially bypassing a third of the game in the process (the easiest, by far, to do.)

Maybe these deficiencies are easier to see in hindsight, after a finished product exists, but these are negative aspects of game design.

The combat mechanics themselves are pretty fun. Sometimes the pathfinding glitches out (or A.I. will inhibit your characters from automatically attacking a new enemy), and the lack of a single button to change your entire party’s weapons is a small inconvenience, but for the most part it works well. The design choice of having this be a game where you repeatedly “pause” the game to issue new combat instructions (rather than feature a turn-based system) can be fatiguing over long play sessions, and Pillars being that style of game might be a dealbreaker to some players, but I generally enjoyed that feature.

A final point on the writing--Obsidian is a little “woke.” There’s really no getting around this one. I’d like to revisit the idea of certain (reasonable) dialog choices not being included in Obsidian’s games, either out of laziness (e.g., in Pillars of Eternity, my character, a priest of Berath, encountered a small chapel to Berath... and all of the dialog choices amounted to “Who is Berath,” “I’ve never heard that title of Berath’s be used before,” even though other dialog checks take your background into account) or from lack of playtesting and feedback (e.g. in Outer Worlds, not having the option to transport a certain character to a different planet on this early quest’s third outcome) but certain decisions and design choices by the studio don’t have that excuse.

In Pillars, for example, the only way to get a good outcome on one quest and thus significantly raise your reputation in the town, is to lower the price of black market birth control. No moral qualms are raised and no ways for your character to roleplay against this are made available. Prostitutes also exist in Pillars of Eternity (although that feature remains partially broken), and the only way to get a (stackable, temporary) +2 enhancement on your resolve is for your player to solicit a male prostitute in the game. Outer Worlds also features a major quest, where you’re expected to assist one of your companions in getting into a lesbian relationship; again, no way to repel or address any disagreements or differences through your player character’s roleplaying are present. The mentality is like the equivalent of the show Arthur’s episode on gay marriage; “if we don’t address or allow representation for our opposition, it doesn’t exist.” It’s ironically closed-minded and annoying when the game that frames the weight of your moral decisions is so detectably and consistently biased.

Minor spoiler alert, but both games also feature a priest support-character that (at some point in the game) hates their god, and the character leading the not-evil main faction in Outer Worlds was directly inspired by Rick from Rick & Morty--if that speaks anything as to the mentality of this studio. Other choices, such as (in Pillars) winning reputation points by buying and freeing slaves as opposed to killing the slaver and freeing slaves, and winning reputation points for forgiving someone of manslaughter and allowing the person to keep his secret, also speak a little on Obsidian’s morality and inhibit player freedom in additional annoying ways.

ALL that complaining aside... there is a lot to enjoy. It’s a big world to tap into, and it does have a sequel where you can import data from this game into that and have some of your major decisions be reflected in that game as well. It also features a stronghold (a Kickstarter stretch goal) that the player can manage--some meta knowledge of the game’s upcoming events and mechanics helps a lot in this, but it’s certainly a unique addition to this type of RPG and is genuinely a fun thing to work with. The combat mechanics are fun, although in many situations, it felt far easier to cheese the opponents’ pathing A.I. by luring a single enemy away, murdering him, and saving the game (note: both Pillars and Outer Worlds will likely leave you with a mess of save files after one playthrough), rinsing and repeating, and it would have been a welcomed feature had there been a button to change all party members’ weapons at once (which is helpful in that strategy, where you shoot a character, run away, and then beat on him/her/it as a group with swords) but the combat was still overall fun (albeit perhaps tiring and a monotonous after long hours of play.) The player economy is relatively punishing, with found items typically holding around an eighth of their sale value when you resell them, but this too is manageable (especially if you exploit a money glitch like the one from the first town.)

Obsidian can make a good game. It’s just disheartening to see that many of its flaws are systematic.

Ratings:

Pillars of Eternity - Definitive Edition: 7/10

The Outer Worlds: 8/10

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