heyy, i was just wondering if the ice breaker series is still ongoing (no pressure of you are taking some time off, am just curious:))
Hello lovely angel anon,
I've honestly been putting off responding to this because I couldn't really find the right words to say. It means so much that people have reached out to ask about the status of the series and to check in on me, and I feel like y'all deserve some transparency.
So I live in the U.S (I'm an American citizen) and besides time spent studying abroad I've lived here my whole life. I can't go into what I do for various personal and security reasons, but I work in foreign affairs as a private citizen on behalf of the US government. Over the last three weeks, things have begun to devolve so quickly and heavily (both in the level of stress and workload for my job, and with what I'm seeing with with my own eyes/hearing from friends in other cities) that I am seeing my country slip into authoritative fascism in real time. It's been happening slowly for years, but they've stopped trying to pretend they aren't doing it. ICE is going door to door in my city illegally forcing themselves into peoples homes and checking papers, government departments and contractors are now legally allowed to discriminate against women/POC/LBTQ+ people, and we are now threatening to take Greenland by force which would result in the possible dissolution of NATO. People are terrified here. As a women whose dedicated her life to strengthening diplomatic relations, I am now having to come to grips with the choice that I may have to leave my dream job (or perhaps my country all together if it gets worse) in order to continue to live by my morals OR to stay to try and make whatever little effect I can have. As someone who has a deep love for the country I know and the potential America has to be a welcoming, diverse and open society, this is really heartbreaking and depressing.
That being said, due to my work situation and just life, writing has taken a back seat for me lately. But I am still planning Ice Breaker chapters along with other stories like Burn out Bright. I know that I promised about 15 chapters for Ice breaker, and I plan to eventually deliver on that. Hopefully the next chapter of Ice Breaker will be out in the next week or so. But if y'all notice a decline in my posting engagement or activity, just know that I may not be in the headspace to write at that time.
This community has been wonderful, F1 has given me something else to feel excited about and to forget a little bit about what's happening. But I hope that everyone understand that for me and many other Americans in this community, you may not be hearing from some of us as regularly anymore.
Not to be sappy, but I'm going to drop this in here as a reminder to everyone. Even if you live in the US as well, and somehow feel removed from the situation because it's "not your problem." If you care about your fellow man, it is:
Sorry for the rant. Thanks for continuing to engage with my page 𑁍
-C8