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The Onion’s journalism is the only journalism that matters. Holy fuck.

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“The more psychotherapy an abusive man has participated in, the more impossible I usually find it is to work with him.

 The highly “therapized” abuser tends to be slick, condescending, and manipulative. He uses the psychological concepts

he has learned to dissect his partner’s flaws and dismiss her perceptions of abuse. He takes responsibility for nothing that he does; he moves in a world where there are only unfortunate dynamics, miscommunications, symbolic acts. He expects to be rewarded for his emotional openness, handled gingerly because of his “vulnerability,” colluded with in skirting the damage he has done, and congratulated for his insight.  Many years ago, a violent abuser in my program shared the following with us: “From working in therapy on my issues about anger toward my mother, I realized that when I punched my wife, it wasn’t really her I was hitting. It was my mother!” He sat back, ready for us to express our approval of his self-awareness. My colleague

peered through his glasses at the man, unimpressed by this revelation. “No,” he said, “you were hitting your wife.”

 I have yet to meet an abuser who has made any meaningful and lasting changes in his behavior toward female partners through therapy, regardless of how much “insight”—most of it false—that he may have gained. The fact is that if an abuser finds a particularly skilled therapist and if the therapy is especially successful, when he is finished he will be a happy, well-adjusted abuser—good news for him, perhaps, but not such good news for his partner. Psychotherapy can be very valuable for the issues it is devised to address, but partner abuse is not one of them; an abusive man needs to be in a specialized program.

Therapy focuses on the man’s feelings and gives him empathy and support, no matter how unreasonable the attitudes that are giving rise to those feelings. An abusive man’s therapist usually will not speak to the abused woman, whereas the counselor of a high-quality abuser program always does.

 Therapy typically will not address any of the central causes of abusiveness, including entitlement, coercive control, disrespect, superiority, selfishness, or victim blaming.

 It is also impossible to persuade an abusive man to change by convincing him that he would benefit from it, because he perceives the benefits of controlling his partner as vastly outweighing the losses. This is part of why so many men initially take steps to change their abusive behavior but then return to their old ways. There is another reason why appealing to his self-interest doesn’t work: The abusive man’s belief that his own needs should come ahead of his partner’s is at the core of his problem.

 Therefore when anyone, including therapists, tells an abusive man that he should change because that’s what’s best for him, they are inadvertently feeding his selfish focus on himself: You can’t simultaneously contribute to a problem and solve it.

 Women speak to me with shocked voices of betrayal as they tell me how their couples therapist, or the abuser’s individual therapist, or a therapist for one of their children, has become a vocal advocate for him and a harsh and superior critic of her. I have saved for years a letter that a psychologist wrote about one of my clients, a man who admitted to me that his wife was covered with blood and had broken bones when he was done beating her and that she could have died. The psychologist’s letter ridiculed the system for labeling this man a “batterer,” saying that he was too reasonable and insightful and should not be participating in my abuser program any further.

 The content of the letter indicated to me that the psychologist had neglected to ever ask the client to describe the brutal beating that he had been convicted of.

As a routine part of my assessment of an abusive man, I contacted his private therapist to compare impressions. The therapist turned out to have strong opinions about the case:

THERAPIST:  I think it’s a big mistake for Martin to be attending your abuser program. He has very low self-esteem; he believes anything bad that anyone says about him. If you tell him he’s abusive, that will just tear him down further. His partner slams him with the word abusive all the time, for reasons of her own. His wife’s got huge control issues, and she has obsessive-compulsive disorder. She needs treatment. I think having Martin in your program just gets her what she wants.

BANCROFT: So you have been doing couples counseling with them?

THERAPIST: No, I see him individually.

BANCROFT: How many times have you met with her?

THERAPIST: She hasn’t been in at all.

BANCROFT: You must have had quite extensive phone contact with her, then.

THERAPIST: No, I haven’t spoken to her.

BANCROFT: You haven’t spoken to her? You have assigned his wife a clinical diagnosis based only on Martin’s descriptions of her?

THERAPIST: Yes, but you need to understand, we’re talking about an unusually insightful man. Martin has told me many details, and he is perceptive and sensitive.

BANCROFT: But he admits to serious psychological abuse of his wife, although he doesn’t call it that. An abusive man is not a reliable source of information about his partner. What the abuser was getting from individual therapy, unfortunately, was an official seal of approval for his denial, and for his view that his wife was mentally ill.”

—“Why does he do that ? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling men”

by Lundy Bancroft

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Amber Heard vs. Johnny Depp Fact Check: MASTERLIST (28/04/2022)

VIOLENCE/ABUSE:

Heard has proven 12 out of 14 incidents of abuse by Depp “to the civil standard.

Texts from Depp’s assistant shows his assistant saying Depp kicked Heard; “He was appalled. When I told him he kicked you, he cried…It was disgusting. And he knows it.”

Depp is on audio telling Amber Heard to cut him. He continues to tell her to cut him while wielding a knife, and she is heard begging him to put the knife down.

Texts from Depp to Paul Bettany joke about murdering Amber and raping her dead body. 

Texts about him talking about smacking Amber Heard around.

Audio reveals Depp shouting and calling Heard a “fat ass” a “cunt” and Heard telling him to put his cigarettes out on someone else.

“‘Her lip was swollen and busted up a bit, and she also had these horrible cuts on her arms – like gashes … The she told me that the cuts on her arms were from the broken glass that was from him throwing bottles and smashing glasses all over the place.’” (Heard’s sister, Whitney). 

“Ms Pennington said that she could see gashes on Ms Heard’s arms from her wrists to her elbows. In cross-examination Ms Pennington said that one arm was cut worse than the other. Ms Heard told Ms Pennington that the soles of her feet were also cut. Ms Heard said that Mr Depp had thrown a bottle at her; there had been broken glass all over the ground which was how she had cut her feet.“

Johnny destroying Heard’s closet: “Good morning sir … So …. um Johnny destroyed Amber’s closet”.  (page 82)

“As Ms Lloyd said, ‘We had to restrain both of them.’” Depp supposedly instigated the violence, Heard retaliated. (page 81/82)

Diary entry by Heard talks about Depp strangling her and hitting her in the head: “Our fight was terrible. J [Mr Depp] finally at one point found himself with his shirt wrapped around my neck… He hit me several times. I don’t even know how I wound up with this huge rather annoying knot on the back of my head?” (page 84)

Depp refers to the fight on the train as getting “physical”: ‘..other than the fact that we had a fight on the train, which was physical…’ (page 83)

Text message from Heard to her publicist; “ I’m really bruised and might have a black eye or two tmrw – same with my nose. Nurse on the way to make sure I don’t have concussion.” There are also texts to her psychotherapist saying it’s an ‘emergency’ and a text to a friend in which she says “J beat me up pretty good”. (page 87)

Photos of Heard bruised “which the metadata shows were taken on the morning and afternoon of 16th December 2015”. (page 88)

Makeup artist recalls having to cover up bruising on Heard’s nose, eyes, and her lip injury with red lipstick. (page 89)

Although Depp claims Heard hit him at a party in 2016, the photos of injury Depp claims happened in 2016, where found to be from 2015: “This version of the picture has a date stamp of 23rd March 2015. It could not have been taken after the birthday party on 21st April 2016.” The photo instead was from a previous occasion in which Ms Heard already admitted that she punched Mr Depp. (page 99)

Despite police claims, photos of Heard injuries with meta data show she did sustain injuries by Depp: “There are the photographs. The metadata is not disputed and shows that one of the photographs of Ms Heard’s face was taken before the first pair of police officers arrived.” They also show damage to the apartment. (page 107)

Depp texted Bettany that he “pounded and displayed ugly colors to Amber on a recent journey”.

HEARD’s CLAIMS: 

Heard has previously admitted to hitting Johnny and throwing things at him to defend herself in her original 7hr deposition. (2016)

“She admitted that in the course of this argument, she struck Mr Depp in order, she said, to protect Whitney.” (page 80)

In regards to the donations: “Amber has already been responsible for seven figures in donations to charitable causes and intends to continue to contribute and eventually fulfill her pledge. However, Amber has been delayed in that goal because Mr. Depp filed a lawsuit against her, and consequently, she has been forced to spend millions of dollars defending Mr. Depp’s false accusations against her.”   

“Please tell people it was a fair fight and see what the jury and judge think. Tell the world, Johnny. Tell them, Johnny Depp. I, Johnny Depp, …. man*, I’m-I’m a victim too of domestic violence and I, y’know, it’s a fair fight and see how many people believe or side with you”.

[*NOTE: Heard is using “man” as in “oh, man”, not in reference to Depp’s gender.]

“Full audio shows Heard talking about how their relationship is not “fair fight”, he scoffs and replies “it doesn’t matter” and “fair fight, my ass”, Heard responds “exactly” and that Depp is “bigger and stronger”. Heard goes on to talk about why she felt the need to call 911 after he threw the phone at her face and laid his hands on her.

THE FINGER CLAIM:

Deuters (Depp’s friend) admitting that the story of Depp’s injury was a public relations disaster and saying: ‘Just make sure you say you aren’t sure how he hurt his hand. (page 75)

Depp’s texts to his doctor states he cut his own finger off. Another text is found of Depp again saying he cut his own finger off. Doctor’s notes show the injury is more suggestive of a crushing mechanism. In fact, Depp told three separate people that he cut his own finger off.

Depp heard on tape stating, “I’m talking about Australia. The day I chopped my finger off”.

“Nor did Mr Depp say that Ms Heard had been responsible for the injury to his finger in either of his two texts to sister Christi on 8th March 2015.” (page 78)

FECES PRANK/CLAIM:

Heard did not defecate in Depp’s bed and the previous judge ruled it unlikely. The judge in the previous case ruled it likely it were the dogs, as there was evidence it “had an incomplete mastery of her bowels.”

“Ms. Heard gave evidence that Boo had in the past defecated on the bed and that she herself had cleaned it up rather than leave that task to Ms Vargas.” (page 100)

Furthermore, Depp is on text’s with his assistant’s suggesting to him to defecate and tell Amber it was the dogs as a prank

DRUGS/ALCOHOL:

Texts from Depp’s daughter (Lily-Rose Depp) and Depp himself show that Amber helped him stay sober. Depp talking to his mother-in-law, Paige Heard about Amber helping him.

Texts from Heard and Lily-Rose Depp show the two had an amicable relationship. 

Texts show Depp’s constant use of alcohol and drugs, mentioning his “blackouts”. More texts here, and here. Texts show Depp referring to his addiction as the “Monster”, even to Elton John who was helping him with his sobriety. 

An audio shows Depp telling Heard he will never get clean or sober.  Amber can be heard crying. Another audio shows Heard crying and saying, “All the coke you’ve done today, and all the booze you’ve drunk today, has it helped us?”

PREVIOUS LIBEL CASE:

As stated, the previous judge ruled Heard has proven 12 out of 14 incidents of abuse.

“For all of these reasons I accept that the Defendants have shown that the words they published were substantially true in the meanings I have held them to bear. The Claimant has not succeeded in his action for libel.” (2020)

Depp’s previous lawyer, Adam Waldman was accused of dishonesty, and was thrown off the case for leaking confidential information to the press and social media which was protected via court order. 

Depp’s team was accused of using bots to influence opinion of social media.  Bot Sentinel, a group that uses artificial intelligence to detect and track troll bots & suspect Twitter accounts, found the actress “had been a victim of an ongoing targeted harassment and smear campaign”. 

(Waldman is a long-time US lobbyist for Russian oligarchs.) 

OTHER OPINIONS/LINKS:

Depp in texts talking about wanting to cause “global humiliation” for Heard.

Depp defending Roman Polanski: “Roman is not a predator. He’s 75 or 76 years old. He has got two beautiful kids, he has got a wife that he has been with for a long, long time. He is not out on the street.”

Depp is close friends with Marilyn Manson, who has his own abuse allegations against him, and who is also suing his victims for defamation. 

PREV. LEGAL ISSUES & CAREER:

Depp was arrested in 1989 for assaulting a security guard after the police were called to end a loud party at his hotel room.

He was also arrested in New York City in 1994 after damaging a hotel room he was staying in with Kate Moss.

Depp brawling with the paparazzi. 

In 2018, Depp assaulting crew member on the set of City of Lies.

In 2018, two of Depp’s former bodyguards sued him for unpaid fees and unsafe working conditions. The suit was settled in 2019.

Depp was constantly late and drunk on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean. 

Depp will also supposedly receive his full salary for the third Fantastic Beasts movie, despite filming only one scene for it and being asked to leave the project.

Texts show that Depp told Heard she was not to take roles, stating “No goddamn meetings. No movies”. 

Depp admits to getting, “irrational”, “crazy”, and “jealous” when Heard is filming.

Charges against Heard for bringing her dogs to Australia were dropped; it was a supposed mix-up with her staff being dismissed who were to do the paperwork. Heard apologised, and admitted to her wrongdoing, pleading guilty.  

Heard sought a restraining order from Depp in 2016. She also sought an order requiring Depp to attend 52 weeks of anger management courses. (page 19)

PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS: 

Depp started dating Winona Ryder when she was a minor, and 17 years old to his 25 years. (Depp is 23 years older than Heard.)

Depp called his ex-wife a “French extortionist ex-cunt” and a “withering whore”. 

Heard was granted a restraining order against Depp. 

Depp was the one to originally ask Amber to settle outside of court, and the couple issued a statement that, “Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain.”

Heard’s previous girlfriend has come to Heard’s defence, saying that Heard never abused her and that the police officers who claimed it had misogynistic and homophobic attitudes once they realised Heard and her were partners.

Ellen Barkin, Depp’s ex, testified Depp threw a wine bottle at her during an argument between Depp and his assistant. (page 43)

DEPP’S JEALOUSY:

Depp has used abusive language towards Heard for her sexuality and her past relationship with women, calling her a “lesbian camp counsellor”. He was also jealous of Amber’s female ex, Tasya van Ree, calling her “Van Pee”, he also “tried to set fire to another of Ms van Ree’s paintings”.

In fact, Depp’s homophobia and jealousy didn’t stop there, he then attacked Heard’s friend, iO Tillet Wright, by misgendering him and mocking his transition, calling him a “dike bitch” and “wanting to be a man now”.

Depp also makes unfavourable comments about Heard’s relationship with Elon Musk: “But she sucked Mollusk’s [I assume a reference to Elon Musk] crooked dick”. (page 126)

He also accused her of having an affair with Billy Bob Thornton, writing about it in graffiti. (page 76)

THE CURRENT TRIAL:

The trial is a not a criminal trial, but a defamation trial. Depp is suggesting Heard ruined his reputation in her article about domestic violence, despite not naming him in it. In fact, Depp was requested to leave the project after he lost his libel case.

Depp is suing Heard for $50 million, over 7x the amount they originally settled together. Heard originally attempted to get the suit moved to California and dismissed, and only filed a counterclaim when it was refused.

Virginia has less strict anti-SLAPP laws and as a result has drawn questionable legal cases in recent years. SLAPP lawsuits are also known as intimidation lawsuits and often used to censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening victims with the cost of legal defence until they abandon their criticism.

Depp fans are heavily affecting the way social media is reacting to the trial, by indulging in edits on social media, fabrications of events, pseudoscience.

Heard has had to hire more security. Some Depp fans have attempted to chase vehicles with Heard and her team inside as they return home from the courthouse. 

One of Depp’s witnesses (Gina Deuters) was dismissed from the stand after admitting to watching the trial online.

Depp fans were barred from the court for violent threats against Heard. Most attendees are Depp-fans and have had to have been told, “Order in the court of I will have you removed”.

CONCLUSION:

The suit is not to determine whether Heard was violent, or whether their relationship was mutually toxic, but as to whether Heard lied in her op-ed, and there is plenty of evidence of Depp physically harming Heard multiple times; regardless of Heard’s retaliation, he has been proven to be a domestic abuser.

[DISCLAIMER: This post is purely in relevance to the Heard vs. Depp case, to fact-check claims made by Depp, his team, as well as opinions on social media. They are not meant to be a remission on Heard’s part of any potential wrongdoing.]

// TERFS DON’T INTERACT //

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“Why do you beat yourself up so much over little mistakes?”

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Feelin tender, please do not touch

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The 1969 Easter Mass Incident

Content Warnings: Religion, food, symbolic cannibalism, symbolic gore, penis mention, Blasphemy, SO MUCH BLASPHEMY, weapons, war mention.  Mind the warnings and your health always comes first. Its a HILARIOUS story, I promise.

As always, all the names have been changed to protect people’s identities.  This is a long one, so Press J now if you want to skip it.

When my dad was a young man and still a practicing catholic, he participated in a small church communion that nearly got him and six other people excommunicated.

Father Patrick ran a small church outside of California Polytechnical and tended to be… rather more liberal in his interpretations of scripture than most of the church was, which made him something of a hit with the local students and liberally-inclined populace.  Pat went to all manner of civil demonstrations, condemned the shit out of the vietnam war and the politics that lead to it and so on.  In January of 1969 a series of incidents lead him to start exploring “nontraditional” means of holding Mass as a means of reaching out to his community and exploring his own faith, which ultimately culminated in the 1969 Easter Mass Incident.

For those of you who weren’t raised catholic, Communion is this ritual where you become one with Jesus by eating a really horrible bland wafer cookie and taking a shot of wine (called hosts), which then *literally* become the flesh and blood of jesus in your mouth, allowing him to become one with you.  It’s big McFucking deal, and you have the opportunity to take communion at every mass.  All this had to be explained to me second-hand because after this and Dad’s 51 days in the army, Dad decided he wouldn’t inflict religion on any children he might have in the future.

*

“Hey dad,” Six-year old me asked the first time he told me this story after my practicing friends were talking about getting wine at church. “Isn’t that cannibalism?”

“We’re getting to that.”  He waved.

*

The First Incident in January when, due to a serious cock-up by the church, all the hosts Father Pat received were moldering and spoiled and probably would have killed someone if he’d actually fed anyone them.  But it was the first mass of the year, when a peak number of people came in after vowing to got to church more for new year’s.  He couldn’t NOT have communion.

“I’ll bake.” offered Maria, the parish secretary and probably the best baker in the county. “So we have hosts.  Jesus will understand.”

Father Patrick, not one to pass up the chance at Maria’s cooking, immediately agreed.

A Host is supposed to be composed solely of unleavened wheat flour and water, which is why they taste terrible.  It’s a theological point of some importance relating to Exodus or something but Maria had an important theological counterpoint: Jesus both divine and loves all his children, ergo, Jesus would neither be a nasty bland cracker nor want his children to suffer as such and so instead, she made Mexican wedding cookies.

They were a SPECTACULAR hit.  Many praises were heaped upon father patrick for the Much Better Wafers and that they’d be sure to show up next week as long as Maria kept making them.  Father Patrick figuring that hey, anything that gets people in the doors is good and really, if it was turning into Jesus once inside the parishioner, did it really matter what the wafers were made of?  So he continued to let Maria bake the Hosts, and encouraged her to try out new flavors, like nutmeg and cinnamon.

This went on swimmingly for a few weeks until The Bishop showed up for a surprise visit the same week Maria decided to experiment with rainbow sprinkles.

Dad remembers hearing the bishop through the windows roaring “THE HOLY BODY OF CHRIST DOES! NOT! CONTAIN! RAINBOW! SPRINKLES!”

The matter went clean up to The Archbishop, who decided that while Pat was probably right to not feed spoiled hosts to his parish, he should attend some remedial classes to remember what Communion was all about, so that if it happened again, he’s come up with a more suitable substitute.

Father Patrick returned in late March, full of spite and some fascinating new ideas.

*

“Is this where the Cannibalism happens?” Six-year-old me asked, eager to get to the good parts.

*

At his remedial classes, the teacher had stressed the importance of transubstantiation, aka “That bit where the wafer and wine, Actually, Literally, become the flesh of Jesus Christ and we expect you to swallow.”  Also on the syllabus was understanding the importance of Christ’s suffering and sacrifice.

“So, I was thinking about Easter Service.”  Said father Patrick one afternoon while dad was doing his computer science homework at the church because his dorm was a barely-standing fire hazard and the library was where you went to have sex.

“Well, we do re-enactments for christmas.  Why not on easter?  Why not re-enact the crucifixion of Christ right here? Make it real for everyone.  Trauma’s great for bonding a community together.”

“Who’s playing Jesus?” asked Maria, always one for a good laugh.

“That’s the thing- A Host, it doesn’t look much like flesh, right?  Doesn’t look like much of anything, really.  Not great for reinforcing one’s belief.

What if, instead, we- and I mean you, Maria, I can’t cook to save my life- make a man-sized loaf of bread, maybe in the shape of a T, and we have some of the boys dress up as romans and whip the bread and we pour the wine on so it’s bleeding and them- then we make a big wooden cross and actually nail the bread to it with, I don’t know, railroad spikes, more wine all over. And we raise the cross, all while telling the story of the crucifixion.”

He paused to take a drink, Maria slowly crumpling onto the floor in horrified laughter and Dad now thoroughly distracted from his homework.

“Then we lower the cross, and invite everyone who wants to take communion up to tear a hunk of Jesus off.  Just descend into his corpse like vultures.  I think that’d really be a good bonding experience for the church.”  he nodded thoughtfully.  “The hard, part, I suppose, will be finding enough romans.”

“I WANNA BE LONGINUS.” bellowed my father, barreling into the room.

And so, the plan was hatched.  Dad hit up every other guy in the Church and eventually rounded up four more romans, three of them from the Education Department of Cal Poly, and one guy from Chemistry, who just liked to watch things burn.

This, being a play, naturally meant that there was a rehearsal, and test Bread jesus.  Maria had decided that if they were going to start being extra-literal, she needed to make the most lifelike Bread jesus possible, and made a distressingly buff and human-proportioned Jesus by Advanced bread-braiding, complete with plaited hair, quail’s-egg-and-raisin eyes, bready muscle groups, and an eight-pack because why not make the lord completely shredded?*  She also made the important theological decision that since Jesus loves everyone and was happy to die in spite of all his suffering, he should be smiling, and had a toothy corn-kernel smile.  He was Wonderful and Terrifying all at once.

“Maria,” asked Father Patrick after a few minutes of delighted and horrified cooing over Jesus’ toothy grin and abdominals. “Why is he wearing a tea-towel?

“Well, he’s the Son of God. A Man.  With all that entails.”  She said, pointedly staring at Father Patrick while everyone stared at the suspiciously lumpy tea-towel.  “And he might have… burnt, slightly.”

Everyone nodded and agreed that the tea-towel was the best course of action.  The rehearsal goes splendidly and everyone agrees that this is the most delicious Jesus they’ve ever had.

*

Easter Sunday arrives and the Church is PACKED, from the more lapsed Catholics showing up for a high holiday, parents visiting for spring break and a whole horde of newcomers who had gotten wind that something was up and they ought to come.

Dad is a lanky as hell 21-year old composed mostly of technical jargon and acne but he is STOKED to be playing Longinus, the roman that speared Jesus on the cross, because he gets to do the BEST technical effect in the whole parade.  Since he came in at the end me missed a good portion of the sermon, but did hear the “oooh” from the crowd as the massive cross was dragged in by the other Romans, followed by horrified gasps and high screams and a discernible “What the FUCK” as they brought in Bread Jesus 2.0, whipping him enthusiastically, and hammering him into the cross, the sound of wine splashing onto the floor loud in the terrified silence of that Parishioners.

Finally Father Patrick gets to the part about Longinus, and Dad comes sprinting down the aisle as hard as he can, because in order for Bread Jesus to be seen by everyone, his middle had to be about 10 feet off the ground, so Dad had to run, shrieking latin curses,  down the length of the church, with a big honking spear and take a flying leap at Jesus in order to spear him in the gut.

Please take moment to imagine you are some normal god-fearing catholic who has decided to visit little bobby or maybe patricia at college and you’re all going to church together like a nice family and this Fucking madman has decided to go all Silence of the Lambs on mass and now there’s some sort of underfed translucently pale man in ill-fitting Roman armor and cape flying at a horrifying glutinous effigy of your lord and savior, with an actual fucking spear, screaming like a madman.  Don’t you feel yourself drawing closer to God already? Defensively, perhaps, like an octopus trying to ooze itself into a crevice against the horrors of the ocean.

However, two things happen that were not planned on

1. Dad misses.  In his defense, Bread Jesus is close to but not quite the size of a man- more like the size of a doughy teenager, and his middle is a small target 10 feet up in the air and dad is has a computer science minor, not an athletics scholarship.  He misses by about 8 inches and instead very solidly stabs Bread Jesus right through the groin, leaving a big hole in Maria’s tea-towel and the spear jutting out at a decidedly… attentive angle, as Bread Jesus’s Bread Dick drops to the floor with a splat.  Nobody notices this, however because

2. In rehearsal, Dad had managed to get the spear right in jesus’s navel but neither Father Patrick nor the other romans could get the wine up there to make his middle appropriately bloodied.  

Maria come up with the Genius solution that since wine is made of grapes and Jam is made of grapes, she could make a jelly-filled Jesus for Dad to stab.  There was a normal-sized test loaf and when dad stabbed it on the table, it had a nicely gooey dribbling effect.

However, this time the loaf was torso-sized, still hot from the oven and upright, so when dad speared the very end of the loaf, all the steam-pressured jam had collected at the bottom and a spray of lukewarm smuckers exploded out from bread jesus, turning the first three pews into a splash zone of symbolic entrails.

There was  a hot, sticky minute of complete silence in the church after that. 

Then, Father Patrick indicated it was time for the cross to be lowered, and continued on with the normal preparations of the Host, he himself covered in hot smuckers, as though nothing particularly ordinary was occuring, quietly kicking the bread-dick under the altar. At the end of it all, Father Patrick and invited everyone up with the Last Oration:

“Thou, O God, has kindly allowed us to have a part in this Holy Sacrifice; for this we give Thee thanks. Accept it now to Thy glory and be ever mindful of our weakness. Amen.”

…And everybody came up, shuffling like terrified zombies, pinching off tiny bits at first but then the madness took them and they began tearing apart bread jesus by the handful, weeping as they partook, scattered prayers and begging for forgiveness.  The whole congregation was kneeling about the altar, tearful and united in their guilt and their need for God.

*

“IS CHURCH ALWAYS LIKE THAT?” six-year-old me asked, absolutely stoked.  I’d convert on the spot if I got a show like that.

“No, it’s normally bland wafers and lots of chanting in latin.”

“Well that’s boring as hell.” I remember muttering and Dad snorting the coffee he was drinking out of his nose.

*

As people filed silently out of the Church to a gloriously sunny California afternoon, faces wan and smeared with wine and jam, Father patrick turned to Maria and asked “You don’t think that was too much, do you?”

“No.”  Said Maria with a sarcastic deadpan so intense it was hard to tell from sincerity.

It was the exact same tone she used when the Archbishop and Six other high clergy showed up, clutching a letter someone had written, Livid and almost foaming at the mouth, demanding to know if such blasphemy had transpired.

“No.  That’s crazy.”  She said, staring down the archbishop like he was an idiot.

“Such imaginations some people have!” Said Father Patrick, much less convincingly.

“And you-  you didn’t…  Spear an effigy of our lord and savior?”  the archbishop demanded of my father.

“Do I look like I can jump that high?”  Dad asked, having in the interim been drafted for 51 days then nearly died of pneumonia from it, and therefore no longer afraid of the Church, the Law or God.

Somewhat relieved that he’d only received the extremely detailed ramblings of a doddering parishioner, the Archbishop sat down and complemented Maria on her most excellent Mexican Wedding Cookies, may he please have another plate for his nerves? Perhaps the ones with sprinkles?

Dad went on to help build the internet, Father Patrick converted to Buddhism and Maria became a Nun.

*For those of you wondering, Jesus was made of Challah.

If you got a laugh out of this, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or Paypal, as telling stories on the internet is my only source of income right now.  Thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed it!

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Just came back on here for the first time in ages to find myself following some porn accounts I definitely didn’t sign up for. Tumblr, what are you trying to tell me?

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“Women are also rejected. Women also spend their teen years pining after dreamy boys who will never love them back. You don’t see us going around murdering people over it. You don’t see us setting up internet communities for the purpose of talking about how evil and shallow men are for not taking us to pound town. Women don’t go around killing men who don’t like them, because if you’re a woman in this society, a boy not liking you is the least of your problems. It is nowhere near the shittiest thing you’re going to be expected to “just deal with” in your life — one of those things being the fact that we are expected to “just deal with” how men are sometimes going to murder a bunch of people because they felt entitled to romantic attention from women. We are expected to “deal with” that, while never bringing up the terms “male privilege” or “male entitlement” or “toxic masculinity” and why those things so often lead to mass murder, on account of how that might really hurt the feelings of the men who have been gracious enough to not go on killing sprees.”

— That Is Not What ‘Lovesick’ Is | Wonkette (via holyfiiire)

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The holy trinity of Jake Peralta memes

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Letitia Wright + Shuri 

“I like that Shuri’s relatable. She’s just living life and trying to use her mind to achieve things and stretch boundaries and limitations.”

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PORGS

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An Indiscriminate Act of Kindness

You are 15 and you are alone.

You have just finished Transition Year - the year you were supposed to make friends for life, find out what you want to be, and slot into your place in the world. It was hell. You were the anomaly - the only one without a friend, never mind a friendship group. You nearly welcomed the taunts from the bullies, the hard girls, whispered on the bus on school trips, behind you in class, when the teachers weren’t looking - better that than when you were ignored so completely you questioned your existence.

There were moments of light - the nice girls who took pity on you. They let you eat lunch with them, sit next to them in class, even go to the cinema with them once or twice - little things you inhaled like pure oxygen. But pity isn’t friendship, and you were so, so desperate. You clung to these acts like they were life itself, but they were only temporary. It hurt, at the time - looking back, even you wouldn’t want to be friends with you. They had their own stuff to deal with - you just couldn’t see it, when you were drowning in yours.

And the mind does funny things, when it’s lonely. You were lucky, really. You had your family - loving and kind parents, cousins who treated you like a person even at your worst, friends in London and Dublin who proved that you weren’t unloveable - that you had a place in the world. But they couldn’t be there during school. They didn’t understand what it felt like to have no one to do nothing with - to chat and moan and be a silly teenager. 

So you were lonely - so, so lonely. And your mum, in her desperation, has signed you up for after school drama classes. And even though your anxiety levels are about def-con five walking into that room, you find yourself actually enjoying it. You have a chance to be someone different. You marvel at the people there, who seem so cool, so confident - everything you wish you could be. And it becomes your beacon of light, at a time when everything else is falling down around you - at a time you couldn’t see yourself surviving. You stand on the outskirts looking in - acting at being a human being. Wondering when the time was going to come that you couldn’t go on any longer. Waiting.

And then. And then. The end of a session. The class joker shouts about a fire at the theatre across the road. You all run out, en masse, a herd of eager teenagers, and for once you aren’t worried about standing out, about being weird. A tractor is on fire where the new centre of culture is being built. It is oddly beautiful - everyone is quiet, watching the flames lick up the side of the engine. Distant sirens are the only noise.

Eventually, the spell breaks. Someone turns to you - one of the cool kids. He says something to you. You resist the urge to look behind you, to check he isn’t talking through you to someone else. You respond, somehow. Next thing you know, you’re standing in a circle of people. They are noticing you. They are talking to you. They are listening to you. It is so long since you have felt part of a conversation that you fall silent - but they don’t turn away. They keep talking. Someone asks you a question. You blink. You must have heard wrong.

‘Do you want to go to the amusements with us tomorrow?’

This must be a joke. You wait for them to laugh. They wait for you to answer. The silence goes on, until someone else offers their phone for you to put your number in. They want your number. They want to be able to contact you. They chat plans between them, as you feel this thing move in your chest - like something has unhooked itself from your ribcage. You have to ask - even if it ruins things. Even if it breaks it all.

‘Are you sure?’

Of course, they say. Of course. It sets off a beat in your heart - of course, of course, of course, of course. You see your mum pull up to collect you, and you walk down to her in a daze, eyes full. You tell her you’ve been invited out with people tomorrow. People who actually want you there. You are trying not to cry, and so is she.

And it’s amazing how something so small, so throwaway, can change a life. But you know, that night, that this is the start of something. And it is. 

It was the moment I wanted to do more than survive - I wanted to be alive.

Be kind, when you can. You don’t know what it might mean to someone who needs it.

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tldr? if trained military ppl who are most comfortable around guns are still getting gunned down by those with the intent to kill HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK A SCIENCE TEACHER IS GOING TO REACT? you actually think they are going to turn into bruce willis or black widow instead of just being another dead person? the fuck is wrong with you?

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I get jealous really easily but not like an angry vengeful jealous more like a really sad lonely jealous because everybody likes everybody more than they like me and I really really don’t blame them. 

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“We did a totally Afrocentric, natural hair movie,” Ms. Friend said. “There was not a pressing comb or relaxer on set. That wasn’t happening. We’re in a moment when people are feeling empowered about being black. And that’s one thing you see when you watch ‘Black Panther.’ The hair helps communicate that.”

Camille Friend, the head of the “Black Panther” hair department.