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tillidontneedfantasy · 4 years

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A Track-by-Track Breakdown of Taylor Swift’s 8th Studio Album: ‘folklore’

Taylor Swift’s 8th studio album, folklore, starts off with the lie, “I’m on some new shit.” Perhaps to someone who hasn’t been paying attention this would seem to be true. But to those listening, folklore is the essence of her skill and success throughout her entire career stripped down for all to see, but more refined, enhanced, and impressive than ever.

Even prior to her pop-world domination with 1989 (2014), Taylor’s storytelling ability has always been her most compelling strength as a writer. In 2010, she released her third album, Speak Now, penned fully solo to prove to the cynics that she does, in fact, write her own music. And it’s damn good. Widely considered her best song, “All Too Well” from Red (2012) is a five and a half minute epic about love had and lost, all in walks through autumn trees, almost running red lights, dancing round the kitchen, and a scarf reminiscent of innocence, unreturned.

Yet her pop prowess over the last six years perhaps leads to her storytelling being overlooked to those more focused on the music. There is a particular genius in writing a successful pop song, let alone three successful pop albums, that still has hard-hitting lyrics underneath the synth. Take the excellent “Cruel Summer” from Lover (2019) for example. The song is just under 3 minutes, and the production is so enthralling and infectious that it can take such a hold on you, you might miss the tale being told along with it about a fraught summer relationship that was actually just the beginning of her own love story.

But without the pop production, her stories on folklore demand attention. Swept up by a strong wave of creativity and inspiration, Swift secretly wrote and produced this album in around three months with Aaron Dessner of The National, one of Swift’s favorite bands, and long-time collaborator and friend Jack Antonoff. A surprise album is a new endeavor for Swift, as she generally spends months meticulously planning an album rollout. It is refreshing, and as a dedicated, long-time fan of Taylor, it is thrilling. Due to the album cover where she is standing in the woods, and the genre of the album itself, there have been think pieces regarding the “man in the woods” trope and what it means that Taylor seems to be embodying it. As a result of over-exposure, people are unable to stop focusing on her image and the way she presents herself. It’s understandable, as she is a very smart and deliberate businesswoman, and clearly cares about how she is perceived. But with this album, it is clear that none of that was at play. We are in the middle of a pandemic. Her mother has been battling cancer for years. Isolate a creative person in a dangerous world and they will dream up an escape. She understands more than ever how precious each moment is, and does not want to waste another one. The woods being the landscape for the photo-shoot is most likely attributed to the fact that it is the safest place to have one under these circumstances. She’s not pretending she removed herself from society and became enlightened, she didn’t dabble into a more alternative sound to prove anything; she is just sharing stories she wants to tell that she is proud of, and nothing more.

Of course the music of the album is important, but the lyrics are the heart of it all, and I wanted to focus on them. Upon its release, Taylor explained in a foreword that the album was a mixture of personal and fictional accounts. The beauty of stories is that once they are shared, they never live one single life; each person who consumes a story interprets it uniquely, and the story becomes a multiverse, with different meanings and outcomes than what initially drove the pen to the paper. As explained by Swift in a YouTube comment prior to the album’s release, three songs on the album are all one story, which she has dubbed “the teenage love triangle.” The three points of the triangle are “cardigan,” “august,” and “betty.” But if someone had not seen her say that, they might not have figured it out. Maybe they’d interpret each song as their own story, and connect it to their own. Taylor knows this. It is why she loves storytelling and is why she is so good at it. The album itself is a mirror ball, shimmering with every version of the stories being told, reflecting a bit of each person who listens. These are my interpretations, but they can mean whatever you make of them.

1. the 1 The melody of this song helps set the scene; picture yourself skipping rocks on a lake, reminiscing on the one that got away. “the 1” is about learning to assimilate into a life without them, resentfully accepting that they might be moving on, too. She ruminates on what went wrong and what could have been. In a very Swift fashion, she puts the blame on herself when she sings, “in my defense, I have none / for digging up the grave another time.” Perhaps this song is fictional, perhaps it’s a revisit of a past feeling or relationship, but its relatability makes it feel real and present. She searches for explanations, restraining herself from asking, “if one thing had been different, would everything be different today?” But it’s good she didn’t ask, because she’d never find the answer, anyway. Best lyric: “We never painted by the numbers, baby, but we were making it count / You know the greatest loves of all time are over now.”

2. cardigan (teenage love triangle, part 1: betty’s perspective) “When you are young they assume you know nothing,” Swift sings in her smooth low-register on this Lana del Rey-esque single. “But I knew everything when I was young,” she asserts. They say wisdom comes with age, but there is wisdom lost, too, of what it felt like to be young; but she has held onto it. In this track, the narrator (Betty) is looking back on her relationship with someone she once loved (James, as name-dropped in “betty” later on in the album). Her insight on his character was always spot on; she knew he’d try to kiss it better, change the ending, miss her once the thrill expired and come back, begging for her forgiveness in her front porch light. As soon as she was feeling forgotten, he made her feel wanted, his favorite. The ending in question is unclear, whether she granted him her forgiveness or not. But what is clear is Taylor’s understanding of the pull of young love, the intensity, the immortalization of all the smallest of details, the longing to be someone’s favorite. It’s why we look back on it so often, read stories and watch films about it, even as we grow old. It’s the cardigan we put back on when we want to be Peter Pan and remember what it was like to fly with Wendy. Best lyric: “You drew stars around my scars / but now I’m bleeding.”

3. the last great american dynasty The story of Rebekah Harkness and her destruction of the last great American dynasty, Standard Oil, is documented in this track, as each verse covers a different part of Rebekah’s life, going from a middle class divorcee to one of the wealthiest women in America by marrying into an empire. Swift paints Rebekah as an outcast, the Rhode Island town blaming her for her husband’s heart giving out. Rebekah used her inherited fortune on her ballet company, throwing lavish parties with her friends who went by the “Bitch Pack,” playing cards with Dali (Yes, as in Salvador Dali. It’s not clear if they actually played cards together, but her ashes were placed in an urn designed by him), and feuding with her neighbors. Then, fifty years later, Taylor Swift bought that very house and ruined the neighborhood all over again, bringing with her the triumphant return of champagne pool parties and women with madness, their men and bad habits. It’s a note on how women will be blamed for tarnishing what is sacred to men rather than celebrated, specifically when its related to wealth and power. They will call them mad, shameless, loud. But just like Rebekah, Taylor learned to pay them no mind, and just have a marvelous time. It is also interesting to note that Rebekah went by Betty. Perhaps Taylor felt inspired by and connected to her and gave her a whole backstory, and thus the birth of “the teenage love triangle,” or maybe it’s just a coincidence; but that’s the fun of it all. Either way, this track is a standout showcase of how Swift has truly mastered her craft as a songwriter. Best lyric: “Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / and then it was bought by me.”

4. exile ft. Bon Iver You know that feeling when your parents are fighting and it’s upsetting you but you can’t help but listen? That’s kind of what listening to this song feels like. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon co-wrote the track, and he lends his gorgeous vocals to play a man who has been exiled by his ex who has moved on with someone else while he desperately tries to understand where it all went wrong. The bridge is particularly poignant, both proclaiming, “you didn’t even hear me out,” while talking over each other. He thinks he was expected to read her mind, but she is adamant that she gave him plenty of warning signs. Miscommunication is one of the most common downfalls of a relationship, and the emotion in Swift’s and Vernon’s voices really draws you into the argument with them, transporting you back into your own exile from people you once called home. Best lyric: “I couldn’t turn things around / (You never turned things around) / ‘cause you never gave a warning sign / (I gave so many signs.)”

5. my tears ricochet Taylor describes this song in the foreword as “an embittered tormentor showing up to the funeral of his fallen object of obsession.” If you know enough, you can put the pieces together that the tormentor is Scott Borchetta, the head of Big Machine Records, and the funeral is of their professional and personal relationship. Taylor was the first artist ever signed to Big Machine. Borchetta and Swift had to trust each other in their partnership for it to be a success, and oh, how it was. But prior to Lover’s release, Taylor announced that she would be signing to Republic Records as her contract with Big Machine had ended and Republic offered her the opportunity to own all of her masters moving forward and negotiate on Spotify shares for all their artists. It all could have ended amicably there, but then Scott Borchetta sold all of Big Machine, along with Taylor’s masters from every album prior, to Scooter Braun. Braun manages some of the biggest stars out there, and had previously managed Kanye West. Taylor publicly spoke out about this purchase, stating that she was not made aware of this before the announcement, and how much of a betrayal it was considering she had cried to Scott before about Scooter’s mistreatment of her. Taylor has continued to be vocal about this, and so she sings, “I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace.” There is a lot to unpack in this song, but the main takeaway is that this betrayal hurts him just as much if not more than it hurts her, because his career was built on her achievements. He buried her while decorated in her success, becoming what he swore he wouldn’t, erasing the good times for greed, all just to be haunted with regret for pushing her out and stealing her lullabies. The pain is palpable, and it is notable that this is song is placed at track 5, the spot generally reserved for the most vulnerable on the album; it shows that there are different types of heartbreak that can shatter you just as much as those from romance. Best lyric: “If I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake? / Cursing my name, wishing I stayed.”

6. mirrorball On Lover’s “The Archer,” Taylor expresses her anxiety over people seeing through her act, her own grief at seeing through it herself, wondering if her lover does and whether he would stay with her regardless. “mirrorball” is about the act, one of the more obviously confessional songs on the album. She talks about how a mirror ball can illuminate all the different versions of a person, while also reflecting the light to fit in with the scene. Taylor’s critical self-awareness is heart wrenching, and it’s clear that the anxiety that surrounds the public perception of her is still prevalent. She describes herself as a member of a circus, still on the tightrope and the trapeze even after everyone else has packed up and left, doing anything she can to keep the public’s attention. It hurts to hear the desperation in her voice, but there’s hope in the song, too. She is speaking to someone (we can assume her long-term boyfriend, Joe Alwyn) and thanking them for not being like “the regulars, the masquerade revelers drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten.” In 2016, the height of Taylor’s fame and subsequently her farthest fall from grace, all the people who pretended to be her friends and attended all her parties celebrated her (temporary) demise, continuing to dance over her broken pieces on the floor. But he stayed by her side as she put herself back together. And so now, when no one is around, she’ll shine just for him, standing even taller than she does for the circus. Best lyric: “I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why / I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try / I’m still on that trapeze, I’m still trying everything / to keep you looking at me.”

7. seven Her voice gentle and haunting, Taylor recalls the freedom and innocence of her childhood in Pennsylvania. She asks to be remembered for how she was, swinging over the creek, before she learned civility when she would scream anytime she wanted, then letting out a very pretty one. She sings to her old friend soothingly about taking them away from their haunted house that their father is always shouting in, where they feel the need to hide in a closet, perhaps literally, or figuratively, or both. They can move into Taylor’s house instead, or maybe just to India, just be sure to pack their dolls and a sweater and then they’ll hit the road. She can no longer recall her friend’s face, but the love she had for them still lives in her heart, and she wants it to live forever through story. Just in the way that folklore itself blends reality and fiction, but the truth within it passes on, so will the purity of that love and friendship. Best lyric: “Please picture me in the weeds / before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously / any time I wanted.”

8. august (teenage love triangle, part 2: the other girl’s perspective) If you had to assign the feeling of longing to a song, it’d be “august.” It’s when you’re teetering at the edge with someone, unsure of where you stand with them, clinging to anything they give you and doing anything just to raise your chances, “living for the hope of it all.” August, the last month of summer, its heat causing it to slip away the fastest in a haze before reality hits. This track is a display of how sometimes losing something you never had causes an even deeper ache than losing something that was yours, and Jack Antonoff’s signature production intensifies the emotion even more. It’s the story of shattered hope, and the longing for the days where it could still fuel you. Best lyric: “To live for the hope of it all / cancel plans just in case you’d call.”

9. this is me trying “this is me trying” is like a drive through a tunnel at night, hearing your loudest anxieties and insecurities echo all around you, caving in. The track is another apt insight into Swift’s struggles with her self-image, with the pressure she puts on herself, so much so that she sometimes pushes herself too close to the edge, her fears luring her out of the tunnel and down, down, down into her own cage, stunting her own growth and keeping those who care out of reach. She tells us how she was “so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere.” Every action has an equal, opposite reaction, meaning that she was pushing herself so hard, she rolled back to where she started, and now has to reset. This could be referring to the period between the end of the 1989 era and the release of reputation (2017), or a different time in her life, or just a general sentiment. It doesn’t really matter, though, because no one’s growth is a neat, straight line; growth is jagged. Just like any of us, Taylor will always have to face new obstacles, new pitfalls, new reasons to get back up. She sounds most vulnerable as she cries, “at least I’m trying,” and you feel comforted knowing someone so beautiful and successful has to push herself to try, too, and yet that motivates you more to try yourself. Best lyric: “They told me all of my cages were mental / so I got wasted, like all my potential.”

10. illicit affairs A quiet, slow-build testament of the passion, the tragedy, the secrecy, the inimitability of a romance that shouldn’t exist, “illicit affairs” demonstrates how you can ruin yourself for someone from just one moment of possibility or truth, quite like the narrator of “august” does for the hope of it all. An illicit affair can be many different things: infidelity, forbidden love, a love that can never be fully realized, a relationship that is inherently wrong but electrifying all the same. It’s a reminder of what so many of us would do just to see new colors, to learn a new language, even if the one moment of enlightenment destroys us forever. We might lose the iridescent glow but we don’t forget it; we carry it with us, but must be careful to remember its blinding effect, to remember how fatal the fall is from the dwindling, mercurial high. Best lyric: “Tell your friends you’re out for a run / you’ll be flushed when you return.”

11. invisible string Clearly the most outright autobiographical track, “invisible string” is the plucky pick-me-up needed. The song is like sunshine, as Swift endearingly links all the little connections between her and her boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, since before they even met. She compares the green grass at the Nashville park she’d sit at in hopes of a meet-cute to the teal of his yogurt shop uniform shirt, and gives a nod to her smash hit “Bad Blood” from 1989 with the delightful line “bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA.” She reasons these coincidences as a fateful, invisible, golden string tying them together since the beginning, always destined to meet at the knot in the middle. She thanks time for healing her, (a callback to “Fifteen” from Fearless [2008]), fighting through hell to make it to heaven, transforming her from an axe grinder to a gift giver for her ex’s baby (the ex in question, Joe Jonas, and his wife Sophie Turner, happened to have their first daughter two days before this album’s release). As she has on her previous two albums, she uses the color gold to illustrate how prized their love is to one another. It’s sweet to know in all the gloom that the string has not been severed, and the trees are still golden somewhere. Best lyric: “Cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart / now I send their babies presents.”

12. mad woman Throughout her entire career, Taylor Swift has defiantly defended female rage, all the way back from throwing a chair off a platform on her Fearless Tour during the impassioned “Forever & Always,” to her patient, vengeful reliance on karma in reputation’s lead single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” to her most recent tackling of the matter on Lover’s last and final single, “The Man,” where she explores society’s acceptance and encouragement of angry men yet disdain for angry women. “The Man” is catchy and upbeat, and a fun thought experiment into how Swift’s career would be perceived if she was a man, something that is even more interesting to think about now as she releases an album in a genre heavily dominated and lauded by males. But on “mad woman,” she further explores the creation and perception of female rage, though masked under a smooth, haunting piano melody, her vocals subdued, taunting. In the album foreword, she describes the inspiration behind this song as “a misfit widow getting gleeful revenge on the town that cast her out.” This could be the continuation of Rebekah “Betty” Harkness’s story at her Holiday House in Watch Hill, RI, and how she further alienated herself from the rest of the neighborhood as they cast stones at her for the collapse of the last great American dynasty. (Or perhaps Daenerys Targaryen’s descent as the Mad Queen played a part in the song’s inspiration, as Swift has spoken of her love for Game of Thrones and her character specifically.) Taylor herself could also represent the widow, her music and masters as her love lost, and the men behind the crime as the “town that cast her out.” In the first verse she sings, “What do you sing on your drive home? / Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn? / Does she smile, or does she mouth ‘fuck you forever’?” It’s the first f-bomb of Taylor’s career (though a much more playful one will come two tracks later in “betty”) and it speaks volume. Taylor has received a lot of condemnation for expressing her anger at their transaction, for calling out their greed for what it is. Some view Swift’s stance on the ordeal as petty and trivial; they see the men as orchestrating a good business deal, and Swift as the girl throwing a tantrum. Ask any woman, and they can tell you about a time a man told them they were crazy for being justifiably angry; it only makes us angrier. “No one likes a mad woman,” Taylor states, “You made her like that.” Swift underscores that here, how they will poke and poke the bear but then blame it for attacking, as if they had never provoked it at all, and how dare it defend itself. Just as they blamed Rebekah for her husband’s heart giving out, they somehow manage to blame Swift for not being allowed to purchase the rights to her own work. And yes, she’s mad, but the song is measured and controlled; she’s used to her anger now, and knows just how to wield it. Best lyric: “Women like hunting witches, too / doing your dirtiest work for you / It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together.”

13. epiphany This is another track Swift provided some background on, stating it was inspired by her “grandfather, Dean, landing at Guadalcanal in 1942” during WWII. The first verse paints this image, while the second verse depicts a different kind of war, happening right now, fought by doctors and nurses. She speaks of holding hands through plastic, and the escape folklore has granted you suddenly lifts. Watching someone’s daughter, or mother, or anyone suffer at the hands of the COVID-19 pandemic, just as watching a soldier bleed out, helpless, is too much to speak about. As she points out, they don’t teach you about that vicarious trauma in med school. We are living in a tireless world with barely any time time to rest our eyes, but too much going on while we’re awake to make sense of any of it. “epiphany” is a cinematic prayer, pleading for some quiet in order to find an answer in all the noise. We’re still waiting for that glimpse of relief. Best lyric: “Only twenty minutes to sleep / but you dream of some epiphany / Just one single glimpse of relief / to make some sense of what you’ve seen.”

14. betty (teenage love triangle, part 3: james’s perspective) It makes sense that a song reminiscent of Fearless would exemplify some of the best story-telling on folklore. The final puzzle piece of the teen love triangle, “betty” is a song sung by Swift from the perspective of the character of her own creation, James, attempting to win back his true love, Betty, who he slighted in some way. He proclaims that the worst thing he ever did is what he did to her, without explicitly stating it. Though the infamous deed is unclear, here’s the information we collect from this song: James saw Betty dancing with another boy at a school dance, one day when he was walking home another girl (from “august”) picked him up and he ended up spending his summer with her yet still loved Betty, and though he ended things with his fling and wanted to reconcile with Betty, he had returned to school to see she switched her homeroom (James assumes, after saying he won’t make assumptions. Classic men). So in order to make it up to her, he shows up at her party with the risk of being told to go fuck himself (the second and charming “fuck” on the album! Which is repeated!). Upon his arrival, there is a glorious key change (ala “Love Story”) and all the pieces fall into place for the listener; we realize Betty is the girl singing in “cardigan” as he lists the things he misses about her since the thrill expired, like the way she looks standing in her cardigan, and kissing in his car. He’s 17 and doesn’t know anything, but she knew everything when she was young, and she knew he’d come back. The way I see their story conclude is that she led him to the garden and trusted him, but as they grew older they grew apart, but the love she had for him never faded completely. Listening to this song is like being back in high school, whether you were the person who did someone wrong or the person so willing to forgive in the name of young love, or Inez, the school gossip, you’re right there with them. The other great thing about this song is that it is sung to a girl, and though it is set up so we understand it is most likely from a boy’s perspective, it doesn’t have to be. It’s really great that girls in the LGBTQ community can have a song in Taylor’s voice to fully connect to without changing the pronouns or names (even James, which is unisex and is one of the names of the daughters of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, Taylor’s close friends, mentioned in this song). That is the beauty of folklore: the infinite ways a story can be told, perceived, retold from a different perspective, and told again. Maybe you’ll hear it from Inez. Best lyric: “But if I just showed up at your party / would you have me? Would you want me? / Would you tell me to go fuck myself, or lead me to the garden?”

15. peace One of the most beautifully solemn songs of her career, “peace” echoes the same fears explored in “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” from reputation; will the person she loves be able to weather the ever-present storm that comes with the life of a superstar, but also dwells within herself? Will holding him as the water rushes in be enough? Will giving him her wild, a child, her sunshine, her best, be a fair consolation? Presumably another confessional track and about Alwyn, Swift puts him up on a pedestal, praising his integrity and his dare to dream. She proclaims that she would die for him in secret, just as she told him she’d be on her tallest tip toes, spinning in her highest heels, shining just for him in “mirrorball.” She highlights some of the greatest gifts of love, such as comfortable silence and chosen family. She knows what they have is special, but she also knows the value of peace, the ultimate nirvana, and does not want to deprive him of that. It is so deeply relatable- to me, at least- to feel like you can give someone so much of yourself but know it still may never be enough, and to fear either losing them or robbing them of something better. But looking at what they have together, maybe peace is overrated. Or maybe, she’s looking for peace in the wrong places. The calm is in the eye of the storm, and sometimes, there’s nothing more freeing than throwing away the umbrella and soaking in the rain. Best lyric: “I never had the courage of my convictions / as long as danger is near / and it’s just around the corner, darling / ‘cause it lives in me / no, I could never give you peace.”

16. hoax The truest enigma of the album, the closer, “hoax” is a devastatingly dark ballad about the uncertainty, or perhaps incredulity, of someone’s love for you, a love that is your lifeline. The lyrics are ambiguous, which gives way to a plethora of interpretations. Perhaps she is speaking about a hypothetical situation that has yet to happen (and hopefully doesn’t) in which someone she loves and trusts betrays her. Maybe she is talking about a relationship, real (hopefully not) or fictional, in which despite the torment it brings her she holds onto it for dear life. I’m most inclined to believe that the song represents her difficulty in accepting that someone is willing to love her through such dark periods, that their love must actually be a hoax, but she chooses to believe in it anyway and uses it as the motivation to rebuild her kingdom, to rise from the ashes on her barren land. And even through the downs that come at some point in every relationship, she can still see the beauty in it all. Yes, their love is golden, but waves of blue will crash down around any partnership, because life does not exist without them. So even when things are as blue as can be, she’s at least grateful it’s with him. Best lyric: “Don’t want no other shade of blue but you / no other sadness in the world would do.”

Although we still have yet to hear the deluxe track, “the lakes,” as a fan of Taylor for almost 12 years, it feels so obvious that this is her strongest work yet. The storytelling I fell in love with on Fearless as a teenager (which, much like folklore, was highly inspired by imaginary situations and real emotions) is even sharper now as we have both grown into adults. The music on this album might not be everyone’s speed, and that’s okay. But it allowed Taylor to dip back into what made Fearless such a success: using pieces of her own truth and the whims of her imagination to develop a multi-faceted narrative that becomes universal. During her Tiny Desk concert, before performing “Death By A Thousand Cuts” from Lover, Swift explained the anxiety she felt around the possibility of stunted creativity when people would ask her what she would write about once she was happy. Taylor has released an abundance of beautiful, fun, complex love songs since the start of her relationship almost four years ago now. But “Death By A Thousand Cuts,” which is a fan favorite, helped her prove to herself that she can still write a killer breakup song while being in a happy, fulfilling relationship; the song was the last track written for Lover and was inspired by the film Something Great on Netflix. And so it makes perfect sense that Taylor used folklore to continue exploring this new avenue for songwriting. All of her discography and all of her life experiences have culminated to the folklore moment: as all the best artists do, she will never stop finding inspiration in hidden corners of this dark, mystical, wondrous universe, and falling in love with new ways to share those wonders. And that love will be passed on.

DISCLAIMER - REVIEWER’S BIAS: I love Taylor Swift more than any person in my life, yes including my parents, they are aware and have accepted this fact long ago ❤️

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romancandlemagazine · 3 years

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An Interview with Alexander Wolfe, the man behind Pedestrian Magazine

Pedestrian is a magazine about the humble art of walking. In this interview, I talked with the man with the plan, Alexander Wolfe, about his love for this much maligned form of transport, his recent expedition from New York to Philadelphia, and the art of conversation.

First off, you recently walked from New York City to Philadelphia over nine days. What made you want to do that?

The initial desire to walk to Philadelphia came out living in New York City during the pandemic. I was bound to my apartment for a few months with little to do but walk around my neighborhood. I've always had a habit of walking around the city, but the pandemic only made these walks longer and longer, which eventually led to a 23 mile journey from my apartment in Brooklyn, to the Bronx, and back.

Around that time I was reading The Roads to Sata by Alan Booth and started contemplating longer, multi-day walks. I needed a change of scenery and found the idea of traveling by foot and living out of a bag very appealing. I felt like I'd developed a process here in the city (go on a walk, take photos, write a newsletter about the walk, repeat) and needed to give myself a challenge. I wanted to lean further into this practice that I've been developing for the last three years.

I'd never considered my walks to be hikes, so it made sense that I'd keep it in an urban setting. Walking to Philadelphia seemed like a no-brainer. What most people don't initially realize is that most of my time was spent walking through New Jersey. I liked the idea of walking in a place that is commonly misrepresented as the "armpit of America" and typically deemed unwalkable. New Jersey is actually a very underrated state. It might be the densest state population-wise, but it's called the Garden State for a reason. Oh yeah, I'd never been to Philadelphia and just really wanted to visit.

How did the walk go? Quite often trips or excursions can be a fair bit different to how you first imagine them… how did the reality of the walk differ from how you thought it was going to be?

I was presented with a new challenge every day. Don't get me wrong, the walk turned out better than I could have ever imagined, but you can never anticipate everything in advance. This was the first time I'd ever walked with a 25 pound bag on my back, let alone the first time I'd walked 9 days in a row. Originally I set out to average 17.75 miles per day, but thanks to my own curiosity, ended up waking 20 miles a day on average. I mapped the entire route a month or two before leaving, but would always deviate from the path in favor of exploring some neighborhood, road, or park that looked appealing. The first day alone ballooned into 27 miles because I got cocky and thought I didn't need to use my map while walking in Manhattan. I learned my lesson and kept my eyes on the map for the rest of the trip.

Another thing I didn't expect was the sensitivity one develops after walking 6-8 hours for days in a row. The smell of exhaust and gasoline becomes more potent. You realize how violently we've shaped the land to build huge highways and abysmal business parks. So much of our infrastructure is built in favor of the car, which makes being a pedestrian incredibly difficult at times. If the built environment didn't present a challenge, it was always the weather, the gnarly blisters on my feet, or my gear malfunctioning. I quickly learned to accept these challenges. It was just another component of the walk.

A lot of times people go for ‘a walk’, they’re seeking out beauty spots or nice scenery—maybe in nature reserves or the countryside, but your walk was cutting through some fairly overlooked places… industrial estates and small towns. Do people miss out by not seeing the whole picture of somewhere? Is just driving through these places to get to the destination sort of cheating?

I wouldn't consider driving to be cheating – it's just another way we alienate ourselves from the world around us. When we drive, we experience the world at a speed that makes it nearly impossible to pay attention to the fine details. Our relationship to place is abstracted, especially thanks to the rise of GPS. We no longer have to have a physical relationship to these towns. We don't even have to remember how to get to them. Driving around in a car reduces these places to nothing more than a label on a map or a convenient place to stop for gas.

It's important to have relationships with the places surrounding you. The walk has given me an intimate experience with the space between New York City and Philadelphia. I know what it looks like, I know how it feels to be there. I can tell you where residents stop hanging New York Yankees flags in favor of Philadelphia Phillies flags. If I'm watching the Soprano's and Tony references Metuchen, NJ then I know exactly what he's talking about. I think to understand a place, such as New York City, it's just as important to understand the places around it. There are generations of people who once called the Big Apple home, but decided to plant their roots in Jersey for one reason or another.

I suppose you could have read about some of these places on Wikipedia, but being there is a completely different thing. Is experiencing stuff first hand important?

It's very important if you actually want to understand a place. It's too easy to create our own narratives without ever visiting a place. I still tried to do my share of research before heading out. I have friends from North Jersey or the Philadelphia Metro and tried to take their opinions with a grain of salt. I spent some time reading about certain towns along the way on Wikipedia or scanned Reddit to get a vibe. I even previewed chunks of the walk on Google Street View to mentally prepare and know if it was actually safe to walk near some of these roads. I could have spent months preparing, but it never would actually replace walking in these small towns and cities. It's so much different when you're on the ground.

I suppose the main reason we’re talking is that you make a magazine based around the idea of walking. How long have you been making Pedestrian? What started it off?

I released the first issue of Pedestrian back in March of 2018. I was living in Ridgewood, Queens at the time and made friends with a guy named Curtis Merkel (I actually met him while out on a walk). He ran a moving business for a few decades and retired. At 84 years old he opened up a tiny little bookshop to keep himself busy. I'd visit him every weekend to check out his books and eventually we'd just get to talking. He'd lived in Ridgewood his entire life and loved to talk about the neighborhood's history. Moving to NYC also introduced me to a thriving community of zine makers. I wanted to share these conversations I'd had with Curtis in print form, so I decided to start a magazine. I invited a few friends to contribute and the rest was history.

Since then, the identity of Pedestrian has become quite fluid. While it started as a magazine, I would now describe Pedestrian as my own practice. It's a platform that allows me to collaborate with others, produce magazines, write newsletters, go on these long multi-day walks, and produce t-shirts. I have found this configuration gives me the most creative freedom.

A lot of your magazine is about meeting people and striking up conversations. Is this a lost art these days?

I don't know if it's a lost art per se, but there's less incentive to reach out and talk with strangers these days. Thanks to the rise of social media it's just getting easier and easier to stay within our own "bubbles." Starting Pedestrian, in a way, was an excuse for me to speak with those I typically wouldn't reach. It's amazing how having a publication kind of takes the fear out of speaking with strangers. You can do anything when you have intention.

Although walking is something most people do, is it overlooked as an activity? It seems it’s mostly seen as an inconvenience, rather than a hobby in itself.

It depends where you live. In New York City, for example, walking is a part of the culture. The city is built in such a way that makes walking a viable means of transportation. And if you can't walk to your destination, you're likely walking to a subway or a bus. Where I'm from in Iowa, walking is very inconvenient. Everything is spaced out, which makes walking anywhere very difficult. It’s not that people don’t want to walk, it’s just the way we’ve built certain communities has made it very hard to enjoy. It makes people think walking is very inconvenient.

I’m here in Iowa until August and it’s been interesting to walk a place that is so reliant on cars. The other day I did a 13.5 walk around the city. There’s nothing here stopping you from walking (unless the heat gets you. Technically we’re in the middle of a drought. It’s been incredibly hot as of late), and there’s plenty of sidewalk. I think it’s mostly just a mindset people have to develop. It doesn’t matter how many miles you walk, it’s just about getting out there. Your mental health will thank you and you might even learn something new about your surroundings along the way.

Walking is maybe the antithesis to the internet, but Pedestrian also has a decent presence on the World Wide Web, and you regularly send newsletters and... er... partake in the digital world. How do you balance the real world with the matrix?

It’s a relationship I’m constantly reevaluating. I’m not a master of balancing the two yet, but I’m slowly building habits that will protect my time. I often daydream of abandoning social media altogether and picking up a flip phone. I obviously haven’t done that yet, so in the meantime, I’m investing a lot of time in my newsletter. Sending out a newsletter is a much more thoughtful, intimate, and slow experience...kind of like the way I approach my walks out in the world. I understand that the web is a tool and I’m not sure the Philly walk would have gotten the same amount of attention had I not had an Instagram account. It’s cliche, but everything in moderation, right? I try not to take it so seriously.

What next for Pedestrian?

The Philly walk was such a great success and I’d like to keep that momentum going. Later in September I have another big, big walk planned, but I have yet to announce the route. Look for an announcement sometime next month. This one will be a bit longer and involve 3 different cities. I can’t wait.

Once winter hits I’m going to buckle down and produce a proper book for the Philly walk that will include all my writing and photos I took along the journey. I’m already excited to share the finished product with the world. Stay tuned.

Final question, what are your walking shoes of choice? And what's your soundtrack? Are earphones advised for long walks, or do you prefer the ambient sounds of the streets?

I’m a big fan of Hoka Clifton’s. I wore them throughout the entire Philly walk and have two pairs in my closet. At this point, Hoka should probably pay me for how much business I send their way. I’m always recommending them.

I prefer not to wear headphones and just listen to the ambient sounds of the street. More often than not, I find wearing headphones to be a bit distracting and it takes me out of the present moment. Although, I’ll admit I have been trying to introduce music into my walking once again, but few tracks make the cut. Lately Andrew Wasylyk’s Last Sunbeams of Childhood has been on repeat. There’s something about that track...

Find out more about Pedestrian here. Pedestrian is available in the UK courtesy of Central Library.

#Interviews

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bookiemonsterph · 3 years

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Serpent & Dove

Synopsis:

Bound as one, to love, honor, or burn. Book one of a stunning fantasy duology, this tale of witchcraft and forbidden love is perfect for fans of Kendare Blake and Sara Holland.

Two years ago, Louise le Blanc fled her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, forsaking all magic and living off whatever she could steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.

As a huntsman of the Church, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. But when Lou pulls a wicked stunt, the two are forced into an impossible situation—marriage.

Lou, unable to ignore her growing feelings, yet powerless to change what she is, must make a choice. And love makes fools of us all.

Set in a world of powerful women, dark magic, and off-the-charts romance, book one of this stunning fantasy duology will leave readers burning for more.

Title: Serpent & Dove Series: Serpent & Dove Author: Shelby Mahurin ISBN: 0062878034 (ISBN13: 9780062878038) Pages: 560 pages (Paperback) Published: August 4th 2020 by HarperTeen (first published September 3rd 2019) Characters: Reid Florin Diggory, Louise Margaux Larue Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance, Magic, Paranormal

I feel like I can’t even begin to describe just how pleasantly surprised I was by this novel. I am not a big fan of romance-heavy stories and one of my least favorite tropes of all time is hate-to-love relationships—so basically the two things the entire plot hinges on. Needless to say, I went into this very hesitantly. Very intrigued to learn how Lou and Reid end up in the position they do and to experience this story everyone has been raving about, but also keeping my expectations as low as I could. I did not for a second expect to come out of it knowing it will, without a doubt, be on my list of favorite books of the year. This is one of those books that I believe truly lives up to all the hype surrounding it.

Serpent & Dove is a dual perspective narrative following Lou le Blanc, a witch, and Reid Diggory, a Chasseur, or witch-hunter. Lou has escaped from her coven and has taken refuge in the city of Cesarine. She lives in hiding. giving up magic and surviving as a thief. In Cesarine, witches are seen as a danger to all of society—they are hunted and burned, and no woman is above suspicion.

Reid is sworn to the church and charged with the hunting and capture of witches, sworn into a role that demands he will not let a single witch live. In a surprising turn of events, Lou’s and Reid’s paths cross in a way neither of them could have ever expected. A way that leads to their marriage, that forms a seemingly impossible love, and that brings Lou under the roof of the people who could be her source of protection—or her death.

The writing in this book is absolutely superb and cements Shelby Mahurin on my list of favorite authors. Her writing is gorgeous and so easy to fall into. It is incredibly clear how meticulously she formed every aspect of this novel. Both the plot and the setting are incredibly intriguing and captivating. I loved the French influences in all aspects of the story—it makes for a very vivid and enticing atmosphere and Cesarine is the perfect backdrop for everything that takes place. She also does a wonderful job with the dual perspective narrative and creates two very individual voices for our two main characters.

Even though the romance is the main focus of the story, the fantasy aspect is very strong as well and is of almost equal importance. The fantastical elements, though more of a side plot for now, don’t really take a backseat in terms of detail or how significant they are to the overall story. Mahurin crafts an interesting and intricate magic system as strongly as she crafts the romance. It’s something I’m particularly looking forward to seeing in more detail in the next book.

The only minor issue I had plot-wise was the event that sends Lou and Reid down the path toward their marriage. Though my opinion shifted by the end of the novel, as I was able to see every event throughout in a different light, the scene still felt a little bit clumsy and heavy-handed and also completely random, maybe a little too much so. It wasn’t at all what I would have expected and was a bit of a letdown for me, so I sort of wish it had been done differently. But overall, this barely affected my enjoyment of the story as a whole.

This novel holds one of the most brilliant and beautiful casts of characters I’ve ever come across. Lou is everything. She is one of my new favorite characters of all time—I fell completely and utterly in love with her right from the very start of the novel. She is so strong despite the pain she has been through and the terror and uncertainty of her life now. Lou is sassy and sarcastic and absolutely hilarious. She’s tough and guarded much of the time, but underneath, she is so intensely loving, caring, and loyal—just an absolutely beautiful person. I connected with her so easily, and it was an absolute joy reading from her perspective and following her journey.

It took me a while to warm up to Reid, but I definitely had by the end of the novel. He’s quite set in his ways and his prejudices against women, always acting in a very traditional way toward Lou. They are living in a time when women are little more than the property of their husbands and this is something that is clearly ingrained in Reid. He is protective of her and chivalrous to a fault, but it takes a while from him to sound anywhere near loving, even after it’s clear he has feelings for her. At first, I struggled a bit reading his chapters because his attitude and initial inability to be open-minded frustrated me so much. However, there is one major reason I noticed that I think prevented me from connecting with him sooner.

Yes, he is very close-minded in many of his beliefs and his actions, but I felt that there were a few times where things sort of got lost in translation in a sense. There would be scenes from his point of view where his actions and words felt a bit confusing to me and I took them as negative. But later on, something would cause me to realize what exactly he meant by what he said or did and that it wasn’t in fact negative. I don’t think I explained that particularly well, but basically, I think there were times where his point of view could have been written more clearly. In the end, though, I did end up really liking him and it does become very obvious how much he truly cares and would do anything for Lou.

I ended up absolutely adoring the relationship between Lou and Reid. It unfolds and transforms in such a natural way. As I said before, hate-to-love is one of my least favorite tropes, but it is done so well here that I didn’t really mind it. It’s still not something I enjoy reading about and that obviously does impact my rating of the novel slightly. However, few people can get me to like a novel that features this type of relationship, and Mahurin definitely nailed it. My problem with the trope tends to stem from the tension being completely nonsensical and feeling like it’s just thrown in to create drama, and you will not find that in this book.

The tensions between Lou and Reid feel so realistic and necessary—they have every reason to be wary of each other. Understandably, that they sometimes overlook what they truly know about the other as a person in favor of ideas and prejudices that were hammered into them from a young age. They are both strong characters that are unapologetically themselves and, while it causes them to butt heads at first, it turns into a mutual respect for each other and, of course, love as well. The issues that create conflict, in the beginning, are what come to be the things that pull them together rather than drive them apart. And the sum of both of them individually—the strengths and the flaws—is what brings them each to love the other wholly.

There are also some stellar side characters in this story. Coco was, by far, my favorite—she is totally someone I’d love to be friends with. The friendship between her and Lou is so lovely and I’d gladly spend hours just reading about them. They have such a fun dynamic and they always have each other’s backs no matter what. They are the definition of found family and their story warmed my heart. Ansel, a bit like Reid, took me a while to start really liking, but he turns out to be an absolutely wonderful person and a great addition to that lovable found family.

Now for one of the most surprising things I’ve probably ever said and also one of the biggest contradictions when it comes to my typical taste in stories. As I’ve already said, I’m generally not a fan of books that heavily focus on romance. However, this book was so well written that one of my absolute favorite scenes in the entire story was the scene where Lou and Reid make love for the first time, as well as the truly heartwarming lead-up to it.

I am beyond picky about how sex scenes are written in novels. So many fall into the trap of using overly descriptive and flowery prose and a lot of just plain weird words for everything. While I think that being extremely blunt and cold about it is not a good direction to go in either, the flowery descriptions and oversharing of details tend to make these scenes feel very awkward and unrealistic.

The sex scene in this book does not fall into either of these traps and I absolutely adored it. It just feels so realistic and natural, and that is exactly what I frequently find is missing from these types of scenes. Mahurin continues to write as beautifully as ever but is, I felt, fairly minimal on the exact details of the scene. And this is exactly why it works so well.

While yes, there is still detail, she relies more often on the reader’s knowledge of what takes place during a sexual encounter, which cuts out the need for the overly flowery prose and questionable word choices. In a number of places, she writes it in a “fade to black” way without actually fading to black. Mahurin has created a perfect example of how a sex scene should be written and how it should feel to the reader. The focus is on the passion and love between Lou and Reid—on not just physical feeling, but emotional and mental as well. It is so beautiful and natural and is, by far, one of the best-executed scenes I’ve ever come across.

Suffice it to say, I really enjoyed this book. It is so beautifully written and captivating—it is very easy to fall into and get lost in. Shelby Mahurin has created a magical and emotional tale, both heartbreaking and heartwarming that, at its core, brilliantly demonstrates the power of love of all kinds. The story and especially the characters will definitely stick with me for a long time. I’ve honestly been thinking about it constantly since I finished it a few months ago. And, of course, I am absolutely dying to get my hands on the next book in this series. I love how this ended and I cannot wait to be back with these characters once again and see their story continue.

#serpent & dove #shelby mahurin

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evieveevee · 4 years

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What We Lost: Returning to Tumblr in 2020

On December 17th, 2018, Tumblr banned 'adult content' across the site, marking the end of an era. The ban was the result of a cavalcade of issues which reportedly made maintaining NSFW content unfeasible for Tumblr. Now, it's 2020. I'm back on Tumblr, and I can't help but meditate on what we've lost both on Tumblr, and across the globe in 2020.

Part One: Tumblr and Adult Content

*Things we lost to the flame Things we'll never see again All that we've amassed Sits before us, shattered into ash

— Bastille, "Things We Lost In The Fire"*

A bit of personal history: Tumblr was the primary community I used in various forms from 2012 onwards, associating with various fandoms, doing what I could to design interesting things. The various communities I was involved in intersected with social justice communities, and eventually I dug into those further and tried to learn to better myself in the process, starting along the path to becoming the person I did.

Part of that process was also learning to love my own body, a thing I was not particularly good at and still struggle a bit with nowadays. One of the ways I did this was by making 'adult content', or more plainly, pornography. It was a unique opportunity to experiment with femininity and sexuality - something I'd been very closed off from as part of my upbringing - in a supportive, fun environment. Experimenting with my self image first in this way, in semi-private, led to me experimenting more publicly and eventually embracing aspects of that as part of my day to day life. That's right: making pornography was part of what led me down the path to figuring out I was trans and embracing that part of me.

Making porn on Tumblr was a great time; the adult content creators and consumers community on the site was largely supportive of queer people and sexuality, different body types, all manner of things. It was - in my experience - a healthy and fun place to be, and certainly one of the better places you could be on the internet for a visual medium like pornography. Tumblr's format made it easy to share both adult content you made yourself, and stuff you were curating. Vex Ashley wrote that "this sharing was so desperately vital for women and other marginalised people whose sexualities are often overlooked or infantilised in media about sex in preference for the tastes of the traditional porn consumer – the straight white guy" in a eulogy and love letter to Tumblr's adult content communities.

Tumblr's format remains novel to my knowledge as well: the notion of having a large image-focused feed which also allows for easy sharing and curation, gorgeous, high resolution pieces and photos to be uploaded with relatively little compression, custom arrangements of photosets, and personalized theming of your blog. There was, and remains, lots of potential for expression on Tumblr., and its focus remains unique. Twitter and Mastodon's focus is on what's written, Wordpress doesn't have the sort of interlinking of blogs that Tumblr does, and Facebook is... Facebook (read: evil).

I think the novelty of that format is what made the announcement of the ban on 'adult content' so impactful. Even looking back at the framing of it is gross: the post posits that 'adult content' is something which is negative, and says that removing it is working towards a 'more positive' Tumblr. There appears to be an attempt to try and strike a balance in allowing conversation about sexuality and such, but this is the killing blow. A huge portion of the community, including countless queer and furry artists, needed to find a new home online.

3 months after the ban had hit, traffic had reportedly dropped off 20%. Recent data from SimilarWeb, the outfit which published that initial data, shows that visits to the site have dropped off a little bit more, but have stayed otherwise pretty consistent. August 2020's data shows about 317 million visits. [1] In other words: any hope that this move would allow Tumblr was dashed. A massive portion of the userbase deleted their accounts after archiving them; Tumblr and the internet at large had lost a massive, vibrant chunk of community, and it was completely in vain.

I lost contact with a bunch of those folks I was following on Tumblr for years. The mass exodus left both people who wanted to find and share artwork and adult content and the people who made it completely adrift. Years later, some artists are still picking up the pieces. Archaic policy like SESTA/FOSTA being brought into the picture has left very few standing when it comes to adult content, Twitter included. Who knows how long that will last? If something happens to change the way that Twitter handles adult content, for example, what options do casual creators like myself have?

Fortunately, platforms like OnlyFans exist. But even those are at potential risk from legislation like the EARN IT Act, not to mention the danger this poses to Twitter and to the internet at large. OnlyFans and its ilk, as they exist right now, are fantastic for sex workers because they offer pay-gating and a variety of features to make sure sex workers get paid. But they leave those of us who want to be able to curate the content they enjoy or casually create their own content freely without real options, and without real community.

We stand to lose a lot, and as always people in the margins will be the ones most impacted: the queer, the people of color, the disabled; all will suffer greatly if adult content is found without a home. Media dealing with queer themes is enough to be considered "adult content" by some and it's not hard to imagine what we could be staring down the barrel of here.

What have we lost in eliminating platforms like this?

Part Two: 2020 and the World

*These are the things The things we lost The things we lost in the fire, fire, fire.

— Bastille, "Things We Lost In The Fire"*

Meditating on what we have lost seems to be a running theme for the year 2020.

January: New Year's Day. In Aotearoa New Zealand, smoke covers the skies from a fire a literal ocean away. The Australian bush has been on fire, part of one of the most and it has turned the skies of a nation not it's own orange at midday, across thousands of kilometers. What did we lose in those fires? What stories and history? What wildlife, what species? What will remain afterwards? What will grow anew?

April: Aotearoa New Zealand hits the peak of COVID-19 related lockdown with the entire nation moved to Level 4, meaning that nothing except truly essential services, such as roadworks, pharmacies, and supermarkets were open. During that time, I thought a lot about how some of my favorite small shops were doing; the bakery with astonishingly good pies, the charming dollar store which always has a few things that catch my eye, the coffee cart near one of the local parks every morning. As a nation, Aotearoa acted early to deal with COVID-19 with a strong hand, and it was risky for all of those small shops across the country. What would we come out the other side of the lockdowns having lost, both in terms of human cost and cost to the places around us?

May: Following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, massive protests against police brutality, racism, and white supremacy break out across the United States of America. Daily protests have continued to the time of writing in some cities. George Floyd is one of 781 people killed by police in 2020 at the time of writing in the United States alone [2]. 1099 people were killed by police in 2019 [3]. What incredible lives and stories have been lost in the process? Are those stories being told now? How do we prevent this from happening again? (Hint: defunding the police will be a start, and supporting the cause now is a good choice too.)

It is now September: The incompetence of the US Government has allowed COVID-19 to spread beyond control, leaving tens of thousands of deaths in its wake; lives and stories which must be remembered and their stories carried on by others. The western coast of the United States is on fire, blanketed in smoke and ashes. Massive west coast cities like San Francisco gain an apocalyptic feeling as the skies turn orange, like they did for me in January. Friends of friends lose everything in small Oregon towns. The costs of the prolonged fires will be paid by people all up the coast; it's their health outcomes which will suffer. What will we lose as a result of this in the future? What can we do to make things better?

I want to be clear: this is not a comprehensive list, and is centered around the things that me and my social circles have been aware of and talked about. Even with that consideration, we have to reckon with massive, ongoing, and far reaching concerns. The loss felt as a result of all of the above issues is staggering, and far reaching, and we must fight to ensure that loss is not in vain. Voting alone is not going to solve these concerns, and there's more to concern yourself with than any one person should have to cope with. There's not a magic bullet to solve all this stuff though.

Rather than pretend that I have one, I want to propose a couple things to close this out: one bit of advice, and one plea for yourself and others.

The advice: pick your battles carefully. Pick issues you want to focus in on, and fight for those things to make things better where you live, and in your social circles. Choose things to care deeply about first. Keep caring about them.

The plea: think carefully about the questions I've asked throughout this piece, and think about the things in your life and communities that you have lost. Think about how to make sure those losses are taken with you and learned from; to take lessons learned and better yourself and the people around you. Think about the things you don't want to lose, and how to fight like hell for them.

Move forwards to something, and some place better than where we are now. Stand united with the people around you, and press on.

*Do you understand that we will never be the same again? The future's in our hands and we will never be the same again.

— Bastille, "Things We Lost In The Fire"*

If you enjoyed this piece and want to support my work, please contribute to my Ko-fi. If you are interested in re-publishing this piece on another site, please contact me either here or via my business email.

References

[1] Data provided by SimilarWeb; accessed on 15/09/2019 at 5:30am. (https://www.similarweb.com/website/tumblr.com/)

[2] Data provided by Mapping Police Violence (https://mappingpoliceviolence.com); accessed on 15/09/2020 at 4:08am NZT

[3] Data provided by Mapping Police Violence's (https://mappingpoliceviolence.com) database, downloaded on 15/09/2020 at 4:08am NZT. Count obtained using the following formula:

=COUNTIFS($'2013-2020 Police Killings'.F:F,">=1/1/2019",$'2013-2020 Police Killings'.F:F,"<1/1/2020")

#tielwrites

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t100ficrecsblog · 4 years

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three thoughts about john murphy (& 1 thought about folklore)

ONE

John Murphy… where to start?! I didn’t like him exactly, but I was intrigued by him from early on. His motivations fluctuated and he was hard to pin down initially, but I found him much more interesting than the other male characters so I guess that’s how it started for me. Canon tries to sell Murphy as selfish or uncaring or primarily out for himself, but only in very early s1 do I ever buy this about him. He was making efforts to be helpful & doing good deeds ages ago, so I actually find it pretty frustrating that both canon & some of fandom are now suddenly on the “we’re so proud” of Murphy train. He has matured into a better person, yes, but the seed of that was clearly visible in s1 and it’s one of the reasons I love Murphy because for me at least, the glimpses of who he really was when he let his guard down have always pulled me right in. -JENN

One of the best arcs on the show. Murphy’s grown and changed so much over the course of the show, while also staying true to himself. I think it’s been interesting to him progress, but just as fascinating to see where he stays the same or even regresses at times. I think Murphy really encompasses how good people can be bad sometimes, but learn and overcome and, ultimately, live. -RYN

he is far more fair and pragmatic than people give him credit for. i think a lot of it is him feeling the effects of being expendable. i also don’t believe this is a new development - he wanted to help finn in season two, he helped bellamy in season three, he stole medicine in season four, he stayed behind for raven in season five, he didn’t want to start a war in season six. he’s not a hero or a villain, he’s just a typical complex human. -ELLE

TWO

I’m a big fan of Murphy’s sense of humor, his ability to read people & situations, and how he’s really not much of a grudge holder, all things considered. He doesn’t get enough credit for that. I don’t view him as comic relief for the show though - to me Murphy’s arcs over the seasons have often been deeper and more complex than they first appear to be, and I don’t know that other characters would have come out of them as intact as Murphy has. He doesn’t get enough credit for that either. Yes, he’s a survivor but he’s also had to develop an incredibly thick skin to deal with the things he has been through. So basically what I’m saying is that Murphy deserves the world! -JENN

Morality. I think Murphy perfectly demonstrates the morality of t100. How it changes, ebbs and flows. How it can adapt and become better, but also lose hope and go to extremes when under pressures to survive. Then, even amongst the darkest times, there’s always the lingering feeling of hope and light. -RYN

john murphy (thanks to richard harmon) elevates every storyline and character he’s involved with. i know i’m biased, but i feel he is criminally underused. he’s often used in the b or even c plots, but he shines so much when he’s with the rest of the mains. part of the reason i love murven so much is that i find murphy and raven so natural and electric together. they have such an easygoing banter, and their development is second to none. i feel like the characters (and actors) can bounce off one another like no other pair. -ELLE

THREE

he is more than just comedic relief or the resident “cockroach” (while i’m here: i viciously hate the cockroach joke as well as the “shut up murphy” shtick). i think a lot of people tend to overlook him, but he is actually such an interesting and compelling character in terms of mental health. i definitely feel like in the modern world, he would be diagnosed with something. that’s why so many of his fans relate to him and see something that maybe a lot of viewers wouldn’t. he’s smart and loyal and kind - but like anyone, has inner struggles. -ELLE

Dad!Murphy rights. This has been living in my mind for a while now, and I am even part of the dad!murphy enthusiasts founded by the amazing @queenemori. We all are passionate about Murphy being a dad, and regardless of our ship of choice, love to talk about it and come up with headcanons and fic that includes the dynamic. -RYN

Now that we’re so close to the end, I do regret that canon likely won’t delve more into Murphy’s ties to Abby (before and after her death) and how he connects her to his own parents. Also his isolation/PTSD in s5 & his reliance on drinking in s6/s7 are pieces I think we’re missing out on too. I think these aspects of who Murphy has grown to be are important to his character, his past and his future. I’m glad that fic writers who love Murphy will tackle topics like these though, because they are stories that deserve to be told. -JENN

what’s your favorite song from folklore?

Probably betty, though I really love august and cardigan as well! There’s just something about betty that really gets me in my feels and it’s such a poignant song. It’s been on repeat for me for a while and I don’t see that changing soon. -ryn

other than all of them? right this minute it’s maybe ‘invisible string’. though again, it’s really all of them. -elle

How dare you ask me something so difficult! Every listen this answer might change but Exile & Mirrorball are consistently in the top 3. -jenn

#t100fic4blm #murven #john murphy #raven reyes #murven fanfiction #murven round-up

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yeaahishowedupatyourparty · 4 years

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OOC POST: My muses in AGE ORDER and a quick description about their relationship status. Sometimes I find people really want to plot serious connections or there’s a muse looking for a solid relationship - which is totally cool! some of mine are too. But, it’ll also give you the heads up if you’re trying to plot something romantic/fwb with them because you’ll know where they are currently at.

ANASTASIA - 28, 19th April - Aries, hetero

CURRENT STATUS: Taken, Married to an NPC. Anastasia is married but resents her husband. They were the blue print for Disney and Brody, Kendall and Mason and the rest of the arranged - yet not quite as smooth - relationships from the Carmichael family. Being the golden child and favourite for both parents, she was mainly concerned with pleasing them which meant she was married by 19 and then had her first child - Darcy - at twenty. Now, she’s older and has established herself as a successful business woman, she’s starting to realise her husband isn’t for her. Don’t be fooled though; she keeps him around for his old money family and the security of Darcy and Belle, but her eye is absolutely wandering and if she finds someone who ticks all of the right boxes at St Judes, she’d be more than willing to have an affair and perhaps eventually divorce.

DISNEY - 25, 15th December - Sagittarius, hetero

CURRENT STATUS: Taken, Married to Brody. The chances of her straying away from Brody and VERY low. She’s probably the most fixed out of all of my characters. She’s been with him since the beginning of high school, even though obviously at 11, they weren’t very serious, but after 14 years with him, she’s starting to realise she wouldn’t really know what to do without him. With that being said, HAPPINESS is a completely different subject. She’s content and she knows she’s treated decently but the problems that riddle their relationships have definitely taken away the initial spark she felt. While she might flirt and entertain things with others, Fleur and Dixie are her absolute #1 and she’d never do anything to pull the ‘perfect family image’ away from them.

PARK - 25, 15th December - Sagittarius, hetero

CURRENT STATUS: It’s complicated, involved with Gisele. Park definitely has feelings for Gisele, that much is obvious, but he’s also not someone to settle down just because of what he feels. Also, he doesn’t want to necessarily ‘settle down’ - the idea scares him. Commitment-phobe might be a bit far because he has genuinely committed to girlfriend’s in the past, but it takes a lot of time for him to be ‘ready’. They’ve agreed to be ‘exclusive’ though, which basically boils down to them only sleeping with each other and while he definitely keeps his promise on that, it doesn’t mean that she’s the only one who has his attention. If there’s genuine chemistry with somebody else, he’d 100% get to know them and then do whatever felt right.

POSIE - 25, 5th August - Leo, bisexual

CURRENT STATUS: Single, not looking to settle. Posie is definitely just enjoying being young and seeing who’s out there. She’s not really looking for a partner and is definitely more excited about the prospect of becoming a big model than settling down and finding a boyfriend or girlfriend. Posie’s ideal “love life” is causal hook-ups and maybe the occasional fun date but with no strings attached. That’s not to say that she WON’T fall for someone. If she met somebody who matched her energy and wasn’t so quick to tie things down, she’d probably stick around a little more and the process would be gradual. She holds the firm belief that settling down in your twenties is the equivalent to living your forties twice. The prospect of being limited or having to always consider somebody else frightens her.

RUBY - 24, 23rd December - Capricorn, bisexual

CURRENT STATUS: Newly single, not looking. Ruby very freshly has just broken up with Rosalie and is heart-broken about it. It’s in her nature to try and push through things and really focus on the positives like her work, friendships and family but she’s finding it painfully hard. Rosalie wasn’t just her girlfriend, but also her best friend. At this point in time, she really doesn’t appreciate anybody who tries to flirt or make her move on etc. In general, she’s been struggling with her self-esteem throughout the majority of her relationship. Rosalie was often disheartened by how successful Ruby’s career was, but Ruby always felt inferior and overlooked when it came to physical appearance. Being petite and lacking any of the popular/desired hour-glass features, she doesn’t think highly of how she looks at all and this definitely is making her stray away from being flirtatious or confident at the moment.

ALYSSA - 24, 17th June - Gemini, bisexual

CURRENT STATUS: Single, seeing what happens/open.

Alyssa is open to getting into a relationship but a lot like Posie, it isn’t her priority right now. She’s focused on her career and having fun but she isn’t actively resisting it either. She’s very go-with-the-flow in general and doesn’t put any pressure on herself to be settled down. I feel like she ideal situation(s) at the moment would definitely be more of an open situation, maybe one or two people she’s seeing and talking to before she gets deeper with anything. In terms of fwb, she’s definitely always open to that and is happy with one night stands.

ADRIAN - 23, 12th August - Leo, heterosexual

CURRENT STATUS: Taken/It’s complicated, with Holly.

Adrian has been in a long-term relationship with Holly for a while now and is very obviously in love with her. At the moment, they’re technically broken up but not really. He loves her and knows they’ll get back together - even if they don’t, that wouldn’t mean he’s anywhere near ready to move on. I wouldn’t say their relationship is as fixed as Brody and Disney but it’d take something drastic for him to even be remotely interested in anybody else at this point. And then even if he was, and he fell out of love with Holly properly, Haley would be his #1 consideration and there definitely wouldn’t be a girl who’s a bigger priority.

DREW - 23, 3rd July - Cancer, bisexual

CURRENT STATUS: Taken, dating Annabel.

Drew is easily my most committed/settled guy right now. I can’t even think of much to write because he genuinely only has eyes for Annabel right now. If that changed or if they broke up, he’d probably still be more focused on trying to get her back so, yeah. In terms of fwb/relationship plots, he’s really not interested. He’s happy with her and loves her a lot.

LOUIS - 22, 5th January - Capricorn, heterosexual

CURRENT STATUS: taken, dating Lexi.

Lexi and Louis have definitely had a complicated relationship. Sometimes they’re super into each other and other times they’re distant. I don’t think it helps that Louis isn’t the commitment type in general and finds it very hard to be consistent with being romantic/very involved in the relationship. That being said, he only wants her and while, again, he’s reasonably young and definitely gets his ego inflated when people flirt with him - he feels like Lexi is the one right now & isn’t interested in anybody else in the same way.

JANEY - 21, 2nd May - Taurus, heterosexual

CURRENT STATUS: Taken, dating Wes. Janey is dating Wes and is fully in love with him. After being involved in trafficking and finding her way back to the Springs by chance, he’s been her safe place for almost two years and he’s very patient and understanding with her. It’s only now in recent times, where she’s constantly being reminded by different people of how much fun he used to have with Riley, she’s starting to feel self-conscious or like a burden to him. Even with her insecurities, her mind doesn’t even think about going to anybody else. She feels like she’s constantly ready for him to finally realise that she takes a lot more effort than she’s worth, but even if they broke up, she’s too introverted to become involved with anybody else unless they were willing to pursue/be patient with her. It’s just who she is.

SORAYA - 20, 11th June - Gemini, pansexual

CURRENT STATUS: Taken, Engaged to Julian Soraya is a romantic and a big believer in fairy-tales by nature, whether she’s taken or single. However, this year and last I think real life got a little bit TOO real when she realised being engaged wasn’t as easy as being whisked away, having a beautiful wedding and living happily ever after. She’s one thousand percent in love with Julian and wants to be with him but I think, if she’s being honest, she’s struggling with how she wants to be with him. She just knows she does. As much as people hate to hear it, Dallas also plays a big part in her love life even today. She knows he loves her still and she will always have love for him, even though she has tried to push back from that in the past. I think their connection definitely cripples her in terms of moving forwards properly. It’s not a romantic love for her anymore but it’s definitely a significant connection.

ZARA - 20, 13th December - Sagittarius, bisexual

CURRENT STATUS: Taken, dating Danny.

Zara definitely gives as good as she gets when it comes to relationships and I think people often make the mistake of thinking that she’s one of the more softer/weaker girls. Take Cameron and Danny; she genuinely didn’t mean to come in between them but she did like Danny and made no secret in that before they got together. She’s both happy and stable with Danny right now and feels settled in her relationship. Like with most of my characters with the exception of maybe one or two, her relationship isn’t completely fixed but she’s definitely not looking at anybody else.

IMOGEN - 19, 24th October - Scorpio, bisexual

CURRENT STATUS: Single, messing with Nate, open to everything.

Imogen is the ultimate game player when it comes to dating. She always finds herself going back to Nate because they’re kind of each other’s first real loves, but she enjoys getting attention and playing the field. She knows people criticise and look down on her for it but she really doesn’t give a fuck. She’s not ready for real commitment and won’t be for a long time; she’s content with being on-and-off with Nate and also casually dating around in the meantime. In terms of who she’s attracted to, she’ll give anybody a chance but if you’re too soppy, can’t keep up or try to tie her down too much, she’ll leave.

TANNER - 18, 5th March - Pisces, bisexual

CURRENT STATUS: Single, active nuisance, going with the flow. Tanner is VERY casual with relationships, probably more casual than Imogen. He’s really not superficial in terms of what people look like; he kind of sees the attractiveness in everybody and really doesn’t have a physical preference. However, if he feels like there’s people he can’t vibe with or anyone who is just too into themselves, he’ll back off :’) As most people know, he’s pretty confident and flirty and makes the first move but being only 18, he’s also pretty immature with it all. He tends to get involved in things that should probably be left. He might have a little bit TOO much self-confidence but he genuinely does have respect for others and is never pushy or too excessive.

FLORENCE 18, 20th August - Virgo, hetero

CURRENT STATUS: Taken, Married to Dom. Florence is only young and definitely naive but she’s super in love with Dom and is happy in her marriage. She definitely wouldn’t think about cheating or wandering while with him & is probably a little more reliant on him to think for her/make decisions than she shouldn’t be. Not through him being a toxic person, but through her just being that way in general. However, recently she was made aware of a conversation between Dom and Margo that has definitely wrecked her trust a bit. She still wouldn’t consider hurting him back or doing anything that meant she was ‘getting even’ but there’s a big part of her that’s now questioning whether it’s working.

JACK - 18, 18th November - Scorpio, hetero

CURRENT STATUS: Single/It’s complicated, involved with Evie Jack and Evie were dating for a while before St Judes and their relationship has always been on and off. They’re currently off, but they still flirt a lot. Overall though, Jack is definitely not ready to commit or settle down with anybody and just because Evie is the one he tends to gravitate towards, it doesn’t mean he’s against getting with anybody else. He’s just open to whatever happens and is happy to have fun.

CHARACTERS BY YEAR GROUP

FIRST YEARS

Jack

Florence

Tanner

Imogen

SECOND YEARS

Zara

Soraya

Janey

THIRD YEARS

Louis

Drew

Adrian

FOURTH YEARS

Alyssa

Ruby

Posie

Park

Disney

SIXTH YEARS

Anastasia

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homenum-revelio-hq · 4 years

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Welcome (again) to the Order of the Phoenix, Beth!

You have been accepted for the role of EMMELINE VANCE with the requested age change! We really loved reading your portrayal for Emmeline! We especially enjoyed the details you brought in about her family and upbringing, along with the fact that healing doesn’t always equal warm, gentle, and empathetic. We love having you on the dash already and are excited to see you bring this introspective healer to life!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Beth

AGE: 24

TIMEZONE: CST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I feel like I’m literally always around on Discord right now, even if I’m not on the dash. I’ve been trying to do replies at least every other day currently. Given the current COVID situation and summer upcoming, my activity probably won’t change until mid-August.

ANYTHING ELSE: N/A

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Emmeline Vance

AGE: 25

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Emmeline is a ciswoman who uses She/Her pronouns. If she were bold enough to use a label, bisexual would probably fit best, but Emmeline isn’t particularly open about her sexuality and desires. She’s always had more important things to focus on and didn’t really find dating worth the fuss. She’s had a few partners here and there, usually men, but Emmeline has never been in what she considers a serious relationship.

BLOOD STATUS: Halfblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Ravenclaw

ANY CHANGES: I wrote her age up there as 25 instead of 27 because with all the characters right at the same age, I kind of like the idea of her being just under that, of being familiar with them from school but not actually in that group. This isn’t a sticking point or anything, and I don’t have a problem with her still being 27.

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Emmeline, a mind so fine, never really expected to shine. Cheesy rhyme? Perhaps. One that would annoy her? Oh, definitely. Emmeline is a person of practicality as often as is possible. Learning new things brings her great joy, but it’s as much about how that information can be used as anything else. Most of the time, Emmeline keeps information to herself. She’d rather be sure than spread false information, and when rumors at the subject of conversation, she’d rather leave things to be spread for themselves.

She has always had a deep fascination with understanding how things work, and sometimes that has meant taking them apart to put them back together. That problem-solving occasionally takes on a singular focus, which didn’t always make Emmeline popular among her peers going up. Given the right situation, she can be a bit intense. A lifetime of trying to monitor that intensity often has Emmeline defaulting to her second instinct: silence. It’s easier to wait and see what others bring to a situation. It’s easier to understand their perspectives, information, and biases when she doesn’t cloud it with her own first. Sometimes Emmeline will then engage in conversation, but if she senses a potential argument that she can’t win anyway, Emmeline often won’t try. She’ll leave it at that, whatever it is.

Still, as much as she pretends to be able to understand the situation as a whole, Emmeline knows she has shortcomings. She often fails to realize how infrequently the whole picture is considered. That’s not to say she’s more objective than most people. She isn’t. She’s just more likely to dig until she thinks she has the most complete story possible. Then she’ll dig a little more just to be sure. It means she has a lot of useless information, but it also means she’s not likely to argue back when someone is wrong when Emmeline doesn’t for sure know if her conclusions are correct. Instead she sits there quietly and just knows the other person is wrong.

Most people seem to expect healers to be especially empathetic. Emmeline is not. She does try. She tries to put herself in other people’s perspectives, but she’s much better doing that from a knowledge perspective than from an emotional one. “If I didn’t know why my skin was blue and steaming, I would also react negatively to someone else not knowing the cause,” instead of a more empathetic viewpoint like, “They are afraid because they don’t understand what’s going on.” She needs a bit of the concrete and the observable. Although Emmeline doesn’t externalize many of her thoughts, she struggles when other people do the same because she isn’t good at reading the emotion within the silence. At work, that’s easy enough to handle because she can ask patients how they’re feeling and coworkers for more information. With the Order, that’s a little more challenging, especially if it’s a conversation Emmeline isn’t technically in, just present for. They seem to happen often. After all, Emmeline is so easy to overlook.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

Life isn’t easy in the magical world with a surname that hasn’t been around for the last hundred years or so. Margaret Baxter knew that better than anyone as the child of two muggleborns, but she certainly didn’t do any climbing by marrying a muggle named Allan Vance. She practically lived like a muggle too. It wasn’t until her daughter Emmeline was seven that she fully understood that some of her horticulturist mother’s prettiest and most exciting plants weren’t ones her classmates knew. Nor could any of their mother’s produce a couple drops of dittany to heal scrapes and bruises before giving the ever important kiss to finish making it better. Emmeline grew up in an almost entirely muggle household with little bits of magic that Maggie couldn’t live without. Emmeline had to learn early on which were which, and she needed to know which things couldn’t be mentioned to her friends. Her own magic was most likely to appear when she was trying to make things work. Allan walked into the room one day to find his favorite working model train floating through the air in pieces as Emmeline skipped between them, pausing every once in a while to inspect one. Maggie was able to put it back together, but under his breath, Allan would still occasionally complain that the steam puffed too realistically now.

Allan was a postal worker who believed quite firmly in the importance of hard work and dedication. Had he been a magical man, he likely would have been in Hufflepuff. While that work ethic was something Emmeline did inherit, she was always more like her mother, interested in understanding above all else. Maggie’s interests ended up in herbology. She had a gift for determining how to help plants flourish and cross-develop to create viable hybrids with helpful gifts. While Emmeline never shared her mother’s interest in plants, she embraced Maggie’s methodology toward problem-solving. It became an important step forward for Emmeline.

OCCUPATION:

Emmeline knew from fourth year on that she wanted to be a Healer.

She’d always been good at charms and transfiguration, and in her pursuit of theoretical knowledge about human transfiguration longer before she was old enough to actually do it, Emmeline stumbled upon healing textbooks in the Hogwarts library. They were all well and good, but they couldn’t tell her as much as a real teacher. She went to Madame Pomphrey initially just to have a few questions answered, but the woman knew so much about a subject Emmeline hadn’t realized went so many layers deep. Madame Pomphrey saw her spark and encouraged it, suggesting to Emmeline’s other professors side projects which might be of interest to the young Vance girl. By her seventh year, Emmeline was helping Slughorn brew a few healing potions and fetching herbs from the greenhouses whenever Madame Pomphrey asked. That gave her a head start on some of her peers when she applied for St. Mungo’s Healer Program and, when coupled with her impressive NEWT results, looked quite remarkable to her mentors. Emmeline completed the program as fast as possible, happy to be able to lend a hand and make a difference.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

Emmeline learned early on that a person’s value is on what they can achieve, but the magical world is full of people who look at pedigree instead. She’s not even first generation. Not second either. She’s got two generations of magic flowing through her veins, but it’s not about the magic itself; it’s about the heritage that can be used as a weapon. Emmeline is not stranger to this weapon, and she watched it slowly grow stronger around her during her time in training as a Healer. From the first whispers of a group defying Lord Voldemort and his followers, Emmeline knew that was a group she needed to find. At first she didn’t know how, and Emmeline continued on as normal. She couldn’t sit idle forever, though, and it took a few months of listening around corners and staying quiet in the backs of rooms before she’d connected the group to Hogwarts. She didn’t know what it was called or who was involved, but if it happened at Hogwarts, Emmeline knew Albus Dumbledore had to know.

After graduation, Emmeline had continued to meet Poppy Pomphrey for tea at least once a month as they transitioned from a true student mentorship to friends. It was at one such tea that Emmeline revealed what she had learned and insisted that she needed an audience with Dumbledore about it. Poppy agreed to set it up, and less than a week later, Emmeline was a member of the Order of the Phoenix and already working to create a hospital space at the recently acquired Potter Estate. She found it a bit unsettling that such a young wix could have this kind of shelter to casually provide, but Emmeline wasn’t about to question it. James seemed sincere and wasn’t pandering to other purebloods, so Emmeline took it for what it was.

While she could do some to fight, Emmeline very rarely saw battle directly. Most of the time she paced around the Potter Estate until people started arriving back. She’d been pushed to her limits helping the Order. Emmeline was good at her job, but she hated that she had to strain so often. It wasn’t on her own account either. People shouldn’t be put at risk as often as they were. Still, they weren’t doing enough. Too many people got hurt for too little and sometimes no reward. Emmeline couldn’t stand it, especially when she suspected egos and misinformation contributed so frequently. No one ever seemed to be thorough enough when they clarified the facts, and even if they were, they shared half-truths. Emmeline has grown tired of people trying to hold things back. This is a war, and people are dying. Now is not the time to try and seem smart by keeping things to oneself.

SURVIVAL:

Emmeline’s life looks pretty standard from the outside. She lives in a small two bedroom flat and uses the second as an office and storeroom for healing supplies. She remembers to eat regularly and works her shifts at St. Mungo’s with no complaint. She checks in at the Potter Estate about every other day, even if it just means reorganizing her supply of pain potions. She hears things and she absorbs the information, and that cycle had become a bit of a sticking point in her life. Emmeline is so afraid of not being there when someone needs her that she’s allowed basically everything else in her life to slip into the background.

It was easy for her friends and family members to believe that Emmeline was just throwing herself into her work, perhaps too easy. There’s no turning back now, though. Emmeline made a choice, and it’s one she intends to see through. Some days that just means getting through to the next one. She has no idea what the future holds, and at this point, Emmeline is almost afraid of what comes after because it’s easier unimaginable horror or unknowable potential.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Emmeline is perhaps one of the people devoting the most time to the Order, and much of that is in direct service to her fellow members. One might expect that to translate to having more close confidantes in the group, but Emmeline doesn’t take it personally. She’s never been the most popular person in a room. Plus, not being the center of attention has its advantages.

One of those advantages is that she isn’t expected to respond positively if pureblood Order members mention their supremacist families. She hates hearing about it, and that’s just one more reminder that some people in the Order have more to lose than others if Lord Voldemort wins. People like Alice Longbottom have a safety net, family who would assumedly welcome them back, if there’s anything to forgive at all.

She knows that distrust doesn’t breed strong teamwork, but even the people she has no reason to mistrust don’t always leave Emmeline particularly inspired. So many of the members rush to conclusions without the proper facts to back them up, and Marlene McKinnon seems to be one of the worst. That’s not fair, Emmeline knows. She doesn’t know the witch’s full situation, but when every incorrect thing out of her mouth is said with such confidence, it’s hard not to take it personally. Marlene isn’t alone in this unfortunate attitude, but she is perhaps the one Emmeline is stuck dealing with most often. Emmeline tends to stay curt and to the point before quickly slipping away to find someone else for better assistance.

When group meetings so often don’t actually say what they’re meant to say, Emmeline grows frustrated and bored in them. Lately she’s taken to watching others in the circle at such things, and of late, she’s found a kindred soul in Peter Pettigrew. She wishes more people were like them, watching and learning instead of just assuming. She thinks meetings could run more efficiently then. The whole Order could really.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: I have no specific hopes or desires for Emmeline. Romance is far from a primary motivator for her, so it would take good chemistry to start anything.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

Emmeline would consider herself fairly open-minded, if only because she likes to take all the information available, find more, and then use it to come to a conclusion. She isn’t going to hop on any fearmongering broomstick over werewolves being isolated when all the research and Madame Pomphrey can tell her they’re incapable of causing any more damage than the average wix during most phases of the moon. That’s the logic that Emmeline applies to a lot of people problems.

That said, she really doesn’t have time for people who refuse to learn. The world is full of information, and one of the most important things about learning is the ability to acknowledge when your previous understanding was incorrect and move on. Emmeline’s not sure she’s ever met a pureblood who could truly do that. They loved to pretend they understand what the world is like, even when they’re talking about things they don’t understand. Most don’t know anything about the muggles they claim to be so much better than. It absolutely frustrates her because the knowledge is right there. Unlike wizards, muggles don’t try to hide what they have and pretend it’s much better. They don’t even have television for Morgana’s sake! Muggle technology and medicine could be readily available if wix just got over themselves long enough to see it.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? I told myself I wasn’t going to apply for a fourth. That said, I have the time, am enjoying the writing, and felt the call for someone to round out my little collection. I don’t have anyone as level-headed as Emmeline or who manages to carry their confidence without arrogance like she does. I’m excited for the possibilities she creates.

PLOT DROP IDEAS: I do think it would be interesting down the line for someone to challenge Emmeline on something she feels passionately about. Maybe the Order could get ahold of something cursed/semi-cursed that Emmeline strongly disagrees with keeping around because the risks to themselves are higher than the potential rewards as a weapon? Perhaps there’s a building rumor or huge miscommunication that she’s heard enough (indirectly) from everyone involved, but she can’t get people to just talk to each other because they just keep assuming they know the truth when they’re missing major pieces.

ANYTHING ELSE? I love you all! You keep me inspired, clearly.

#homenumaccepted #harry potter rp #marauders rp #marauders rpg #harry potter rpg

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moseswilhelm · 5 years

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Now that you’re all gone, I’ve got a few squishy bits to air out. I don’t feel normal. Whether that means quirky or broken or eccentric depends on the day or hour or seconds between the particular anxiety of waiting on someone to respond to a long string of text. Internally, I’ve cycled between deciding if I am alien, demon, mutated evolution, a plaything of God, a challenge, or just plain old mentally ill. We can guess the healthier option, but there isn’t much use or fun using that.

Knowing you’ve lacked socialization in your youth doesn’t really mean much in trying to solve that problem in the same way that knowing you were just shot won’t help close the wound. What I am trying to say is I wasn’t socialized when I was young and that consistent distant feeling from your peers comes from that. Hearing that you think differently, or have an interesting brain is a nice little compliment albeit a little condescending. Unfortunately, you can’t really monetize excellent explanatory metaphors without the true meat and potatoes of capitalist society: focus. Arguably, effort and hard work and all that, but the measurement of how much you’ve put into something gets a bit blurred when you’ve somehow acquired detail knowledge of the economic turmoil that initiated the Pontic Wars. Someone please give me money for that. Easily an entire week got a bit lost in trying to understand centralized economies in the classical era and not one person paid me. Outrageous. I think writing was my way of trying to accomplish that level of usefulness that we are all trying to achieve. I knew that whatever I went through as a kid helped me develop an approach to understanding things in a unique way, but this is arguably not even useful to myself let alone the world as a whole. Unfortunately this hobby/career is top tier ADD nightmares and require a level of focus and drive comparable to Stephen King just ripped on coke. I neither have the proclivity for weird child orgies and dog monsters or coke. Well thats a lie, coke suits me just fine but my scantron has enough bubbles filled out and I’m already late turning in my “how much of a trainwreck are you” buzzfeed quiz. I see you, red squiggly telling me that “thats” needs an apostrophe. Fuck off, this is art and I refuse to change. Hey, what do you think happens when you’re told that confidence has to come before... y’know... actually being proud of yourself? Arrogance and self-absorption, obviously. You learn very quick that empty confidence is just as meaningless as no confidence, so to kind of fake it you have to really inflate things you have no right inflating and they are inflated on a scale comparable to those around you. Which is arrogant! Its awful! People can do different things at different levels and still be valid! Confidence is valued at an extremely high level to the point where the confidence to present yourself is a bit more important than the character you are supposedly proud of... evidenced plenty by the folks in the public eye known specifically for their charisma and yet somehow failing to actually be a person worth being around. That said, it can get tangled up in actually being proud of yourself. Shocking, I know, but you can’t really lump people who have characters worth being proud of to those just decent at faking it. Faking it. I know imposter syndrome is a thing. I am certainly not really alone in the concept of “oh god I’m faking it” so I won’t really pretend I have some magic insight on the concept (I’m lying I’m absolutely going to present myself as someone with Answers welcome to the fucking show) but when does “holding it together” and “how you present yourself” become imposter syndrome. “Hi this is me who has to be this way in order to balance between seeming different enough to stand out but not so different that you feel disgusted at the concept of change, nice to meet you” I mean what the fuck is a person anyways. Thats not a question. Not even a rhetorical one so if you answered aloud in your head I’m sorry but my psyche is not emotionally prepared for audience participation right now so clam up. Finding yourself is always a precarious as hell phrase because that often means one of two things: 1. Learning not to care about how others feel about who you are, despite all evidence of existence point out that this is the absolute most important aspect of your life 2. Presenting the parts that you were afraid to present to people. Look, I get it, you can’t please everyone and I’m not really here to talk about how to please anyone. In fact, I’m not even here. This is a lucid dream you’re having in your chair and shortly you’ll wake up and not remember if you were sleeping at all. Its fine, you’re fine. You have to please someone though. I think we underestimate the value of the tutorial level of life regarding this. You are given a set amount of people who are, usually, just going to be pleased by your existence. This always sets up your expectations of how that looks, how it feels, and how important it is. I mean imagine if right now I decided to criticize the immense value society puts on children. You’d hate my fucking guts! “Look at this asshole, kids deserve to be cared for” To be clear I don’t disagree with that. I think a lot of the current “you are valid” rhetoric is based on the concept that adults deserve to be cared for as well. This sorta rounds off my point that attention and reassurance is an important part of being cared for. In my opinion, this gets overlooked very often in favor cheap performative actions like hitting a heart button and oh my god I’m like a baby boomer writing for the new york times okay hold on I promise this isn’t a cynical criticism of millennials. People want to be heard. Importantly, people want to be understood. Spicy hot fucking take. Its a bit more than “this person knows who I am” although thats precisely how its framed. People want to be cared for, and this means knowing the... other person knows who they are caring for. Ah holy shit this is why I use metaphors. You have a snickers bar and you are hungry. Congration, you done it. Its the middle of the day and you never had any breakfast and frankly your bank account could use a break from pleasuring Starbuck’s atm reader so you somehow found the last snickers bar in a box you bought off of impulse bought off of Amazon and immediately regretted because it was gone two days later. Or so you thought. As you threw away the cardboard you hear the tell-tale tumble of a forgotten rod of peanuts and caramel that must have gotten jammed in the back of this thing. It was, however, 7am and you had to get to work and maybe having bubbleguts while dealing with people is not your recipe for a good day so you throw it into your purse or bag or whatever the fuck and move on. “Lunchtime” rolls around and as you do the mental gymnastics required to find the conclusion that food=energy in between bouts of fury over why your workday insists on starting at 8am and how you can’t seem to cope with falling asleep early enough for that not to matter, you remember your snickers bar. Reaching into whatever bag you put it and coming to the horrifying dread of realization that you left this bag in your car in fucking July, you find the sweet sugared respite in a corner. Squeezing it a bit just to test, you are surprised to not find it in the horrible (and yet delicious) state of melted confectionary. Your stomach grumbles a bit as you fidget with the perforated candy wrapper, vaguely thinking to yourself that it might be interesting to read the ingredients as you eat this thing like that isn’t going to fill you with inexplicable Eldritch dread. Nobody needs to know they are ingesting something that might have been made in a facility that also processes every other nut you can think of, delightfully shortened into “tree nuts”. I wonder if anyone has cross referenced all the allergen warnings to deduce which candies are made in the same factory, or if that information is just freely available. What if we kissed in the snickers production facility??? haha jk but...? Anyways, as your mind cycles through a list of stale memes you manage to unsheath this uncut chocolate delight from its wax(???) plastic prison and proceed to take your first, and arguably best, bite into this lunch. Your teeth sink softly into it, as you would expect. In fact, expectations haven’t really filtered into your skull soup you call a brain, so all manner of things can just slip through your recognition. Not this, however. Instead, fireworks of electric signals screaming “BITTER POISON” shock your brain from its previous state of vaguely functioning. Now you truly see the color of light, feel the air cocooning your skin, the squirm of your organs in your belly. Full panic ensues. You are not human, you are animal, and you have taken in a poison thing. You spit it out right there on your lap. You stare at the sad and ruined chocolate mutant nestled grossly in between your legs as your brain high fives itself for saving your life before frantically scouring your subconscious for whatever Vine gives it enough dopamine to not just fucking kill yourself right here. What happened? The fugue of panic washes your perceptions with a mixture of justifications for this travesty. It probably just went bad, but that didn’t taste spoiled (you consider yourself a mild expert having scraped clean many an old collection of halloween candy collections in August the year after the fact) so maybe it melted and rehardened? Baking stuff is weird so maybe that broke down some of its components. You pick it up (holy shit that is slimy. Of course its slimy, just touch it) and its insides look fine. I mean, how often do you examine the insides of a partially chewed bite of snickers? No weird colors. The remaining chocolate lasagna brick also looks exactly what you’d thought it be. You jokingly think to yourself that maybe you had a stroke but despite the apparent hilarity of that possibility you do the smile thing in the selfie camera of your phone. Everything seems fine, but now you’re getting mad that some turn of events has just ruined your perfectly good slab of sugar and fat that surely would have made the rest of the day bearable (and full of indigestion) Now that is a metaphor.

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 5 years

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The Atsuko Kumon Hong “suicide / murder” of August 2013

▲ Atsuko Kumon Hong on fire in the lobby of the Cheongshim Village building.

The Korean leadership of the FFWPU make many demands on the Japanese members for money and further recruitment. Leaders like Rev. Masahiro Ono were under great pressure to fulfill a never-ending stream of goals by fixed dates. Rev. Ono was apparently asked to return donations to Atsuko Hong’s spiritual child. At the same time he was trying to collect money for the FFWPU of Korea.

More Japanese women join than men. This results in international marriages. Many Japanese women are married to Koreans. The Korean members, and sometimes their families who may not even be FFWPU members, can make demands on the Japanese wives, who may be reminded of all the ‘crimes’ that the Japanese committed against the Koreans during their 40 year occupation (1905-1945). Japanese wives who face difficulties frequently do not feel supported by ministers in the FFWPU of Korea. They are told they have to pay indemnity for Japan’s past, or for their own sinful lineage.

Being a Japanese leader, as was Rev. Ono, or a Japanese wife with a Korean husband, such as Atsuko Hong can be challenging.

_________________________________________

At the time one of Atsuko Kumon Hong’s friends, Linda Feher, said: “I couldn’t believe that the official story the Unification Church [in America] used to report the burning only referred to her by her maiden name, Kumon. No one in America knows Atsuko by her maiden name. If they only refer to her as Atsuko Kumon no one in America will think they know her. The name people knew was Atsuko Hong.”

• “Atsuko was a very shy, sensitive private person”

• joined CARP at Hiroshima University in Japan

Linda Feher: “John Paul Hong [Hong Jong-Pyo], was the Korean leader in Clifton NJ, when I lived there. Many was the time Rev. Hong told the story of how he got matched to Atsuko. He was clearly struggling with the match! He said that Father had her photo in his hand. Father pointed indiscriminately at the Korean men sitting at his feet while holding Atsuko’s photo for them to see. The Korean men started to look to each other asking quietly… “Me?” “You?” then Father let her photo go and it landed on John Paul Hong. He was NOT happy about his fate!”

• married in the 6500 couples of October 30, 1988

• the Hong family moved to the US (Washington and New Jersey)

• Atsuko did not speak much English

• Atsuko was often absent from home and traveled between Korea, Japan and the US.

Linda Feher: “John Paul Hong had several children with his blessed wife, Atsuko. But he never loved her and they eventually got divorced. She suffered because she was given, by Moon, to a man who did not want her. She suffered tremendously before the issue of her spiritual son’s money was ever an issue.”

• Apparently her husband got custody of the children

• Atsuko did not see / was not able to see her children

• Atsuko left the U.S. and was a resident of Korea at the time of the attack.

• Her ex-husband lives in the US

• She found herself “disenfranchised” from the FFWPU in Japan.

• She was not included in the list of participants at the memorial event.

▲ Cheongshim Village ‘Silvertown’, Cheongpyeong, where the incident happened.

• They were in the lobby of the building known as Cheongshim Village, Silvertown, [a retirement home] to check in. Address: Songsan-ri, Seolak-myeon, Gapyeong-gu, Gyeonggi Province. The facility is owned by the Unification Church.

• She had travelled there with Rev. Masahiro Ono, the Japanese Church leader of the Hyogo region headquartered in Kobe.

• Tim Elder: “Controversy over a Japanese member’s request for the church to refund a donation led to a vicious attack Thursday that so far has two members fighting for their lives.”

The fire was the day before a memorial service for Sun Myung Moon was to be held in a nearby stadium. Although Moon died on September 3, 2012, his followers observed its anniversary in 2013 on August 23 according to the lunar calendar. Moon was 92 when he died, and had 16 known children. He was buried behind a $1billion palace overlooking the sprawling complex.

▲ Sun Myung Moon’s coffin is carried at his September 2012 funeral.

August 22, 2013 at 3:26pm. fire at Cheongshim Village.

Report: “Atsuko Kumon Hong doused Rev. Masahiro Ono and herself with flammable liquid, paint thinner, from a five-liter container. She then set fire to the liquid using a cigarette lighter. A third person, a 57 year-old woman, was also splashed with the liquid and caught fire when she fell down as she tried to get away. The three who caught fire panicked and ran out of the building, away from the water coming from the sprinkler system. Fire extinguishers had to be used to put out the fires on their bodies. Witnesses said this took about five minutes.”

The fire set off the sprinkler system in the lobby, preventing the fire from spreading to others or to the building itself.

The three were transported initially to Cheongshim Hospital, where Atsuko Kumon Hong and Rev. Ono were found to be in critical condition with third degree burns over much of their bodies. The two were transferred to the Hallym University Medical Center in Seoul for specialized treatment. The third victim remained in Cheongshim Hospital, because her injury (second-degree burns) was not as severe.

When Atsuko arrived at the hospital, she told the staff, “I have no money. I did it because I don’t want to live. Why am I at a hospital? I didn’t come here, someone brought me here.”

• September 6: Two visitors who came to see Atsuko Kumon Hong and Masahiro Ono were thrown out of the hospital by a Japanese FFWPU member in charge of security.

• Tim Elder: “My efforts to follow up on Atsuko’s condition seem to have hit a brick wall. People in positions to have direct knowledge who were helpful until recently are suddenly no longer helpful. One such person said: “I can’t say anything. I’ve been told not to.” I worry that our sister’s situation may have changed.”

• Atsuko Kumon Hong died on September 12 (aged 53)

• This news was withheld by the FFWPU of Korea.

• Rev Ono’s wife was with him in the hospital.

The UC of Korea made this official announcement: “Japanese Church Regional leader Masahiro Ono (6500 couples), who suffered a burn injury, received a number of operations and his condition was improving, but the injury from his burn deteriorated and he passed into spirit world from blood poisoning at 5:07 pm on September 20, 2013, by the solar calendar. He was 54.”

• Rev. Ono’s death was announced within hours

Timothy Elder: “Rev. Ono passed into spirit world at 5:07pm, Friday [20th], at the Hallym University Medical Center in Seoul. I am at the hospital now, I offered my greeting to Rev. Ono in the mortuary section of the hospital. Korean church officials are arranging the customary seonghwa ceremonies. Rev. Ono’s passing came as a surprise to me. I had heard he was making progress. I learned today his condition began to deteriorate on Thursday.”

• The Japanese woman (aged 57) who was accidentally caught in the fire returned to Japan.

• details of Atsuko Kumon Hong’s funeral are unknown

• According to the police investigation, Atsuko Kumon Hong did not leave a will. That might have given information about her motives.

The UC of Japan made this official announcement: “Yesterday, September 26 (Thursday), a Seonghwa Ceremony (Gobyeol Shik) was held for Regional Leader Masahiro Ono at the Shinjuku church [in Tokyo]. It was attended by some 450 people, including people affiliated with Headquarters and church leaders. Please refer to the official Unification Church web site for details. LINK”

• October 2, Korean news report gives some further details, some come from an investigation conducted by the local police. LINK

Tim Elder: “Information on Atsuko Kumon [Hong]’s motive in the attack is sketchy, but it appears related to her efforts to help another member, her spiritual child, secure a refund of a 20-million-yen donation made sometime previously to the Hyogo region of the Japanese church, where Mr. Ono serves as regional leader. Sources within the church told blogger Kazuhiro Yonemoto that an agreement was made with the spiritual child to make the refund in installments, and that about 1.5 million yen had been paid out. This, however, appears not to have satisfied the spiritual child or Atsuko Kumon [Hong]. She appears to have traveled to Cheongpyeong for the purpose of confronting Mr. Ono about the donation refund.”

Police are investigating whether the sister had some personal issue with the minister, or if the incident was somehow related to the commemoration of Rev. Moon’s passing. Police say they have not confirmed that the sister has a history of mental illness. “The thing about mental illness is something the Unification Church is saying,” one police official said.

Tim Elder: “Kazuhiro Yonemoto is a Japanese journalist who writes about the Unification Church. At times, he has written sympathetically enough to be ostracized by the journalism community in Japan. At other times, he writes so truthfully as to make FFWPU leaders and members squirm. I’ve known about him by reputation for about four years. He doesn’t always get it exactly right, but he seems to be a credible writer. …

Yonemoto adds his opinion that this incident appears to have resulted from the lack of proper communication channels within the Japanese UC. In particular, he says Japanese UC members lack horizontal communication lines – where they can go to a friend or colleague and talk about problems. He also gives the opinion that donations are the weak point of the Japanese UC. He says that UC leaders need to deal with refund requests with greater sincerity and realize that a member requesting a refund is always in the weaker position and will always have strong feelings of insecurity.”

Tim Elder: “The [FFWPU owned] Segye Times said the incident ‘appears to be an accidental incident’. It gives no explanation, though, on how the sister ‘accidentally’ happened to have a container of flammable liquid with her.”

Tim Elder: “I expect the ramifications of this incident to be most serious in Japan. Japan’s government made a serious attempt to close the church in 2008 and 2009. This incident may be the spark they need to try again.”

_________________________________________

It was very difficult to get any information on this tragic story at the time. The FFWPU worldwide was trying to stop any unfavorable information from getting out. Tim Elder was a valuable source of information which was appreciated. He evidently felt that the story should be made public and made an effort to get it out. Because of his position, and where he lived, there were certain constraints on what he could do, but he seems to have shared as much as he felt he could at the time, out of his genuine concern for ALL of those caught up in the tragedy.

_________________________________________

Sun Myung Moon: “As you know, our Japanese Church has been selling their houses and all their assets to support our activities in America. If you’re not sure about it, go and visit Japan and see for yourself. By the same token, if our American members, all of you, are willing to sell your houses and assets in order to save South America, and contribute the money to help the poor people there, then the unification between North America and South America will naturally take place.”

December 22, 1994 – The Leaders’ Meeting at East Garden Translator – Peter Kim

_________________________________________

This has been edited from Linda Feher’s original submission:

Atsuko Kumon Hong and her children were victims of Moon’s loveless legacy.

I know countless members who have suffered beyond reason because of the matching ‘choice’ Moon made for them.

… Moon took God’s place in the three blessings. He took all three blessings away from every member.

See Atsuko burn. The flames are real. How deeply must she have been hurting in her mind and in her heart that the burning of her body was the lesser of the pains she was in?

This is Moon’s legacy. This is the result of the Moon family’s love of money over the lives of people. This is how deeply Rev Moon hated the Japanese. It is how deeply he taught his own children to hate and use the Japanese members causing them untold suffering.

First the Moons bleed the Japanese to death financially and then they discard them as losers when they are “burned out” and cannot produce any more wealth for them.

When the Japanese find that they are destitute after giving everything they have to the Moon dynasty where do they go, who takes care of them? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?

If the Japanese dare to ask for any of the monies they have “donated” to be given back to them, as is the case with Atsuko Hong, who was asking that the money her spiritual child donated to the church be given back, they are stone walled until they stop seeking to get back what they gave.

For the Moons the money only flows one way.

The Moons are nothing more than a spiritual vacuum siphoning off the wealth of their believers. That’s their legacy.

Atsuko Hong is just the tip of the iceberg of pain that is the Moon legacy. Ask yourself what it took to drive her to this.

Linda Feher

_________________________________________

Two members who visited Atsuko Hong in hospital were kicked out by the FFWPU

“Sell your house if you love Japan” – members squeezed dry just after March 2011 disaster.

Japanese woman recruited and sold by FFWPU to a Korean farmer

Why did a Japanese UC member kill her Korean husband?

Moon extracted $500 million from Japanese female members

6,500 women missing from FFWPU mass weddings

FFWPU / UC of Japan used members for profit, not religious purposes

Human trafficking of Flipinas by the FFWPU of Sun Myung Moon is despicable

#Atsuko Hong #fire at Cheongpyeong #FFWPU of Japan #exploitation #murder/suicide #suicide #murder

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sebeth · 6 years

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Young Justice: Torch Song

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

The return of Young Justice begins with the release of the first two issues of the prequel comic.

Let’s begin…

My boy Conner is on the cover. Along with Miss Martian. Can we please end this unhealthy relationship? Both Conner and Megan need to expand their circle of friends and, more importantly, romantic partners. Preferably in a non-obsessive capacity.

The issues are titled “Torch Songs��. That doesn’t sound promising for the duo’s continued relationship.

The Watchtower, Team Year 6: August 8.

Miss Martian, Beast Boy, and a non-paralyzed Batgirl are at the Watchtower.

Superboy arrives. Megan appears excited until Superboy states “Huh. Didn’t know you’d be on this mission.”

Yeah, I’d say the reunion from last season’s finale didn’t last long.

Batgirl begins the mission briefing: Psimon has returned to the United States. Batgirl, Superboy, Miss Martian, and Beast Boy are team Alpha.

Megan confidently states she can handle Psimon.

Conner questions: “How?! By putting him in another coma?!”

“No! I wouldn’t do that!”

“Meaning you wouldn’t do that again.”

“No…you’re right…I won’t do that…again.”

While the duo bicker, Babs ask Gar: “What’s up with them? I know things were bad after their breakup, but I thought they were friends again.”

“They were. They got along great on Mars. I even thought they were heading towards couplehood again.”

“Well, something’s changed because they don’t look like a couple now.”

If I had to guess, I would say once the adrenaline wore down, Conner realized he still couldn’t trust Megan. Not only was Megan destroying the minds of villains she attempted to alter Conner’s free will and memories. That doesn’t even include Megan’s season 1 molding and manipulation of Conner to fit into her fantasy life.

Very unhealthy relationship.

Shouldn’t Babs have a stronger reaction to the “you wouldn’t do that again” line? Megan escaped any consequences of her mind-destroying spree.

Were the Justice League even aware of Megan’s actions? I can’t believe they were or Batman would have evicted her from the team. DC has established Batman’s feelings on tampering with a person’s mind. It would also cause great concern for J’onn J’onzz. Megan’s actions would not only violate J’onn’s personal and cultural ethics on the use of telepathy but it would also reinforce the initial misgivings he had of bringing a White Martian to Earth.

What about the Young Justice members – even the founders? Megan was warned about the misuse of her telepathic abilities in an early season one episode. Even if the team overlooked Megan’s excessive use of her telepathic powers on villains, an assault on her fellow teammate would surely provoke a response.

Poor Arsenal suffered a PTSD flashback and Dick kicked him off the team. How does Megan keep escaping from the consequences of her actions?

The Alpha team arrives in Hollywood at a classic film festival. Megan has shape-changed into a human appearance, Babs is in civilian clothes, and Conner, true to form, is having nothing to do with subterfuge and is rocking the “Superboy” shirt. Gar has turned into a mouse and is hiding in one of Megan’s pockets.

Megan and Gar sneak into a panel that showcases an actress that appeared on the “Hello, Megan” show.

Conner has snuck into the auditorium and encourages Megan to ask a question: “M’gann, you’re the bravest woman I know. Are you really afraid to ask a question?”

Please, Greg Weisman, do not continue this relationship. It’s all I ask.

Megan asks about Marie Logan. Gar admits Marie was his mother.

Megan thanks Conner for the encouragement: “Happy to help. I mean, ‘cuz…we’re still teammates. Just teammates.”

Babs, the only one actually working on the case, encounters Psimon. The other three Young Justice members are chatting with the actress when Psimon attacks.

Psimon projects the team – minus Babs – into the “Hello, Megan” show. Starring Miss Martian as Megan.

Gar freaks out: “Oh my god! We’re trapped inside Hello, Megan!”

Conner disagrees: “No. We’re trapped inside M’Gann’s mind.”

Conner and Gar struggle while trapped inside Megan’s mind.

Babs doesn’t believe Psimon has the ability to trap Megan.

Psimon gloats: “All I did was guide her to a pocket of emotional safety hidden deep within her psyche. Now, Little Miss Powerful’s own insecurities keep her trapped there.”

Psimon then attacks Babs.

Gar realizes Megan needs Conner’s forgiveness to break free from the “Hello Megan” fantasy life.

Conner confides to Gar: “She tried to psychically mess with my memories…”

“Oh my god, Conner, that’s horrible!”

“Don’t overreact, when I caught her, she backed off immediately. She had the power to force things. She didn’t.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

Yeah, Conner, do no try to justify abuse! I’ve known too many abused men and women and heard way too many variations of this type of justification.

Conner continues: “I know. That’s why we broke up. But c’mon, that was months ago. We’ve been through a whole alien invasion since then. She took full responsibility and apologized.”

“And you forgave her?”

“More or less. You know what? Fine. I’ll tell her I forgive her right now.”

“Conner, you don’t have to forgive her. But if you do, you have to mean it or…”

“Or she’ll know I’m faking ‘cuz she’s psychic.”

“She doesn’t have to be psychic. You two were together for five years. Long enough for her to know when you’re sincere.”

“So can you really forgive her or not?”

Megan sings a song lamenting her woes over her former relationship.

Conner confronts Megan: “I need to talk to my best friend. I need to tell her that I don’t know where were going or what’s going to happen but that I forgive her for anything and everything. And no matter where we go or what we do or who were with, I will always love her.”

“Really?”

“Really, that is, if she can forgive me.”

“We got so close on Mars, it scared me, and I pulled away. I’m sorry for that.”

The trio is freed from Megan’s fantasy life. Psimon has escaped.

Megan thanks Conner: “We’d have been stuck in that fantasy forever if not for you.”

“Hey, we’re a team, aren’t we?”

“Always.”

The issue ends with “Never the end”.

First, Conner’s apology/confession/forgiveness made me throw up in my mouth.

If the genders were reversed, and the abuse was physical and not psychic, no one would support this pairing. See Hank Pym, who slapped Jan in the midst of a psychotic breakdown, and has never been forgiven by the fans or the comic book creators.

Megan attempted to forcibly alter Conner’s mind out of pure self-interest, convenience, and cowardness, and’s it just hand-waved away.

“Bravest woman I know”. Please, Megan has consistently shown an avoidance to truth and accountability for her own actions.

Second, the “that I don’t know where were going or what’s going to happen but that I forgive her for anything and everything. And no matter where we go or what we do or who were with” along with the “never the end” tagline. Please do not give us another season of “will Conner and Megan get back together or not?” Season two was more than sufficient for that storyline.

I can accept this ending if the “forgiveness” allows for a clean break, settles accounts between the two, and allows Conner and Megan operate as functional teammates with no sniping and longing looks between the two.

If the first two issues are setting up a full reconciliation between the duo, I will not be happy. I might be over sensitive to abuse justifications as I’ve sadly known so many victims of abuse but the Conner-Megan sends the wrong message to abuse victims.

Third, Conner – you’re absolute, for real, soulmate is on your team. And it’s not Megan. His name is Tim Drake – he’s the slender boy in red. Check it out – expand your horizons. TimKon for life!

The cartoon debuts tomorrow. It will be interesting to see the time gap between the comic and the cartoon. So excited despite my mixed feelings over the prequel comic.

#Young Justice #Young Justice Outsiders #Superboy #Conner Kent #Miss Martian #Kon-El #Beast Boy #Barbara Gordon #Batgirl #Psimon

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hereticaloracles · 5 years

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TNO Watch: Eris

Helios on Eris– So, somehow in my accounting of the Transneptunians, I managed to overlook the biggest, most prolific of them all (however not the first to be discovered past Pluto!)- Eris! Now I can’t rightly finish off the archive without her, now can I? So without further ado, let me formally welcome back the most controversial dwarf planet back into the party! Gird your loins, y’all

The Astronomy– Eris is the most massive and second-largest (by volume) dwarf planet (and plutoid) known in the Solar System. Eris was discovered in January 2005, and in September 2006 it was named after Eris, the Greek goddess of strife and discord. Eris is the ninth most massive object directly orbiting the Sun, and the 16th most massive overall, because seven moons are more massive than all known dwarf planets. It is also the largest which has not yet been visited by a spacecraft. Eris was measured to be 2,326 ± 12 kilometers (1,445.3 ± 7.5 mi) in diameter. Eris’s mass is about 0.27% of the Earth mass, about 27% more than dwarf planet Pluto, although Pluto is slightly larger by volume.

Eris is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) and a member of a high-eccentricity population known as the scattered disk. It has one known moon, Dysnomia. As of February 2016, its distance from the Sun was 96.3 astronomical units (1.441×1010 km; 8.95×109 mi), roughly three times that of Pluto. With the exception of some long-period comets, until 2018 VG18 was discovered on December 17, 2018, Eris and Dysnomia were the most distant known natural objects in the Solar System.[

Because Eris appeared to be larger than Pluto, NASA initially described it as the Solar System’s tenth planet. This, along with the prospect of other objects of similar size being discovered in the future, motivated the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define the term planet for the first time. Under the IAU definition approved on August 24, 2006, Eris is a “dwarf planet”, along with objects such as Pluto, Ceres, Haumea and Makemake thereby reducing the number of known planets in the Solar System to eight, the same as before Pluto’s discovery in 1930. Observations of a stellar occultation by Eris in 2010 showed that its diameter was 2,326 ± 12 kilometers (1,445.3 ± 7.5 mi), very slightly less than Pluto, which was measured by New Horizons in July 2015.

The Myth– Eris is the Greek goddess of strife and discord. The most famous tale of Eris recounts her initiating the Trojan War by causing the Judgement of Paris. The goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite had been invited along with the rest of Olympus to the forced wedding of Peleus and Thetis, who would become the parents of Achilles, but Eris had been snubbed because of her troublemaking inclinations.

She, therefore (as mentioned at the Kypria according to Proclus as part of a plan hatched by Zeus and Themis) tossed into the party the Apple of Discord, a golden apple inscribed Ancient Greek: τῇ καλλίστῃ, “For the most beautiful one”, or “To the Fairest One” – provoking the goddesses to begin quarreling about the appropriate recipient. The hapless Paris, Prince of Troy, was appointed to select the fairest by Zeus. The goddesses stripped naked to try to win Paris’s decision and also attempted to bribe him. Hera offered political power; Athena promised infinite wisdom; and Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta. While Greek culture placed a greater emphasis on prowess and power, Paris chose to award the apple to Aphrodite, thereby dooming his city, which was destroyed in the war that ensued.

Another story of Eris includes Hera and the love of Polytekhnos and Aedon. They claimed to love each other more than Hera and Zeus were in love. This angered Hera, so she sent Eris to wreak discord upon them. Polytekhnos was finishing off a chariot board, and Aedon a web she had been weaving. Eris said to them, “Whosoever finishes thine task last shall have to present the other with a female servant!” Aedon won. But Polytekhnos was not happy by his defeat, so he came to Khelidon, Aedon’s sister, and raped her. He then disguised her as a slave, presenting her to Aedon. When Aedon discovered this was indeed her sister, she chopped up Polytekhnos’s son and fed him to Polytekhnos. The gods were not pleased, so they turned them all into birds.

Eris has been adopted as the patron deity of the modern Discordian religion, which was begun in the late 1950s by Gregory Hill and Kerry Wendell Thornley under the pen names of “Malaclypse the Younger” and “Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst”. The Discordian version of Eris is considerably lighter in comparison to the rather malevolent Graeco-Roman original, wherein she is depicted as a positive (albeit mischievous) force of chaotic creation.

A quote from the Principia Discordia, the first holy book of Discordianism, attempts to clear up the matter: One day Mal-2 consulted his Pineal Gland and asked Eris if She really created all of those terrible things. She told him that She had always liked the Old Greeks, but that they cannot be trusted with historical matters. “They were,” She added, “victims of indigestion, you know.” Suffice it to say that Eris is not hateful or malicious. But she is mischievous and does get a little bitchy at times.

The story of Eris being snubbed and indirectly starting the Trojan War is recorded in the Principia and is referred to as the Original Snub. The Principia Discordia states that her parents may be as described in Greek legend, or that she may be the daughter of Void. She is the Goddess of Disorder and Being, whereas her sister Aneris (called the equivalent of Harmonia by the Mythics of Harmonia) is the goddess of Order and Non-Being. Their brother is Spirituality.

Discordian Eris is looked upon as a foil to the preoccupation of western philosophy in attempting to find order in the chaos of reality, in prescribing order to be synonymous with truth. Discordian Eris teaches us that the only truth is chaos and that order and disorder are simply temporary filters applied to the lenses through which we view the chaos. This is known as the Aneristic Illusion.

Why She Matters– Okay, its no secret that Eris is fantastic and I love her. Yes, Eris is chaos, but you know what? So is life. You can try and plan and make things nice and neat, but then the Universe comes through like a toddler who just learned how to walk, hellbent on getting to the other side of the room- consequences be damned. Eris is that universal action. Make no mistake, she is a destroyer and lives for the battlefield, but she also loves to dance, finding the beat in the deaths of men clamoring to prove that they are right to unseen forces (but most of all, themselves). If Mars ever did drag, she would look like Eris (and you bet your ass there would be death drops and shablams like you’ve never seen before!)

When people (read: hecklers) try to come at me with proof that astrology works (but who don’t have their birth time handy for me to utterly eviscerate them) I point to Eris. I remember when she was discovered, and the excitement that her unveiling brought to all of us. And then I remember, quite vividly, the fallout from the IAU decision after she was named but then relegated to dwarf planet status. It was a repeat of the Judgement of Paris myth! She was snubbed, yet again, by the authority, and Pluto was caught up in the fallout as collateral damage just because she was bigger than him (men and size issues, amirite?). And the authority paid for it in the end! Even total luddites who don’t follow the whirling and twirling of the planets (dwarf or otherwise) have a strong opinion about the decision. It made people care about these crazy space rocks, which brings me great happiness.

We aren’t all running around fighting all the time in this modern age, so how do we look at Eris now? A primal force of chaos doesn’t really mesh with our modern sensibilities- or does it? One of the more enlightening views on Eris comes when we consider her in terms of Justice, especially against any kind of oppressive authority. This can be seen in almost every major social movement to demand better treatment, to deny an oppressive ruling class its ability to exploit those below it- Stonewall, May Day, Ferguson, Rodney King, The Arab Spring…. Hell, even the Boston Tea Party! Eris is that urge we feel to stand our ground and refuse to roll over to the bad guys. Eris is the urge to fight for our rights. Yes, it can get violent- but better short violence that changes things for the better than the long, slow violence of inaction. Far better to live boldly and bravely. More commonly though, Eris spurs us on to fight with our racist uncles on Facebook or send petty gifs in the group chats calling out our friends for being slutty… but like, in an endearing way. In fact you could solidly call Eris the Goddess of Shade. Hey, not every action can be a revolutionary one after all- sometimes you just want to get brunch with your girls.

Eris isnt just Chaos, by the way- she also represents Strife. More specifically, what you are striving for. What do you want out of this life? If you are lost, look to Eris and she can help you find your way when you’ve lost it. Mind you, you’ll be in for a HELL of a trip with her (more Thelma and Louise than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas- That’s solidly Arawn territory) and you might not survive, but at least you’ll know!

Now, we all have all of these planets and asteroids SOMEWHERE in our chart, so in you is the seed of chaos- even the most holier-than-thou Libra. As with all of the Transneptunians, look at her house placement, not necessarily the sign, to see her effect. To find out where she shows up in your chart, go to astro.com, put in your birth details and in the extended options, all the way at the bottom of the next page, there will be a menu of additional objects. Under that is a blank space where you can enter the number 136199, for Eris. Once you have it entered, generate the chart! Where does Eris affect your life? Let us know in the comments below!

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TNO Watch: Eris was originally published on Heretical Oracles

#asteroid astrology #eris #eris astrology #transneptunian astrology #Transneptunians #astrology #tarot #fuckstrology #bruja #brujeria

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tastyerrands · 6 years

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Normandy… A year ago

It was exactly a year ago* when my trip to the Normandy started: Five days of vacation spent in the northern coastline area of France that I can easily consider as one of the best vacations I have had. The weather last July was perfect for the visit: sunny with a sweet breeze. It rained when I was visiting Honfleur, but I still managed to enjoy every bit of the trip. Thinking of planning your next vacation? Let’s see where you can go if you decide to follow my steps…

Where to Stay

The Normandy region consists of several cities and villages on the northern part of France. If you have a car, it will be easier to move around the different places of interest. If you don’t (just like me), it is better to stay in a central area, easily accessing your destinations by public transportation (trains, buses, tour operators). My plan was to visit Caen, Honfleur, Mont Saint-Michel, and the D-Landing beaches. My friend, who happens to be French, and was raised in Picardie, recommended including Bayeux in my itinerary. I had never heard of Bayeux before, but after his recommendations, I read about it and found out it was the perfect place to stay in: a small city, reachable by train from the airport, perfect for walks, holding a bit of history in its tapestry museum, and allowing easy access to all my other destinations. And that was it; I booked my hotel in Bayeux!

There are different accommodation options in Bayeux. They range from guesthouses, to hotels and villas. I opted for a 3-stars hotel, “Hotel Le Bayeux”. It is perfectly located at few minutes’ walk from the center, and it serves the best homemade cakes for breakfast J

What to Visit

- Bayeux: This is the home of victorious conquests. Famous for the “Bayeux tapestry” depicting the conquest of England by the Normans, this is also the first town where the allies’ victory was secured by the Operation Overlord, following the German occupation in World War II.

Bayeux is a beautiful town with an old preserved medieval center, half-timbered houses, cobblestone lanes and watermills.

Its majestic cathedral, Notre Dame de Bayeux, overlooking the center dates back to the times of “William the Conqueror” the first Norman king to reign over England.

It was for the cathedral decoration that the famous tapestry was originally embroidered. Over 70 meters of length telling the story of the conquest of England in 1066, the tapestry is now registered in the UNESCO memory of the world register. It is now preserved in the Tapestry Museum in Bayeux.

Bayeux is also home to the Memorial Museum of the Battle of the Normandy displaying the advance of the Allied troops leading to the victory. It also included military equipment and uniforms. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to visit it.

For those who prefer a break away from the historical aspect of Bayeux, you can stroll the streets of the downtown “Vieux-Bayeux” up to the Botanical Garden, where you can learn about trees and plants following a trail marked by information panels.

- Mont Saint-Michel:

The Mont Saint-Michel is one of France most famous attractions, and a UNESCO world heritage site. We have all seen the picture of the island with its majestic monastery. What makes Mont Saint-Michel special is location is the tidal area. On low tide, you can walk to reach the island, but make sure to check the time of the high tide in order to secure your way back.

Visiting the island, walking its narrow streets up to the top of the abbey, and then walking back to the mainland while watching the water level getting higher, was all magical. But what made my day there even special, was sharing the day with 2 lovely American couples who made me feel like family. I dedicate this post to you Carol and Sandy, and I hope we will cross roads again!

- D-Landing Beaches:

Your visit to the Normandy is not complete if you don’t include the landing beaches. The tour I took there was very informative. It took us back to the period of WWII, tracing the details of Operation Overlord, visiting different landing sites, the Omaha beach, the American cemetery and ended in the amazing Overlord museum that displays the personal collection of Michel Leloup.

- Honfleur:

With its picturesque harbor that inspired artist like Monet and Boudin, Honfleur is one of the most charming towns and a popular summer destination. Stroll along its streets, visit its farmers market, enter its tiny shops, and savor its delicious food. It is guaranteed to have a lovely day in Honfleur. I was able to enjoy it despite the rain on that day.

- Caen:

Caen is the capital of the Calvados department. It features a port, a castle, an abbey and many more landmarks worth visiting. I only passed through Caen on my way to Honfleur, so I will definitely account for more time to see it, during my next Normandy visit. Caen is not the only city I couldn’t include in my planning. Normandy includes many more areas worth visiting like Rouen, Giverny, Deauville, Fecan, Etretat and Le Havre. That makes enough for another trip, doesn’t it?

What to Eat

Two words: apple and crepes. Well French cuisine is delicious all over France. But when in Normandy, I made sure to have as many crepes as possible: whether savory or sweet, you can satisfy all possible tastes. As for beverages in the Calvados area, they are mostly based on apples, so I made sure to have my share of apple juice during my visit. My favorite spots during that trip were:

In Bayeux:

- Restaurant Le Pommier: I had monkfish and brown rice

- Au Louis d’Or: All their crepes are delicious

- Le Comptoir de la Reine Mathilde: Awesome settings for a cup of tea and cake

In Honfleur:

- La Gambetta: seafood restaurant

- Maison George Larnicol: Get lost in their chocolate universe!

In Mont Saint-Michel:

Make sure to buy some cookies from “La Mere Poulain”. My favourites were the apple cookies.

My trip to Normandy was special in many ways, but it was mostly special because it was my first solo trip for a vacation. I have travelled alone before, but it was mainly for a business purpose. Taking the decision to travel alone to the Normandy was not easy, but I never regretted it. That trip made me realize that I can cross the path of total strangers in different unexpected ways, meet beautiful souls from around the world, and build nice memories that I will cherish forever. During that trip I met people who initiated me to changing my perception of things, appreciate every sweet moment, and learn that despite every issue we face, beautiful things can happen when we least expect them.

Happy travelling!

* I started writing this post in July, but didn’t have the chance to finalize it and post it till August.

#Normandy #Bayeux #Honfleur #Mont Saint Michel #D-Landing Beaches #WWII #Tourism #France #Trip #Vacation

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actualtext · 3 years

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08/25/21

Windshield

Two weeks ago, two of my tires needed to be replaced (one had a nail, another had an air bubble from a horrendous pothole on an exit ramp in Austin) Today, a rock flew from who knows where onto my windshield only hitting one specific place, but causing at least an 18” crack. I called my insurance to file a claim, when I learned that my deductible was going to be $1000. I cried a bit and then resolved to simply work until I could make the money. It hurt a lot. Since I needed so much time, I scheduled to get it fixed on 09/03/21.

Moving

So, last year I signed a lease at this apartment that was suggested by a friend who happened to need two roommates when me and my roommate at the time also needed a place to go. oof. The time came for us to move, and holy shit did we run into some issues! So first, just so everyone (not that anyone actually reads this) knows, it was student living. My friend that suggested the place is a student currently. Anyways, we're in the process of moving in. I tell my roommate (the one I'd lived with before) that we can move his stuff first for since he lives further away from our new place. It would just be better to get it over with. But I'm still checking out my new room. I check the welcome package I was given, and I only have one key, the mailbox key. So I asked my three other roommates if they had the house key and all three of them say yes. So I have to go to the office which is really busy cause all of the other new students are also moving into their apartment at this time. I stand there for what feels like forever to find out that I also need to take a copy of the key that I need in order to have it replaced. (I don't know, I guess I thought they had a whole fuck load of copies. lmao) So I go back, ask one of my roommates for his apartment door key, then head back to the office where I also request a copy of my room key. They check their key ring and they cannot find a key for my room door. They tell me that they'll have to change the lock. It's fine, it's not locked and I don't need to lock it any time soon. I take the copy of the apartment key and plan to simply keep moving my stuff until they need to change the lock. While I'm out and about, one of the staff members takes the master key to my apartment and tests it on my room door to see if it will work so they can make a copy. In order to test the master key, they need to lock my room door to see if it will unlock. Freakin turns out that the master key doesn't work on my room door. I return with a few items I plan on moving in, I put some stuff in my room but don't plan on staying there that night since I don't have any bed sheets on my bed. I plan to go back to my old place, pack up a little more and return the next day to continue moving in my stuff. As I leave, I close the door to my room, but then remember that I need to grab a coupon that I wanted to use. The door was locked. There was no key and I wasn't able to enter. The following four days are literally just me going to the office, letting them know that my door is locked, them telling me that I need to put in a maintenance request, and me just staring at my door waiting for it to be unlocked. Finally I get fed up and go to the office one last time to let them know that I haven't been able to move in this entire time and it's making me sad. They freak out and get the ball rolling on my lock changing process. Bam, door's open and I can move my stuff in. I love my room and the view that came along with it.

Jake

On the 13th of August, I gave a ride to a guy. It was a normal ride like any other ride I've given. We had a regular conversation, I dropped him off and went about my life. The following morning I received a text from my driver app letting me know that he had forgotten something in my car the night before. I let him know that I had since had multiple people in my vehicle and had even had it washed. I didn't find what he had lost. He gave me his number and told me to message him if I found anything in the future. I said I would, and said my good byes, and then he said his... followed by a wink. I messaged him instantly thinking he was trying to bait me to do so anyways. "A winky face, really?" He gave a good explanation saying that he was at work and his hands were slippery from working with the zucchini that he was loading onto the display at the grocery store he worked at. Maybe I was just naive, but I totally believed him.

He was charming. Funny and sweet. He told me about himself during the car ride the day before. He told me that he had a bunch of babies with his ex wife, wasn't really looking for anything serious, that he was ex military, that he had an 11 year old tumor in his leg that was cancerous and would be the death of him, but that he had to stay positive. I try not to talk about myself too much to my passengers for my own safety, so I didn't really take into consideration that he didn't really ask about me. But looking back, that should have been the first red flag.

He messaged me regularly, asking about my day, telling me about his, how much he was in pain and how shitty having to go to chemo was, and how lonely he was, and how badly he wanted to just be held. I let him know that knowing about all of his pain made me sick to my stomach. I'm an empath. I feel everything very strongly. I told him not to tell me how badly he wanted to be held because I was a people pleaser and that I would be tempted to go hold him. This budding friendship was growing on me way too quickly and way to strongly for me to feel safe, but I didn't want it to stop. It was like yearning death and then being diagnosed with cancer. It was scary, but I wanted it.

And then I actually saw a red flag. It only drew me in more. We had been texting and he had asked for a ride, offering to pay for it of course. I had responded in multiple messages cause he never got back to me. Then at the end of the day, I let him know I was going to sleep and he said it was okay, that he knew I wouldn't be going to drive him since I never responded (which I had, he simply hadn't received the messaged). I showed him proof that I had responded and yet he proceeded to say "I had to spend so much money just to get to and from work" as if it was my fault, when it wasn't anyone's fault that our phones weren't cooperating. I should have left it at that, but I liked him, and I think my reasoning for doing so might be sick af.

I have this theory that I might only like Jake because he's dying. Now hear me out. I've always been into sickly looking pale dudes that look like they're on the verge of death. Since I was about 12, believe it or not. Initially, I thought maybe I was just attracted to him. However, upon further analysis of the situation, I think the people pleaser in me might just feel sorry for him and his situation, and might wanna just make his time left here on the planet as enjoyable as possible. Which is totally fucked up and I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me. I'm sick.

I say this because... I continued to talk to him, overlooking the red flag. After the whole phone thing happened, we agree to start messaging on instagram instead, since it seemed to be a more reliable method of messaging each other. We discussed how he wished he would just die already. He was tired of being sick and tired. I apologized and explained that I wish there was something I could do to help him. This led into the conversation about (red flag #3 but who's counting?) how people (me, myself and I) always make everything about themselves. This man was a manipulator pro because I believed him. I FUCKING APOLOGIZED FOR MAKING A (supposedly two way, but obviously one way) CONVERSATION ABOUT ME. I felt so shitty. This guy is dying and all I can do is apparently talk to him him about myself and try to help him get to know me. After I apologized profusely (like an idiot), I thought things were better. But of course he felt like shit and I felt like I needed to help him somehow. So then we discussed what he felt would help him and low and behold *CRINGE WARNING* it was physical connection, sex, intimacy. He said he wanted to be held but that he could never get that from anyone. I asked if he had bothered asking anyone to help him in the way he needed to be helped and he said NO. -_- So I explained to him that in order to receive, he would need to ask first. He said rejection would simply add to the stress he was under. My simp self let him know I would totally love to help him but then my insecure self jumped right in and said some bull shit like "but I'm ugly and fat and you probably have higher standards than the likes of me" GROSS. I don't believe I would talk about myself like that. Seeking validation from a fucking man. UGH but you'll see, it's a fucking common occurrence. Me and Jake are toxic for each other and to our selves with each other. Enablers. Its sick. He said some really sweet things, to which I responded sassily, which upset Jake of course. This was all in text so he read my sass as anger. Then he got upset with me. I told him I didn't feel like I was making his life any easier and that I was sorry for the stress I put him under and that I would leave him alone. I genuinely felt bad yet again. This guy was dying and I was trying to be sassy with him? Monster. I left him alone for quite some time, during which I wrote and rewrote potential apologies in order to gain this tortured soul back as a friend. I never sent any, surprisingly. But it crushed me. I wanted him in my life. I felt like all the independence I had gained while being single SIMPly vanished, and I needed his friendship, his companionship, to make me feel like my days weren't being wasted, to make me feel needed. IM SO SICK.

But then... the unimaginable happened. He messaged me "I feel like giving up today" and of course I don't want him him. I live for this toxic exchange. He says "I want to be held." &My naive, people pleasing ways gave me the perfect push to tell him I could be there for him, to hold him. "I wanna be fucked and held." Of fucking course. I mean, I totally already wanted to fuck his brains out anyways, and I already knew thats what the fuck he wanted ultimately. And this was the perfect thing I needed in order to feel needed. Ugh. It was glorious. I'm sick, I know.

So we plan it. We set a day and start making arrangements, and then something weird happens. I have to ask for his address at least four times. I give up after he just doesn't respond. I tell him "It's probably for the better. I feel like I might be coming down with something" which was the truth, and I wouldn't have wanted to get him sick. Just in case he's not receiving my messages like last time, I send him a screenshot of all of the messages I've sent him through instagram. I'm not gonna lie. I felt blown off after he had just asked me to fuck him. I felt like a damn fool being made to wait when I was ready to go.

The following day he messages me asking if I'm okay, and I respond coldly "I'll survive." He says "ok" which I just leave on read cause fuck that two letter piece of shit response. There was a chance I could have had COVID-19. Jerk.... But then that night he messages me at like 2am. I, of course, was already thinking about him so I got excited like a fool. I made him feel bad about not giving me his address which he swears he tried, but that I never got anything. I said, not fucking around, "if that's true, give me your address right now." and the mother fucker did. On top of that, he tried to guilt trip me. I explained that I was still getting over my sore throat and he was like "you're good," saying like "don't worry about me then" and so I was like "okay" BUT THEN he was like "I'll just be here.. ready to go... and still feeling all shitty like the other night.. and thinking about how it's the one year anniversary of my grandma's death" AHHHH haha and yes, I said "I'll be right fucking there" or something along those lines.

So I get there. I shower real quick cause I'm all full of germs. get out and lay next to him and he's just stiff. He seems nervous. He just keeps talking, which is fine. While his voice isn't exactly my favorite, I know he has a lot to get off his chest and so I just let him talk. I caress his arms, and his chest, and his face. I have my mask on just in case. And then I reach down between his legs and start caressing his dick which is already hard, of course, and he starts touching me. I pull down my shorts and panties and he works my hardened nub, and I just want him inside of me already, so I dip his fingers inside of me. The whole time, I'm panting and holding onto him so tight, all while caressing him still. He pulls his shorts down and I continue the assault on his cock, and he asks if I wanna taste, to which I say yes, of course. Cause I really do. I do my best, and I hear him moan and its as rewarding as you would think :) and he uses his big strong hands to guide my head, and the whole oral thing is just wonderful. 10/10 would do again. And then I ask if he has condoms, and he does, thankfully. So he slips one on, I get on my hands and knees on his bed then he plays with me a little and slips it in. Mmm. He honestly felt really good. He's an average sized dude, with no hair obviously (thanks to chemo), so he felt so comfortable inside of me, and I'm just genuinely enjoying him taking me from behind. He does that for a little while, and I guess before he can come, he pulls out so that he can eat me out (ugh, what a fucking gentleman). And I'm all self conscious cause I have a hairy puthy, but he doesn't seem to mind. I just see his cute bald head nodding no, and licking away at my gal, and man he feels so fucking good. I can't help but moan his name. I just wanna hold him there forever but he has other plans. Once he's full, he comes back up, puts my legs on his fucking shoulders and just rams his cock into me and continues to drive himself deeper and deeper, making me feel closer and closer to him. I know I'm a fucking psycho. This is honestly the first time that I've admitted it to myself, and I don't let myself get this way with many people, so it is just as surprising to me as it may be to you (the endless abyss) that I would feel this way about a man I met two fucking weeks ago. So anyways. My mask obviously came off to give him head, and it stayed off. But he fucking kisses me while fucking the shit out of me and I lose my shit. Did I come? No. I never cum unless its with myself. But I felt so fucking good. It felt so nice to feel so wanted for fucking once.

After everything went down, we put our clothes back on and laid in bed for the next few hours just talking like nothing had ever happened. It was wild. My mask was forever lost, or so it seemed after searching for it vigorously. After I left, he gave me a kiss on my cheek, which I feel like I should have reciprocated, I just hadn't ever experienced what I had just experienced so I didn't know exactly how to react.

When I left, he sent me a few texts to let me know that he found my mask, but also to thank me. he said "Thank you. I needed that. To get all of that out. I really do appreciate you lending your body and your time to me. If it sucked for you I'm so sorry. I know you're driving. I'll stop. I hope it really didn't suck that bad, or that you're not mad." and my heart, man.. it just exploded. He was so willing to be vulnerable, and I was thinking to myself, "baby, whenever you want it, it's yours."

Then the next day came around and I was all stupid in love or something cause I drove an hour to drive him 7 minutes away from his house and then drove an hour back home to finish moving my stuff to my new place. What kinda of fucking stupid am I? Why do I feel so strongly about this Jake?

Today, I started feeling insecure. It could be the lack of sleep, or the lack of food or just my general lack of health. I messaged him the lamest thing because wanted reassurance. "Do you by any chance think less of me? heh. Just curious"

To which he responded sarcastically, and broke my heart. I literally cried. Over a boy I've known for two weeks. I haven't been so stupid since high school. I let him know how he had made me feel and he called me manipulative, stating that I was claiming he was a villain and that I was the victim. I was simply communicating how he had made me feel.

I was such a simp for this dying boy and I'm truly ashamed. Part of me wants to believe that he really did like me and that he really just couldn't put much effort into what could have been a great relationship. But part of me, my gut feeling, believes that he just wasn't that into me to begin with, and no matter how much I care for him or about him, it won't change the fact that he doesn't care about me back. I messaged him apologizing for catching feelings cause he had specifically stated that he wasn't looking for anything serious, and yet I caught the feels. I felts like that was a good reason to apologize. I told him I understood that he just simply didn't have the energy or time for someone like me who was yearning for nothing more than an "I miss you too" text. I let him know that ghosting him wasn't an option, but then he told me that he wished I had.

So that's the short story of Jake. It wasn't a happy ending, but it never could have been anyways.

Veggly

A long time ago, I had actively taken part in the whole scrolling and swiping left and right thing. I had seriously given up on dating. It was depressing having to reject so many people in such a short amount of time, compared to doing it in person with months of buffer between each rejection. I just kept my profile up to make friends cause it was taking a told on how I viewed myself. I felt like a bad person, but I also didn't want to lower my standards.

Tristan and I had matched a long time ago. He was so attractive to me that I told him "Sir, you look like a supermodel, unlike my profile RN" trying to be funny. I never got a response, probably cause he had plenty of other options out there. But one day, he messaged me apologizing for the wait. It was really weird and honestly I feel like a last resort.

Francisco just recently matched with me. He also made the first move to message me. He has a cute dog, likes to eat vegan junk food, and is mildly attractive, just being real. He snaps me every day, although really sporadically and sparsely, but he makes that attempt to at least reach out once a day. And that is really refreshing. However, he is moving to Sicily in about three months. heh.

I'm not sure where any of these will go but hopefully I'll end up with at least a friend.

#sad boy #crying #dating is fucked #daily journal #inner thoughts #read me #me #sadgirl #stressed

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your-dietician · 3 years

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Who are the men behind Black Players for Change in American soccer?

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/soccer/who-are-the-men-behind-black-players-for-change-in-american-soccer/

Who are the men behind Black Players for Change in American soccer?

Before he became an executive director for a Black player coalition in Major League Soccer, Justin Morrow received death threats during high school in Cleveland when media coverage of his soccer talents became too much for some.

Before Jeremy Ebobisse became a board member for that same coalition, the Portland Timbers forward was a youngster from Bethesda, Maryland, enduring N-word taunts from opponents in his club soccer games.

Calling out systemic racism in society and vying for more opportunities for Black people in MLS is nothing new for Morrow and Ebobisse – but they used to do so on their own.

Now, as board members of Black Players for Change, an independent, player-led coalition that has more than 170 members, they are helping create tangible change for the Black community in MLS. The group, which was founded on Juneteenth one year ago, is not only impacting Black players, coaches and staff as professionals, it is also empowering members as Black men in America as they combat racial injustice.

The Black Players for Change assembled on the field July 8, 2020 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex ahead of the first match at the MLS Is Back Tournament.

Submitted: Major League Soccer

In its first 12 months, the coalition has become a force. Members protested on the field at the MLS Is Back Tournament last July, raising their fists for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to remind the nation of how long Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck, murdering him. The group also helped transform MLS stadiums into voting polls in November. It has vowed to build 12 soccer mini-pitches for Black communities, and it established the league’s first diversity committee, which gave it a seat at the table with MLS owners and Commissioner Don Garber.

But to solely harvest one year of change as a feel-good highlight reel overlooks the emotional roller coaster the men representing the coalition are riding, as they seek to expand opportunities for Black individuals in American soccer while forging bonds as brothers.

“There’s already so much that goes into a player’s career, in terms of being successful on the field,” Morrow told The Tennessean. “But for me, this has been about leading a group of men in pursuit of a goal. We win sometimes, we fail sometimes, but we always do it together.”

Black Players for Change has grown from an Instagram group chat, started by Morrow to create a safe space for Black players expressing their frustrations after Floyd’s murder, into a fully working organization that communicates and conducts business through WhatsApp and Slack.

The byproduct has been the creation of a tight-knit organization that allows Black players such as Morrow — the Toronto FC fullback in his 12th year in MLS — to connect with some of the league’s youngest. The dynamic has created an atmosphere that encourages players to speak up and find their voices.

Justin Morrow, 33, is the executive director for Black Players for Change and is a fullback for Toronto FC in Major League Soccer.

Submitted: Black Players for Change

“If we can be the ones to empower (players) to do that,” Morrow said, “that’s exactly the reason why this organization exists.”

More than just a co-founder, Morrow, 33, is the group’s elected leader. He has perfected walking the line between a serious focus for work and keeping things light with jokes.

Those skills, along with his passion for a cause bigger than himself, comes from his father, Leroy.

Starting as a 23-year-old patrol officer for the Cleveland Division of Police, when Morrow was 2, Leroy climbed the ranks to become a lieutenant by the time Morrow was 13 and eventually became a commander.

“He was just so dedicated and rose up the ranks,” Morrow said. “&mldr; I saw that he was always trying to work harder for our family, and pull us up, so that’s always in my mind like, ‘Don’t mess around.’ ”

Morrow heeded that advice as he blossomed into a star at Saint Ignatius High School, a prominent Catholic school in Cleveland. As a junior, Morrow had helped the Wildcats win their first state championship. His prominence grew as the Cleveland Plain Dealer published stories about both his talent and his team.

That prominence came full circle that fall, when Morrow was called to the principal’s office with one of his close friends on the soccer team. The school had received a letter with death threats addressed toward them. Police were present and the FBI was involved.

The letter contained racist language, and according to The Athletic, it made reference to a photo that had appeared in the Plain Dealer of Morrow, his teammate and their white homecoming dates.

FBI officials eventually identified the person who made the threat. The person had also sent similar racist messages to professional athletes.

The incident was an eye-opener, Morrow admits, but not a detriment.

Justin Morrow, executive director for Black Players for Change

I just wanted to create something that lasts longer than I do.

“Those things happen to you and maybe you don’t consciously let it affect you, but subconsciously you know it’s always there,” he said. “It’s always there. It shapes the way you see things, so it’s just been as a steppingstone to get to where I am today.”

Morrow matriculated through majority-white Catholic schools at every level of his education. He played four seasons at Notre Dame from 2006-10 and was the treasurer of the campus NAACP chapter, which he helped start. It was his way of making change in a predominantly white environment.

“I just wanted to create something that lasts longer than I do,” Morrow said. “My time studying at Notre Dame was fantastic, but it’s always short for everyone. The same will be with Major League Soccer in my professional career.”

Ebobisse, 24, also grasped racism from an early age. Growing up in affluent Bethesda, Maryland, the Timbers forward was one of two Black kids in his grade during elementary school and was naturally exposed to politics near the nation’s capital. He played for Bethesda SC as a youth, which included Alex Van Hollen, the son of U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

“I was in and around his campaign events and got to understand from a distance what it took to run successful campaigns and to legislate,” Ebobisse told The Tennessean.

But as Ebobisse grew older, his Bethesda SC squad became more diverse with players from Potomac, Bowie and Baltimore. But he still endured gaslighting. Some of his peers in Bethesda and at Walter Johnson High School – where he graduated in three years – insisted racism didn’t exist, as they spewed the N-word in Ebobisse’s presence.

It wasn’t until his sophomore year that Michael Williams – who played soccer at Howard University, an HBCU in Washington – became Ebobisse’s AP World History teacher. Williams, who also coached Walter Johnson’s soccer team, gave Ebobisse a new way of attacking racism and oppression.

Jeremy Ebobisse, 24, is a board member with Black Players for Change and a forward for the Portland Timbers in Major League Soccer.

Submitted: Black Players for Change

“The way he taught me to look at the world from where I was, breaking down the Eurocentrism in everything that I received up until that point, definitely set me on a course to challenge narratives as I see them and to understand biases everywhere,” Ebobisse said. “And if I can understand the bias, then I can understand information a little bit better.”

Ebobisse is still on that course. Now as a five-year veteran with the Timbers, he collaborated with the Players Coalition, which consists of NFL players, in the spring to help pass the Juvenile Restoration Act.Maryland Senate Bill 494 would abolish life without parole for youths and institute a judicial review for sentence reduction after 20 years of confinement. In September, Morrow did the same in tandem with Players Coalition members in Ohio, helping pass Ohio Senate Bill 256.

Jeremy Ebobisse, on learning and understanding biases

The way (Michael Williams) taught me to look at the world from where I was, breaking down the Eurocentrism in everything that I received up until that point, definitely set me on a course to challenge narratives as I see them and to understand biases everywhere.

Such a platform is new to Ebobisse, who is revered by his teammates and respected by Portland’s activism community, including Rose City Justice, which led several intense protests in the city last June. In a way, Ebobisse is empowered and it’s credit to Black Players for Change.

“In 2017, 2018, 2019, I would have never had the chance to use, for example, my club in order to further my message directly or to create content or to change internal policy,” Ebobisse said. “It was pretty nonexistent, whether it was because I was a draft pick that hadn’t broken into the team yet, or because the social climate wasn’t there for it. I think it was a little bit of both.

“Now that’s not the case. … We’re asking the tough questions, not only in Portland, but nationwide and at the league office. I think it’s really important and that’s a testament to BPC.”

Black Players for Change sparked unprecedented progress in its relationship with MLS last summer.

BPC’s board of directors secured a meeting with Garber after 10 MLS clubs chose not to play after the August shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by Kenosha police in Wisconsin. In that Sept. 24 meeting with Garber, MLS owners and BPC, the league committed to a $1 million contribution to BPC through 2024, coupled with a package of six initiatives.

The meeting accelerated MLS’ hiring of Sola Winley as vice president and chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer. Winley, who is Black, had championed diversity and inclusion as executive vice president of corporate strategy at A+E Networks.

CJ Sapong talks playing for Nashville SC and Black Players for Change

Jeremiah O. Rhodes, Nashville Tennessean

The meeting also helped establish the MLS Diversity Committee. Winley sits on the committee with Morrow, Sean Johnson of New York City FC, and Earl Edwards Jr. of the New England Revolution. Garber, a crew of MLS owners, a resource group of Black MLS employees and the Soccer Collective on Racial Equity (S.C.O.R.E) also make up the committee.

“We’re players in a room with MLS employees, front office employees and owners of our teams,” Edwards said. “In those spaces – granted, we’re players – we want to be viewed more as men, as Black men that are trying to make a change.

Earl Edwards Jr., 29, is a board member with Black Players for Change and goalkeeper for the New England Revolution.

Submitted: Black Players for Change

“I think that dynamic of us being players – feeling like players – and them being owners looking at players a certain way, being in the front office looking at players a certain way – (it’s) that border of interactions we don’t normally have. Now (they’re) taking feedback from players, specifically Black players,. I think it’s just new for them and for us to be outspoken, demanding certain things or telling them what we want is new for us, too.”

For Johnson, sitting on the committee has made an impact on him. The committee’s April 20 meeting happened as the Chauvin guilty verdict was being revealed. Chauvin killing Floyd sparked a national reckoning for social injustice and police brutality.

“I remember specifically – I shut off my (Zoom) video. I went into the living room,” Johnson said. “I took about 15, maybe 20 (minutes) which felt like forever because it was it was a very emotional moment for me, sitting there with my girlfriend and hearing the verdict.”

Johnson called BPC’s impact on him an emotional ride. For Morrow, leading the group has created a series of life lessons. And for Ebobisse, the power of the platform makes him proud.

But after a long pause, all three elected to focus on what impact Black Players for Change will have on the Black community beyond the coalition’s first year in existence.

“Youth soccer into college soccer into professional soccer has not been the most welcoming of environments for Black people in this country – Black men and women,” Ebobisse said. “So alongside BPC and other organizations, we have a big role to play in changing that and I think we’ve already put a lot of people on alert and gained a lot of collaboration as well.”

Jalil Anibaba talks playing for Nashville SC and Black Players for Change

Jeremiah O. Rhodes, Nashville Tennessean

BPC’s work impacts stretches outside the American soccer bubble. Morrow and Ebobisse represent BPC in working with the NBA Players’ Association on advocating the passage of the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act, which prohibits racial profiling, reforms qualified immunity, bans chokeholds and federal no-knock warrants, such as the one used in the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Juneteenth is a celebration for Black liberation and the end of slavery in the U.S. To Black Players for Change, the holiday also marks the birth of a brotherhood, whose work in American soccer continues.

“If we don’t do it, nobody else is going to and that’s exactly how we feel,” Morrow said. “That’s what’s so special about this organization.

“I’m not a guy that looks back very often,” he continued. “I just turn the page and get on to the next thing. And maybe there’s a minute for us to pause and appreciate what we’ve created and at the same time, continue to teach about Juneteenth, which is only growing. So, we have a big job to connect the older generation to the current generation and understanding of how we’ve gotten here today.”

Justin Morrow, Toronto FC

Jeremy Ebobisse, Portland Timbers

Quincy Amarikwa, MLS free agent

Jalil Anibaba, Nashville SC

Earl Edwards Jr., New England Revolution

Ray Gaddis, retired MLS player

Bill Hamid, D.C United

Sean Johnson, New York City FC

Ike Opara, Minnesota United FC

CJ Sapong, Nashville SC

For stories about Nashville SC or Soccer in Tennessee, contact Drake Hills at [email protected]. Follow Drake on Twitter at @LiveLifeDrake. Connect with Drake on Instagram at @drakehillssocer.

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gashaponma · 6 years

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Currently the Sun is in 0 degrees Cancer, marking the Summer solstice, a time when according to myth the veils between worlds are thinner and there are rituals one must perform to keep the evil spirits from taking the opportunity to invade our minds and our lives. Hah! Has no one noticed lately, Earth seems be full up on its evil spirits quota!

With many planets in Cancer, I am always quite physically informed in the movements of the Moon and ingresses of other heavenly bodies in signs that make contact with my Cancer planets: Crabs are extremely sensitive to the “undercurrents” that affect their home environment and sense of safety. I don’t even have to look at the ephemeris to know when the Moon has moved signs or perfected a New or Full phase.

This solstice, in the midst of feeling rather anxious and breathless — I feel as if big shifts are coming our way like massive tidal waves that look like they could be made by Cthulhu — perhaps in anticipation of the upcoming eclipses in July and retrogression of Mars and Venus etc., I had a sort of epiphany about retrograde planets in transit and in one’s natal chart.

From my still-incomplete knowledge of astrology: The Western school views retrogrades as a time to ‘re-view, re-visit, re-do’, while practitioners of the Vedic form view retrograde planets in a natal chart as a symbol of their amplified energy. Mulling over my own experiences of retrograde planets, in personal life and astrological practice, I came to the realisation just now that perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

When a planet goes ‘retrograde’, that is just the apparent motion of the heavenly body from Earth’s point of view, but what is actually happening is that Earth is outpacing the planet which could symbolically be seen as “getting away with it.”

In astrology as in most other esoteric spiritual practices the Earth is viewed as the realm of physical manifestation, ideally, of the Divine will or direction (I have recently been studying the Kabbalist Tree of Life, Sephirot, and the Rosicrucian Rose Cross, which illustrate this idea so intriguingly beautifully). I say ideally because like every Tarot card has a different meaning in reverse; like every planet and sign in astrology has a higher and lower expression, so every human has shades of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ which determine what an individual might do with their free will — will they materialise that Divine inspiration for ‘good’? Or ‘bad’?

Sephirot, Image credit: Public Domain, uploaded on Wikipedia by User, AnonMoos

Rose Cross, Image Credit: By Fuzzypeg – Created by Fuzzypeg using Inkscape, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4100581

When I synthesise all the ideas above, I visualise (I only truly understand anything through immersive visualisation) the retrograde effect as: A human on earth, rat-racing forward, getting ahead of themselves in the pursuit or expression of an urge, suddenly stopping, realising something is missing, looking back to see their goal is falling away from them, it’s being taken away! Then retracing their steps to get back to Start, discovering on the way something they’d dropped, to place themselves once again in tandem with the project schedule (planet agenda). Or differently, A person leaving their house to go somewhere, getting to the car only to realise they’ve left their keys back home so they turn back to fetch them, realising in the process they’d left their heating on!

In transit terms this seems to fit the Western view of review times during retrograde.

Also, from Earth’s perspective, when a planet is retrograde you are spotting it in a portion of sky you’ve already looked at before, so symbolically too, you are called to attend to something from the past rather than initiate new projects. Since planetary retrogrades are less frequent than their direct motion, they symbolise periodic flips in perspective which might return to normal once the planet resumes normal movement, so anything initiated at this time, you’ll most likely have different feelings about once the tide changes, hence the prediction of doom associated with retrograde-born initiatives.

In natal terms I can appreciate how the Vedic view of amplified power comes through because those who are born with a ‘constant’ feeling like their goal/objective is falling away from them will, in the planet’s positive expression, try doubly harder to get to it. Since achieving the retrograde planet’s forward expression does not come easy, and requires quite a bit of trial and error to refine their methods, people with natal retrogrades are perhaps even better at what they ultimately achieve — a hard-won victory! I know a few people with retrograde Venus in their natal chart who are really good at amassing money in spite of, or perhaps because of, their poverty mindset.

Individuals with retrograde Saturn are likely to desire approval from a father or authority figure so much that they self-regulate themselves to the point of toil, achieving high ranks and authority positions (Saturn) for themselves in the bargain! Of course, on the negative side, this same desire for approval can cause fears or blocks in their creative expression or intuitive intelligence.

Being on the greyer side of 30, I have lived through many retrograde transits myself but in 2018 I have become acutely aware of three whose impact was too stark to ignore.

Saturn retrograde in my First House of Will: In line with Saturn’s message of toil I have enrolled for an educational course that I hope will launch me into a completely different, yet perfectly resonant with me, career. As I got to grips with studies at this age and stage, I put off getting my balcony door fixed, which was threatening to fall off any day. But it so happened, one thing led to another, and I was forced to postpone taking my exams for this course to the next semester because, upon closer inspection, along with the door, the roof was crumbling, as were the walls and various other parts of the house! I had to pause my ambitions for an overlooked task which would only have created a bigger block at a much more crucial time further up ahead in my course.

Jupiter retrograde in my 11th house of wishes and networks: My pursuit of finding “my tribe” (also linked to my course above) also got stalled with the home renovation and interestingly, this period and a little before it, has witnessed a natural ‘trimming away’ of friendships and associations perhaps to make space for the new? Or as we might find out when Jupiter turns direct, to return in my life better aligned with my new goals.

Neptune retrograde in my 3rd house of communication, mental and manual abilities, and kinship: The standstill of Neptune just a few days back couldn’t have been more obvious had it dropped a piano on my head! Here I was merrily exchanging messages, communicating with people when suddenly, I realised there was a different meaning to what was being communicated to me and I had been perceiving it as quite the opposite! Certain facts came to light too that gave me a BIG pause for review.

This year we have more ahead, Mars (our drive, ‘warrior’ spirit, energy, lust) turns retrograde on 26th June, Uranus (our unfettered, ‘eccentric’ drive and will) on 3rd August, Venus (our sense of romance, harmony, pleasure, abundance) on 5th October, and of course Mercury (our cognitive abilities, communication skills, logic) on 26th July and again on 16th November.

I have only written here the personal expressions of each planet but of course these planets also manifest their lessons as external events through the agents associated with each but I’ve other work to do and I’m beat, perhaps I’ll update this already rather long post another time to list them all!

Happy Summer Solstice and Cancer season! 🙂

2018 Summer Solstice Special: Retrograde Revelation (or Ramble) Currently the Sun is in 0 degrees Cancer, marking the Summer solstice, a time when according to myth the veils between worlds are thinner and there are rituals one must perform to keep the evil spirits from taking the opportunity to invade our minds and our lives.

#astrology #Mars #Neptune #Pluto #retrograde planets #Saturn #summer solstice #Uranus #Venus

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