#Baptize California

[christianityculture]

Baptize California Prepares for Statewide Water Baptism Event

Baptize California gears up for its 2024 event, aiming to host the largest synchronized water baptism in history. Following last year’s resounding success with Baptize SoCal, which saw over 4,100 individuals baptized at Pirate’s Cove, the organization again unites churches statewide for this monumental event on Sunday, May 19th, 2024. Building on the previous year’s momentum, Baptize…

[lexirosewrites]

Probably too late for slick sunday 10/13/24 before we go into a monthly slick sunday schedule but here's my thoughts

I thought I'd leave the final for now (bc who know what the future holds) weekly slick sunday w another tidbit of thoughts around my Haunting of Harrington AU👻

Everyone's favorite group of too nosy for their own good pups r beyond curious abt the mansion & the young couple tht have moved into the ever mysterious Harrington House, it sits at the end of a long tree lined driveway in the nicer part of Hawkins, the rumors around the building range wildly from the property being possessed by a demonic contract to a simple Haunting of an old house tht saw lives lived to just an old house more worthy of the attention of the Hawkins Historic Society than decades of gossip abt supernatural happenings

& the mysterious couple r not immune to small town curiosity they're rumored to have acquired the house in a variety of ways from the truth of one of them being a Harrington heir to the bizarre involving them winning the house in a card game w the wayward son of the late Harrington couple who left Hawkins & never looked back (didn't even bother returning for either parents funeral, the adults tsk whenever Richard Harrington is brought up)

The 2 r not often seen about town as they focus on restoration & renovation of the mansion, they interact most w the contractors & employees of the grocery store, and they certainly aren't seen at any churches services either (robin was raised Buddhist by a Vietnamese omega mother & a white beta father whilst Steve's mother was a non practicing Jew & his father was a vault who only admitted once to Steve tht he'd had Steve secretly baptized as a baby)

All this: the old house, the unclear method of procurement of said house, & the young "couple" who've moved in but seem to eschew the so called norms of the town by being clearly unmated means the little group of troublemakers curiosity is piqued

Dustin is a know it all who needs to know it all, Mike has braved the driveway w his mother during the winter holidays to deliver meals on wheels to the elderly Harrington couple before they both passed, Will lives by the woods of Hawkins & once stumbled into the back gardens when he became lost & was shown kindness by the then living couple but wasn't allowed inside, Lucas overheard his mother (who leads the small local museum) on more than one occasion lament the historical value of the house going to waste as a private residence & tht she shudders to think abt what kind of renovating these new owners r putting the house thru, Elle (Jane Ellen Hopper, in this AU she was adopted from a doomsday cult) isn't as outwardly curious as the boys but has mentioned tht the place is quieter than the rest of town & Max is just relieved the town has moved on (for now) from the return of Susan Mayfield who used to b known as Susan Smith who grew up in Hawkins before skipping town for California the night of highschool graduation

All of them have had passing & mostly distant interactions w the new owners. They all suppose they'll have to wait till the excuse of Halloween night to investigate even the doorway of the building till one day in mid September Dustin & Lucas r at the small & singular bookstore of Hawkins perusing the newly acquired Goosebumps gamebook titled All Day Nightmare, when an alpha woman comes stumbling in, her frantic scent barely contained by the patches she's wearing & she immediately wanders the aisles w a purpose till she finds the occult section & then she's picking out books tht the 2 can't see the titles of & they don't get to approach to ask bc just as quickly as she came in she's buying a stack of books & leaving

Tht is all ur getting for clues into the story till I can hopefully get the thing written & pushed to ao3 by the 31st

thank you for one more preview! i didn’t have very many submissions this week, so it easily squeezed into the lineup for today💛

[louisferrignojr]

Tommy Kinard HC:

He was born in Boston, MA.

He's a Jr. -- Thomas (Scott?) Kinard Jr. He doesn't tell anyone this.

He was baptized Catholic at his mother's insistence, but never attended mass at his father's (Lutheran) insistence.

He's a military brat.

He's a middle child.

His family moved to California when he was 7 years old when his father was stationed at Fort Irwin.

The family later moves to Kansas when his father is stationed at Fort Riley.

His parents got divorced when Tommy was 17.

He joined the US armed forces in 1997 at the age of 17. He wanted out of the house and was following his father's dream for him (he had parental consent).

His mother moves to California with his younger sister. Tommy's older sister still lives in Kansas. Tommy's father always hated California, often calling it a "socialist shit hole." He also lives in Kansas.

Tommy is (first) stationed in Fort Cavazos, Texas.

His first sexual encounter with a man was a student about his age who was attending Texas A&M University. They met at a bar, hooked up, and promptly never saw each other again. Tommy spent a month after the encounter worried that someone on base might know.

He left the army in 2003 and moved to Orange County, California, where his mother and younger sister (now 17) lived.

He joined the fire academy near-immediately and started his probation year in 2004.

Sal was not immediately his friend. Tommy was polite and (seemingly) straitlaced, while Sal was a loud firebrand. They didn't really mesh, plus Sal was a hardass who tended to be passive-aggressive.

Around 2005, his mother eventually moved back to Boston, MA, to care for her ailing mother. His younger sister had already left for college in Colorado. He is the only member of his family to still live in California.

Tommy tries to date a woman around this time (2005). They last about a month. She was very nice-- even offered to cook the firehouse dinner-- but that was it. She was nice, and Tommy felt like an asshole because he didn't feel any spark.

After his breakup, Tommy finds himself all the way in Long Beach, CA, tugging on a thread that came loose back in Texas years ago. He lets a man fuck him for the first time that night.

Gerrard leaves around 2011. Around this time, Hen starts joining him, Chim, and Sal for drinks after work.

Tommy has paid for sex with a male sex worker.

I feel Tommy deserves a "fuck around and find out era" where he has a hot, toxic mlm relationship with none other than Sal. The two of them have a fling around 2013 to start "blowing off steam." It starts with a blowjob that rocks Tommy's world. Toward the end, they have several consequential arguments. Sal doesn't think of himself as queer ("this is what guys like us do") or think of his fling with Tommy as a manifestation of his sexuality ("just blowing off steam"), but he doesn't give a shit what others have to say and idealizes having someone infatuated with him, and other's knowing about that (he definitely struggles with jealousy). Tommy, on the other hand, knows he's gay but isn't ready to come out because he is intensely concerned with what others might have to say. Tommy also wants a relationship with a healthier give and take and doesn't want to announce anything when the man he's with doesn't even consider what they're doing as a relationship. At this time, part of Tommy believed he didn't "deserve" something happy and feared pursuing something romantic with a man. Around the time Sal puts in to become Captain, their relationship had all but fallen away. Sal had become passive-aggressive again and increasingly reckless on the job, bordering on self-destructive. By the time he looks toward Tommy to follow him in protest of Bobby, he realizes that Tommy had long since stopped following him.

Tommy left the 118 around 2015, about a year after Bobby took his position as Captain. (Buck begins around 2016.)

In his late 20s, Tommy once accidentally slept with a married man. He got off a shift at the 118 and went out looking for a guy to fuck around with. He hooked up with an older man and had a very… mediocre night. A couple weeks later, he returned to the same place and hooked up with a younger guy. On his way out early the next morning, Tommy noticed a family picture in the man's front hall. He'd fucked the kid's father just a couple weeks earlier. Tommy stopped going to that establishment. He actually swore off hookups altogether after that.

Tommy loves crossword puzzles.

Tommy wears reading glasses.

Tommy is out to his family. His father was and still is less than supportive, his mother was disappointed but came around, and his younger sister was always happy for him.

The only family Tommy sees semi-annually is his younger sister. She's now married and has two elementary-aged sons.

Tommy has a pet dog.

Tommy hates marshmallows.

hold on. im copy pasting ur strikethrough bullet point into a fucking google doc so i can read it. smh.

ok loving the saltommy bits. good shit. moment of silence for sal deluca and his internalised homophobia. and another one for his "heterosexuality" lmao. rip. amen.

AND THE HOOKING UP W A GUY AND THEN HIS KID. LMAO. sorry but this sort of "accidentally slept with someone and then their parent not knowing theyre related" is always funny to me. oh tommy.

AND SPECIAL THANKS FOR PUTTING TIMESTAMPS ON YOUR HCS! im writing this pre-s1 (chronologically) fic now and i always forget what year people started (or left) the 118. not that its super important, but i was literally just thinking "were smartphones a thing back then? and when *is* "back then"?" so. yeah. im not gonna check the fandom wiki, just gonna go with your dates bestie, mwah

I LOVE ALL OF THIS <3 thank you for gracing my inbox with your presence <3

[fox-bright]

#though it IS fun to watch their faces when I say shit like 'when I was eight they told me if I was very very good now #I'd get to be white in the Celestial kingdom'

to put it mildly, HUH???????

Oh, man! So. It was once stated Doctrine (and is now just under-the-table doctrine) that the Mark of Cain was Black skin; that everyone of Black ethnicity was supposed to be enslaved, to work off the debt of Cain.

There's a whole bunch of scripture in the Book of Mormon about two purportedly Native American peoples, the Nephites and the Lamanites, who frequently were at odds. One civilization would gain righteousness and the other would lose it, typical adventure novel epic style bullshit--but the righteousness was marked, among other things, by the darkening or lightening of their skin. The darker skin, then, of the Native Americans in Joseph Smith's time, was used as justification for Mormons enslaving and massacring them.

This belief mutated, some, as Joseph Smith tuned the scriptures; eventually it was decided that there had been a war in heaven before any of us were born, and those of us who hewed to God's side from the start showed our righteousness on our skin and were born white. Everyone who had been less valiant could be marked by the various darknesses of theirs, and Black people were the very lowest of all, probably having sided with Satan for a while and then turned coat.

But righteous acts in life could make you paler, and while they'd never make you (the individual) white, they would lighten your family, so that hopefully in a few generations you'd be such a righteous family that only the most righteous souls were sent to be born in it, and all your grandchildren would be white.

This belief continued to be stated very baldly for a long time. In 1960, Church President Spencer W. Kimball said: "I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today … they are fast becoming a white and delightsome people…For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised…The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation."

So, big yikes, right?

I was born into the Church in Anaheim, CA in 1982, daughter of a FilAm woman and a white man, both of them converts, both of them also born and raised in California. We stayed there for the first few years of my life, and then moved to Arizona, where I grew up in a town that despite its mere 8k population could support multiple LDS church wards. Our attendance at church was only fitful until I turned eight, when my parents really buckled down about us getting there every Sunday. Eight years old is the Age of Accountability; that is, the time when you can be expected to have learned good from bad, and have the agency to decide which way to walk. While there's a lot of poison you'll take in as a Mormon kid before that age, it really ramps up after you're baptized at eight.

So it was when I was eight that I heard for the first time (though far from the last) that my choosing to accept baptism put me on the right path, and that if I continued to Choose the Right for all my life--that is, I stayed chaste, earned all my blessings through righteousness, married a returned missionary in a Temple marriage and bore him a quiverful of children, raised them in the knowledge of God and the Church, and eventually died as a good matriarch--then when I made it to the Celestial Kingdom (the highest of the LDS' tiered heavens), I would find myself remade. No longer would I have the mark of my Preexistence sin; I'd be washed clean. Blue-eyed. Blonde-haired. And skin as white as cream.

[oattoast]

im just flabbergasted that californians voted the opposite of me in most propositions on the ballot. we voted NOT to abolish prison slavery. we voted against a minimum wage increase. we voted against rent control despite skyrocketing housing costs and homelessness. we increased penalties for nonviolent theft and drug crimes (walking back a measure that lowered them to misdemeanors and saved taxpayers untold amounts and kept people out of prison). we voted to punish an HIV/aids healthcare nonprofit and restrict how it spends its money (a measure brought onto the ballot by landlords and housing developers as retaliation for that org supporting housing related causes like the rent control measure). just about the only progressive thing that passed was the repeal of the same-sex marriage ban we passed in 2008 (my first election, where i obviously voted no. "no on h8!" poor teen me; if only you knew what was coming). note we do not actually have enshrined same sex marriage (yet...? <- the question mark wouldn't have been there before i saw the 2024 election results).

this is one of the more progressive states, right? i am astounded at how many californians voted against our own interests and the interests of our citizens. is everyone a landlord? is everyone rich? does everyone have stakes in prison slavery? we couldn't say no to slavery. actual slavery.

this. this is real life.

i feel like grimes clowntweeting musk "this isnt your heart" when. of course. obviously this is the ugly beating heart of a state, and a nation, founded on violence, subjugation of the other, and bigotry.

california hasn't answered for the violent mission system, and the native tribe in my area, the tongva, are not federally recognized and their lands and sacred sites are routinely violated. as children in the public school system we had lessons on the california missions and how they "converted" and "anglicized" the natives, making it sound like spanish colonization was a quaint settlement of ranchos where the natives and the spanish worked side by side to make california a "civilized" place. we built models of our favorite missions and wrote cute little reports and took field trips to these sites where uncounted people, kidnapped from their families and used as slave labor by the spanish, are still buried in unmarked graves. craft stores sold model kits of these sites. we have streets named after and statues depicting the colonizer who led the charge. in 2015 he was made a saint by the catholic church. after one of the missions was intentionally set on fire (and after a statue of the saint/colonizer was toppled) many local latinos mourned the damage of a building where countless people, some of them their own ancestors, suffered, because that's where they attended church or got married or baptized.

not to mention more recent history. our beloved dodgers who won the world series this year have their home stadium built on land seized from poor mexican american families. "chavez ravine" is the former neighborhoods of la loma, bishop, and palo verde. families who had been pushed to the poor neighborhood by racism and redlining, and thus had nowhere else to go, were violently forced out of their homes for a baseball stadium. and now their descendants wear blue caps and set off fireworks for the franchise that makes millions off of them and gives nothing back to the community (besides financial support to one of the most violent police departments in the country... and a statement in support of israel's genocide...)

this is a picture from the LA Times in 1959 showing aurora vargas, one of the very last holdouts of the battle for "chavez ravine," getting carried out of her family home by LA sherrifs deputies. i remember this image whenever my fellow poor or working class latinos spend $$$ on dodgers merch or paint dodgers murals or celebrate in the streets when they win games.

as i get older and grow more and feel more empathy and learn about our real history, i get more radical, not less. it doesn't make sense to me that my community is getting more hateful and conservative, but there is an obvious basis for it. it's ingrained, despite a popular perception of working and middle class californians being liberal and accepting. it feels like i'm fighting against a riptide. my uncle, an immigrant with dark skin who speaks broken english, is a trump supporter, and i only found out today. do i even have the right to be surprised or disappointed?

i am obviously going to retain hope, and fight where i can, when i can. i just have to be mindful of where i come from and what we are capable of when we are enmeshed in and misled by powerful, deep-seated forces on this blood-soaked land.

[nerdygaymormon]

LDS LGBTQ+ anniversaries for 2024

50 years ago

March 27, 1974 - BYU President Dallin H. Oaks delivered a speech on campus in which he spoke in favor of keeping criminal punishment for "deviate sexual behavior" such as private, consensual, same-sex sexual activity.

July 1974 - the Ensign magazine prints an answer from Dr. Lindsay Curits, a medical doctor, to the question "Why does the Church oppose homosexuality? Why is it wrong?" Dr. Curtis states that homosexuals have "chosen this way of life" but "can be helped" and that "homosexuals and lesbians seldom are happy people" and their relationships are "unnatural", full of "emotional problems" and "promiscuity", and lacking in "fidelity, trust, or loyalty". Additionally, they try to recruit "others into their practice…in their tender, impressionable years".

July 10, 1974 - President Spencer W. Kimball addressed the BYU student body and said that sex reassignment surgeries were a travesty

October 4, 1974 - President Spencer W. Kimball spoke at General Conference and stated that masturbation leads to homosexuality.

25 Years ago

May 11, 1999 - A letter was sent which was to be read in all LDS sacrament meetings in California which directed members to "do all you can by donating your means and time" to ensure that Proposition 22 (known as the Knight Initiative) passed, which would limit marriage in California to only being a man and a woman, denying same-sex couples legal recognition.

September 1999 - The Ensign magazine publishes an article which says that homosexuality is caused by things such as "temperament, personality traits, sexual abuse, familial factors, and treatment by one’s peers". It goes on to say that individuals can learn to diminish those feelings and become heterosexuals.

October 2, 1999 - In General Conference, President Hinckley says that "so-called same-sex marriage … is not a matter of civil rights; it is a matter of morality. … There is no justification to redefine what marriage is."

October 3, 1999 - 150 members of Affirmation protest outside of Temple Square in opposition to the church's involvement in the California ballot initiative that would reinforce marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman

November 14-17, 1999 - The World Congress of Families (WCF was formed in 1997 to promote Christian values internationally by opposing divorce, birth control, same-sex marriage, pornography, and abortion, while supporting marriage between a man & a woman) met in Geneva, Switzerland where the Director of BYU's World Family Policy Center, Kathryn Balmforth, delivered an address where she said gay rights activists are part of an anti-family movement which is hijacking the idea of human rights in order to gain new rights for homosexuals, and would use legal force to curtail freedoms for most of humanity

15 Years ago

November 10, 2009 - Church PR director Michael Otterson gave a statement at a Salt Lake City Council hearing in support of a proposed city anti-discrimination ordinance which would protect LGBT individuals.

10 Years ago

January 10, 2014 - A letter from the First Presidency was read in all LDS congregations in the United States. The letter urged members to review the Family Proclamation and called for "kindness and civility" towards supporters of same-sex marriage. It also stated that everyone is welcome in LDS chapels as long as they "respect our standards of conduct while there".

March 25, 2014 - Tyler Glenn, lead singer of the band Neon Trees, comes out as a gay Mormon in Rolling Stone magazine.

5 Years ago

February 26, 2014 - Former BYU mascot Charlie Bird comes out as gay in the Deseret News.

April 4, 2019 - Elder Oaks announces that the November 2015 Policy of Exclusion is rescinded and “immoral conduct in heterosexual or homosexual relationships will be treated in the same way.” Children of parents who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender may now be blessed as infants and baptized in the LDS Church without First Presidency approval.

April 29, 2019 - BYU valedictorian Matt Easton speaks at a BYU commencement ceremony. He states “I stand before my family, friends and graduating class today to say that I am proud to be a gay son of God.“ He receives rousing applause.

July 3, 2019 - BYU track athlete Emma Gee comes out as bisexual, becoming the first openly-queer athlete at BYU

September 13, 2019 - Jessyca Fullmer posts a video explaining that she’s dating a woman and has never been happier. She apologizes to people who may feel disappointed and explains that she asked the Church to remove her video from the mormonandgay website

September 10, 2019 - Becky Mackintosh, the mom who is featured in the mormonandgay video as supporting her gay son, releases a book titled “Love Boldly: Embracing Your LGBTQ Loved Ones and Your Faith”

————————————————————-

The change inside the LDS Church has been gradual, but these few snippets from the past decades show change is happening and accelerating

[sleeplesssmoll]

Schneider Snippets from the Atlas

Vertin’s responses to the narrator are in italics. Let me know if I missed anything. This is a long post and it looked nicer in my Google Docs. If anyone has suggestions on how to format this into a way that's easier to read, I am all ears. Spoilers for Ch 2 & 3. My dumb little notes are in purple and are not part of the main text.

The Opportunist and the Sticky Gum

Source: 2-1 Wretched Brats

Now those little brats are knocked out. You Notice that old gum is sticking to the bottom of their shoes, like crushed leeches.

What happened to the gum?

Tragedy. A sympathetic encounter. It has fulfilled its mission cautiously and conscientiously. But clearly no one cares. 

I dare say it's the most popular mint gum now. When the Chicagoans lost their rights to get drunk, they could only turn to this nasty upstart stuff. The sales champion is the bubble gum near Wrigley Field. The old gum from the kid's soles also comes from there. 

Some gravel mixed into the squeezed gum base. The off-white sand. The synthetic waxed elastic fiber. In the South Bank, there is only one place where such a politically symbolic floor is laid–St. Pavlov Foundation.

It's very lively here in the square, just like every day in the past. Speculators, who advocate mankind supremacy, are trying to get the attention of the Foundation through demonstrations. They are on the same side as the Foundation, but the Foundation has no intention to treat these protestors as allies they want. They even sent a little girl to go through the motions as a perfunctory response. (this “little girl” is Sonetto.)

Little girls? An excellent topic. (Vertin, this is not how we behave.)

Yes. Yes. No one will ignore them. They are honey colored. They are the morning sun in California. They are the dazzling spot on the doe that you'll never catch. For those hypocritical politicians the little girls are the delicacies that they would drool over (ew). Luckily, this little girl is not one of their prey. She is nervous but not panicked. She doesn't seem to be good at dealing with these slick politicians. The mission capsule of the Foundation grew hot in her tightly clutched fist.

And on the other side of the square, another little girl in a black suit is looking gloomily over here. She stood by the Foundation's air outlet, the best place for her. The position is too marginal to be marginalized. That's the best portrayal of the second generation immigrants in the 20th century. (This is Schneider.)

Who is the girl in the black suit?

She's someone you will know in the future. Now she shudders and shivers like a cricket desperate for shelter. She's looking for an eave or piece of rubble in the Storm.

Her figure might be frail, but her eyes are filled with cold anger. Maybe she had been rejected just now or even insulted. She walked up to the square center with a firm step, like a warrior.

This snippet in the beginning foreshadows so much of the story it's insane looking back.

From One Castle to Another

Source: 2-9 Security Carnival

Mrs. Greco puts down the phone. She is now as calm as any Italian mother you've ever met. You know, they're usually making a yummy pie before they pull out their guns.

There are enough people in black outside, enough to prevent any eavesdropping or violent conflict.

Mrs. Greco glanced blandly over the one, two, three, four ... nine, ten, eleven children in front of her. This is a big family, and it has grown bigger and

bigger over the past few years because of Schneider.

Who are they?

They're Schneider's sisters. It's hard for the Grecos to tell them apart. But Schneider is different. She was born in an earthquake, all covered in blood, and didn't let out her first cry until two hours later. It wasn't until she was one year old that her father noticed that she had never been baptized.

The Grecos are not good at dealing with gang affairs. They can't even figure out when their daughter has grown-- grown into the backbone of the whole family.

When Schneider took out 500 dollars from her pocket and put them on the table, they were completely shocked, and that's just the beginning. Schneider... Schneider, the youngest daughter they seldom cared about. It's impossible to keep every child well-fed. Schneider could not even get a piece of bread in the Eucharist.

 But a good daughter would not let anyone worry about her. She sat on the bench outside the church and hummed. She found a way out for herself. She walked to the underground market, fascinated by what she saw ...She announced her "new identity" one day.

What "new identity"?

The identity you know now. In the process, she lost something old but gained something new, no matter if she wished for it or not.

"Now," Mrs. Greco said, "we live, or we die. If Schneider comes back safely tonight... we will leave when the moon rises. The doors are closing in front of us, one after another. But the benevolent Maria will give us the ultimate shelter. My children, remember today forever." Her words speak for her status. But Mrs. Greco's eyes never moved away from that small Madonna on the table. The hem of her clothes were soaked in tears. 4 p.m. A family is determined to start a new journey.

Unnamed Poem

Source: 2-13 Rattenfanger (This is the chapter where the “eave or the rubble” line comes from)

Surrounded by imposing barriers, Epics never sing of those about to die. Look up, keep looking up, A broken tile is the only shelter in the tempest. People always knew how they took the wrong path, So they regret the unregrettable nights, laugh at the laughable fools. At the bottom of the cliff, a river always flows.

An Unpopular Children's Song 😭

Source: 3-3 Green Oranges Who killed the Snowy Dove? I, said the cricket. With my heart and musket I killed the Snowy Dove. Who saw her die? I, said the owner of the suitcase, With my vision and sight, I saw her die. Who dug her grave? I, said the cricket. With my pick and spade, I dug her grave. Who'll make her shroud? I, said the owner of the suitcase, With my little suitcase, I'll make her shroud.

Long Night Trip (I left out the first bit since its the Narrator being…himself. The man loves to hear himself talk.)

Source: 3-8 Popular Literature

Trust me, you won't regret listening to this story.

Fine. Let's start the bullshit. 

I will never be offended by your humor. Okay. The past is waiting for us to look back. It's winter in the early 20th century. The gloomy rain never stops. The square on West Jackson Avenue is alive with people. There is an Italian Renaissance-styled basilica. You rarely see so many people get together without making a sound. This is a black requiem mass. The priest is chanting the requiem, and the people mark a cross on their chests.

He must be respectable.

"He was a father. He dedicated to a sinner of ... Lord shall give him eternal peace." A woman in a black robe turns to you and whispers. She turns back. Explaining this makes her unpleased. More and more people are queuing for the funeral. The square is alive with chants here and there. The Grecos are among them. They're covered by the dark cloud of long- handled umbrellas. Soon, their voices are replaced by whimpers. You can hardly tell whether they are pleased or sorrowful. But you can't find Schneider. (This part in purple was written like that in the Atlas. Its clunky as heck. Idk what they were trying to say.)

Where is she?

Look in the direction of Mr. Greco's broken left palm. Yes. Look from the bandage-wrapped end at his cuff. 3390 feet away from the crowd, in the shadow of the church, stands the girl you want to see. She is pale and thin, as if she has just recovered from a serious, long illness. But her fist clenches, her eyes burn, and her figure is an open defiance of the ubiquitous chants. You don't know why she looks so-so furious. Is she... what, 11 years old? And the mass is about to usher in the ultimate climax. It rains heavier. The priest opens his arms to embrace the sky, "The Lord be with you."

"And also with you." Schneider responds in a voice that could hardly be heard. She puts her hand on her heart. This is the first time she responds to the Lord. And it will be the last.

[witchofthesouls]

Imagine the cyberization process of Earth was a success, and then combined with so many Things either sleeping for endless eternity or sealed away so long that humanity no longer remembers outside of the glimpses in legends, myths, forgotten dreams, and haunting nightmares?

Along with a twist of the Unicron-is-Earth with Earth as a reflection/child/younger sibling of Unicron, the raw creative drive behind Chaos...

None of the Autobots and Decepticons are prepared to handle this. They find themselves upon an Earth that’s been reset to its far more savage, primal state (for what is metal but refined earth?) to a time where humanity shared the planet with Others. A cyberformed planet that still retains its immense biodiversity.

The endless expanse of deserts and wild fields, dense forests that tower over them with the metal trees so massive it rivaled a Titan, the immeasurable Depths of the oceans where none of the probes could even reach the bottom, just going down, down, and down until forcibly stopped-

The Ark, the ship that the Autobots on Earth had to abandon, remains lost to the sea. All tracking results in errors. All saved coordinates leads to landmasses or a layer that cannot be reached. Not even the strongest lights could pierce the dark, sunless waters.

The presence of humanity is still etched into the land. Cites of steel and concrete still stand. Empty and haunting with so many statues of once-humans captured in their last moments. Figures in distorted shapes; amalgamations of many into one massive dump of countless limbs with no beginning and no end. The living will soon learn not to venture into these haunting spaces...

Even the animals are different. A lurking intelligence in their eyes, some sharper than others.

The Autobots meet Raf’s eldest sister in the once state of California where she was studying in university. In the heart of the Mojave Desert. The Equivels are alive. All of them dragons, but Pilar is the most dangerous one of the siblings for she remembers everything-

Earth had been a hot spot of activity, there are ways to open doors and portals to Elsewhere. Some return, fundamentally changed and marked in a way that will never leave them. Many, however, do not.

She didn’t want to Remember. To intrinsically know that the inferno beneath her metal skin, the sigils embedded in her powerful armor, and the plasma hair that flares with the sun is due to the Bargain to return to home.

(The Bargain remains active, but that brings no comfort. The Dragon for Home; she regains her lost powers in a new world for this Earth is not her home.)

She’s grieving. She’s raging. < She’s been baptized by the Sun itself and been reforged from the fury of her pyre once more - > 

Pilar wants to forget her life, all of it, to cast away her memories and return to the scorching sands beyond anyone’s sight, but Raf refuses to leave.

Raf screams, too, lost in his own senses and only a pup, refusing to budge out his alt-mode. The Autobots think it’s a Predacon frame. Yes and no; he has yet to earn his right to become a Dragon. He’s young; far too young to left alone and < there are many that salviate at such a delicious morsel. Little wyrm, lost and alone and so unguarded. > 

The Autobots are left alone by the many Things that hunt in the night when Pilar starts bunking with them. The twisted shadows and insidious croons are held back by the heat of the high desert noon she emits, a pair of blue optics, bright and luminous for miles and miles, has strange shapes flickering in an otherworldly sight as they track the hidden…

The Decepticons don’t handle to the new world very well. It’s not a remade planet  in Cybertron’s image and ready to move in. No, it’s still very much Earth in its old, unrecorded ages. The mines in the Nemesis’ systems are now useless or too unstable.

The Vehicons are being hunted when they leave the Nemesis. Shadows twisting unnaturally and creatures lurking in them. Dragging them down to the ravine and water edges, luring them to the undergrowth of the forests.

The ones found dead have armor plates wretched open, insides completely dry without a hint of Energon leftover, spark chambers pulled apart and empty. 

(No one is there to warn them to beware of the dancing lights, to leave offerings to the trees, to keep to the established pathways, to never to wander into grass that’s taller than them.)

They're being W a t c h e d.

A few return with gazes skittering to the sides and EM fields too burning, blistering hot and Arctic cold; quieter, far more quieter than Before. In the right light, traces of gold, silver, and other rich hues would line their faces in strange, moving patterns. 

Soundwave will be pitted against magical opponents that are delighted by his talents in the Mental Arts. Laughing and howling in abandonment when the mech figures out what is reality versus illusionary as they get a better grip on how Cybertronians perceive the world. They wish to see what is this one is truly capable of when properly nurtured…

Humanity still exists in a way. Remnants of Others still exist in human populations. Diluted yet slivers still active enough to derive certain talents, skills, and traits. Enough to be offered a choice…

The fae welcome their lost brethren and young hybrid descendants with open, hungry hands. Cooing over at the new-blood, so much like clay and ready to be worked into a masterpiece. Memories jumbled and wiped away like gossamer webs, so fragile and easily taken away. Crooning how they retain their short-lived, mortal old loves’ uniqueness: the brimming potential still potent in metal frames.

Less like clay, more like raw ore. Look at their precious treasures, lost like little lambs and stumbling like newborns, star-bright souls weeping at the pitiless world. Those tears are savored like fine wine as they put their little ones to sleep, they will teach how to use those new bodies for they are familiar enough with Clockwork and automatons < shapeshifter, oh shapeshifter; what form shall you take today >, how to rend with those claws and jagged teeth, the etiquette of the various Courts, and one day join the Hunt and feast in the glorious revel.

The sea calls with its haunting, unearthly song and accepts the drowned and cradles its lost children, metal or mud, it matters not to it. Colonies and communities heed their mother’s Call and come to reclaim.

And the world is pitiless being; its kindness can be so cruel. It doesn’t understands how its children can be maddened by grief and hearts so broken for it’s not the first time the cycle has been reset: and history repeats, the world rolls and rolls, again and again. It hums at the potential and heeds its own call: Adapt or Die. And so, monstrosities, from the depths of mortal nightmares and shattered souls, prowl upon the Earth once more.

The planet is Earth. Dirt and dust. Clay and coast. Land that touches the both air and ocean. Merciless and abundant. On this deadly planet, one could die from starvation while surrounded by paradise of food.

Earth has been born by a slumbering Unicron; its magma blood, bountiful seas, and rich veins of Energon, deeply guarded and so well hidden until now, feeds its hungry creations. Chaos calls to the dark god and Chaos courts its inhabitants, etched deep into crust and sediment, lovingly crafted into its wild fauna; the song of Conflict is a lullaby old as time itself. 

It sees these metal interlopers, so foreign yet similar like a distorted mirror for Unicron and Primus are brothers; opposites, yet equals. It sighs and sings out to claim them as well even as Unicron churns beneath. For the Cybertronians had tried to claim it as their own first.

They will have their wish granted...

Of course it leads to a lot of tension with its direct creations, wild with freedom and aching for their Mudmen. Their short-lived, ridiculously adaptable kin made of clay and water.

 < Then you shall replace them. Your people shall replace the Mudmen in all the ways it matters. >

[cheerfullycatholic]

Dina Madsen: Testimony of an Ex-Abortion Provider

Dina Madsen California, United States

I had to leave my heart at home.

I went to work for a Sacramento abortion mill in the first week of September 1990. Before then, the word "abortion" had seldom passed through my mind, and I had no concept of what one actually was. I had lived a "dysfunctional" life and the sacredness of human life was not something I thought of much.

My official title at the mill was "health worker." I did various duties-lab work, leading groups (deceiving women about their abortions), "advocating" (deceiving women during their abortions), and assisting the abortionist, which included helping during the abortion and checking to make sure all the parts of the baby were there in the collection jar afterwards. I will never forget, in the second-trimester abortions, holding those little feet up to a chart on the wall to make sure of the age of the baby.

Just like everyone else employed there I laughed at the pro-lifers outside the mill and hardened my heart against the truth. If I thought about what was really happening, it became overwhelming. So, I treated the whole issue as a joke-but somewhere along the line God started working on my heart. I started to read literature left by the pro-lifers, and pro-life books. I began to see what I was doing in a whole new light. I saw these babies for what they were-human beings. It was very hard for my heart and head to accept because I had been leaving both my heart and head at home for so long to work there.

I began looking towards God and sometimes visiting church and reading the Bible. I know that the only thing keeping me from accepting Christ into my life was the fact that I was involved in murder-the murder of those made in His image. After working there eight months, I could no longer resist God-He had awakened me to the ugliness of abortion. I knew that in every abortion a living human being is killed, and I believe that a part of the mother is killed too. In May of 1991 I left the mill and believed that I had shut the door on my abortion experience.

After leaving the mill, I accepted the Lord into my heart and my life, and was baptized. After years of searching, I found my true home in the Catholic Church, into which I was fully received on April 2, 1994. I am now married to a kind and loving man and we have two beautiful boys.

It was during my pregnancies that I began to deal with my experience in the mill. I know now that I was experiencing post-abortion syndrome-just as if I'd had an abortion myself, only I felt even worse because I had participated in hundreds of them. God worked on my heart for a long time, showing me His forgiveness, letting me know that I had to forgive myself because He had work for me to do. In early 1994 I finally felt ready to respond to the Lord's calling. I began to sidewalk counsel, picket, and speak publicly. I know I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do, and I was warned and knew that Satan hates God's people and their work for Him.

There have been difficult times, with much persecution and attacks from Satan, but I know that the Lord is my protector; His works will prevail! I took a break from my sidewalk counseling to strengthen myself in the Lord-and then He told me it was time to go back. I just am so grateful that He pulled me out of the darkness and into the light. He has shown me how terribly evil abortion is. He has shown me how precious life is. He has shown me that every preborn baby is His child, and that no one has the right to take that life. He has shown me that there is forgiveness and healing in Him. For those who have participated in abortions or had abortions I pray that the pro-death people will have their hearts changed and believe that life is the only "choice."

My walk with God has not been easy. Life is full of ups and downs, joy and pain. But I know that He is always there beside me. He has blessed me beyond anything I ever imagined, and continues to do so. He can do the same for anyone if He is only asked to.

I think it's important to pray for those women who are considering abortion and also for those caught up in the evil of the abortion industry, that they will see the truth and be set free. Abortion is not just a "choice," it is a destructive, life-taking act that will only bring pain and loss to those involved.

Psalm 40:1-3

I waited patiently for the Lord;

He turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;

He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.

Read more testimonies at Silent No More

[fetznerdeathrecords]

Decayed Existence - The Beginning of Sorrows

Old school Death Metal from Anderson, California, U.S.

The album has one speed and one goal: to obliterate your ears. With an interesting balance between technical proficiency and absolute mayhem, it shows us something relentless and engaging that feels retro, but not in an old-school death metal way. It almost feels like retro-technical death metal, since I’ve heard all of this before, but not too long ago. It reminds me somewhat of what bands like Hour of Penance bring us: death metal with a no-nonsense attitude.

1. Escape the Dead 03:20 2. Baptized 03:35 3. Beheading the Colossus 04:35 4. Mind Wars 03:29 5. Beginning of Sorrows 05:07 6. Conqueror of Flesh (live) 02:57 7. Where Death Dies (live) 03:00 8. Detonation (live) 04:05

Release date: October 11th, 2024 via @rottweiler.records

[luke-shywalker]

I was baptized seven years ago today in a frigid California river wearing a Kylo Ren tank top, fresh out of high school and still in the middle of finding myself. I’d always believed but always felt like I was waiting for something, waiting for something; I couldn’t get baptized until Something Big happened, something worthy of standing before a congregation and proclaiming to a chorus of hallelujahs—

but nah, there was no Something Big, only Someone Big, who had just…always been there, and I always knew it—even though I suck at keeping in touch with him, like I suck at keeping in touch with everyone who knows me—I’m Little-Miss-Hear-Back-From-Me-in-a-Month—but I couldn’t be an atheist even if I wanted to and I never could and I never will and I don’t know why

he wrote on my heart, I guess—in big fat letters that won’t go away, even when I go and do stupid crap—

baptism represents the spiritual rebirth of a Christian when they become new in Jesus. sometimes it’s night and day. and sometimes…sometimes…it’s a slow, slow dawn

one day, the day will come when the sun rises—when the Son rises—and we all bow

and I think I’ll feel like how I felt, at age eighteen, all numb and tingling and alive, my tanned skin cold against the California August heat, shivering in my stupid little Kylo Ren shirt

[blogger360ncislarules]

Good luck at Caltech, Sheldon! We know you’ll do just fine and go on to make great friends in Pasadena.

The May 16 episode of Young Sheldon marked the end of The Big Bang Theory spinoff, with young Sheldon Cooper (Iain Armitage) heading off to California to further his studies. Here, executive producer Steve Holland explains why Sheldon first needed to dip his body in baptismal water before making the trek, and why it was so important that his adult self write a memoir about his childhood in Texas.

DEADLINE What was the very last scene you shot before Young Sheldon wrapped for good?

STEVE HOLLAND It was the family dinner scene where Mary [Zoe Perry] wants them to get baptized. George’s chair is there with a place setting, but he’s obviously passed away at that point. So we wanted to end in a scene that had as many of the characters in it as possible. And those dinner scenes have been such a staple of the show.

DEADLINE What was that last day like?

HOLLAND It was really emotional. I mean, honestly, the whole last month was. It was incredibly emotional writing the funeral episode and the finale and realizing how that was the last Young Sheldon script we were ever going to write. And then, when we got into production on those last three episodes … everyone knew the show was coming to an end and they were grieving that in some way, while grieving the death of the character. So there was a lot of real life emotions being mixed in with character emotions. Tears were readily available to everybody, but it literally had been weeks of saying goodbye.

DEADLINE Why was it important for Mary to have her kids baptized?

STEVE HOLLAND I think it was George’s death that started Mary on the road to being The Big Bang Theory Mary. I mean, she was always religious on Young Sheldon, but in Big Bang, Mary is even more religious. And we always thought that George’s death was sort of a flashpoint moment for a lot of these characters. I think for her, especially in the wake of losing George and realizing that anything could happen at any moment, she turns to religion and it’s super important for her to know that her kids’ souls are safe — especially for Sheldon who’s going to go off into the world and isn’t going to be where she can protect him. I think it’s just really important for her to feel like he’s going to be okay.

DEADLINE It was such a great idea to put Sheldon in a scuba suit for that.

HOLLAND When we were talking about what it would take to get Sheldon baptized, we liked the call back to the pilot where Mary gives him an out and he says, ‘I don’t believe, but I do believe in you.’ But we also felt like Sheldon’s not going to get in that tank of water unprotected. So it was a discussion about what he would wear. At first we had him just in a wetsuit, but honestly, a black wetsuit looked kind of like a superhero costume. It looked a little too cool. So then we were trying to figure out how to gussy it up with yellow boots and a life preserver to give it color. We just kept adding and taking away until we found what seemed like the best look for him.

DEADLINE Did you know for several seasons that you wanted Jim Parsons and Mayim Bialik in the finale?

HOLLAND I think in the back of our minds, it was always the thing we wanted. Certainly Jim, because he’d been narrating the whole thing. As we got to the finale, I think Chuck Lorre had pitched the idea of bringing back Mayim and Jim, which was really exciting and so much fun. But then it was like a balancing act for us. We wanted to make sure that we honored this cast and not let adult Sheldon and Amy dominate the last episode. I’m really happy with the balance we found. I think that Jim and Mayim are in it a great amount, but I think the Cooper family still gets their moment to shine.

DEADLINE So why would the world need a Sheldon Cooper memoir?

HOLLAND He’s a Nobel Prize winning physicist. I think he might’ve assumed the world needed that, whether that happened or not, but in the wake of him being a Nobel Prize winner and perhaps going on to even more research, the world needs to know about his childhood.

DEADLINE So was the first time that we learned Sheldon and Amy named their kid Leonard?

HOLLAND We’d said that before, I think in the episode where Sheldon graduates from high school. I think adult Sheldon says in voiceover that they have a son named after Leonard.

DEADLINE What was it like bringing Mayim and Jim back together?

HOLLAND Those are actors who I love and spent a decade of my life with. I see them from time to time, and obviously Jim narrated the show, so we saw him. But that’s usually on Zoom. He lives in New York, so we’re not in the same actual room that often. So just to be in the same room with him again was great and a little surreal because it felt like no time had passed.

DEADLINE Was that final scene shot at Caltech?

HOLLAND Yeah. I think that might be the first time, although we shot in an office at Caltech once when Stephen Hawking was on Big Bang. But I think it was the first time we’ve actually shot outside on the campus.

DEADLINE Even watching that episode, you can imagine the next chapter of this saga with Sheldon going to college and meeting Leonard. But I guess that’s too much to dream about?

HOLLAND I think so. You also get into this weird thing where somehow, he would have to morph into Jim Parsons. But we at least know we’re sending him off on that hopeful note, and we know that his future is full of friends and relationships and good things.

DEADLINE Let’s talk about the spinoff, George & Mandy’s First Marriage! It’s so great that it’s going to be a multi-camera comedy. Did you want to do that all along?

HOLLAND Multicam is our background. For Chuck and Steven Molaro and I, that’s how we came up in this business. The single camera show has been great and lovely, but I think in our bones we’re kind of multi-cam people and there’s nothing quite like putting a show up in front of an audience every week. It was important for Young Sheldon to be single cam, just to separate it from The Big Bang Theory, so it didn’t feel like we were just trying to copy Big Bang. This is a way to make this new show also feel like its own thing and not feel like it’s another season of Young Sheldon. It’ll give it its own identity. It’ll give it its own flavor. And putting this cast up in front of an audience is going to be really exciting.

DEADLINE What soundstage will you be on?

HOLLAND We’re going to be on the Big Bang stage, stage 25. I actually haven’t been back on that stage since we wrapped Big Bang. I’m excited. I think I’ve been in this business long enough to have heard the death of multi-cam many times and it’s always sort of bounced back. I think there’s something to be said for a comedy in front of an audience, a comedy that’s really about laughs. I hope audiences are ready for a return to that. I think there’s a real space for that in the world. There are so few of them now, and I have no idea how audiences are going to respond, but I know we are excited about it, and that’s been a good sort of guiding light for us throughout all this is, to try to do things we’re excited about and hope an audience follows you along.

[the-whispers-of-death]

tell us more abt hellstorm, i'm interested

Alright, ten "fun" facts about Hellstorm! (It won't really be all fun, cause there's some angst, muahaha.)

He's the only OC who can't speak any Hindi (Simba & Nala both know a little from Sarabi & Kali and the rest are obviously also Desi and learned from their parents) because every foster parent he has had was white.

The shortest he has been with a foster family was one day and that was because they found out Hellstorm has a peanut allergy and the foster mother loved making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids (so he couldn't stay).

He has lived in six states over the course of his childhood due to moving from foster home to foster home (Illinois, New York, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Texas).

On his birth certificate it says he was born in Illinois but he was surrendered near the border of Missouri so it's not entirely clear.

He ran away twice but went back to the same foster home four days later, only to realize the foster family hadn't reported him missing both times. (He never told his social worker either.)

His bored expression and tone is a defensive mechanism he developed when he was a kid because he found it was the best way to get other kids to stop bullying him. (If he didn't cry, they'd get bored of bullying him.)

His favorite animal are birds, because he always wanted to fly away when he was younger. Just leave everything behind and be free.

I've said it before, but he really wanted to be a rancher when he was younger and now that he's close to retiring, he wants to become a rancher.

He has been baptized due to a foster family being very religious, though he no longer goes to church.

He has been engaged before, when he was in his early twenties.

[sunglassesbot]

As living standards, and incomes, rise, birth rates decline, usually below replacement rate. I know of two exceptions to this: Georgia and Israel. At first glance, high Israeli birth rates might appear to find their explanation in the high birth rates of a subsection of the populace, namely Haredi Jews–often referred to as the “Ultra-Orthodox” by the media. But Haredi Jews comprise less than 15% of the Israeli population and, once more, secular Jews in Israel have a birth rate at replacement. Of course, it is exceeding difficult to avoid the impression that the aftermath of genocide has resulted in a higher birth rate for Israeli Jews. One would assume that secular Israeli Jews who reside in Israel have more of an attachment to their ethno-cultural grouping than secular Jews outside Israeli borders, if only by virtue of the fact that they live in an explicitly Jewish state.

In Georgia, birth rates were below replacement until after the Russian invasion. My friend accredits the higher Georgian birth rate to their Patriarch’s offer to baptize every third child, but I suspect it had more to do with a general sentiment that their country and culture was under attack by Russia. 

Of course this all relates back to the materialism versus idealism discussion concerning the drivers of history. The materialist would say that material circumstances drive history, that two nations with similar economic circumstances would have similar behavioral and political outcomes. The idealist would say that ideas, such as a fear of lost cultural heritage or a sense of obligation towards one's ethnic group to reproduce, propel history. 

The native people with which I am the most familiar, the Zuni, have a very high birth rate yet live in poverty, so they are not particularly applicable to the line of inquiry pursued by this post. More valuable would be an indigenous grouping with substantial wealth and human development.  Perhaps, there are some of these in California where casinos, under legal provisions related to tribal sovereignty, have been successful in raising wealth. However, the ethnic groupings possessing ownership of these casinos are probably too small to draw conclusions from. 

Of course, the elephant in the room is Ukraine which already had very low birth rates and is suffering mortality and emigration as a result of the Russian invasion. For most European countries a declining birth rate can be countered by increased immigration, albeit not without at least some political backlash. Contrary to what certain political groups would have you believe, I don't think any European country has accepted anywhere near enough migrants to endanger the continuation of its culture. But a post-war Ukraine would not be a particularly desirable destination for immigrants, and Eastern Europe already has a reputation as less than hospitable towards such newcomers.

[dertaglichedan]

‘God Lit a Match’: 12K Baptized at California Historic Worship Event

Christians participated in what is being called the nation’s largest-ever baptism that occurred in California over the weekend with approximately 12,000 people being immersed.

Crowds gathered for the May 18 and 19 event, which was dubbed Baptize California, CBN News reported Tuesday. Part of the weekend was a main-stage event at Huntington Beach, which featured speakers and worship leaders.

“WE WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT GOD DID THIS WEEKEND. This is revival,” the Baptize California Facebook page wrote in a post Wednesday.

Images show people being baptized in a large tank near the stage and numerous people gathered near the ocean:

WE WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT GOD DID THIS WEEKEND This is revival 🔥 @baptize.california Posted by Baptize California on Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Per CBN, the preliminary numbers showed there were more than 6,000 baptisms at Huntington Beach and 6,000 more at different churches in California.

One social media user who participated in the event at Huntington Beach said the event had 60 stations set up to get people baptized:

DAY 2 BAPTIZE CALIFORNIA …. Record Breaking one day of baptisms in America .. over 12,000 said yes to Jesus! 60… Posted by Jeanne Nouvelle on Sunday, May 19, 2024

When speaking of the incredible gathering, its founder, Oceans Church Pastor Mark Francey said, “You can smell another Great Awakening in the air like rain before it hits. God lit a match yesterday! If God can do this in the church in California, it can — and it will — happen in the rest of America!”

[ostentenacity]

nothing like recovering long-buried childhood memories to liven up your saturday

when I was little my class had a field trip planned to one of the california missions because we were learning about them

I faked sick that day because I knew the mission had a baptismal font and for some reason I was convinced that just going near a baptismal font meant You’re Gonna Get Baptized

and for whatever reason, Grade School Me had a deep and irrational fear of christianity and christian things, the same way other kids were scared of cooties