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thoughts-of-the-unheard · 4 years

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im losing my mind in 10th grade history i wrote my final essay on serbia vs the us bc serbia was the country id studied for a project and i just reread that essay bc i legitimately couldnt remember how to start my essay for my history final this year and holy shit guys

“Taboo Topics: Serbia vs USA Differences

There are several subjects that are usually talked in hushed whispers behind closed doors with the wonderful exceptions of the few who speak out. These subjects include, but are in no way limited to, the gender pay gap, LGBT rights, rape, and abortions. With these topics, there are some very obvious differences between how Serbia and the United States handle them. Serbia deals with these forbidden matters significantly better than the United States does.

The gender pay gap has been a popular topic for a few years now. Women are always paid less than men for the same work. In certain workplaces, women are actually less likely to be hired than a man even if she has more experience or better credentials, not always but quite often. The Boston Symphony holds blind auditions. There was a point where they had to make everyone who auditioned take off their shoes because the judges were hearing the women’s heel click against the floor and unconsciously judged against them. Bias against women is a very common and, unfortunately, normal thing to see is every country for quite a few centuries. It wasn’t always this way. We were all equal once. Now, we have male sports teams getting paid thousands for losing and female teams not getting paid at all. As of 2018, women in Serbia are paid 16% less than her male coworkers for the same job (Serbian Monitor). In the lovely United States, white women get paid 19% less then her white male coworkers. That is a three percent more difference than Serbia, which is bad enough but hispanic women are paid 39% less than her white male coworkers for the same work (iwpr). The three fifths compromise ended in the 1860s, and yet. This is the worst gender bias. People who love their job are the lucky ones. Most people now work a job, or several, just to stay afloat. Everyone deserves to be able to afford at least the bare minimum; food, water, housing, healthcare, and education. When women are paid a lesser wage than men when the wages are already insufficient, they have to pick and choose. To pay a woman less just because she wasn’t born a white man is telling her she isn’t worth as much.

LGBT, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, rights is, for some reason, a very taboo subject. People all over get killed for being part of the LGBT community. Many religions are very against anything related to the LGBT community. A lot of people think they are “confused” or straight up sinners. It should not matter what people think. If a person is a person no matter how small then a person is a person no matter their gender or sexual orientation. Serbia is very good with that. “In June 2017, Ana Brnabić became the Prime Minister of Serbia, as the first woman and first openly gay person to hold the office, and the second female LGBT head of government overall (after Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir of Iceland). She was also the first Serbian Prime Minister to attend a pride parade.” (Wikipedia). America is not even ready for any female in such a high position of power while Serbia is making a bunch of firsts for women and the LGBT community. Serbia does not recognize same-sex marriages unless they are foreign but it is not illegal, either. Just in 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized in America. Millions of people were told they were not allowed to feel how they were feeling for centuries. Love was illegal. It took so long to legalize because many people in America were so freaked out about the potential risk of an LGBT person raping them or their child or infecting them or it was against their religion.

Weirdest thing is that, in the same America, when non-LGBT people rape anyone, they are less likely to go to jail than any other criminal, even murderers. According to Rainn, Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, 995 out of 1000 perpetrators in America will walk free. With 38.6 cases of rape for every 100,000 population, as of 2015, that is a lot scarier than the bisexual girl that lives down the street who has no interest in her friend in the same way that she wouldn’t if she was straight. LGBT people are not the problem. Rapists and the morally gray judges who let them walk without so much as a smack on the wrist because it was only one person and they don’t have a history of this sort of thing, are. The victim is never the issue. Ever. People are terrified to tell anyone they were raped because they could lose their friends and even their job. The victim. The victim who was brave enough to speak out against a violation of their body and mind. They have a higher chance of losing their job than their rapists does of going to jail. They have a higher chance of dying from whooping cough, which has a 0.52 death rate in America, then their rapist has of going to jail. Statistically, in America, someone is sexually assaulted every 92 seconds (RAINN). An estimated 63% of sexual assaults are not even reported. Very largely, in part to the low incarceration rate. In 2010, America was ranked first in 117 countries for number of rapes. Serbia was 45th. One was 1177 times more likely to get raped in America than in Serbia. As of 2015, the Serbian rate of rape cases per 100,000 was 0.7 (Knoema). Serbia is 55 times safer in these terms. They have an astronomically lower rape rate than the United States does.

Serbia has a very high amount of abortions. Taking into consideration that Serbia severely lacked even a decent sex education system to inform their people about safe-sex. Approximately 12% of sexually active women were using condoms in the 1970s and 1980s (Wikipedia). Because of the awful education, abortion was the leading method of birth control. Serbia allows abortion up to ten weeks of pregnancy for a regular case. Twenty weeks is allowed for special cases such as “rape, incest, psychological trauma and socioeconomic reasons” (Women on Waves). Unheard of in America, abortions in Serbia “can be obtained for free as it is covered by the healthcare.” (Women on Waves). The United States does not have nearly as high of an official abortion rate because every woman, and even some men, get verbally harassed for walking into a place that happens to give abortions even if they are there for any other medical reason. Recently though, Ohio, Georgia, Mississippi, and Kentucky have all passed heartbeat bills that make abortion illegal after six weeks. Most women do not realize they are pregnant until almost halfway through their first trimester. Six weeks pregnant is two weeks late on a woman’s period. Texas, Florida, New York, Missouri, Louisiana, South Carolina, Illinois, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Minnesota plan on also passing the heartbeat bill this year. Alabama has made a near-total ban on abortion. Birth control, IUDs, and similar things are going to be banned in Ohio. Birth control could stop a fertilised egg from implanting in the uterus and will be considered an abortion, which is already banned. Birth control has about six other uses that have nothing to do with preventing pregnancy. Georgia will prosecute women who plan to leave the state to get an abortion in a state where it is legal. This follows people out of Georgia. This makes women property of the state. Ohio is currently forcing an eleven year old girl, who was raped, carry her rapists child to delivery. Ohio, one of the free states of America, in 2019, is forcing a child, who is in fifth or sixth grade, to carry the child of the man who raped her, for nine months and then give birth. Childbirth is one of the most painful things ever and Ohio is forcing a literal child to go through it.

Serbia may, on a governmental level, be a mess but at least their people are treated well. Despite Serbia being a conflict magnet country and America being “the land of the free”, Serbia generally has less restrictions and more acceptance with these choice issues and maybe -probably- even more. Serbia has a lesser pay gap, an openly gay, female prime minister, less chances of being raped, and abortion is legal and free because of healthcare that makes sense. Serbia is far from perfect but it is undoubtedly closer than America.”

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salt-sass-and-lyrium · 5 years

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may i ask why you're becoming increasingly scared of the united states? if possible, can we also talk about the abortion law in Alabama (under friendly terms of course i don't want to victimize or target anyone)

I’m going to try and keep this short but know I won’t be able to because in reality the list is like this

and growing.

Here we go.

Note: This is all just off the top of my head, but I can provide sources for everything if needed

My state just banned abortions after 8 weeks, when most when don’t even know they’re pregnant. There’s been a decrease in resources available to pregnant women and children for ages and it’s not getting any better.

This is the same state that refused the medicaid expansion, so we’re extra fucked on health care

Remember the “legitimate rape” guy? Yeah, we elected him. He was one of ours.

Ferguson

Abortions are being banned before assault rifles.

It’s literally a serious debate as to whether or not minimum wage people deserve a livable wage.

We as a culture have just decided that school shootings are just ‘things that happen’ and ‘there’s nothing that can be done about them’.

A judge just ruled that the police at the Parkland shooting had no obligation to try and stop the shooting or protect the students.

Birth control is becoming more and more expensive and more and more scarce.

Planned Parenthoods and like institutions are being closed down nation wide for zero fucking reason, even in light of the fact that such closures lead to dramatic increases in STDs and unwanted pregnancies

The most common camp

My president is a racist, homophobic, reality TV show host who thinks windmills cause cancer. He quite literally has demonstrated he has no idea of how government or even money works. Oh, he’s also a proud sexual assaulter and adulterer.

My president has demonstrated time and time again, on about a daily basis, that he is not mentally sound or capable of doing the job, yet his own party refuses to do anything about it.

Since being in office, his policies and tariffs have fucked over the farming industry, and now other industries due to his fucking tariffs.

Said president put in place an EO that forced children to be separated from their families at the border for no legally justifiable reason.

This is still happening

We’ve since lost THOUSANDS of those children. Most of them will never be reunited with their families. And in many instances, young children who were reunited with their families often rejected them as they no longer recognized them. Don’t even get me started on the child trauma.

This was done as a tactic by the Republicans to blackmail the Democrats into funding the wall.

A majority of the country does not want a wall, border patrol included, but Trump is forcing it through anyway. Aside from being both useless and racist, it will cost tax payers billions an displace tons of American citizens.

Our healthcare system. Healthcare is horrific. A single hospital visit can easily put someone tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Many doctors refuse to see patients who do not have insurance, or who do not have ‘good enough’ insurance.

The most popular campaigns on sites like GoFundMe are for medical expenses. Frequently people have been dying because their campaigns fell short. Notably a young man died because he couldn’t afford insulin. He was $13 dollars short.

It is easier for me to purchase an assault rifle than for me to purchase and register a car.

I can buy guns at fucking Walmart

As an LGBTQ individual:

It’s still a debate as to whether or not I or people like me deserve basic human rights

My vice president supports conversion therapy. (He also calls his wife ‘Mother’ and no body seems willing to admit how weird that sounds)

There are still many active entities trying to repeal my right to marry whoever the fuck I want.

What transgender people have to go through. I’m just gonna leave it at that or we’ll be here all week.

As a woman:

Without insurance, my birth control, a 1 month supply, is $135.

Birth control is becoming increasingly more and more difficult to obtain, particularly for low income individuals.

Planned Parenthoods and like institutions are being shut down at an alarming rate, despite oodles of proof that this does not even remotely benefit the community, in fact, it harms it as there tends to be a massive spike in STDs

A man who raped a woman behind a dumpster got 6 months in prison but I’ve got family in jail for non violent weed charges.

It’s 2019 and people are still fervently rejecting the idea that women are equal and should be treated and paid equally.

The Georgia abortion ban

Rape culture

As a black woman:

Sandra Brown. Philando Castille. Mike Brown. Tamir Rice. Trayvon Martin. I’m going to stop naming names because I’m going to cry.

An unarmed black person getting gunned down by police is not even a rare occurrence. And it has almost never resulted in any real trouble for the police officer(s)

The fact that I’ve never touched a gun in my life but have had them pulled on me.

The fact that me and several of my friends took the subway with student passes. I was the only one stopped and interrogated because the officer refused to believe that I was a student. I have two degrees. All my friends were white, if that wasn’t obvious. I can’t count how many times I’ve been stopped and searched and publicly humiliated because I walked into a store and ‘totally must’ve stolen something.

Look at the incarceration

As a tax payer:

My government would rather spend money giving billionaires tax cuts then ensuring that children don’t go hungry

They would rather build a fucking wall that quite literally is going to do nothing to stop immigration than try and improve our infastructure

We spend more than the next 12 nations combined on our military for largely no reason at this point. We waste billions on technology that doesn’t even work.

We can’t provide free college for all but we can provide tax cuts and benefits to corporations that do not need them.

Measure after measure are being put in place to try and stop minorities from voting, notably in Georgia.

TL;DR: Given the way my country is headed, which is towards criminalizing my race, my sexuality, limiting the rights and resources of my gender and intentionally hindering advancement overall. Towards violence being the norm and children being short to death in kindergarten being nbd. I live in a country where the Vegas shooter who killed over 50 people and wounded hundreds more had headline articles run about how sweet of a man he was and how h was so generous he bought his grandmother a wheelchair but a literal child playing with a toy gun was called a criminal and demonized. I live in a country that does not value human life unless you are a heterosexual white Christian male. Or, more accurately, a wealthy, heterosexual white Christian male. Me just existing as I am is becoming more and more dangerous each day.

What specifically about the abortion law(s) would you like to talk about?

#abortion #america #racism #politics #us politics #trump #healthcare #sorry if that's not the most coherent i'm exhausted #Anonymous

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yaz-the-spaz · 5 years

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Do you think there is a legitimate argument for the pro-life side of the debate? I have been watching a few different videos on it - particularly the one where they show how an abortion is done, it's really hard to watch - and I can kind of see where they are coming from. Like I understand that the fetus is in her body, but when you look at photos it looks like a baby and not at all like the "clump of cells" everyone claimed they look like...

to clarify the ‘clump of cells’ is up to a certain stage so if the video you watched is from a later point in the pregnancy then obviously it’s not going to look like that as it’s going to be later in its developmental stage (if you get an abortion early enough though it will literally still be just a clump of cells). that said, before i go any further to address your answer, i wanna state that i am unequivocally pro-choice and that informs a lot of my beliefs. however, i do understand some of the pro-life’s argument. personally i don’t think i could ever have an abortion (though who knows what circumstances life could bring me towards) so from that perspective i understand wanting to preserve the life of this being growing inside you that could have so much potential. but pregnancy (and having a child) is still a tremendous undertaking on the body (and on the future of a woman’s entire life). in my opinion every person should always have the right to decide what happens to their own body, without worrying about that choice being taken away from them. the government, or anyone outside that individual person, should never be able to dictate what a person chooses to do with their own body. and that’s not even getting into the real crux of the issue (and the reason so many people are so up in arms) with this law, which is that it hurts the literal children it’s claiming to want to protect.

in the states it’s to be implemented in, under this draconian law, children as young as 11 years old–eleven, let that sink in–who are victims of rape or sexual assault and even incest that resulted in a pregnancy and didn’t report the assault before their 6th week of pregnancy* would still be forced to carry their pregnancy to term. can you imagine being 11 years old and forced to carry your rapist’s child to term? and then go through the traumatic experience of giving birth? an experience which if you even survived (because tbh the chances of surviving childbirth that young, or even coming through it without some kind of irreparable damage to a body that’s not yet meant to give birth are not good), effectively just ruined your body, your physical health, your psyche, your entire future for the rest of your life, not to mention having to live with triple the trauma of being raped/sexually assaulted, going through the hardships of pregnancy, and giving birth all as a child who’s not even old enough to fucking be out alone at night or buy a damn t-rated video game.

and then there’s the matter of all the women and girls whose lives would be in physical danger because of complications with their pregnancy that could cause life-threatening illnesses, that would be forced to risk (or possibly even sacrifice) their lives just to carry the pregnancy to term. why is an unborn fetus, who’s barely even begun its life and not even a fully conscious being yet, more important the lives (and physical and psychological well-being) of young girls and women who are already living?

and all that’s on top of the fact that the pro-life movement in general holds up extremely hypocritical tenements. because the same people that scream pro-life are often the same people who are silent on gun control even when thousands of children are dying because their schools keep getting fucking shot up. they’re the same people who are silent on (or outright opposed to) things like universal healthcare and more country-wide social services that will actually help the children we already have living. they’re the same ones who didn’t give two fucks when latinx children and babies were being separated from their families and locked up in cages, kept in inhumane conditions like animals. they’re the same ones who come at those who’ve had abortions yelling well if you didn’t want to keep your child you should have just given them up for adoption, but yet most of them don’t adopt children themselves and/or are silent on issues pertaining to adoption and the shitty foster care system in this country. they’re silent on all the ways children suffer in this country because their parents weren’t equipped or didn’t have the means to take care of them. they’re silent on all the adults in this country that are products of the kinds of shitty (and crime-ridden/violent) childhoods those kinds of situations result in - i.e. adults in prison, drug addicts, people with mental issues, etc. they’re silent on innocent black and brown children getting shot by police in the streets. they’re silent on issues that pertain to literally saving the lives of lgbt+ people and particularly lgbt+ youth. most hypocritically they’re silent and/or outright opposed to proper sex education, which has been shown to actually dramatically decrease the chances of unplanned pregnancy, which would essentially negate the need for the abortions they hate so much and are working so hard to outlaw. and so yet again, i ask, why do the lives of unborn fetuses matter more than the lives of the children and adults who are already living (and are suffering) in this country?

point being, if you’re going to be pro-life, actually be pro-life. if the majority of these people were actually pro-life (as in actually caring about everyone’s lives and everyone’s human rights and not just those of unborn fetuses) i wouldn’t have as much of a problem with their movement. but anyway all that to say that yes, i think they have some arguments that i might say i agree with (i hesitate to use the term ‘legitimate’ as you did because to me that implies that one’s personal beliefs should trump everyone else’s freedoms and rights to choose what to do with their own body). but on the whole imo they’re just using their (often religious-based) beliefs to force their will on others and take away people’s freedoms and autonomy.

(*which by the way for many is around the time they’re just finding out they’re pregnant because at most, depending on your cycle, that would only be about two weeks after your first missed period, and if you were too scared to come forward or for whatever reason unable to report the assault within that tiny ass time frame window, or you happen to have irregular cycles and didn’t even realize you were pregnant before then, then you’re just sorry out of fucking luck)

#asks #anons #pro-choice #pro-life*#abortion #i hope this sufficiently answered your question anon

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crazy-hand-official · 6 years

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on hole

ok so this posts been a long time a comin’ but i finally feel like im drunk enough to talk about (and never shut the fuck up about) one of my favorite bands... Hole

hole’s music has meant a lot to me since i picked up Live Through This at some boring ass used cd store that also happened to sell erotic fantasy novels about good fathers. but anyway. holes music is for women with bad fathers. women who are kind of fucked up and angry about it, too. women who have trauma and scars and are kinda gross. women who were wronged but somehow by the grace of god empowered in the face of their horrible experiences.

or at least it feels like that, dont it?

that was the main appeal of hole to me, anyway. i fell in love with this album around the second or third listen through. i was like, damn, shes pissed. it was so refreshing to hear a woman just screaming out her frustrations. how cathartic must it have been to be able to not only get it out, but also be taken somewhat seriously? of course hole never got the recognition they deserved. im of the unpopular opinion that they were waayyyy better than nirvana. without sounding kinda sappy... you know what fuck it im not apologizing to any of u. hole totally made me embrace womanhood. it influenced my own, much beloved way to just exist.

but also i guess i just really love tunes.

ps im not here for the courtney killed kurt debate lmfao!!

ok so heres the part where i write my onions about their four studio albums

Pretty On the Inside

their first album and admittedly, my least favorite (that doesnt say much because i still really enjoy it). its sound is much more abrasive. love employs her most guttural screams in this one, but ill get to that. to its credit, its the most experimental but many interpret it as amateur guitar screeches and song bits just hashed together. and maybe theyre right! but what band doesnt have that not-quite-there-yet first album? its an unrefined, beautiful mess. A song title or two is spelled wrong. Garbadge man is one that comes to mind. and for some reason, its just... fitting. its an artistic mistake left in and its so dumb but thats the fun in it! thats the punk in it! they dont give a fuck so why should you? this album is a messy bitch.

track im gonna nut about: mrs. jones

this song is apparently about a back alley abortion, and its just as brutal. love is screaming, just guttural sounds and expletives and nauseating lyrics. when i first heard it, i was absolutely entranced in the atrocity of it all. shes sweating, panting. i will follow you down the sick drain

other favorite tracks: teenage whore, good sister bad sister, pretty on the inside

Live Through This

their most popular album also happens to be my favorite! the start of it all...

i havent shut up about this album since day one because i just like it so much! she refines her skills and just comes out with a successful album that ties an array of horrible themes and wraps them up in a pretty pink bow. its soft aesthetic covers the dark, sickening themes that make the album. rape, anorexia, self harm, self hatred, violence, abuse... the list goes on. someone i one knew asked me why women with bipolar disorder and bpd love hole so much and i had to bite my tongue but to be brutally honest we probably like it because love had the nuts to scream about taboo themes that are so hurtfully common in our lives. just like how the depressed rally behind the smiths. oh that and the musics awesome. but anyway, the cover is a beauty queen the moment shes crowned. its supposed to represent someone who has fought, clawed, and fucked her way to the top. but look! shes the queen! shes the beauty queen! everyone will finally love her and treat her with respect! and all she had to do was sell her soul. all she had to do was get abused over and over to the point of breakdown. but she made it, didnt she? i mean, look how pretty the crown is!

favorite track im not gonna shut up about: i think i would die

im gonna be super lazy and just copy and paste what i wrote up one time when i talked about this song before:

wait nevermind i cant search for my post through my tag because tumblr is broken. something about breastmilk? ill update once i find it lmao.

other favorite tracks: violet, softer softest, miss world

Celebrity Skin

i dont have as many onions on this one. supposedly, love didnt want this album to become ‘the widow album’, but theres a song or two about kurt’s death snuck in there. this albums loud, but not nearly as angry as the first two. in fact, when shes not singing catchy pop tunes about how jaded she is, shes being sincere and heartfelt. all in all, its a fantastic album and my second favorite that hole has to offer.

favorite track of the album: heaven tonight

ive heard two stories about what this songs supposedly about. on one hand, people say its about two lovers. the girl wants to lose her virginity to the guy, so she drives (recklessly) to his house and dies in an accident. she’ll never grow old, she’ll go to heaven tonight. on the other hand, i heard that love just wanted a fun song to sing to her daughter, frances bean. either way, it makes me want to dance. so idk if its about teenagers fucking or about a little girl who just needed a song, but its cool.

other favorite tracks: awful, celebrity skin, reasons to be beautiful

Nobody’s Daughter

years later, hole released their final album. when i first heard it, i was disappointed. the first track was great, but then.... i noticed her voice had deteriorated significantly due to her smoking and other vocal abuse. and i thought, damn, i really wish she released this when she was younger. she sounds normal when she screams, but i guess to compensate when singing softer parts, she does this kind of weird weird thing when enunciating that... ok i cant pinpoint or describe what exactly it is but it kinda sucks. ‘honey’ is the only hole song that i dont like very much, and its the best song to use as an example when trying to explain how her voice got all fucked. now, we cant all be bowie (whose singing voice only got better after years of smoking). but still.

anyways, i listened to the album again, and i mean really listened to it. and actually! the smoker voice is the beauty of it! its a woman who is past jaded and past giving fucks about anyone or anything. its songs from a woman of experience. and she still sounds badass! her voice is so rough, she sounds like she could still fuck anyone up. its exciting.

favorite track to get all sappy about: letter to god

i really found an appreciation for this song. this is a song about someone who cant be saved. and isnt that fucked up? youre so bad, so hated by all of those around you, but no one can hate you as much as yourself. and you try everything to pick yourself up but just nothing works. and everyone has their two cents in what they think will help you. but youve tried every med in the book and youve tried this and that and the other thing, and you come to the conclusion that you just cant be saved. youre drowning. so what do you do? you turn to god, a supernatural all-mighty being. but shit, i hope he can help you. because if he doesnt, fucking nothing ever will. so go write him that letter.

i never wanted to be the person you see

other favorite tracks: nobodys daughter, skinny little bitch

and thats what i have to say about that!

#hole #courtney love #long post #goddamn this took forever to write lol i just had a lot to say #and still have more but ill shut up... for now.#im not actually drunk but i wrote this post last night at like 1 am #well i was drunk but not christmas morning damn

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douxreviews · 6 years

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Outlander - ‘The Deep Heart's Core’ Review

By Laure Mack

"Today we ride faster than yesterday."

The bonding and family magic continues until it's over. But is a TV family even a family without at least one misunderstanding followed by a volatile exchange between them?? I think not.

Their first fight! What a doozy. And it was Da that got grounded. Usually it's the other way around.

On a scale of 1 to 10 how wrong is it that I enjoyed that fight? Not the fake fight where Jamie strong armed some sense into his daughter and helped her realize that she had done all she possibly could do against her attacker. Because that was actually hard for me to watch. I instinctively turned away a couple of times. I don't know if it was seeing a father get physical with his daughter or seeing Bree get pushed around and manipulated, but it was unpleasant for sure. That's not a dig at all. Sam Heughan played it very well. Showing the camera and audience what he was trying to do while still pushing Bree's buttons and enraging her to react. It was well written and well acted. And how horrifyingly poignant to have a parent with their own sexual trauma to help you cope with yours. What a sad shared commonality.

No, I'm talking about that knock down drag out when Bree found out that Jamie put the beat down on Roger. Bree and Jamie go toe to toe in the tempered rage department! He did not come out very well here at all. It was a little odd seeing the king of men knocked down a few pegs. And I guess there is where she will hold him for the foreseeable future seeing as how they aren't going to see each other for four(ish) months. I appreciated that Bree wouldn't let him off the hook. Not because he beat up Roger, which admittedly wasn't his finest moment, but because of the nasty rant he spewed when he thought she lied about being raped. It was not a good color on him. She didn't ask him to beat anyone up for her and it's cheap to place the blame of his actions on her shoulders. Get it together, Jamie.

So much emphasis is being placed on the father/daughter relationship that it might be easy to miss the mother/daughter beats that are peppered in. I enjoyed them just as much as anything we got between Bree and her dad. Especially after seeing the strains of their relationship through the years, I really enjoyed the emotional stability between them now. Claire, a surgeon, is able to give Brianna the option of a surgical abortion. A conversation fraught with emotional landmines under any circumstances. It was nice of her to afford Bree that choice and to extend it so gingerly and give her the dignity of supporting any decision her daughter made. Of course it was also sad to think of all the women that wouldn't have a surgeon to rely on. And Claire stayed by Brianna's side often even embracing her during that entire confrontation in the cabin. She had her back. Let's not forget that Jamie lied to Claire too, but she didn't call him on it until after Bree had walked away. Not making the betrayal about her at all even though she was kept just as in the dark. Good mom points.

And then there's Roger. He's not having a great time. Beaten and sold and marched. His friend dies and then he is face to face with a ticket home. A ticket out of the horrors he has come to know in the past. A way out of bleeding and being chased. Back to his books and cheeseburgers and plumbing. (Maybe. I think we are supposed to assume that since he can hear the buzzing he would be able to go back to his place. Or something.) Anyway. You guys. It would be hard to stay, right? Ugh, I thought Richard Rankin really really killed it with this scene. I wanted give him a hug. I'm always very impressed when an actor makes me feel what the character is feeling. As much as I don't want him to abandon Bree, I also really wanted him to save himself. The war between self preservation and self sacrifice danced on his face and in his gestures and in the pained noises he made. Wow wow wow. Gold stars. But I'm pretty sure he won't be leaving. I could see it playing out like Claire getting dragged from the stone at the last second a la season one, though.

Almost weekly wig-related rant: This has been the season of the low ponytail. Was the low pony to 18th century North Carolina really what the side pony was to Kelly Kapowski? This isn't rhetorical, I'd like to know. Either way, I'm not here for it. It looks a little off on practically everyone. Maybe it's a family thing? But if Frasers don't have the countenance to pull it off then there really is no hope for the rest of us. I feel obligated to say that Murtagh's wig and low pony look the best in a sea of low ponytailed wigs.

3 out of 4 knots in a rope

Bits and pieces

According to TPTB, the title The Deep Heart's Core came from a poem that was originally supposed to be included in the ep but was cut from the final version.

Also, I have to say that I loved the life on the ridge montage that we got. Very Little House on the Ridge. I could have watched more of that for a while. So sweet.

The nightmare where Roger turned into Bonnet was well shot. I knew it wasn't real from the start but it made my skin crawl anyway. Ick. In season two, Jamie had nightmares where Claire turned into Black Jack Randall.

Bree smacked Jamie and Ian in this episode. Murtagh had the good sense to bolt out of the door. I also really loved Bree telling Jamie that he was insane for thinking she would trust him to go and find Roger alone.

Around the campfire the Mohawk told stories in their language, effectively excluding their white English speaking prisoners. Much like the Highlanders excluded Claire using Gaelic. This was, for some reason, a strong throwback episode. Reminding me a lot of seasons past. Not complaining, though.

Murtagh had a few silent moments that I loved this week. It was so nice of him to volunteer to take Bree to River Run. Much like he took charge of looking after Jamie for most of his life. He just belongs.

I also loved seeing Murtagh with Aunt Jocasta. They were flirting, right?? Cute. Murcasta sitting in a tree??

There were a few that made sense given the time period but that I really could've lived without:

Jamie insisting that Brianna get married. Jamie lashing out at Brianna when he annoyingly jumped to conclusions and tried to blame his actions on her. Ian proposing to Brianna should he not be able to save her current husband whom he sold for a silver dangly bit.

Brianna: "I don't want to be married." Jamie: "With a bairn coming, you must."

Brianna: "Where is Roger? Lizzie told me Roger was here, and Jamie beat him." Jamie, not Da.

On a side note, Da is still hard for me to swallow. It sounds more like something Maria von Trapp sings about than a name. I'm sure I'll adjust eventually.

Jamie: "To think I was defending your honor, and now I come to find you claim yourself violated upon finding yourself with child." Bree: "I was violated, you self-righteous bastard! By someone else! You beat up the wrong man."

Brianna: "No! You do not get to be more angry than me." This was such a good point. You go girl.

Bree: "I'm sorry, Mama." Claire: "Whatever for?" Bree: "For making you leave me."

Murtagh: "You must have taken careful note of my hands, to recall them even after thirty years have passed." Jocasta: "How could I not? You could hardly keep them from my sister, every day of her young life. Every time I looked at her, there you were with a hand out to help her, or with flowers in them for her."

#Outlander #Claire Beauchamp #Jamie Fraser #Brianna Randall #Outlander Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews #ICYMI

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boombitxh · 7 years

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Scandal Ruminations 7X07

I think that I can finally, for once in my life, with clarity, can tell where Scandal is going! It took me ten thousand years to finally get here but for some reason once I reached the point of indifference I was finally able to objectively watch this show.

Let’s face it, this show loves to tap dance on our very last nerve. First things first: For what it’s worth I don’t think that Quinn is dead. The actress gave no exit interviews to any press as is customary. I know she just had a baby but these interviews are arranged and conducted way ahead of time.

I will start by saying this: Olivia still has a few stages to go through before she gets to where she’s going and I’ve identified the stages as follow:

1) The Catharsis: the breakdown of what’s left of this version of Olivia. It began this last episode as she grappled with her very own chewy center. She has one but she has deluded herself into thinking that she doesn’t. All the baggage she dropped on Rowan’s living room floor is the most self-aware moment she’s had in years! I found her statement to contradict everything she told Fitz in that 509 argument but I will delve into that later and how S4B & S5 are what bring us the Olivia we see today.

2) The isolation: Olivia must spend time alone to come to grips with the choices she has made. The choices that affected her personally and the ones that affected her friends/family. This introspection will also serve as the foundation for what Olivia wants to do with her life. If you had asked me a week ago I would’ve told you she needed this introspection but I would have not been inclined to think that she was ready for it. Her moment of self-awareness, in which she acknowledges the root of her problems, her father, serves as the beginning of the breaking down and breaking through to move the show forward and onto her introspection.

3) The penance: Olivia is not a very verbal person in terms of apologies, I mean I can count on my hand the few times she’s apologized. I think her making amends will be more about actions and less about words.

4) The Rebuilding: Olivia will eventually power through and finally envision who it is she wants to be and what she wants to be doing. She looked so unenthused when Mellie was giving her the “No man between us” speech that I felt as if she was on the verge of quitting right then and there. The WH at the service of Mellie ain’t the place for her. She isn’t cut out to be command as we’ve clearly been shown. There’s only one place left for her to go: back to the white hat, whatever the white hat means for her from this point forward.

5) The reconciliation: this applies to all aspects of her life, with Fitz (I was a skeptic but if they’re going to make second-rate Dabby endgame then what has been the point of dragging Olitz out all these seasons. Come on!) and the reconciliation with what we were introduced to as her initial family: OPA.

I mentioned earlier how her speech to her father was the opposite parallel to what she tells Fitz in their argument in 509. Her words during that argument reflected her and were a deflection of her own actions that lead to that point in the relationship. In no way am I implying Fitz was innocent in all this. Olivia specifically hits Fitz where it hurts by saying she came from a palace compared to him but my oh my how the tides have turned and now she’s capable of acknowledging that she was emotionally deprived and made in her father’s image.

Kidnapping Arc Revisited

I am almost certain that Rowan was responsible for her kidnapping. Throughout the whole ordeal he behaved with such aplomb that no harm would come to Olivia and was so aloof that I have no doubt in my mind that he orchestrated the whole thing. It’s important to note that Quinn is wearing her ring when she is snatched in the elevator, thus leaving her ring behind for the crew to find is an intentional act that parallels Olivia’s kidnapping. Since Rowan snatched Quinn (although I’m positive it was Jake who physically did it because what other loyal goon does Rowan have otherwise?) As I was saying, since Rowan snatched Quinn I think the parallel is intentional and would connect him to both kidnappings.

I think that Rowan orchestrated the kidnapping to further separate Olivia and Fitz. The kidnapping placed Fitz between a rock and a hard place and no matter what he chose he would disappoint Olivia, so by design this would further drive a wedge between Olitz since little Jerry’s murder was not enough to keep them apart.

Fitz was torn between two choices:

Not rescue Olivia -this would disappoint her and make her believe he never loved her and would have destroyed her confidence in his love. Keep in mind she tells the kidnapper that the President would be looking for her.

Rescue Olivia –As Fitz acquiesces to go to war to save one person this also shatters Olivia because Fitz makes a choice that she vehemently disagrees with. She does not want to feel responsible for a war, much less the lives that will be given in exchange for her survival.

Fitz would lose no matter what choice he made, and either choice would forever change him in her eyes, further driving a wedge between them. No matter what he chose he could not win and would be tarnished in Olivia’s eyes, between a rock and a hard place.

Note that the S4 finale has Olitz reuniting but it is only possible because her father is finally locked away and out of her life. It is obvious that Olivia has not dealt with her PTSD at this point in S4 and all the trauma that remains bubbling beneath her surface comes to light in S5A.

Fitz’s marriage proposal under the worst circumstances possible triggers Olivia’s commitment issue which at that point in the story is not new. Under the pressure of an impending wedding that neither of them were ready for at that point in time Olivia does what she knows will relieve her of this - she frees her father. If her father is free Olivia is under his control, whether she knows it or not. Olivia’s PTSD reaches new heights when Fitz creepily moves her in without even asking and this is when it takes a drastic turn—Olivia is now caged and is reliving her prior traumatic experience. To free herself she severs all ties with Fitz, abortion included, and fully begins to live in her father’s image post 509.

Motherhood & Babies

Something that I’ve noticed for a while now is the consistent theme of babies and motherhood. All of which can be traced back to the very first season and I have confessed on here that I don’t think that Olivia wants to be a mother but it’s just so in your face that I had to stop and reconsider. It’s likely that Olivia thinks she won’t make a good mother, what could be called her family life has been nothing but torture so it’s not hard to see why she would think that, and that is further reiterated with her choice to have an abortion. HOWEVER, I have been having conversations with people analyzing the motherhood/babies theme for a few months now and it is obvious that on some level Olivia resents Quinn because she has a life that Olivia might’ve imagined for herself. In this season alone Olivia has touched her lower belly, like she did in 509 when she says there is no future for Olitz anymore, at least 3 times that I can easily remember. This is intentional

After thinking about it for a while I came to two conclusions: One that I’ve discussed on here before, the idea that Olivia having a child would further advocate for choice in alignment with the social messaging of the show. Allowing the character to experience both ends of the spectrum re motherhood would cement the idea that women are in control of their bodies and should be able to choose when to take on motherhood if they so desire.

The other conclusion is the fact that what Olivia has come to believe about herself & her abilities/lack thereof regarding motherhood are untrue. Olivia is the matriarch of OPA, it was her nurturing force that brought them together. She found all those people, took care of them, and put them back together! If that doesn’t stand out as one of the foundations of her mothering abilities, then I’m not sure what will.

Now that makeshift family is sort-of broken, and notice that every single member has done morally questionable things, all their ugly has been exposed and their relationships deconstructed. After they get over their final hurdle with this Olivia & Quinn situation they have nowhere to go but up. Notice that no one has said the words “over a cliff” in a while because they no longer have that sycophantic relationship with one another, and especially with Olivia. That wasn’t healthy, which is why the deconstruction is pivotal to change within this group of people.

Extraneous Characters

This episode confirmed my suspicions that Jake is working behind her back. My spidey senses tingled in the beginning of the season and I was right. Jake is not interested in bringing Olivia into the light, his only concern appears to be freedom. Therefore, he is participating in this whole charade with Rowan and undermining Olivia. He looks like he’s involved to the point where he is taking orders from both Rowan and Olivia, but at the end of the day he’s interested in freedom the same way other characters were interested in freedom this last episode. Rowan’s bones are just a sad euphemism for his freedom to take back command. Notice that Jake suggests Olivia kill Rowan because he is too weak himself and wants Olivia to subconsciously free him. That thing she told him about him needing her too much? It’s true. And Olivia gambles with her father until the very end so that she can prove that she is the one in control and free of him. The complete opposite is true; she is still his prisoner as she described how she was made in his image. Rowan has never stopped being in control.

Now that I mentioned Jake it’s also important to mention that I’m sure his days on here are numbered. This last episode planted the seed in Cy’s brain that something is amiss. Using Fenton as a scapegoat was a bad idea; Cy is now questioning the intel Jake claims he had and he seems to be the only person who remembers that this asshole killed James in cold blood. It’s the perfect time for revenge. Cy will help unfurl what exactly has been going on under the roof of this WH all along. THE TIME IS NIGH! PLEASE! PLEASE JUST GET RID OF JAKE!

Also, important to mention that Pryce of power guy was (is?) a member of the press just like James, it was no coincidence that Cy of all people has that discussion with Jake.

Mellie ,*cue eyeroll* The most useless character on here that can’t do anything unless she is coddled and spoon-fed. She needs Marcus for advice, she needs Olivia to hold her hand every second, SHE is the one that’s President but in the end, she relents and decides to pick Fitz’s brain (and reports) to see how she should propose Criminal Justice Reform. No idea ever comes from her! EVER!

Her whole “we don’t need no man” speech was one of the creepiest things I’ve ever witnessed on this show. I’m not sure if it was the acting or what but I picked up on the strangest tension. And about men coming between them? Fitz was between them in the beginning, and he is between them now because Mellie is discussing and setting policy goals with Fitz instead of with her COS, especially after Fitz has been pseudo-banished. No man between them? LIES! It’s always the same man, now it’s just not in a romantic context.

In the end this whole Rashad thing will blow up but I refuse to think that this bitch will have the satisfaction of firing Olivia. Olivia looks like she’s barely hanging on by a thread as it is, I want her to quit and reclaim her agency! For all the times that Mellie treated her like some whore that was responsible for serving her now ex-husband! And all the times she’s been dismissive of her this season! Or how she wants all sort of plausible deniability while Olivia gets her hands dirty as command! Enough of this kumbaya sisterhood shit, it’s fake, let’s end it!

The only thing I can’t quite decide on is Rowan’s fate. The kill order is still standing; we were left with that cliffhanger… But I wonder if the show is gonna go down the whole patricide route? I’m not sure. It is obvious that Rowan and Olivia cannot coexist, for her to be able to live her life she needs to be free of him. It is no coincidence that she was somewhat functional the first two seasons when Rowan was not in the picture. Once he entered the scene her life started to spiral, culminating with this last episode in which Olivia unloads all her baggage and all the fingers point to Rowan.

Last Few Words

For the first time in a long time I am eager to see the show return. We only have 11 episodes left but these are all loose ends that need to tied up. For a long time, I resented the show because I felt as if the writing was constantly contradictory and I felt like it was impossible to interpret it. The characters would act a certain way but their words were the complete opposite and I just found myself running out of patience and not knowing what to believe. I had to reach a place of indifference to be able to interpret it. I in no way believe that all, if any, of these predictions will come to fruition and this may be more along the lines of wishful thinking perhaps. I want to fall in love with Olivia the same way I did at the beginning and I REFUSE to think that they will let her go out unhappy. Whatever her version of happy is then so be it, but she is not cut out to be Command. The writing’s on the wall and we are reaching the end so everything tends to feel on the nose and too intentional for there to be coincidences. I’ve thought of other things that I did not include on here because this is so insanely long but would love to discuss and pick at other ideas. :)

I think that we will come to find that Olivia has a deliciously chewy center. (And I’m sure Fitz can attest to that!)

#Tony Goldwyn #TonyGoldwyn #Olitz #olivia pope #oliviapope #olivia and fitz #scandal #scandalabc #scandal abc #Fitzgerald Grant #KerryWashington #kerry washington #scandal 7x07 #mellie grant #olivia x mellie

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chicagocityofclans · 4 years

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Catherine ‘Cat’ Barr → Jade Tailor→ Warlock

→ Basic Information

Age: 328

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual

Powers: Compass

Birthday: January 14th

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Religion: Luciferianism

Mark: Unknown

Generation: 1st

→ Her Personality

Cat has a strong personality. She can be cold with a detached attitude, trying to ward off potential friends or feelings, preventing any sort of attachment because of previous betrayals. Cat is incredibly outspoken with her opinions and thoughts without much regard to others feelings. This may stem from the fact that she is far more advanced in magic than others under her mentor and has shown to possess a more comprehensive grasp of magic than most warlocks or witches her age. She has also proven herself as a loyal and effective member of the warlock and witch society, though her anger management issues and lack of empathy terrify most of her associates. Many are willing to overlook this as she is the best (and only) tracker in town.

She has buried the trauma from her younger life so deeply that it has begun to affect her power, especially as she transitions into her Master level abilities. Cat is unable to have people in her life without a reason; they aren’t friends for the sake of being friends, they all have a specific use for her. Her impatience and hostility keep most people away and she has very few if any meaningful feelings for the people in her life. All of this feeds the deep insecurity created before she found her powers. It seeps into her daily life often, though she uses it as motivation in her training and advancement as a Compass. She gains her internal power from her magic. Before she was a scared little girl who lost the ones she loved; now she can move across the world, find anyone she wants, and has the power to take her loved ones back.

→ Her Personal Facts

Occupation: Cross Country Teleporter at Shutter Magic International Imports & Export

Scars: None

Tattoos: Lady trapped in a dreamcatcher on her right shoulder blade

Two Likes: Travel and Energy Drinks

Two Dislikes: Pink and Unsweet Tea

Two Fears: Planes and Other Forms of Transportation

Two Hobbies: Poker and Camping

Three Positive Traits: Trustworthy, Intelligent, Level-headed

Three Negative Traits: Hostile, Impatient, Insecure

→ Her Connections

Parent Names:

Jane Barr (Mother): Her mother was the sweetest thing on Earth. And because of that she never amounted to anything. Jane was used by friends and family over and over again. Cat grew up bitter, seeing the unfairest of the world and wants to be nothing like her mother. Cat loved her mother and still mourns her death.

Sibling Names:

None

Children Names:

Isabelle Kentlee (Daughter): Cat was only able to hold her daughter for a few seconds before Isabelle’s father took her away. They took a boat ride back to England but never made it. Cat’s mother, Jane, helped her mourn her loss.

Romantic Connections:

William Kentlee (Ex-Boyfriend): William was a rich Englishmen that Cat fell in love with. Sadly, once William found out Cat was pregnant, he wanted her to abort the child in order to save himself from humiliation back home; his wife and family. When Cat decided to keep the child, William made plans to bring the child back home with him. William never made it back to England.

Jace Cicero (Mutual Interest): She has some feelings for Jace, but he’s been there mostly as a current and future resource for her. He has extensive knowledge about the council, various powers, as well as Minsky’s plans for her. She also knows that when she comes back with her daughter she’ll need someone to stand for her when the council brings her to trial.

Platonic Connections:

Minsky Edison (Mentor): Cat has grown increasingly irritated with Minsky since she’s transitioned into her Master level. He has grown overly cautious and she feels like he’s overanalyzing her every move. She needed him to teach her the basic powers, but now he’s beginning to step outside of his bounds.

Raven Anderson (Resource): They met at a ‘Women’s Rights’ protest and exchanged numbers. Cat and Raven often teleport together to marches, rallies and protests. Her friendship with Raven was calculated so she’d have an in with a hunter, but she’s certain Raven is using her too.

Ronan Cleirigh (Employer): Ronan lets her get away with everything Minsky doesn’t, including lending her books about reality searching and black magic.

Audo Wilhelm (Resource): Cat does monthly readings with Audo to try and uncover what her future holds. He’s been having some challenges getting a clear future for her, and whether she has a child with her or not has eluded him.

Judson Cleirigh (Resource): Cat has been stockpiling various supplies she may need for Isabelle from Judson’s store. She’s unsure what powers or health problems her daughter may have and she needs to be prepared for the first few years in hiding. Judson has made joking comments, but she has a feeling that he knows something about to happen.

Eric Lasiter (Resource): Eric has been helping her transmutate a house for her and Isabelle to live in once she gets back. She teleports him to an anonymous location, he works for an agreed amount of hours and then she brings him back. A good paycheck and sympathy over his own lost daughters is the driving force behind their partnership.

Hostile Connections:

Maya ‘Flower’ Hanes (Dislike): Cat hates her face.

Kady Gaines (Hate): Cat has inquired multiple times to Kady to have her help in finding a universe where she could take her daughter back with the fewest consequences. Kady has flat out refused each time she asked without hearing her whole plea.

Nikita Platt (Hate): Cat thinks Nikita is a stuck up princess who has no respect for privacy. She accidentally stumbled across a memory of Cat’s and told Minsky what she found.

Pets:

None

→ History

Catherine Barr grew up feeling trapped. Her town was small, filled with small minded people who were hell bent on hating her and her mother. The scandal of Jane Barr falling pregnant as an unmarried woman was loud and put a lot of undue prejudice against Cat and Jane. Still in the face of everything, Jane was always kind. She would ignore the hate spewed at her and still act as kind as ever to the villagers. It was something she both hated and loved about her mother. She wished she would stand up for herself, and she wondered what was wrong with her that she wasn’t the same way. She felt the anger boil in her stomach, the protest rose in her throat, the desire to just disappear whenever the townspeople came close to her. When she was 18, a rich Englishman came to town. She brushed it off as another terrible town person, but was surprised when he sought her out. William Kentlee made Cat feel free. He had grand stories of London and the places he’d been. He brought food and presents for herself and her mother when he came calling. He made the terrible town she was stuck in feel brighter and better. She fell in love and gave William everything.

And then she fell pregnant. The original thought terrified her, but then she imagined her and William’s children running around his family’s home in England, her mother coming with to take care of the children; a fantasy life as Mrs. William Kentlee. When she told him he erupted in anger, called her foolish and told her to get rid of the baby. He screamed about his wife and children at home. Then he left, for months on a fur trade in Quebec. She couldn’t hurt this child inside of her and carried the baby to term. Cat named her Isabelle after a character in a book that William gave her. When Mr. Kentlee arrived back he tore through the Barr house, stealing Isabelle and heading to the first boat to London. Cat was completely broken, Jane tried to put the pieces back together but nothing fit without Isabelle. She swore she would get Isabelle back, even if she had to go to England to do it. She found multiple jobs, working as hard as she could to save up the money. And then news of a terrible accident on the boat happened and Cat fell apart again.

She wandered into the woods, hoping to never come back out to the world again. She walked in circles, days and nights only to arrive back to where she started near her mother’s home. Each time she became more and more frustrated. She always knew where to go, always knew where to look, even if she didn’t want to go there. One day during an attempt to get lost she spotted a woman in the middle of the forest. She hid behind a tree and watched her with a fawn who had been shot by a hunter. The deer had been dead when Cat crossed it the first time, no life in its eyes. Yet when the woman touched it, it stood and ran off. Cat had never much believed God was on her side, but that must have been the work of an angel. As if she’d heard her thoughts, the woman looked right at her and came walking towards her. She called out in a British tone which only made Cat run harder, until suddenly a large birch crashed down in front of her, dead, though it had been alive moments before. She swung around and suddenly the woman was in front of her. Cat attempted to run again, but the woman held tight and began her story of witches and warlocks and magic. When the woman said she could raise the dead or steal something’s life her heart caught in her throat. She told the woman the story of her baby, begging her to bring her back to life. The woman shook her head sadly and explained the rules. She grabbed Cat and in the next moment they were in a fancy room thousands of miles away. Cat was unable to return to her mother and at that moment began training. She spent her first 100 years in Edinburgh, with Adaline Mortimer, the necromancer, before escaping back to Canada after she was murdered. She made her way back to her small town to find everything was different and her childhood cottage destroyed. She moved to New York and then to Chicago. After years of being on her own, she found Minsky Edison and asked him to train her.

→ The Present

Cat has somewhat recently begun training for her Master level powers. She mastered her Advanced by her late 200s and pushed hard to have Minsky begin training her early. Kindred Tracking and Reality Searching have been the two driving forces of motivation for her powers. Cat is sure that Minsky is suspicious of her motives, causing a larger strife than what was already between them. While she is sure Minsky is worried about her safety and the repercussions of her actions; Cat has been carefully planning on taking Isabelle from another universe where the alternate Catherine is dead or dying, Isabelle succeeded the trip back to England, where Isabelle is being mistreated or abused, and other possibilities where Cat agreed it was safe to take Isabelle. Not only has she made multiple extraction plans but she has begun building a safe house and working with the local Council member to possibly avoid harsh sentencing if caught.

She knows that she has very few if any true friends in Chicago, and that isn’t enough to make anyone save her life when it comes down to it. She’s trying to offer more of herself in the various relationships she has. It became incredibly apparent when Eric asked if she would really raise the baby alone, with no outside contact. And when Audo asked what happened after she got the baby. Would she be happy? She wants to reach out and actually trust another person, but doesn’t know how to start.

Cat also has to deal with Minsky and the rest of the council encouraging her to sign up for the new beta testing for Kindred Tracking. They wanted to flush out family lines past the superficiality of marks, and they needed a Compass to try and develop beyond being able to see their bloodlines. Cat is playing the part of studying extra, practicing the motions, meditating over new magic. But the whole idea seems like a wild goose chase set in motion by Minsky to keep her distracted.

→ Available Gif Hunts (we do not own these)

Jade Tailor [1] [2] [3]

#Catherine Barr #Cat Barr #Open #OF #OFWR #OWR #Jade Tailor

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creativitytoexplore · 4 years

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How To Be A Good Episcopalian by Yash Seyedbagheri https://ift.tt/3eRjqCN Yash Seyedbagheri's character considers joining the Episcopalian Church as a way to deal with the trauma of an absent mother.

Join the Episcopal church one winter day after run-ins with fundamentalists on campus. This is a particularly difficult day for you, sitting through creative writing classes (you are a graduate student), contributing nothing of value in comments or in stories, lost in a creative malaise. You are that guy who babbles incessantly, but whose words simply do not add up to anything of value. They hold a certain emptiness. It is just before Christmas, when smiling Santas and families together put you in a bad mood. On top of this all, you have to deal with being branded a sinner by angry bearded fundamentalists who look like a combo of Hemingway and child predators. "You're going to burn," they shout, waving their hands into the charcoal-colored skies, as though they've snorted too much cocaine. Their eyes are wide and crazed. "This campus is a den of sin. Fornication." "Turn away from evil pleasures." The only thing you've pleasured lately has been your right hand. They bellow homophobic, sexist, racist comments and make you feel utterly like there is no love, like you are in the middle of a pit of nothingness. It's like love is a fucking construct. Something you preach, but don't practice. Love is as fleeting as the moon on a Rocky Mountain evening, as fleeting as your own mother, a flame-haired stranger who has flitted in and out of the world. "You're fascists," You yell. Staying classy aren't you? Walking past this church on an evening stroll, you see the sign glowing in the dusk, proclaiming ALL ARE WELCOME, its light spilling out onto the sloping lawn, filled with fresh snow. This sign seduces you, seems to call. It's as though you could be any number of people in the world and still be special at the same time. You send an email to the rector, the Reverend Nancy Botkin. When Reverend Botkin asks you reasons for being attracted to the faith, you can only admit that you don't know. You were drawn in by the positive message, by the inclusiveness (you did some reading on the church after the moment with the sign). This is all you can say. You cannot describe your experience with the sign. It might seem absolutely silly, even to a priest whose life is predicated upon faith, upon the unseen, the unknown. A blunt truth, which you have so conveniently not disclosed to Reverend Botkin, and which you have tried to abort: Your mother has been having an affair, a fucking affair, with an Episcopal priest, Father Cooper (along with a pianist, a waste management consultant and a park ranger over the years). So she told you in her last letter, written a few months back, a letter written as though you were some acquaintance, some old chum, not her son, the byproduct of her loins. You recall terms, written in her oddly graceful penmanship, such as "fucking awesome" and "the fucking light of my life." He was supposedly the most engaging, dynamic figure on the planet. So were the other men your mother gravitated towards, and they ultimately left her in the lurch. You feel anger and pity reading all this. What is the appeal? What is this man's magnetism? Is it something in the faith itself? Your mother doesn't really have any fixed religious convictions per se. How does one measure the "light" of one's life, one's innermost sense of success, really? Of course, you leave this out. Reverend Botkin might think you joined the church for all the wrong reasons. And you like to think you haven't, that your mother had nothing to do with this all, that this was all pure coincidence. At least you don't spout platitudes about being Christ-like. You know your limitations. You might withhold your mother's Episcopalian connections, but certain truths are abundantly clear, as much as you try to push them back, resist. You have a volcanic temper, a foul mouth, a tendency to lash out irrationally even at friends and there are times when the intensity catches even you off guard, makes you feel as if you have been taken over by some Incredible Hulk-like being. You blame people for being too organized, too focused on their lives, when in fact you envy their abilities. Thankfully you do not tell Reverend Botkin all this. Not just now anyway. Reverend Botkin seems to take your simple response with good humor. "I don't expect a concise answer," she chuckles, when you meet in her office with its faded white walls, its commanding, yet simple cross, and elegant rows of theological tomes, filled with the weight of centuries, of conflicts and peace. "It's not like asking someone why they like a movie. Unless, of course God is, in fact, Morgan Freeman." You cannot help but like her sense of humor. It is as if she is not some calculated construction, but a spontaneous and dynamic and flawed person, not ashamed to exhibit it. Perhaps she has lost much in her life. Perhaps she has been losing and losing. But you cannot fully trust. Not just yet. You feel a certain shame, a sense that there is a wall between you and the world. But you also need to defend yourself. Perhaps it is her duty to disarm, to give the impression of openness. "I'm afraid I'd need a flashlight to find a reason," you joke, pursing your lips into something of a scowl. You insist on maintaining a poker face. "I don't really know where I'm at now." "That's why we're all here," she says gently, patting you on the shoulder, an almost motherly gesture that makes you want to burst in half. "Everyone has their own journey." This is a priest who has stories to tell, and who has heard many a story. You can tell this, even if you cannot fully understand her yet. You have an instinct for people, for their mannerisms. You can feel it her wry smile, the way she surveys you with a certain detective's eye. In a way, priests are like detectives, trying to plunge their holy flashlights into the soul. You wonder if Father Cooper has plunged his flashlight into your mother's mysteries. Plenty of people have tried to figure you out, tried to add you up according to their own ideas. Your Aunt Betty, who saw a potential lawyer or businessman, if you just gravitated towards it. Your principal, branding you a troublemaker. The policemen and policewomen who typed the reports after you were brought in for your share of pranks, their words permanently making you a delinquent. Yet, you do not get this vibe from Reverend Botkin. She seems to hold a certain understanding, or the desire to understand if nothing else, as if she knows there is something more than meets the eye. You cannot sink any lower. You can only traverse a different path. So what harm is there in going? Attend the first service. This is the first time you've set foot in a church since you were a teenager. You must present yourself like a gentleman. Trust me. Jesus might have worn sandals, but he earned that right. You have no claim to greatness. You have not healed the sick or the least. You haven't even healed the mess that is your life, figured out your path forward in life. You don't know exactly what you want, but that's not the point. Point is you need to radiate grace and verve, convey a sense of sophistication, as if you hold much knowledge. Dress nice. Wear khakis and that nice dress shirt Aunt Betty sent you a year ago. Or that nice purple shirt you found in the thrift store. Both are classy. Become engrossed in the richness of the liturgies, the organ music which fills the Gothic spaces with a kind of warmth, the ghosts of Bach and Handel swelling before you. It seems a stark contrast to the lazy rhythms of your classes at school, where you seem to be simply trying to make sense of theories and principles of writing, without any of the pageantry or glory. Reverend Botkin's sermon moves you with its unpretentious focus on love and applying it to the modern world. She speaks of love with such fervor that you cannot help but listen, like a student trying to become immersed in a foreign language, something that sounds seductive and mysterious, but whose meaning is unclear. She does not speak in platitudes, but vivid, specific images. Looking into the audience of young and old, men and women in the polished oak pews, the aged and the youthful, she recounts how her younger brother Nick dropped out of school, and became a drug dealer a la Scarface, and she struggled through seminary. You feel pity, you may feel anger that she has endured such injustice, and you wish that you could say something to assuage these truths. But you also believe that empty words sink people. You will be drawn in by the exchanging of the peace, the simple utterance of the words "peace be with you", the shaking of parishioners' hands as you move up and down the aisle of the Gothic church. It is as if they can wash over the tides of hatred and weariness that fill your soul. You will be fascinated by the idea of Communion, by this idea of being worthy. At the same time, it may seem like a bullshit scam, a way of peppering over certain truths. Does God have a list of who's worthy? You will be greeted kindly by the parishioners during coffee hour, who seem to make an art form of shaking your hand, looking into your eyes, as if you are the most important person in the room, as if your twenty-something life is of absolute fascination. This is bullshit. This is an act. But they are good at it. "How did you come here?" one may ask. "It's good to have you here," an old woman tells you, smiling beatifically. "I'm delighted you chose St. Matthew's." They will tell worldly jokes, about politics and being miserable and happy in marriage and life. They will even joke about booze being the third sacrament, and they will let you in on the joke, as if you have been a part of their world for eternity. This is the first time anyone's welcomed you anyplace, at least without a grimace or a scowl. Well, there was grad school, but that turned into its own world of grimaces and scowls fast. Surrounded by a sea of parishioners, among the scent of incense, cigarettes, and old-building muskiness, you think of being shuffled as a child, and now it seems, you are being shuffled again, amongst parishioners bearing love, or at least the semblance of love. This is an odd, delightful little feeling, but you cannot help but wonder when it will end. You went from your mother, to other relatives, after she said she needed to find some inner peace. "Some living space," she said. If you'd been wise and worldly you'd have reminded her that this was also what a certain German dictator wanted. Living space. Living space to wipe out the past occupants of a certain land. It was three years before Aunt Betty finally took you in, a period that involved being propelled from one home to the next, without any sense of settlement, any sense of roots. Belonging. You remembered only vague half-images, of weary men and hostile women, people connected to you by blood, but not by love. You remembered images of cracked flowerpots and loose porch swings and rotten walls, of commands and edicts. Sit up straight. Eat your dinner. Do your homework. All commands that seem general, that could have been lobbed at anyone, that didn't acknowledge your being, your existence. That was so long ago, and yet all so recent, the words still seem to hang above you, taunting you.

"How do you like it?" Reverend Botkin says, greeting you after the postlude, the organ music dying away like some beautiful vision, the sound replaced by the clatter of high-heels on the floors and murmured voices. People moving out into their little worlds. "You haven't seen anything like this, have you?" "Fuck," is all you say, albeit in the way that connotes wonderment. You do not want to commit just yet, to lock yourself into a world of people whose connections to you are tenuous. But you do not want to feign hostility either. Reverend Botkin laughs, as though she understands the feeling, as though she once made this leap from a world of unanswered questions and despair, into an equally bewildering world, but a joyful bewilderment, an exploration of the deep theological questions. How do we serve God? How do we "do good" without becoming sanctimonious? Who the fuck is God? Slumbering in your small apartment late at night, you picture this day forever, the energy, the people whose lives you have yet to know. You will descend into a pleasant dream, one whose beauty will linger with you in the morning, even though you cannot recall what the dream is. That's the problem with beauty. Its spirit makes itself known, but it cannot be pigeonholed into concrete forms.

Make your viewpoints known, once it becomes evident that you are in communion with most fellow parishioners where the world is concerned, politically and socially. Do not poke bears, something you used to do. You had too much trouble pretending to like Hitler in high school. Besides, people have gotten wise to your bear-poking. It has lost its fun. Espouse dislike for racism, homophobia and sexism amongst fellow parishioners, who are whiter than a White Christmas. You can all agree on this, even if you share different views on liturgical matters, such as transubstantiation. You feel a sense of connection, even though you are not a member of said persecuted group. You can pretend to care about social justice, even though you've never waved a sign, and as much as you don't want to admit it, three hundred immigrants could get beaten up and you wouldn't give a hoot, if it didn't affect you. Try to avoid thinking about your mother. Of course you inevitably slip. You did try to conjure her spirit once during prayer, when you kneeled and confessed your sins before the big guy. You don't know why you did it, but you felt the impulse stirring at you, invisible, yet all too present, its spirit taunting you. Teasing you. You conjured the bloodshot eyes, the messed flame-colored hair, the look of despair or happiness. This fascinates you. She was either despairing or in a kind of disturbing euphoria. There was never any in between, no room for nuances between those two opposite poles. At points, you feel like she might be hiding in this very parish, and that you might have an encounter by chance. You know this is ultimately bull, but cannot help but imagine it. An image that you play over and over, like a Geto Boys rap song: Your mother is walking up the aisle, settling into the same pew. She has grown older, has more wrinkles, looks even more world-weary. Or perhaps she looks younger, has found the happiness she claims. There is a look of shock as she sees you, her long lost son, gone from delinquent to tenuous Episcopalian. She will try to add it all up, fumble for the words to bridge this gap of awkwardness. Perhaps you will tell a dirty joke (your go-to method) to diffuse the situation, a joke about racist chickens. Or maybe you will ask a dozen questions about Father Cooper, trying to find out what makes him special, different from the other men, how he speaks to forces within your mother she cannot put into words. Of course, you cannot dwell on this too long. You came to move onward, to put the past behind, like a child riding a bicycle, looking only forward. Onward. Onward. Onward. Feign interest while listening to parishioners' stories during coffee hour and after services. Become genuinely interested after placing all this into perspective, after letting the facts make themselves clear. You are among people. You have no need to go home, where you will drift alone, idly and celebrating all things wasteful and superfluous, amongst beer cans and half-discarded stories you have yet to revisit. These parishioners' stories are fascinating, but seem to hold a certain gravitas that your own life lacks. One woman was the first in her field to train mountain lions. Another gentleman rescued 300 orphans from Eastern Europe in a move out of a spy-thriller. Operation Suffer The Little Children. Another woman built homes for the poor. Another did scholarly research on Rasputin and his dismembered penis and even wrote some sort of liturgy for the dismembered unit. Perhaps Father Cooper too is accomplished in this way and your mother relishes this achievement. These people have purpose, a focal point that beckons them day after day, like a lighthouse on a wide, crashing sea. You can tell by the way they tell these stories with a certain grace and composure. They have the strength to plunge into the maelstrom of love and hope and disappointment and despair. You try to imagine yourself in such a position, imagine yourself assuming strength, pushing it like Atlas, holding it upon your lanky shoulders. You wonder how anyone can move forward, what keeps them from being propelled backwards into the abyss. You can only tell parishioners that your purpose is to write stories that convey tales of humanity. That convey the human experience. This is partly true, but you also like to write because you consider it a ticket to fame. You cannot admit this, admit this fantasy of being on top, and discarding modesty and humility for achievement. You cannot explain the sheer power it means to find some semblance of success, to distinguish yourself, to transcend your family (as pompous as this sounds).

Learn how to be meek. You'll inherit the Earth. Although having a mother would be preferable. Or money. Honestly, you'll take a mother. The mere word itself connotes something soothing, something mysterious and wonderful. You wouldn't mind having the sort of childhood home that seems to permeate shitty Lifetime movies. The sort of home filled with warm scents. Goodnight kisses and inane arguments over clothes and school supplies. Cheesy music playing softly on some hi-tech sound system. Normal things, really. You wouldn't mind a mother who smells like perfume and musk, rather than booze and cigarettes and such. Someone who can encourage you, shape your artistic vision. Someone who has achieved herself, who can point you to greatness, and someone who can brag about you, referring to you as "my son" or "my dear child" - things that might seem corny, but hold a kind of warm possessiveness. But God made up his mind. No mother for you, young man. So learn how to accept the unacceptable, how to compartmentalize the past among the present and the future that has yet to be formed. You've heard some dark stories from parishioners, and you envy their ability to move forward. And yes, they involve dead children mowed down by freight trains, house fires, and diseases (something out of the most clichéd country song, you think). Go into classes at school embracing the fact that you know nothing. This is how you get organized. Wipe the slate clean, boy. Experiment with life, try to shake things up. Try to give up drinking, or at least cut back to once a week. Clear your mind of everything you know about your life. Try to imagine yourself as a successful author. A respectable middle-class teacher. A man with a family of your own. These brim with possibility and pitfall. You'd fall into laziness, you'd fail your family. Or God help you, you might succeed. But you have time. Give up something of yourself. But don't pat yourself on the fucking back. Perhaps you volunteer to teach fourth-graders how to write, kids with gusts of energy and dark minds, who write about evil warlords named Lord Cheeto. Or maybe you play piano at an assisted living facility, which the cynic in you still refers to as "Geriatric Junction", a symphony of aged flesh and fading dreams. These are things your mother could envy, things she has not achieved. You can change the cycle of family lives. Go to movies. Release your cynicism the right way. Laugh at the inappropriate moments, and relish this release. Laugh when a guy gets shot in the dick. Or impaled with a pencil. You don't know anything, so why not laugh it up a bit? Who's to say someone being shot in the dick isn't funny? Or can't be? God help you. Perhaps the act of being humble will transform into something real. Or perhaps humility and ego will fight each other, a sort of steady struggle that will leave you helpless. Suck at singing every hymn. But sing. Sing away. Release the energy. Pray that fellow parishioners don't beat the ever-loving shit out of you while belting, "Crown Him With Many Crowns." Of course, Episcopalians are exceedingly polite. They would ask permission to beat the shit out of you, and then apologize following said act, no doubt. Of course, if they knew you long enough they might be inclined to beat the crap out of you anyway. Just sing away. Lip-synching is acceptable too. It's the Episcopalian way, especially when more than four stanzas are involved. But you want to speak truth to power, release all that pent up energy, that misplaced energy, so you sing away. The sorrows, the confusion, every ounce of energy within you. Look around you at your fellow parishioners and feel a connection, a sense of being part of this majestic experience, with stained-glass windows spilling across your face, as if to wipe away your tears with palettes of blue and red. Let yourself loose. Lose yourself in the majesty of the hymns, the organ swelling like your heart, and forget the world outside, the utter facts of your life. Relish being a part of this unchanging church, whose rituals are as predictable, as smooth as a Swiss watch. Relish the sameness of the processional, the Communion, the exchanging of the Peace, the people moving about with grace and verve, up and down the aisles, in and out of the church, and amongst the parish hall at coffee hour. Try to forget the what-if questions that used to dance through your head at night, like ghosts. What if your mother didn't drink? What if she found her own contentment? What if she'd taken you with her? Where might you be now? That's a question that you've thought about many times, watching families moving about, seemingly connected, relishing the rhythms and rituals of shared histories. You've not been able to come to any particular conclusion, your answers shifting day to day. Perhaps you might have found some semblance of peace, a sense of belonging, even as you and she fled from town to town, like ancient Israelites fleeing a phantom Pharaoh. Or perhaps you would be a carbon copy of her now. Who knows? It's counterproductive to dwell. But here are the brutal facts to consider: You lived with your mother for ten out of your twenty-nine years. You've seen her exactly three times in the last ten years. She occasionally writes, of course, but her letters are full of "I", self-absorbed accounts of boyfriends, of lost jobs, and dreams of attaining something "grand and splendiferous" as she calls it, a dream that changes from letter to letter. Living in the wilderness, away from the bullshit. Becoming wealthy. Becoming an actress. All things that seem delightful on the surface, but have no thread, nothing to tie them together. The last good memory of your mother involved going to the park and releasing balloons at sunset. You were ten, and it wasn't long before she left. She seemed so captivated by the rising balloons, spinning, twirling in the thick purple dusk, by the freedom inherent in them. "Wouldn't you like to be up there," she said. "Just drifting, with no sense of being or place at all?" She looked so at peace, a contrast from the brusque, bitter-tempered woman, arms outstretched, as though holding onto this moment, as though this moment were the sweetest thing in her entire life, a life about which you knew so little. And you wonder now if this is what she wanted, through the drunkenness, the liaisons. You wonder if this is what she truly wanted, or she wanted something deeper, something she wasn't letting on. And perhaps you want this sort of moment too, if nothing else. In all likelihood you are a chapter she has put behind, spread to the winds like stardust. This is somewhat understandable. You can only move forward, put the sins of your mother and father and ancestors behind you. You are a being that has yet to be formed, even if it seems otherwise. Your grandmother was a drunk from childhood. She had her first hangover at ten, according to a story your mother told. Your great-grandmother got drunk right off the ship from Liverpool or London or wherever she was from, in 1901. Your cavemen ancestors were undoubtedly drunks. You feel like you're on the brink of following in their footsteps, hanging over the edge of a cliff into an abyss full of beer bottles, tantalizing and seductive, laughing at you with their gleaming metal. Sitting in the pews, listening to tales of douchebags turned saints, with their road to Damascus moments, you can only hope for some moment, some semblance of clarity, some moment when the world unfolds around you, and you look at everything around you with a new understanding. Do you expect to lead followers through a desert or preach good news? Hardly. But this is a start.

Volunteer to be an usher. An acolyte. Carry a torch. Volunteer for every church function possible. Play the do-gooder. Volunteer to get involved in church social justice movements, carrying signs and smiling. It gives you a sense of purpose, even if it's only within the confines of this tradition, even if it has no bearing on whom you will become. It beats sitting at home, holed up with Netflix, when you should be writing. There's a certain awe to being part of history, to carrying the communion wine down the aisles of this great Gothic church, to carrying five-foot signs protesting the injustice of the week. Carry a sign at a demonstration that reads, "Make Love Great Again" to protest an orange-tanned Oompa Loompa. You will feel a sense of inhabiting another body, another self. It will feel surreal, and yet delightful, not recognizing this side of you, a side who speaks of peace and love, who truly wants to believe in all this. Attend every Sunday service. Get back on the wagon. Do not look back, young man. There is a period in which you fall off the wagon, miss out on services, and retreat back into drinking and stewing upon your future: Will you teach, or will you end up in a low-end job at some movie theater? Will you keep writing, or will you fall into the abyss? This is roughly around the anniversary of your mother's abandonment, and a time when school seems to be getting nowhere. You seem to be getting nowhere, and you wonder if you are raging against forces beyond control, if your fate is sealed already. Perhaps you should give up. But the past as future is not a pleasant prospect. That period leaves you utterly alone in your apartment, back in the arms of Lady Netflix, and movies that hold no significance to the scheme of your life. You let your stories lag. You go out only to go to class, to go shopping and procure food. One time, you actually go for a walk around the block, but that's as far as you get, seeing no purpose. One night, you feel the sense of containment, the sense that the room is like a maze with no way out, with nothing to offer you. This is coincidentally a night in which you have received a letter from your mother in which she says that her life is the "happiest." And this seems utterly ridiculous to you. You want to lecture her, to reach out and beg her to become normal, but at this moment a kind of thought rises to you like a tornado, the truth twisting around and around: It cannot happen. The distance between you both is too unbridgeable, too vast, too wide, like the mighty sea. An image of your mother: It is the day she left you. You are ten years old, and she is driving you to some relative or another. You cannot even recall them all anymore. She looks at you with a kind of desperation in her eyes, a look that calls out to be understood. You are driving somewhere, through some run-down section of your hometown, when she starts talking about how that area used to be so successful. Your grandfather, she said, used to work in the old steel mills there. "Look at how things change so fast," she says. "Everything's so temporary. You don't have enough time to think about it. You either go with it, or you're screwed." "What does that mean?" "It's a lot of bullshit," she'd said, "Your grandfather always said that. It sounds good, doesn't it?" It doesn't at this time in your life, a time of transition, a time when you are being swept up. But looking at it now, you think you get a sense of what he meant. You are like a stranger standing on two train tracks, uncertain of which track to take. You are looking for the most obvious route, the straight track. You always have been. But sometimes the right track is the unknown. You look out the window, the rooftops of college buildings and apartments silhouetted in black. Students are moving through life, making love, making plans, growing old, going through it all with grace and despair and bewilderment and humor, and you feel like you exist outside of them, just watching and watching. The thought of trying on possibilities, experimenting seems exhilarating. Frightening. You think of the Biblical characters Reverend Botkin preaches about, men and women wandering into the unknown with a certain determination, a certain inner drive, people able to embrace the unknown and all its vastness, and you imagine them following you forward, encouraging you. Challenging you. "Welcome back," is all Reverend Botkin says, when you return for your Sunday pew aerobics (as Robin Williams lovingly refers to services). She does not attempt to question your absence, and you imagine after dealing with a brother like Nick, there are some questions she cannot broach. She has seen tragedy and bullshit. She has probably seen thousands of her own parishioners come and go, and you wonder what this must feel to her, to be helpless, to lose people, for whatever reason, people evaporating like water from the pews. Regret past actions. Figure out how to transfer regret into action, namely regrets over the knocking over trash can phase when you were a teen. It seemed like you were in control, as though you were a mighty force then, with each can you knocked over, cans full of people's livelihoods, people's waste laid bare, like some museum on their lawns. Clippings, cereal boxes, newspapers, even boxes of condoms, things that amused you and made you feel like you had their number. You still recall how your aunt had to pick you up at the police station so many times, they practically had a cell with your name on it. You'll be drinking a coffee, or on your way to class, or even on the crapper, when the memories will rise to you, wrapping themselves around your consciousness like a blanket. Plus there was swilling of your aunt's booze, the spray-painted houses, the toilet-papered gyms. Weep like a sinner thinking of your aunt's world-weary face, the way she never actually scolded you, the words left unspoken, hanging in the air like shadows. Consider actually writing letters to the poor bastards you victimized. What would you say? God knows. How do you apologize, explain yourself, try to begin to make up for all you have taken. Maybe meet a girl in church. Not likely. Old ladies and lesbians. Perhaps at the movies. Or not. If this were a Choose Your Own Adventure, you would choose page 3 for the former, and page 10 for the latter. Of course, you are somewhere in the middle of that vast spectrum, still learning that your life is not a perfect sequence of events, but a chaotic series. If you go for her, open up to her about what has happened in your life, but focus squarely upon movies and other cultural interests. Do not exaggerate the facts. Perhaps she's a nerdy sort, addicted to Coen Brothers movies, and she can quote "The Big Lebowski" verbatim, including during sex. Or an opinionated, gruff type with a heart of gold, who can swear like a sailor in the Queen's navy. You do find a certain attraction to those types. Perhaps because they employ their manners as a mechanism of survival, a means of withstanding the ups and downs, and because they can garner respect. If you make the right choice, you will feel a sense of connection, belonging. Pray in silent thanks during church and have a celebratory libation afterwards. Actually try to love people on Monday too. Don't check your love at the door Sunday night at 11:59. It's tough. You run into your old enemies, the bearded fundamentalists around town, you find it tough to keep your shit together in your writing workshop when people tear your stories down like the walls of Jericho. Or on the bus, seeing the happy, smiling families, who exchange secrets and smile beatifically at you, which you mistake for condescension. But laugh at it all, try to find the humor in it. This is good fodder for stories, after all. So write a story. Let everything loose. Love your mother. Think of her not as a bad mother, but a woman unable to give, to give love, stability. Think of her as a wanderer. Perhaps she'll wander back. More likely not. Make a pledge to conjure her only on holidays and birthdays. For her sake, stop drinking too. Think about ways to put the past aside, to plow forward. And stop thinking about Father Cooper, or try to. Set aside all documents that relate to your past. Photographs, papers, and your mother's letters. Drive out to the edge of town. Set said documents on fire in a field, feeling the release of their weight from your fingers, the release of history. Toss them in a particular order. Or fuck it. Toss them in no logical order at all, watching as the past is enveloped in curtains of smoke, rising into the dusk. Watch the moon rise, smiling a silent luminous smile, silhouetting you in all its splendor, as you walk away into the unknown, the hills rising before you, smooth shadows on the horizon.

#FICTION on the WEB short stories

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solo1y · 7 years

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Five years ago, I was given a free review copy of this book for a now-defunct e-book review site. In my review, I said that it’s the worst book I have ever read, and that remains true. It’s still available if you really hate yourself.

This is the (obviously NSFW) final published review:

I'm 37 years old, I have read many books in my time, and I have never said this before: The Audacity of Hope and Change is the worst book I have ever read.

A brief summary, so you don't have to actually read it: A conservative U.S. president time-travels to 2084, where liberal policies have destroyed the entire planet, and the population of the world is contained in ten dome-enclosed U.S. cities, where the citizens live under an oppressive centralised government. Horrified, the president goes back to his own time, aware of the fact that he can't change the future. However, it turns out that he's the one who created the domed cities to house the "un-American" liberals, and just lied to them that the rest of the world was destroyed. Then he makes Rush Limbaugh (I'm not kidding) his Vice President so the United States can live in peace and prosperity now that the traitorous elements have been removed. That's it.

Initially I thought it was a clever satire of conservative attitudes to liberal politics. However, it's not a satire at all. In fact, it's intended as a satire of the liberal position! To give you an idea of the mental trauma I have recently suffered, the smug partisan political grandstanding is only the third most annoying thing about this book.

The most annoying thing about this book is that he assumes his readers are unread simpletons. It is a sign of terrible weakness on an author's part when he gives up trying to describe something and just refers to something else which describes it better. He does this a number of times in the book. We bounce from blatant allusions to 1984 (oxymoronic ministries, party uniforms, ad hoc government data), Brave New World (productivity-driven eugenics program), Star Trek (limitless energy) and Soylent Green (meals made from reconstituted humans). None of this would be so bad if the author didn't flag all the references. "It was positively Orwellian," says the infallible protagonist in one particularly painful passage, and not for the last time. “Sounds like something from ‘Men in Black’,” he says on another occasion. It may not be entirely unusual for a book to be completely unoriginal, but I've never seen a book so ready to advertise its poverty of thought. Even his unfunny jokes are telegraphed and labelled for ease of consumption.

The second most annoying thing about this book is that it's badly plotted and sloppily written. How can someone steal so many good ideas from so many wonderful sources and still make a complete mess? The tone is confused throughout. It seems to be a political satire, but it has lots of Douglas Adams-wannabe throwaway jokes that are so silly, they jerk you out of the otherwise completely serious satirical push, reducing it to a farce. You won't miss any of them, because, as you will remember, even the migraine-inducing jokes are flagged for you: "Brian replied, ignoring her double entendre." Characters are one-dimensional, either there to be impressed by the president, or to help him find the things he needs. No one changes, no one has any personality, no one has a family or a life away from the president or any motivation or emotion other than those which intersect with the president's motivations or emotions. Splashes of what the author probably imagines constitutes character are awkwardly placed in the way of the narrative, like the irrelevant story about a scientist's middle name. When the protagonist carries a gun, it is referred to on at least ten separate occasions as a "Heckler & Koch MK23"; I have no idea why. By the way, in direct opposition to everything we know about linguistics, in the future, people speak the same as they do now, but with unnecessarily longer and extra words. For instance, a chat is now called a "brief communication period". In the future, we are all verbose Vulcans, except we use the word "scientific" instead of "logical" (keep in mind that the author intends the word "scientific" as an insult).

Irrelevant matters are explained in boring detail, choking the pace, whereas plot points which could benefit from an explanation are glossed over awkwardly. Page after gruelling page presents itself: how time travel works; how public transport of the future works; how photo-electric cells work; and sundry other copy-and-pastes from Engineering for Dummies. A lot of it just doesn't make any sense, and the whole thing is a Swiss cheese of plot holes that are never acknowledged. However, once the president decides he understands something, no matter how nonsensical, it is assumed that the readers understand it too.

The third most annoying thing about this book, as promised above, is that it reads like a campaign manifesto. You don't see much of it at the start, which is mostly highly derivative time-travel, alien technology, conspiracy theory stuff and almost fun. As the book drags on like a grindstone bolted through your knee, it gives way to pages and pages of right-wing, conservative policies, framed as a series of speeches the president makes to his advisors, all of whom intermittently praise him for his wisdom and genius.

If you have to insert characters into your story just to agree with your protagonist, you are doing something wrong. On one occasion, his words earn him "a standing ovation". In another section, a sentence appears: "I found myself increasingly impressed by Brian’s knowledge and wisdom." But the author wrote that! The author is impressed with his own knowledge and wisdom! He thinks so little of his readers that he decides to hit them repeatedly over the head with his stupid message. At least twice, in case we didn't realise what the point of the book was, the following sentence occurs: "It sounded like he could be referring to the political debates of my time." Events are referred to as "like something from Hitler’s Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin." Satire doesn't work if you have a big flashing neon SATIRE sign pointing at it!

The real meat of the book is the description of the future America, where liberal policies have made everything go bad. In this state, all the ridiculous right wing agit-prop straw men you have heard from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck (name-checked in the book, and eventual cabinet ministers) are firing on all cylinders: universal health care death panels; the abolition of religion, gun ownership and private property; rampant abortions; the establishment of "science" as a god; global warming as a massive hoax perpetrated by Al Gore (referred to in the text, for some reason, as "Agore"); wanton sexual promiscuity; the subjugation of the individual to the state - it's all presented not as a possible alternative future, but specifically as a future which will occur if Barack Obama gets re-elected (never actually named in the book, although it's very obvious).

When the protagonist returns from the future, he gets some people together and decides how to reshape America so this liberal apocalypse can be averted. There follows pages and pages of tedious ruminations on tax reform, clean energy, healthcare mandates and foreign policy, all explained in mind-numbing detail. The Chicago School tax reforms, for instance, are pages of demographics and percentages and glaringly incorrect conclusions. The president claims to run on a "pro-choice" ticket, by which he means to promote the idea of consumer choice. He picked this name, he explains, specifically to confound the pro-choice women's rights movement, and thereafter confusingly refers to them interchangeably. It's a crime of the written word to use terms and phrases in a manner different to that expected by a reasonable consensus of your readers, but to confuse them yourself is unforgivable.

This president gives long, eye-tormenting speeches filled with nothing but conservative values, and emotional reactions to the perceived lack of those values, with everyone around him agreeing and applauding. It's like being stuck at a Nuremberg rally, but without the undeniable Nazi sense of style, or anything that could be referred to as "efficiency". Alles ist sehr viel nicht in Ordnung.

This book is nothing more than an adolescent right-wing masturbatory fantasy, whose target market will surely have more respect for itself than to kneel before him, encouraging every feverish stroke, willingly accepting his literary semen as it splashes on their eager Christian faces. It's a vanity project, an empty puff of vague, hackneyed, outdated political philosophies dreamt up while on marijuana but without the concomitant trashing of those ideas the following sad, sober morning. Our pseudonymous guide to the future clearly thinks he's the literary heir to Jonathan Swift, but he's more the literary heir to that guy who sat behind you in high school who kept talking about robots and dinosaurs and now still lives with his parents, hates black people for no reason, and has just discovered what the word "alveoli" means.

The Audacity of Hope and Change, the worst book I have ever read, is written by Yushud Choosewisely, possibly the most gratingly awful pseudonym I have ever seen. His real name is Steven Lloyd. It is published by the Pro-Choice Press, which as far as I can determine, is managed, staffed and run solely by Mr. Lloyd, who has chosen the name to be deliberately provocative, as he is aggressively pro-life. There is one comment on the amazon page for this book; as it is gushing with praise, I can only assume that this customer review is also managed, staffed and run solely by Mr. Lloyd. Someone needs to buy a paper copy of this book, just so we can tear the pages out of it, and gently run the edges of each page along the soles of his feet and his tongue. Then we should re-assemble the book, encase it on concrete, tie him to a post, and throw it at his head until he promises never to write anything ever again. If that sounds harsh, remember that he has mentally assigned a far worse punishment to those who commit the crime of disagreeing with him on political issues.

This guy actually answered my review with a bunch of passive-aggressive right-wing smarmy bullshit, which completely failed to counter a single one of the points I made. Which is great because it gave me a chance to rip him a new asshole twice instead of just once. He’s deleted his response, but you can probably pick up the gist from my response to his response.

#The Audacity of Hope and Change #Yushud Choosewisely #Steven Lloyd #my book reviews

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the-blog-of-anger-blog · 7 years

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I’m Pro-Life and tired of it being mocked so here we go

Now, I absolutely believe that it is a woman’s choice to get pregnant or not but more on that later. This is a long one, folks. Buckle in for health class.

This is not a popular opinion on tumblr and that is because people like to pretend that things are what they’ve heard repeated rather than do their own research and often that means it’s a crisis, it’s an outrage, and it’s an attack. So here’s my research to support the other pro-lifers out there.

Do I believe there are exceptions for abortion? Yes, Of course.

But the Pro-Choice movement too often uses the exceptions to justify the majority. The percentage of rapes that result in a pregnancy is 5%. 5% This is from 2 different studies.

This is not even the percentage of women who are raped who actually choose to have an abortion. In fact, the women who choose (not forced mind you, I’m not heartless) to keep their baby often recover easier and faster from the trauma as they have something good to focus on and help them heal.

So when it comes to the other 95% of women, I have problems. The natural biological consequence of sex is reproduction. The whole point of sex is to build on the relationship between partners (Oxytocin, folks, nothing like it apart from straight up dopamine) and to reproduce.

Also, if any of your are interested, John F. Kennedy, Victoria Woodhull, the first female candidate for president, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the latter being notable suffragettes, were all very anti-abortion.

“The Revolution published a piece, attributable to [Susan B.] Anthony, that said abortion was a choice that would burden both a woman’s “conscience in life and soul in death” and also ultimately an exploitation of women.” (http://time.com/4093214/suffragettes-abortion/)

Times have changed and this is a hydra of a problem so I’m not going to just say ‘abstinence is all you need’ because I’m not in charge of anyone’s sex life. People have been sleeping together out of wedlock for centuries and it’s not just going to go away. However, if we’re talking about a woman’s right to choose, why is the woman’s right to choose to have sex somehow not a factor?

So, key issues: Contraception, Science/Biology, Inhumanity, and Responsibility.

#1 Contraception. We need better contraceptive methods. Period. I especially promote researching better male contraceptives cause condoms are clearly not cutting it and, as spoken before, it’s a lot safer to unload a gun than to shoot at a bulletproof vest. It bothers me a great deal that people on both sides of this debate overlook that we can stand united on this front at the very least. No one should really be arguing with me on this. It’s gotta get better.

Also, better sex-education and to me, this means parents stepping up and being parents and giving the freaking Talk like the adults they are as well as discussing safe contraceptive methods. Sex-Ed classes are failing miserably with a nasty combination of misinformation and the creation of false confidence so teens believe that they know enough about what they’re doing to not worry about the consequences. (Fun fact: Planned Parenthood has actually taken over Sex-Ed program for multiple states in the North West and STDs and Pregnancy rates have been on the rise there compared to the alternative classes. These are the results of a 5 year report from the HHS Office of Adolescent Health.)

So from this, I hope it’s clear that I truly believe that women have the right to choose whether or not to be pregnant. I simply argue against abortion.

#2. Science/Biology. When does life begin? Some say at birth, some say only if the mother wants the child. Imagine for me, if you will, that NASA discovered bacteria growing in the ice just below the Martian landscape. There would be a freak out! Why? Because it would be life on another planet! Now, you tell me that science classifies bacteria as living creatures that we can study, that we protect in several instances because of their potential to replicate vaccines and insulin... but something that has fingers, toes, a functional nervous system, and studies are going on out whether or not can dream... is only considered alive if it’s wanted by the mother? Wake up call: That’s not science. That’s strictly opinion and it’s an opinion that science refutes.

“But it’s just a glob of cells. It’s not a real person.” Have you taken a biology course? What are you made of? What are all living things made of? Cells. What are a bunch of cells called? Tissue. What do tissues make? Organs and on to organ systems and a body. You are a glob of cells. I’ll repeat that really quick. YOU ARE TECHNICALLY A GLOB OF CELLS. So, yeah. Of course that’s what you’re going to be told if you’re getting an abortion. Abortion clinics want your business. They want your money. Why else does Planned Parenthood not do ultrasounds unless you’ve agreed to have an abortion already?

“ I worked at Planned Parenthood here in New Jersey and they don't do ultrasounds unless you are there for an abortion. They only do gynceology. Your best bet is to call and ask. “ (direct quote. Name not to be disclosed.)

“ Another issue that we ran into quite often, was when women would come in who had a legitimate problem, for example polycystic ovary syndrome, or maybe fibroids, or something like that, who we could not diagnose because there were no ultrasound technicians or any type of ultrasound other than the ultrasound that is available at the abortion facilities. “ - Ramona Trevino, Former Planned Parenthood Manager who has since joined the Pro-Life movement

So, yeah. I don’t trust or support Planned Parenthood at all let alone to define for me what life is.

Btw, 1st trimester of pregnancy ends at 12 weeks. This is a miscarried baby at 12 weeks.

Eyes, finger, toes, organs, ears, cartilage forming bones, all of these and more are present and people degrade it to “a clump of cells” making is sound like there’s no shape or form or potential to a fetus. That’s not science. That’s intentional deception.

#3 It’s entirely inhumane. For those of you who are unaware of what each trimester level abortion is, it’s more and more horrible the more you research exactly what “ D & X or Intrauterine Cranial Decompression” means.

The first is usually just a pill, 2 really, that essentially trigger your period x 5. There is immense bleeding, cramping, general pain and discomfort and it goes on for sometimes over a week. If you were to contact Planned Parenthood about concerns you have (which a great deal of young teen girls will do) you will be told to go to the emergency room and tell them you’re simply having a miscarriage. Meanwhile a chemical is in your body that can have bad reactions to medications you may receive to stop the bleeding. In short, as soon as you leave the clinic, Planned Parenthood is done with you until the next time you’re pregnant. The other possible option is to have the fetus sucked out of you with a vacuum, often in pieces but sometimes as one singular body.

2nd Trimester: Either a chemical solution is inserted into the amniotic sac to basically burn the fetus to death inside of you - this sometimes fails and instead triggers an early labor - before the now dead baby leaves in a miscarriage, or a doctor will basically take a mini ice cream scooper and break the baby into pieces before scooping them out. Option three involves the baby being torn into pieces and vacuumed out instead. Don’t believe me? The way they check that the procedure is done is they catalog that each part of the baby is present.There have been babies born at 16 weeks - the end of the 2nd trimester - that have since grown up.

3rd trimester - Often illegal now but some people don’t care: Chemical solution again followed by crushing the baby’s skull so it can be pulled out through the vaginal cavity often followed once again by a vacuum to get the brain matter and leftover pieces out of the uterus. If you don’t think that’s sick, you’re too far gone. This is for babies that could be born any day without this procedure. The only other case is for actual late-term miscarriages.

#4 Responsibilty. Most abortions, as previously proved, occur due to inconvenience. Cases of medical complications or rape trauma are not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking straight-up “I just don’t want to have to deal with kids” inconvenience. Only it’s not even that. It’s “Well, yeah, I created this thing... but... You know, it’s hard maintenance, you know? Continually existing while having another life dependent on me and my ability to exist responsibly. Nah, it’s not for me. I’ll just go over here and play with my cat instead.”. It’s ridiculous.

Perhaps you haven’t noticed this trend, but our society has been trained and hate responsibility. I know. It comes from a heck of a lot of other people’s consequences slamming into us with the force of a semi truck. It comes from schools where we’re overloaded with homework to the point where dropping out sounds nicer and nicer. It comes from growing up in a family that’s struggling financially where you might even see the example of parents choosing to shrug off the responsibility to raise their kids properly.

We hate responsibility and we fear it. So when I tell you that I know most of you who are Pro-Choice simply want to be able to sleep with whoever they want whenever they want with no consequence, it’s because you don’t want to be responsible. If you’re at that point, heck no. You should not be a parent. I don’t want to put a kid at risk with someone who clearly doesn’t want the responsibility of parenthood. That’s the whole reason people choose foster care and adoption. Because there’s a higher chance of the child being cared for. That’s sad considering the foster system is a mess.

For ladies being pressured into an abortion by your partner, ask yourself this: Do I want to stay in a relationship where my man abuses my kids? Would I stand by in a situation like that? No? If you’re being pressured into an abortion, you’re being told to sacrifice your child for their convenience. Don’t do it. Reach out for help and you will find it.

So here’s my advice for anyone considering abortion but who isn’t sure: Pull a Juno. Take responsibility for your actions and responsibility for your child for as long as you need to. Find a family looking to adopt - skip the Foster Care System entirely - and it’s surprisingly easy. You can literally google “looking for a family to adopt my baby” and you’ll be given dozens of options of hopeful parents willing to work with you to adopt right away. Reminder: If you find someone who wants to adopt your baby, they’re definitely going to work with you to make it happen. Your baby is at more risk of an unhappy foster home if you’re just dropping them off at the hospital with no connections.

So, there’s my blurb. I’ll write one purely on Planned Parenthood and all of the many many ways that it’s actually costing women more than other pregnancy health centers.

#abortion #pro-life #here's my rant #talk to me if you wanna talk

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genesisjonesscott · 6 years

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BASIC IC DETAILS

NAMES: Genesis Esperanza Jones-Scott

FACECLAIM: Carmen Carrera, no others

GENDER & PRONOUNS: Transwoman

DATE OF BIRTH & AGE: 4th of July, 1988 & thirty

ORIENTATION: Bisexual, homoromantic

HOMETOWN: Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, properly grew up in Three Rivers

LENGTH OF STAY: Twenty-one years

NEIGHBORHOOD: Oak Haven

OCCUPATION: Horologist and owner of “Phil’s Watches and Clocks”

THE INTERROGATION:

1. Good afternoon, first off I have to ask, are you comfortable? The room isn’t too cold, is it? Did anyone offer you something to drink? Water, coffee, perhaps tea?

Genesis didn’t like police stations. She’d been taken out of her home at five, by a police officer and she’d had to wait in the police station for the social worker to bring her to her first foster family. She didn’t like it here. She wanted to go. “I don’t want anything.” She said, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the armrests of the chair. It hadn’t been this police station, where she’d been but it was similar enough and the memories of the hours before, of her father beating her and her mother just watching, were almost unbearable. It was as if they were clouding her mind, her ability to speak and she just didn’t need this. Not now, not ever. TW: physical abuse, transphobia, homophobia, alcoholism, mentions of physical abuse, PTSD, abortion mention, pregnancy

2. And if you don’t mind, could you please state your name for the record? Is that your birth name? Any aliases we should be aware of?

She swallowed at that question and clenched their teeth. ‘Just go with it, Genesis. Just answer it and the sooner you do, the sooner you can get out of here.’ she thought and took a deep breath. “My name is Genesis Esperanza Jones-Scott. I was born Luis Alfonso Ramirez.” She said, the muscles in her body going even tenser. She didn’t like having to come out as transgender to people she didn’t know, didn’t trust… or you know, wasn’t going to sleep with. Especially police. She didn’t trust them. She had been laughed at before, by police officers while reporting an instance of transphobia and she just didn’t like it. “No aliases.” She finished.

3. Now then, let’s begin with your childhood. What was growing up like for you?

She could feel her stomach turning and shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about that and I don’t think there is any reason for you to ask me those questions.” They told them quite frankly. She had no desire to talk about her alcoholic parents who bred like bunnies to then hit their children when they got frustrated at each other. She didn’t want to talk about not having clean clothes to wear, not knowing that you actually were supposed to brush your teeth as no one had told her or taught her. She knows that she had two older and three younger siblings when she was removed from the home, but she doesn’t know where they went and if they’re even still alive. She didn’t have a childhood until she was adopted by her fathers at nine. The foster homes were alright, but not very affectionate and honestly, she was dealing with so much trauma at that time that it really is mostly a blur. It was only her dads adopting her that really opened up her world and made her start to trust people again. After six months, she finally accepted a hug and from their the relationship only grew. From then, she did have a good childhood with lots of laughter and siblings, but she didn’t know why in the world she’d want to tell that to these two people. What did it matter?

4. And what about your relationship with your family? Were you close with your parents, or guardians? Any siblings?

Genesis frowned and shook her head. “Seriously, I do not want to answer any of these questions. I want to help you with the investigation, officer, but I do not understand having to bare my soul and past. It isn’t relevant.” She insisted. Of course she was close with her adoptive parents and siblings. They were all she had in the world for a long time. She’d have done anything for them and still would move heaven and earth for them if they asked her to.

5. What was your high school experience like? Did you enjoy it? Did you have a lot of friends, or were you more of a loner? Somewhere in between, maybe?

“Who honestly enjoyed high school?” She asked them, a little mockingly at their question without saying anything more. Again, not relevant in the slightest. She was on the wrestling team and honestly, she was fairly popular. She had a tight group of friends in high school and about five girlfriends in four years. On the outside, she seemed like the all-American boy and looked very happy but she wasn’t. She had always been a little more effeminate, a little softer than most boys but her dads never made a big deal about it. It was a non-issue but when puberty hit, it wasn’t just her interests that didn’t always match with the gender she was assigned at birth. She honestly loathed the developments her body was going through. All the hair, of which she had a lot and quite early as well as the explosion of muscles were pure torture. She had never really known what was different about her. She had never said that she felt like a girl, but she always knew that how people treated her, how they related to her was wrong somehow. While a lot of transgender people speak of knowing they were a girl or a boy early, it wasn’t really a topic in her life. She had so many other things to deal with and when that was finally all behind her, then puberty hit. She’d just settled and then that just completely floored her, the puberty and the feelings that evoked. She’d never felt more uncomfortable but she also didn’t know how to deal with it, what to call it and so, she tried to ignore it. She first thought she might be a gay man, but while she was attracted to men sexually - to some degree - she had more of an inclination towards women and actually had fallen for some girls, while she’d never had that for boys. It was one of the most confusing times in her life and it was just the next tortureous period in her life.

6. So, did you go to college? If so, what for and if not, why? What was your post-high school life like?

She didn’t mind answering this question so much. Besides, she should give them some answers or she’d look suspicious. Her rigid body was probably already making her seem guilty. “I got a certificate of horology, which took a year to get. Then I went to Oklahoma State University’s Institute of Technology in Stillwater, Oklahoma to a two-year training program before I got myself an apprenticeship in Phil Cloud’s shop. After two more years, I became a full-time horologist and when Phil passed a year ago, he left the shop to me. He had no children, you see, so I run it myself now.” She explained, but left out why she made the choice to go into horology. The only nice thing she ever possessed as a child was a pocketwatch. It was broken, but she’d gotten it from her late grandfather and managed to hold onto it throughout foster homes and then had it on her nightstand at her dads’. When she was thirteen, Phil had seen her stare at the pocket watches in the window of his shop - as she still saw pocketwatches as the most precious things - considering it had been for her since she was four. She explained to the older man that her pocket watch was old and broken and he told her that he’d fix it for her, for free as he was very fascinated by the old piece and because he liked her, he’d said. She’d sat next to him in the back of the shop and watched him open it up. She found it even more fascinating from the inside, which made her ask question after question. After he fixed her watch, which was like magic to her, she kept coming back to the shop and took a summer job there when she was fifteen. That is how she rolled into the craft, which she adores to this day.

7. Do you have a reputation around town? How would you say others perceive you?

She sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I am the transgender daughter of a gay couple. I mean, I am a conservative’s nightmare, I think. So, I am assuming they aren’t very pleased with me but generally, I throw pretty fun parties at my place. I think a lot of people appreciate that… Maybe I have the reputation of being a little easy?” She said with a chuckle. “But honestly, I am just living my life.” She clarified, though she still wasn’t very comfortable being here. She just wanted to make them happy with her answers so she can get out of here quickly.

8. Can you help me understand your personality? What are you like, both on the surface and deep down? What about in public versus in private?

“I honestly… Once again, I would like to question the relevancy of all of this, because it really is a mystery to me why you’d want to know that.” She said and sighed as she sat back and tried to relax her shoulders. She always carried her stress there. She was a complex person. She seemed pretty laid-back, she liked to party and have fun. She was the first one to open up a bottle of anything alcoholic and the first one on the karaoke stage. She loved trying to get people out of their shell and she liked to make people feel good about themselves… but deep down, she was very insecure. She had a good coming out, as her fathers were extremely supportive and her siblings were the same. Yet, being transgender in today’s America was not great. She has only decided to come out as transgender six years ago and has taken her transition slowly, to really be sure of each procedure, whether that was good for her or not. That means though that for a long time after coming out, she didn’t pass which resulted in transphobic incidents and humiliations. It’s because of one of those that she has learned to disclose she is transgender in a more public place before going somewhere private to do anything sexual with someone. She has been called every name in the book and so she doesn’t feel very lovable. She feels sexy, attractive but she isn’t sure if she’s really worthy of love. Her parents didn’t love her, none of her siblings are looking for her and the mother of her unborn child is ashamed that they are the other parent and don’t want her to tell anyone in town that she’s the other mother of the child she’s expecting. No one really wants her as a partner. As a hot night, for sure, but a partner? Probably not.

9. Leading off of that, what would you consider to be your greatest strengths and weaknesses?

She just wanted to get the hell out of here. She had more to do than answer these questions they’d probably gotten off Plenty Of Fish. “One of my greatest strengths is enduring this torture. Honestly, what are you trying to achieve here?” She wondered. She didn’t really know the answer either. She was pretty resillient, she supposed and pretty fun to be around but she was also insecure and secretive, not really because she had a lot to hide but just because she didn’t trust many people with intimate details of her life and feelings. She needed to really know someone to share her trauma’s with, of which there were many. Some she couldn’t even think about right now.

10. Why don’t you tell me some of your greatest regrets? And what about your greatest hopes?

She smiled. “I hope to that I get to raise my child with her other mother.” Being able to talk about her unborn child was something that was a rare occurance, which she only did with her very best friends and the woman who was pregnant. The regrets, she didn’t talk about though. She regrets not coming out sooner, because then all surgeries she wanted would be behind her and she regrets telling her high school girlfriend to have an abortion and convincing her to, even though she didn’t seem to be quite sure. She regrets being too cowardly to look for her siblings nor see how her biological parents are doing. She regrets not telling the social worker one of her foster mother’s hit her. She regrets a lot of things, but she isn’t about to tell them that.

11. A bit heavier, I know, but I have to ask if anything has happened to you personally in your life that drastically changed you as a person?

“I’d say being put into the foster care system is quite a change.” She said and sighed. “That and finding out I’m going to be a mother. That really has changed my outlook on life and what is important… Now, how long will this take? I do have to go open up my shop by ten.” She told them, just wanting to get out of here now. She didn’t understand why she was here at all.

12. And of course, I have to ask, were you in town when the Preacher Man was drowning people between ‘95 and '98? Did you happen to know any of the original seven victims? What was your life like during those tragic years? What was the aftermath?

Finally, they were getting to the point. She could work with that. “I was placed with the Jones-Scott’s in september of ´97, so I was here when some of the murders were happening. I was only nine or ten years old, though. I didn’t really know anyone who died, not really. I knew it was happening though, I overheard a lot of adults talking about the murders.”

13. That said, did you know either Xavier Bordelon or Sara Mears personally? If so, what was your relationship to them? How much have their deaths affected you?

She nodded at the mention of Sara’s name. “I knew Sara. She once snuck out of rehab and we partied together. I mean… I knew that it wasn’t really good for her, but I was already quite tipsy when we met. I am not proud of it. It wasn’t long after that I heard she was dead. I mean, it did upset me, but I didn’t have much of a bond with her. She’s not the first person I’ve lost in my life and she won’t be the last.”

14. Lastly, Where were you on the nights of March 10th and July 24th and is there anyone that can corroborate your alibi?

"Oh, uhm… On the 24th of July I was alone in my apartement, so no one can corroborate that. I think maybe my neighbor heard me come home at nine pm, but I’m not sure.” She explained and then licked her lips nervously. “And the 10th of March.” She started as she grabbed her phone. “Oh, I was out at the local nightclub until four am before I went home… with some guy. I don’t know who he was. All I know is that he was African-American and over forty. Sorry, I was kind of drunk.”

HEADCANONS:

They have been best friends with the same girl for eight years, since she came to town (Sami), but what started out as a project for Genesis has now developped into more. She wanted to bring the woman out of her shell, bring the sexy to the sweet and just kind of make the woman enjoy life some more but over the years, she has developped feelings for her but they are sure a woman like her would never want someone like Genesis. Sure, she made fine money and she wasn’t all too crazy during the day but her friend knew about her crazy nights, the drinking, the one night stands and honestly, a woman like her wouldn’t settle for someone like Genesis, she thinks.

They have a private pocketwatch collection in the basement of their home, which is worth quite a lot considering they’re broken pieces they bought for a couple of bucks, restored with original parts and are now worth hundereds, some thousands of dollars.

They don’t know it, but they already have a child which was conceived when they were nineteen. A drunken hook up led to a pregnancy, which This daughter, named Floriana, is now eleven and lives a few towns over. The girl is currently looking for their other biological parent, but haven’t gotten to Genesis yet. They might do in some time though.

They have undiagnosed PTSD. It is severe, as it has only started to happen recently. When PTSD occurs six months or longer after the traumatic event it is a lot more difficult to manage. Hearing glass shatter, a man’s shouting and being grabbed by the upper arm, as well as the smell of sweat mixed with cigarette smoke can cause a flashback. It isn’t always the case but it can happen. For the last four months, this has been happening and they’re not quite sure what is going on, as they don’t know what PTSD is exactly. They just think it’s their trauma resurfacing and that it’ll go away, but slowly… they are starting to realize it maybe difficult to handle on their own.

#[ biography ]#[ about ]

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surviving-guilt · 8 years

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Checks and Balances

Many are keen on accepting the notion that the abused carry the abusers. This is what we call a revolving door.

They would also argue that the indifference of man is just as evil as evil men are by their actions.

If your friend texts you they’re going to kill someone and 10 minutes later does it, are you evil for not stopping them? Most people would say no.

If you and your friend are in a room with someone else, and they tell you they’re about to shoot the other person and 10 seconds later they do, are you evil for not stopping them? A little more wishy washy, but most people would tell you there was nothing you could do.

What if you were in the car with them, they parked in front of an ex’s house, and told you they were going to run them over the moment they walk out of the house? The ex opens the door, your friend whips around the block to gain speed and momentum, it takes about a minute and a half to make it around the block, you see the ex walk into the street, you see the impact coming and it happens. Are you evil for not grabbing the wheel at any point? For not texting someone or calling the authorities when it was still being premeditated? For not getting out of the car when you had the chance? The courts would decide if you were an accomplice or not, but would you be evil for your inaction? Whether you tried to talk them out of it or not? -- If you say yes, why aren’t you equally as evil for the first example with the text? Why not for the second. People act as though “evil” and “immoral” are synonymous, they like to pretend all things are circumstantial, but that is truly a conclusion that people make up within their own minds. I will start my point here by saying on the conversation of “good” vs. “evil” there is no gray, it truly is black and white; it is light vs. darkness, or light vs. the lack there of.

I say this because “morals” are man-made and vary culturally, therefore, in the grand scheme of mammal existence, morals do not exist. I know this because my dog does not know I’m an asshole for calling women bitches, but it does know if someone or something malicious or evil is present. Quick word of advice -- if your dog is usually nice to most humans and literally hates someone that walks in one day and you don’t know why, take the hint. Your dog will know to run away because of an earth quake or tsunami before you will, and it will know evil and toxic people before you realize it. Trust your dog. Anyhow, no one would argue that walking passed someone drowning a child in a pool or lake and not doing or saying anything makes you a fucked up person, but everyone has this confused fucked up conversation about what if that child was Hitler? Would a strict Catholic, against homosexuality and abortion, still believe in the purity of that fetus if it was born gay? Where are these invisible lines we draw in our heads and when is something gray and not black and white? I ask all these conflicting questions as someone who believes very little in circumstantial exclusions and gray areas. For example, many people recognize “high functioning” people on the Autism spectrum and that have asperger’s as having extraordinary talents despite their “disorder” but would look at someone who is schizophrenic as having a simply negative disorder. I do not. I feel all mental disorder, both naturally occuring and developed through physical or mental trauma, is both an affliction and a potentially powerful adaptation and expansion of mental ability and/or capacity. This is not to say that this is true at face value. I am sociopathic, have bipolar disorder including BPD, seasonal depression on top of Bipolar, PTSD, severe ADHD, and go through bouts of anxiety at different points in my life depending on where I am, it’s a living hell, i know. But surviving it and battling it head-on when it’s easier to run away long enough to learn ways to manage it and cultivate the “positive” symptoms along with the bad ones has left me more capable than I was before these disorders overtook my entire life. I am in no way saying that ALL people with mental disorders are better for having them, not at all actually. At their worst, these disorders are so debilitating that they kill who they afflict, or rob them of the ability to lead a successful functional life, or even form basic human relationships, and these examples are what most of society uses as their basis for their impression of mental illness in general. When you hear the term “sociopath” the images that come to mind may be serial killers, child abusers, animal abusers, or generally evil people, but I’m sure your first thought isn’t “Owner of a Fortune 500 company.” As i’m sure when you hear “Autistic child” you don’t immediately imagine tech geniuses that are the best in data analysts, developing algorithms to make for better technology, or catching hackers and predators by sorting metadata for big companies and the government. I’m also sure you hear schizophrenia and think that someone should be in a jacket or heavily medicated and a danger to society, but have never thought that you may have met a very high fuctioning schizophrenic who goes untreated and you just think of them as nice and quirky. Someone you may know with dissociation may come off as selfish and forgetful and insensitive or overly sensitive, but I’m sure you wouldn’t think that in the time of complete crisis, they may be the sanest, most calm and rational person in the room capable of leading everyone to safety rather than being in complete panic, now would you? Someone with OCD may come off as an anal, controlling, selfish, narcissistic, and sometimes condescending prick, but they’ll know where the exits in the room are, when someone may trip in front of you due to an untied shoe, exactly how much time until the next bus, etc. Someone suffering from severe anxiety that has learned to manage it may actually know better than you when something is worth freaking out about, because they focus so hard on reasoning and not letting irrational fears and feelings overtake, that when they finally do let themselves freak out, just like my dog hating someone, it IS time to listen and freak out. People often mistake ADHD as the inability to concentrate, but often time the issue is that they are focused on TOO MANY things at once and don’t have the energy to fix any one thing because they’re experiencing more of the world at once than you can fathom without drugs. Most people don’t believe that in any given moment, I can be listening to you speak, have music on, have a completely different song playing in my head, while thinking about the past and wondering about the future on two different trains of thought going in different directions, and texting someone all at the same time while still actively listening and responding to whomever I’m speaking to with no issue. My ADHD is an issue when I have to sit in a quiet room and accomplish one task, too little stimulus is my downfall, not too much. My last example is those with emotional disconnection issues, be it from PTSD, sociopathy, autism, anxiety, or a variety of other potential factors. They may find it hard to care, like, and especially love, and may come off as “cold” and incapable of sympathy, empathy, or tenderness beyond simple introductory kindness, but believe me when I tell you that when they DO care, when they DO love, when they do form a bond, no one you ever meet will care more, love harder, and try with everything inside them than they will. Saying “I love you” less DOES make it more valuable when it is said.

So with all this said, when is the last time you had an argument with yourself? Who won? Did that seem like a stupid question? You see, people think that symptoms of disorders are exclusive to those WITH disorders, but you see people every day who exhibit the same behaviors as people like me. How many times have you caught yourself purposely not stepping on cracks in the sidewalk? Do you think your have OCD for that? Do you get sad and not want to go outside or leave your bed when there’s bad weather? Do you think you suffer from major depression for that? Does a similar sound, smell, or image that reminds you of an old bad memory make you cringe or feel bad? Do you think you have PTSD for that? More than often, the case is no with all these questions, but you exhibit symptoms without having the rest. So if someone with bipolar disorder learns how to manage their bad symptoms, but allows themselves to exhibit the more practical or useful symptoms, such as high energy and drive during a manic phase, are they not using their disorder as a beneficial tool or way to get ahead without suffering fully from the full negative symptoms of the disorder? Is this wrong? Or an unnatural leg up? Is it wrong to exploit a disorder for a benefit? You may think it’s circumstantial, but I simply do not. One can take advantage of manic symptoms to simply gain, such as being able to go to school, go to work, hang out, party, have the confidence to get with someone and do school work all in one day with little sleep, yes. But what if someone was just coming out of their major depressive episode, finals are coming up, work is at it’s busiest, their friends need them for help through a tough time, and they’re having personal issues at home? Is tapping into the manic energy, drive, and full-on go mode to not collapse under the pressure they’re undergoing considered taking advantage? I would think not. Now let’s revisit our more extreme examples from the beginning. Someone has a dissociative personality disorder, or “split personalities”, they are both you and your friend in the example about killing someone. Part of them fears the other part doing something they consider evil such as murder, does the part that doesn’t reach out or do something about it get the same judgement the part that carries out the act does? Is not stopping a death you can evil? Yes. But what if your reason is because there is so much stigma against the mentally ill that the absolute fear of being attacked, detained, misunderstood, or not listened to is what causes your silence? If you tell someone you get institutionalized and labeled a danger, if you don’t you commit the act and are looked at as evil over ill, and you can’t just walk faster past it because both people are inside you. This is the torment that leads us to kill ourselves out of fear for not stopping ourselves from the pain we can cause because we’re afraid to reach out for help. But now, what if one personality is a sociopath and the other is human as can be, and just anxious? What if that sociopath is smart and instinctual enough to catch on to the fact that someone is evil, maybe about to go runover their girlfriend and kill her? It wants to do the right thing because the other personality cares about morals and it sees evil. The sociopath recognizes evil, and realizes he can’t reach out for help because he’s labeled as mentally ill, therefore not credible and “damaged” so he decided to drown the person who is going to kill his ex. You, a neurotypical person, walk past him drowning the would be murderer, and choose to keep walking. Putting all morals to the side, who was evil? The stigmas we have towards the mentally ill not only cause them to suffer directly, but it blinds us to the great potential those who have mental illness have and how they can do such greater things in society BECAUSE of their disorder, and we shut them out instead of letting them in out of fear for what they may do, instead of letting them in out of excitement for what they may do. That same person struggling with an inner sociopathic personality may be a huge asset to law enforcement, but won’t be allowed to be because they would fail a psych eval. The point of this post is that if we were more supportive of those with mental disorders CULTIVATING and managing their symptoms to their benefit, rather than suppressing ALL symptoms with stigmas, shame, and medication, we could be a lot further along on our progress as a society instead of muting the great minds that could better us all. We create the serial killers and “psychopaths” of the world by forcing them to have to run away from themselves based on the potential of the damage they can do rather than the potential of the great they can do with self discipline, self awareness, and joined management with professionals that can give them the tools to use their disorders for good rather than suppress what makes them who they are. For some, we are not defined by our disorders, but in some cases we ARE our disorders, and suppressing that makes us less human than you think we are with them. Abusing us makes us the abusers when we give up on trying to get help, and for many the ones we abuse are ourselves to dangerous and even fatal extents.

The biggest thing I want to stress is not looking at someone with connection issues or sociopathic tendencies as a serial killer or societal reject, because when we learn to put our resentment for not feeling things the same as others aside, we rely on our instinct and we’re much closer to recognizing evil the way your dog does than you are, and our trouble grasping “moral” vs “immoral” doesn’t mean we can’t teach ourselves right and wrong if you let us try to learn more about ourselves other than “YOU’RE BAD.” All of this is food for thought, and me realizing what I wish I did years ago, I’m not as bad as I think I am, and I’m not as bad as I can be, and most importantly, not letting myself be as bad as I can be makes me good. It is okay that the only opinion of me I care about it my own, because it is me that has to learn how to live as me, manage me, and control myself for better or worse. Not accepting help is okay, taking a step back and saying “i need this time to figure me out” is okay, and warning people that you’re afraid of not responding well in certain situations or doing something others would find wrong is okay if you recognize something and say or do something about it.

It is okay to be ill and not suppress yourself if you learn to cultivate the good. I am not handicapped, in fact, I’m one of the most capable people I know. Self improvement is not selfish. I may never love myself, but I can appreciate the good parts in all the bad, and that’s huge. FUCK YOUR STIGMA, BE YOUR OWN BIGGEST FAN AND CRITIC, AND BE WHAT YOU GOTTA BE EVEN IF ITS IMMORAL AS LONG AS ITS GOOD.

Congrats if you read this.

Thoughts?

#food for thought #personal

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torreygazette · 4 years

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My Lament

It’s been a year and two weeks. Fifty-four weeks ago I said goodbye to my church home of twenty years. After the service, we came back home with those friends who understood the depth of pain, relief, and joy that leaving this church was to us. We fellowshipped, lamented, and celebrated. Looking back, that day is a swirl of surreal. It’s also the last day I felt I had community.

We quickly settled into another church of like faith and practice. We chose it because our two teenage boys, who had suffered incalculable pain and loss over the last two years, needed friends. This church had a few boys their age whom they knew through our annual church camp in the Black Hills. It felt like the right choice. Week after week we have gone—morning, evening, and Sunday School. We began to invite people over. When the piano player left, I volunteered to play every other week. I attended a women’s Bible study. We offered our home to begin a youth group. And then COVID-19 happened.

The resulting “couch church” allowed us more flexibility and we began to listen to sermons by one of my favorite pastors (Dale VanDyke at Harvest OPC in Grand Rapids, MI). We continued to listen to our church’s morning service but chose VanDyke’s sermons on Job for our evening “church.” These sermons were like the balm of Gilead to my cracked, fractured, and taped-together soul. But it wasn’t just me; the kids listened raptly, the sermons spoke directly to my husband’s deep wound, and we drank it in.

Then George Floyd was murdered. The country screamed at each other like rabid, frothy-mouthed dogs from their two poles. I broke with grief. These systemic and racial issues are not a new awareness for me (my brother and my daughter are both African American). I have long lamented how most of America sees them and I have seen these very real slights first-hand over and over again. But now—the country “awakening” to what has always been true—brought a mixture of joy (finally!), frustration (where have you all been?), and anger.

My anger, prompted by what I saw on social media from fellow church members and friends in our small OPC and PCA circles, undid me a little bit more. They claimed to care about racism yet denied the truth of history and its effects on the present and—even more acutely painful—they denied the countless stories of their black brothers and sisters. Still nursing my own deep wounds of betrayal and hidden trauma, I felt the rejection and dismissal afresh as my fellow Presbyterians explained away their complaints. I began to feel a queasiness settle in my gut and I fought the urge to flee. These people are not safe.

Eventually, I decided I needed to quit social media. My anger was troubling my conscience. I needed more patience and forbearance with my fellow Christians, as Christ had infinite patience with me and my own blind spots. I had all but made up my mind when I got a voicemail from an old friend from my time at a children’s charter school (this school is 30% white, the rest mostly African American with a large immigrant population from Africa). I was on the board there and worked hard to recruit Black voices for the board as well as other committee work in order to best represent our students and take advantage of such beautiful diversity. I started a monthly culture club where we celebrated different countries and learned about their customs, food, and dress. Sadly, I had to leave the school two years ago when we were forced to begin home-schooling our girls, a situation directly related to our leaving our church home.

And so the voicemail. I haven’t heard from this friend since we left the school. She was a strong Black voice in the community and had joined the board, doing much to help the other (white) board members understand the unique needs and gifts of her particular community. She was compassionate, loving, and didn’t mind educating others. In her message, she thanked me for my voice on Facebook and for communicating love to her and those who looked like her without further polarizing the divide. She said that my posts gave her and her husband “hope,” and they wanted to let me know how much it meant to them. I cried. My feelings of frustration and even guilt over my frustration faded and they were washed away with a needed reminder that these things matter.

It was the next week that Aimee Byrd was kicked off one of my favorite podcasts. Having read three of her books and listened to Mortification of Spin for years, I had been watching from a distance as the patriarchy club of the OPC (and PCA) became more and more agitated by her. I admired Aimee and her cool and leveled reasoning, her clear Biblical exegesis, her refusing to stoop to low blows, and her continued presence and speaking the truth in love. Though not a fan of Twitter (fewer pictures of cute kids and kittens, I guess), I started reading, mouth agape, the things people were saying about her. So many false things. My gut churned and stirred again.

The Earthly Body of Christ

After all of this, I was left with questions. What is going on? Has it always been this way? Is the OPC changing or am I just waking up? It has been a while since I aligned with one political group or the other. The evil that is abortion tends to push me into one camp by necessity, but with so many other issues growing in importance, I have been “at sea” politically for quite a while. But now, one’s political stance and all that encapsulated seemed to be creeping into the church. Identity politics and virtue-signaling impacted a new set of “issues,” but underneath it all, the same. The arrogance of those with power. Ignoring the voices of those who have been oppressed. Not believing those stories of abuse because the accused abusers are “people we know and we know what we know.” Such arrogance and blind eyes to fellow believers’ pain!

“Mourn with those who mourn.” Where are the fellow lamenters? Where is the outcry? Why do we need to temper our outrage over injustices in order that we don’t appear to be on that other side? Why are our pulpits filled more with beseeching God to “restore law and order in the land” than to “restore justice and equity”? Where is the cry of agony over how the church and its people have been complicit, albeit inadvertently, to the sufferings of others? Why is that not the first stop, the first response, the loudest wail? Why the rush to defend our own policies and innocence? It is not just good secular psychological practice to listen and hear the stories of those who have been traumatized as a first step toward healing—it is Christ’s example to us! He came to rescue the down-trodden and the broken-hearted, his mercy toward the weak and abused ended in his literal self-sacrifice—how much more ought we just listen and mourn.

Coincidentally (yes, I know, “providentially”), my husband was asked to preach at other churches in May and June. I decided to do a three-week road trip with the kids to visit friends and family in several states. Leaving home without him, I was trepidatious and not enthusiastic. Yet as the miles slipped by, I enjoyed the company of my children (especially my oldest boy who was my co-driver for the first time), listened to more excellent preaching, and attended three different churches. I began to acknowledge just how very adrift we were.

I was alone. My family and I are alone. We are aliens in this land and we are in pain. We have been betrayed by those close to us and it hurts very much. We have a story we cannot share. We know first-hand what it is to be forced into silence while those in power flourish. Our unwavering faith in a God (who loves us personally and has a plan of goodness I don’t need to understand for it to be true) has kept us steady. But here I was, unmoored from the “have-to’s” of daily life, enjoying those relationships that matter most in my life, not being daily bombarded with reminders of our recent past and the present political climate, and it left a small space for my own loss to begin to wash over me.

Jogging with my brother in the humid and sticky air of Wisconsin, he asked how we were holding up. I said, “We’re doing all right, but just under the surface I am sad. And I am sad all the time.” I didn’t realize this was true until I said it out loud to him. Typing this now makes me cry. It’s true: I am sad all the time.

I don’t know how to heal without community. I am reading Philip Ryken’s commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations for my daily devotions (it is rich and wonderful). I am listening to the sermons that remind me of God’s character and his infinite love for me and my family. I am reciting my gratitude list and making “Christ is everything and I have Christ!” my daily mantra. But yet the wound has begun throbbing more acutely than it did a year ago and I am just so sad.

This is my lament. It ends not in despair but in clinging to the only thing that is not sad: Christ and his resurrection. But God calls us to more in this earthly life: eventually, I need to learn to love His people again. No, not love (for I do love them). But to trust them.

I realized last night that my problems with my current church begin and end with me. I have been there long enough that I can see people’s flaws—and their flaws scare me. I am a wounded animal, watching with hyper-vigilance from a corner of the room, unsure where my escape route is, not trusting anyone enough to receive their help. It is easier to find reasons to dislike and dismiss than it is to admit I simply don’t feel safe enough to stay.

But how long, O Lord? How long until I can stand in front of a congregation and profess my commitment to that local body of believers and begin serving and making myself vulnerable and working toward intimacy? How long until I am not afraid of each and every person and their capacity to rip the rug out from under me and my family? How long until I can feel safe?

Pray for me. Pray for us. Pray for all those who are lamenting in private because they do not feel safe enough to do so publicly in Christ’s church surrounded by reassuring arms, hands, and hearts of non-judgmental love and unconditional acceptance. Feeling stuck in the former, my heart longs for the latter.

I miss my church community.

#Community #Suffering #Lament

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theillustratedintelligentsia · 6 years

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Trigger Warning

I’m upset about the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. Every woman I know is upset. Every woman I know has experienced assault against her person, her spirit, and her intellect (and those last 2 do count). I don’t know any woman that hasn’t. Granted, my social net IS a bit narrow, but I’ve covered a bit of America, at the very least, and have a handful of worldly friends.

(Yes, I know men can be assaulted, too, but...honestly, this is gonna be about women. A WOMAN took the stand, against her assaulter,and narrated her assault, in front of TV cameras, in front of sworn members of a judiciary committee. What makes this worst is this was not the first time a WOMAN was ignored in a similar situation. And likely not the last. Also in parantheticals: I’m not ignoring the LGBTQIA+ experience, either. Again, this is a woman that put herself out there. I thank the LGBTQIA+ women that have sacrificed themselves for the human rights cause, because let’s face it, without LGBTQIA+ and POC, white women would still be housewives without the right to vote.)

I see the hashtag “believe all women”, but, like all hashtag movements, it’s a series of hollow words unless backed by action. If you believe a woman, or all women, support her, support them. Don’t ask them to relive and narrate their trauma for you. Be mindful of triggers. Be mindful of behaviour. Don’t speak for her, or them, unless expressly asked to, just help support the space women are making. Belief truly is an act of faith, and if you can believe in an omnipresent, omnipotent, Old Man in the Sky on faith, you can believe a woman on faith.

So many people had a “me, too” story. So many. More than most people really realized. The “Time is Up” campaign didn’t get much traction, but it was there like a brief flame. These are campaigns that have the right spirit, but go about the practice all wrong. We should have never had to tell our assault stories. We should have only had to say, “Me, too.”, and be believed, supported.

This culture of women being second-class citizens (or worse: possessions, sex-objects, fantasies, toys to be discarded at will) is not new. It is as old as civilization, really. Look at the myths, look at how ingrained the cultural, cross-cultural, idea of women being monsters is, how it is used to justify all sorts of injustices against women. Just look, and you can see plenty. Eve is accused of getting her and Adam kicked out of Eden, for example. I won’t wax further on the myths, because I am saving that for a different blog post, elsewhere.

Plenty of women are complicit in their own subjugation. Plenty have been, for ages. White women, married to affluent men, who, from a position of high privilege, ignore the plights of women, such as the murdered and missing Indigenous women across the world (to cast a DEEP and WIDE net here, there are plenty of nuances). Silence is complicit, and oppressing the self for the sake of comfort is oppressing others without a voice. It persists the culture of men as First Class Citizens, and women as by-standers, place-holders.

I’ve had to fight through internalized misogyny myself to allow myself to have women friends, to allow myself to see the colour PINK as JUST A FUCKING COLOUR, not a derided indicator of soft and diminutive femininity. I still fight it every day through random bouts of dysphoria; knowing that my genitalia are a marker of “being weak”. Not to mention dysphoria related to eating disorders I’ve acquired because diet and beauty culture. Internalized misogyny is real, and it’s a giant wall that separates women from other women.

Plenty of well-meaning men have persisted the culture, too, by taking up a place in a space not reserved for them, in the name of support. Plenty of men have not verbally called out peers when peers have behaved poorly towards women. I had a friend that built an entire web series on misogynistic ideas, under the guise of dating advice. The first episode was less funny, more serious. The rest became a nightmare of cliches and stereotypes. If it was meant as satire, it missed the mark.

I don’t want to victim blame or victim shame women. I don’t want to discourage well-meaning men from truly wanting to support women. I don’t want the women with the most influence to go silent in resentment. I want everyone to stop.To look at their actions, to listen to their words. To become accountable to both, to each other, to themselves. I want people to understand that sustainable change is not a lot of change all at once, but is SOME uncomfortable change at intervals, gradually. I want people to unite, for a good reason, because they know and understand why things need to change.

This culture can change, but we all need to participate in affecting change. We all need to learn to identify the things that persist the toxic culture, and replace those things with a healthier culture.

What follows is going to be triggering. I know it will be. It was for me, and I am certain there are men in my life that won’t like the pointedness of some questions. I will say this: If I have a problem with a man, I will approach it with him, a superior, and/or through official channels. I’m not going to passive-aggressively drag specific men (except the above used example of web series; though it is still awfully generic).

I am open to discussing any point, with men and with women. I want an open dialogue that encourages the meeting of minds, not the pointing of fingers.

Here there be triggers:

Women (and I will say these were uncomfortable for me, much based either on my own anecdotes, or those of friends, family, and those from other women. I don’t intend to point fingers and victim blame/shame. I’m trying to illustrate points of persistence of toxic culture.):

How much emotional labour do you do for the men in your life?

How many times have you minimized your own desires, your own thoughts and words to avoid conflict, to avoid the discomfort of unsettling your partner, your boss, a co-worker, or a friend? How often have you been minimized by men?

How often have you had to bear the projected frustration, anger, sadness of a man in your life, and process that frustration for him, like you would a child, just to have some stillness, to feel your feelings unperturbed by his? Have you had to bear this more than emotionally, but also physically?

How often have you needed to tone police yourself to avoid being disregarded as hysterical? How often has a man tone policed you because he felt uncomfortable by your upset?

How much patience have you practiced around men, just so you can demonstrate some level of control in front of them, because you fear being minimized, ridiculed, disregarded because your lack of patience can get you labeled as emotionally unstable? How many times have you finally lost your patience, only to be called unreasonable, crazy, delusional, hyperbolic?

How many times have you had to act as a barrier between men in your life and the children in your life, because you fear their expression of toxic masculinity will infect and/or hurt those children? How many children prefer your company over the company of men they know well?

How much physical labour do you do for the men in your life?

How much work around the house do you do for them? Laundry? Dishes? General tidying? Do you minimize this in your head because perhaps the man (men) are primary bread-winners? Does the man (men) persist that minimization by comparing his work to yours, without understanding the effort put forth into the labour of housekeeping?

How much work do you do for male co-workers? Do you do more work than male co-workers, only to be paid less? Do you need to show more proficiency, and tolerate higher scrutiny? Are you relegated to secretarial and/or janitorial duties because those are perceived as roles reserved for women?

How many times have you been pressured to bear a child that perhaps you may not have 100% wanted? How often do you listen to a man argue about abortion, birth-control, single-parenthood, when you know that men cannot have abortions, they do not bear children. When you know men did trial hormonal birth-control, but because of the side-effects (the same as ours) it was not cleared for use. When you know that largely, men are not single-parents, either because they abandon their children, or by court-mandate do not get primary custody (which is a dissertation-post in and of itself, too). How much of the child-care and rearing has fallen to you? How many times have you sparred with a man in your life about a child-rearing technique, and not come to a compromise because of toxic masculinity invading your spaces?

How much of the social labour is yours? How much do you get to mix and mingle with guests, family, and friends at parties, especially around the holidays? How often are you stuck in the position of preparation, setting up, and serving of food and fun? How often are you relegated to tidying the related detritus? How many men are protesting, loudly and even in person, the carriage of injustice that has persisted from the 2016 election? How many women? How many marches and protests have the women organized?

What have you sacrificed to the men in your life?

How often have you said “no.” to a request for sex, and either been ignored, or dogged from a no, to a maybe, to a begrudging yes? How often has your personage been invaded, whether by penetrative sex (via digits or genitalia), or by an uninvited touch? How often have you been pressured into a kiss you didn’t want? Was this done by strangers, by friends, or by a committed partner?

How many times has your career been truncated by men, or otherwise limited by the fact that you are a woman, and those considering your work-place contributions judge your performance by the fact that you are a woman? Or, perhaps, how often was your career truncated because you were harassed and/or assaulted in the work-place, and either reported or didn’t, but then was pushed out and/or quit rather than bear the discomfort?

How often did you skip and/or drop a class in university because your professor and/or TA were men, and they made you expressly uncomfortable, for whatever reason? What did that do to your advancement through university?

Did you sacrifice your dreams, your desires to further advance a man’s dreams and desires? What would you have done if it wasn’t for a man (or men) in your life grossly practicing their perceived entitlement to your body, your time, your energy?

For the men (and I am not pointing fingers at any one man; if these questions make you uncomfortable, perhaps talk with yourself before projecting your discomfort onto a/the woman/women in your life. Also; I don’t hate men, I am frightened by them, though. I’m tiny, I’m white, I’m asexual and aromantic, but have engaged in hetero relationships.):

How many times have you projected your emotional world onto women, either expecting them to just KNOW how to fix your problem, or unconsciously and then become upset when a woman calls you out on it? Have you ever struck a woman (or child) because your emotional turmoil gone unchecked (I know women strike out, too. Again, this is a woman-as-used piece. I am open to discussing men-as-tools piece, but have no first-hand POV on it. I don’t write what I don’t know.)

How often have you made jokes about a woman’s perceived emotional instability, or perhaps the imperative biological function of menstruation? How often have you belittled a woman’s effort, words, or body because either you think you could expend more effort, use better words, or you find her body attractive/unattractive? How often have you minimized the women in your life?

How often have you uttered the words: “I don’t like your tone.” to a woman, because perhaps she has become upset, and is illustrating her upset by way of tone, much like, perhaps, you do? How often have you asked a woman to calm down, or to reign it in? How often do you perceive a woman using a tonality as a threat, as hysterical, as hyperbolic, and/or unfairly/unduly upset?

How often has a woman repeatedly corrected you, or gently steered you away from a behaviour and/or words/actions that are quite literally unhealthy, and then gotten upset because her patience finally broke? How often did you heed her advice-out-of-love before she became upset? How often has a woman repeatedly exasperatedly tolerated your words, actions, and behaviour, and then unexpectedly snapped at you, and you have blamed her for misbehaviour, as if she was a child or a dog?

How often have you felt upset by a child that knows you preferring the company of a woman they know, or being unduly upset if you chide them, but compliant when a woman chides them? How often have you been accused of being heavy-handed, impatient, with children?

How much house-keeping do you do, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly? Are your house-keeping chores mostly handy-man related, or general upkeep? Do you get upset when you are asked to perform a chore? Do you get upset when a woman has forgotten to perform a chore, and are unwilling to listen to why she may have? Do you do any menu planning, any cooking, any laundry? Would you take care of your house-hold chores and duties in a timely manner if a woman wasn’t around to pick up after you and remind you? When a woman in your life gets upset that you don’t participate in chores, how upset do you get? Do you compare your career work to house-work, do you use it as an excuse to get out of house-work?

How often has a woman co-worker had to work twice has hard to receive recognition for the same work you do? How often has a woman co-worker come to work sick, because if she called-out, she would be called lazy, but if you call-out, your illness is validated? What is your role at your place of work, compared to that of the women?

How many times have you desired a child, or even asked a woman to bear a child for you, without understanding the permanent physiological, psychological, and spiritual changes a woman experiences through pregnancy and motherhood? How often have you volunteered to change a diaper, to prep and feed a baby a bottle, to take a squalling child? How often have you volunteered to watch children for a woman in your life so that she can have some peace, some time for herself, away from her children? How often are you trusted to mind children the way the mother sees fit? Have you volunteered to use birth-control, including but not limited to condoms, hormonal birth control, and/or vasectomies?

How often have the women in your life prepared a party, and prepared the food for a party, that you happily engaged guests at, and how often have you volunteered to assist either in prep or in tidying the after-glow? How many marches and protests have you attended? How many have you organized? How are you contributing to the spread of knowledge of the miscarriage of justice since 2016?

How often have you felt jilted by a “no.”? How often have you pursued a woman, even though she expressed little to no interest, either expressly or only in an implied way (because, let’s face it, a lot of women are frightened of expressly saying they aren’t interested)? How often have you pressured a partner, dogged her from her “no”, that may have been shaky, to a maybe that was even shakier, to a yes that was not really a yes? How many times have you pressed for a kiss that was cold, stiff, and unyielding? How often did you do this to strangers, to friends that are ambiguous about where you stand, to committed partners?

How often have you been passed over for a job, or a promotion, because you are a man? How often have you reported a woman co-worker for harassment or assault? Do your woman co-workers make you uncomfortable anywhere other than in your pants?

Was your university class life interrupted by woman professors making you uncomfortable? Did you avoid classes that were predominantly populated by women? Did you choose a major because your “man-ness” would be unwelcome in the professional field your major would be used in?

What have you sacrificed to avoid conflict with the women in your life? What would you be doing if you didn’t have women in your life?

Remember, before you go key-board warrior, think about this. This about the current state of affairs. The sitting president is an alleged abuser, user, and accused of assault. He appointed a man who demonstrably illustrated that the accusations against him are more than founded, and he is not even close to level-headed enough for a judgeship on the highest appellate court in the United States.

Think about how you have engaged in behaviours that persist this toxicity. Think about how you have affected change to stop engaging in those behaviours, and replace them with healthier behaviours. Before you shout, just think. I’ve thought; I’ve affected change; I’m in therapy; I’m on meds. I’ve forgiven, but not forgotten, those that have assaulted me. I now make men in my life accountable for their words and actions.

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