#anyway i get that a lot of people are like 'work spouse culture is literally insane and weird' and that is CORRECT

[eetherealgoddess]

Before you continue, this ends dark as hell so I’m gonna warn you rn!!! Hope you like it anyway! ♡︎♡︎

ꨄEscaping Bonten is for Scrapsꨄ

Oneshot - Yandere Bonten/Assassin Au

❦You are an assassin that’s after a target Bonten already has their paws on❦

Sano Manjiro, Hanemiya Kazutora, Sanzu Haruchiyo, & Haitani Brothers x Reader

Not fully proofread

MY TR FANDOM WORKS ARE ONLY ON TUMBLR, AO3, AND WATTPAD UNDER EETHEREALGODDESS! REPORT IF YOU SEE IT POSTED UNDER ANYONE ELSE BUT ME!!!

I apologize if I get any Japanese etiquette or culture wrong, I literally have to research the culture for some of my fandom stories so if anything is wrong, please excuse my ignorance.

Notice:

✩Y/n is 18+. I picture her as a black female but you can see her however.

✩Some parts of the story may not be realistic or factual. After all, this is a work of fiction.

✩Although it's a dark 'romance,' I do not condone any of the behavior displayed.

✩Dark content such as: gore, violence, triggering topics, graphic scenes, vulgar language, explicit sexual content, etc.

✩There may be scenes that involve non con and/ or dubcon so don’t read if that makes you uncomfortable

✩That being said, this story is for 18+ only.

Enjoy!

Escaping Bonten is for Scraps

You eye around the busy nightclub, pushing through the crowd as you search for your assigned target. Eyebrows furrowed as your nose scrunches at the thick tobacco smell mixed with alcohol and a variety of cologne and perfume.

“Where is this guy?” You hiss, shoving a drunk person to the side as you head to the back of the building. Once you push the doors open, you see the tall staircase, sighing before stepping on.

Why did I have to get assigned to a club?

It’s not that you were against the party scene, it’s just not ideal for a mission to find someone you need to kill. Your boss chose you for the assignment created by a bitter divorcee. You roll your eyes as you remember the file stating, “Please murder my cheating ex husband.” Of course, your company is underground and perfect for not being caught, though why risk going to prison over a cheating spouse?

Fortunately, this should be fairly quick. The soon to be deceased spouse is known for his drinking habit, speaking belligerently as he drunkenly walks from bar to bar which makes him an easy target. You followed him here, his third club of the night. You couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him considering he is just minding his business and drinking on his lonesome. Sure, he’s bitter as well and is a slob but it’s probably just a down point in his life.

At least I’ll put him out of his misery.

Once you reach the top of the staircase, noticing that the whole floor is empty, you pull your gun out, readying it to use. You hold it down to your side as you walk from room to room, searching for your victim. When you see that the whole upper stairs is empty, you hide your gun, and walk towards the exit of the room you just entered. Your eyes widened when you heard a scream coming from behind you.

You turn around and quickly move to the window, squatting, hiding yourself behind the wall so the people outside couldn’t see you. Easing your head up, you peeked to the outside. Standing at the back of the building, a group of men in suits hover around a kneeling man who’s covering his head as one of the men slams his foot against his side, causing him to fall over. You notice a smaller man who stood in the middle of the suited men walk closer to the male on the ground.

Your eyebrows raise when the man is forced to put his arms down as the shorter man crouches in front of him, realizing the guy is your target.

“What did this guy get himself into?” You whisper to yourself before moving quickly to crack the window so you can decipher what’s occurring.

“You owe us a lot of money, Nakamura.” A man with two blonde strands says, his wide eyes staring deeply at the victim.

“I-I know! I’m going th-through a divorce. I j-just need more time!” He coughs out blood in between his words. The short man in front of him leans in.

“You’ve wasted my time.” He stands up before moving back, motioning for the purple haired man holding the baton to walk forward.

He swings his arms back before slamming them down with a smirk on his face. He repeatedly hits the man over and over again with so much force that blood splatters on his own suit. The man cries out in pain as he becomes light headed.

You wince as you watch this painful sight.

Damn, now I’m feeling even more bad for this guy. I think I’m just going to go ahead and shoot him. Help him out, forreal.

Standing up completely, you aim at the man’s head perfectly with the gun. Without needing the other guy to stop beating him, you pull the trigger, a shot ringing out loudly. The bullet penetrates his head, killing him on the spot. The men, startled, looked around their surroundings as the pink haired man turned to the window, his blue eyes catching yours before you turned on your heel and ran.

“Fuck, he saw me!” You hiss as you run down the stairs, gun hidden as you push through the crowd.

Fortunately, it looks as though you all are into some shady business, though that doesn’t mean you want to catch their attention. You run out of the exit and rush to your car parked at the side of the building.

“Shit, shit, shit!” You rush to unlock the car before hopping in. Before you could close the door, a hand blocks the door. Your wide eyes meet purple orbs before you're pulled out of the car by your shirt. Before you could grab your gun, your front is forced against the car as your gun is grabbed and aimed at your head. The man with the purple mullet holds your arms behind your back with one hand. Before you could say anything, the butt of the gun meets your head, darkness engulfing your vision.

When you first wake up, your eyes meet a dimly lit warehouse, a throbbing pain at the side of your head causes you to pull against the restraints you didn’t know were there to touch your head. Groaning your eyes, the rope strategically tied around your ankles strapping you to the chair.

“Damn.” You breathe out. The click of a gun sounded next to your head causing you to make eye contact with the blue-eyed man you saw before.

“You’re an assassin working for an underground company, right Y/n?” You look up to see the short man sitting on a chair in front of you at a distance. The men stood around him, eyeing you.

“Who am I answering to?” You question, resulting in the gun being pushed against your head harder causing you to wince, the spot where you were once hit feeling raw under the barrel of the weapon.

“I don’t repeat myself.” The sunken eyed man states, his white hair hovering over his face.

“Yes.” You spit out, frustration being the only emotion to decipher at the moment.

“You work for Bonten.” You gasp at the familiar name.

“What the hell are you talking about?” The gun smacks against your face, forcing your head to lean to the side as you squeeze your eyes shut in pain.

“Watch your mouth.” The pink haired man growls, using one hand to force your head back in place before replacing the barrel in the same spot.

“You will keep your assassin title and you will work under the executives.” Your eyebrows furrowed.

“Or what?” You hiss. The pale man signals for the taller short haired man to walk towards you holding his baton. He smiles before pulling it back and slamming it against your stomach. You lean forward before coughing out blood.

“You die.” Your new boss states.

A few months pass before you’re completely used to the yakuza scene. There are times when you wonder what exactly did they see in you to ‘hire’ you as an assassin working under the executives. It wasn’t a hard job, basically like the one you were used to besides the power dynamic. Although you worked under an old boss, he treated everyone equally and you had normal coworkers who you’d go out to the bars with occasionally. You were free to live your own life as long as you didn’t get caught.

Working under Bonten, you weren’t allowed the same freedom as your executives. Your job title was assassin but considering their low respect for you, sometimes you were a maid, assistant, butler, etc. At least that’s what it felt like when you had to run errands for them that didn’t involve shooting a bullet in someone’s head. Sure it’s nicer than killing but who wants to work to serve a bunch of disrespectful men?

Not to mention, you weren’t allowed outside without being accompanied by one of the executives. Of course, the executives you wouldn’t mind being around such as Mochi, Kakucho, Koko, and Takeomi weren’t the ones who accompanied you. It was always the Haitani brothers, Kazutora, or Sanzu. Even when you’re supposed to be off the clock you were always around at least one of them. You no longer have your own apartment and have to stay in a designated room in a penthouse that holds all of your rooms, though everyone else owns their own homes.

Currently, you are sitting in the vip section of one of the Haitani brother’s clubs, arms crossed along with your leg as you lean back on the couch. Kazutora plops next to you with a drink in hand along with one of the strippers in the other, her bare breasts out as she holds onto him.

“You don’t look so happy, Y/n. Should we have taken you to a male strip club?” He taunts, finding amusement in her pouty face.

“I’m glad you find humor in my suffering. I just want to go to bed.” You respond.

A dip on your other side causes you to turn your head to meet Sanzu who has a speck of white dust under his nose. He wipes using his sleeve before handing you a cup of alcohol.

“Live a little, yeah?” You raise a brow as you push the drink away. You had to admit how interesting it was to see the different contrasts between the infamous mad dog. One minute he’s all serious for ‘his king’ and the next he’s sniffing angel’s dust off of a stripper's ass. Interesting indeed.

“I don’t know what you put in that.” You state before turning away from him.

“Then take this. It’s just champagne.” Rin smirks as he hands you another glass from a separate chair, man spreading as he smokes a blunt.

“And I should trust you, why?” You roll your eyes before standing up.

“Where are you off to?” Ran asks as his hand grips the butt cheek of the stripper sucking his neck.

“Bathroom.” You state before walking out. You eye the guards before heading to the restroom.

You walk to the sink and lean over, staring at yourself in the mirror as you think your life over and what brought you to this point. You swiftly turn your head when someone walks into the bathroom. You notice the woman is wearing a poorly done wig with a coat on. You contemplate whether or not you should knock her out and disguise yourself so you can make a run for it.

My morals have always been skewed anyway. I’m sorry lady.

Before she could walk into the stall, you grab her and press her pressure point, catching her before she falls. You undo her coat and set the purse on the ground, lying her head on it gently before pulling her wig off. Setting the wig on as well as the coat, you walk out of the bathroom.

You walk at a steady pace to look anything but suspicious while keeping your head down. When you successfully pass the guards you make a run for it, rushing out of the club and finding a taxi to pick you up, throwing your phone out of the window for safety from a tracking device.

Your adrenaline pumps as the hairs on your body stand. You breathe heavily as you give the taxi man the direction to your old company’s headquarters. When you got there, you ran into the building in search of your boss. When you find his office, you push the doors open and run towards the man who looks at you with shock.

A year passes and he helps you back on your feet. Staying as an assassin would have been dangerous considering the first place Bonten searched for you was the headquarters. Fortunately, he has a family who owns different businesses so you currently work at a bakery on the farthest side of a city hours away from where you used to reside.

One night, you were cleaning up the floors, closing the store. You had already locked the door so you were confused when you heard someone entering the building. Looking up, you dropped the broom when you recognized Mikey standing in front of the door with a gun pointed at you. Before you could move, a hand wrapped around your mouth as someone grabbed your arms, pulling you against a chest. You struggle in their hold.

Your eyes widen when you see your boss and his family consisting of his wife, two of their adult children, and one child being dragged in wrapped in rope and bags over their heads. You scream against the hand.

“Relax and everything will go smoother.” The voice she recognized as Kazutora states behind her.

Once the other men force everyone on their knees in front of her, they pull the bags off their heads.

She screams once more when she makes eye contact with all of them, tears running down her face for the first time at the face of death.

No they can’t do this! This can’t be happening!

Complying to Mikey’s order, Kazutora removes his hand from her mouth as he locks arms with hers. She pulls against him as she tries to release herself, to no avail. The Haitani brothers watch in amusement as they stand behind the two adult kids. Sanzu stands behind the child as Mikey moves to stand behind the boss.

“This is your fault.” He says to you, glaring before he sets his gun to the man’s head. The child cries along with the mother and the children. The man’s eyes are wide as he looks to the side in the direction of his family. They were prevented from talking, mouths bound shut as they squeal and groan.

“Mikey! M-Mikey please don’t do this! I-I’ll stay this time I swear to god! Please… just kill me or something d-don’t take it out on them!” You cry out, devastated by the display as the guilt takes over.

“Sanzu.” He states. Everyone watches as he sets the barrel of the gun on the child’s head, pulling the trigger before anyone could think. There was a pause as the shot rang out, the blood and brains splattering against his siblings, the wall, and the floor.

“STOP! NO MORE!” You let out a blood curdling scream. You pull and pull against Kazutora as he grips you tighter.

Your boss wails against his restraints angrily, falling over when he attempts to stand up, lying pitifully on his side as he kicks his feet and pulls against the rope. The wife and their children cry out, tears dropping fast as they squeeze their eyes shut.

“Haitanis.”

“NO! NO MIKE-!” The shots rang out, more blood and brains splattering as their limp bodies fall to the ground, one sibling with half of their head gone as well as the other along with an eyeball, their blood reaching their mother as she completely bends over and cries.

Mikey aims at the wife shooting her twice before her limp body falls, the husband still as he weeps for his deceased family. Kazutora allows you to drop to your knees. Hands placed on the ground as you become light headed. Finally, vomit shoots up your throat as you release the contents on the ground. Gagging and belching as your body shakes, wet with sweat.

This must be my karma for all of the wrong doings. This must be how people feel when they see their loved ones die.

“I-I’m so sorry, Akihiko. I’m so fucking sorry.” You whine out, tears and snot falling as you become a wreck. He looks at you with despair.

“Please, escape the-!” Before he could finish his sentence, Mikey had already blown his brains out.

You gaze at the messy floor with a blurry vision and wide eyes. Footsteps stop in front of you, missing the vomit. Mikey crouches down and pulls you by the chin to look up at him, gun still in the other hand.

“If you try to leave again, I’ll blow your legs off.”

[daimonpriestess]

So I think Lilith wants me to get into Vampirism again. I haven't been interested in that since I was 21. Most notably Vampyric Magic which I didn't know was an actual thing until very recently.

It makes sense and given I nor Levathia (A past life self) is attached romantically to our former master/ex anymore, I think it would work out a lot better.

Lilith being a literal ancient goddess/Succubus & an aspect of Asmodeus being an Incubus (which are energy vampires in a sense IMO, maybe they don't have "fangs" but they do similar things that Psi Vamps do. It's just usually in a sexual way.) it would make more sense them being our "masters/mistress" (more notably Lilith, but I am spoused to Asmodeus.) then a narcissistic human who doesn't even believe in being a vampire anymore.

I consider myself both a PsiVamp (I'm an empath) and a Sanguine Vampire, I will admit to being a fan of Vampire culture before I knew about true vampires (Lost Boys, Buffy, Underworld, John Carpenters Vampires, Blade, The Last Vampire books, The Amelia Atwater Rhodes books ect.) I was also obsessed with Twilight for a time but I knew those books were fiction. I also really liked and still do like The Vampire Diaries and True Blood. Also more obscure or low budget movies and shows like Razorblade Smile (which my ex introduced me to) Blood Ties, Only Lovers Left Alive and A Discovery of Witches.(which I loved because it was witches and vampires)

I've also written stories based on my past life (lives?) as Levathia, idk if I'll finish them though as I did base most of the characters on real people who's influence or inspiration is now gone.

I was into Wicca when I met my ex and found out I was an actual vampyre when I was 18. But I never put them together, being a vampyre (or baby vamp att) was always separate from my craft and I was never in a coven. I never thought to use blood in my practice (especially since my goddess then was Aphrodite) or siphon others energy for a spell. (Not knowingly anyway.) I'm sure as I mostly did spells or rituals with him that Valenn and I used one another's energy but I didn't do it consciously. I also grew up with the mindset that energy vampires are bad, though some are. I didn't realize that empaths and Psivamps are two sides of the same coin until recently.

I've never actively drank blood, or used it anyway, or done blood play ect. But I've always been drawn to it. Just att there's no way I would have done it safely or had anyone around me (not manipulating me) that knew what they were doing.

That being said I'm pretty sure my demons would know to show me how to do it safely and I am married to someone (on the 3D) that I absolutly trust and is with Lilith.

It is still hard to find things about Vampyric Magic (other than the book by Father Sebastian which I have yet to read) or about real Vampirism in general. I've come across a couple on tumblr and YouTube but it doesn't seem to be as prevalent or "trendy" as it once was. If anyone has any suggestions or you are one let me know!

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

I get being confused by the achievement of someone being commited to you. Its' an achievement I'm sure but still society makes it weird. Feeling weird about it is fine.

Thank you for the validation! Yeah it’s super weird. I don’t really believe that it’s an achievement… but it is certainly a happy fact! I think it’s super easy to slip into considering engagement/marriage to be an accomplishment bc that’s the messaging we get all day every day, but if it’s an accomplishment then that means that Not Being Married/Engaged is a failure, which I really disagree with for a variety of reasons (and it harms both unmarried people and married people!). It’s just so confusing bc like!!! It did certainly take a lot of hard work and dedication to reach this stage with my person! And I want to honor and celebrate that! We worked hard! We’ve been through a lot and come out of all of it stronger! It’s so special and life-changing! I’m an entirely different person than I was when we met, and so is my partner! But I don’t think that we’ve reached a distinct point where Something Has Been Accomplished. The commitment part is interesting too bc like I don’t think that we were in any way uncommitted before we decided to get married, having lived together for 5 years already. Marriage, for us, is more about purposefully including our community in the commitment… it’s not just committing to each other, but committing to care for each others families as if they are our own. I mostly want to marry his mom and like show her that she will always have a place in my family! And the legal pieces - particularly this thing called Spousal Privilege which is where you cannot be subpeonaed to testify in court against your spouse (you can choose to but you can’t be compelled by the court) which has been on our minds due to the uh… political climate and planning for a future where some of our political beliefs/statements/actions could potentially come with serious consequences. Basically it’s where “partner in crime” comes from! Which is similar to the legal right to visit your spouse in the hospital.. just yeah, it’s a political right to marry, and I don’t want to squander that right just bc of second wave feminism… (the family/home is a worthless use of time and the only true fulfillment a woman can achieve is within the structures of capitalism as a working woman 🙄)

But yeah the way the whole thing is drenched in cultural norms and expectations is so icky and I wish I could just selectively experience the joy without the grossness but alas!! I still haven’t told my grandma and aunt yet. Which is bonkers!! But like… my aunt was engaged in the 80s when she was in college and my grandma was over the moon about it (I found some old family Christmas letters and read the one where my Grammy announced it to Everyone and it is… Gross) and then, Something Happened and my aunt had a psychiatric incident and the engagement was broken off. There were no family Christmas letters for a few years after that, and my aunt was in and out of psychiatric hospitals, moved back home, and has spent the rest of her life being berated by her family/town/church for Failing to marry. So like!! It’s just complicated! And social pressure is immense, even without those explicitly sexist messages. My mom, for example, would NEVER do anything like that to me, but!! She still went on a tirade the other day about how degrading it is for women to change their last names when they get married (I intend to take my partner’s maternal last name because their whole family is huge and welcoming and has a lot of history and are all bluegrass musicians whereas my last name doesn’t hold a lot of meaning to me and my brother will carry on the family name anyways) but like!!!! Mom!!! Wtf?!!??! Not everything is some sexism conspiracy theory! When uniting two families into one, it makes sense to condense some things! I am literally legally joining his family, which isn’t defined by name alone obvi but like it’s a part of it! And the whole point is freedom of choice! I can do whatever I want! Even if that sometimes is the Traditional thing! Grrrrrrrrrrrr

anyways yeah I think that processing all this stuff is the important part, and defining these things for ourselves is what matters. But thank you, anon, for the question, reassurance, and opportunity to journal a bit about it! 🫶

[luminescentauthor]

random fun RatLD hcs

you came here for RatLD shitposts and that’s what you’re gonna get!

SPOILERS AND LOTS OF THEM BELOW THE CUT, IF U HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET PROCEED AT UR OWN RISK.

I refuse to post about this movie without acknowledging the cultural significance of the first SEA disney princess and I will continue to do so until people on this website start remembering that this movie is about amazing cultures and trust and overall a WHOLE lot more than just the sapphics (as great as they are.)

anyway, so, headcanon time, my dudes!

The Next Adventure

Talon is a total mess after everyone gets un-stoned. (Ok so just for posterity, my marvel fan brain just went “un-snapped” on instinct and I hate it here.) The two chiefs are fighting for control, and Noi, being a baby, is not really in a position to help (unlike Raya, Naamari, and Tong.)

As such, the crew has to go undercover in Talon to try and, you know, stop the chiefs from destroying their people with their infighting. Tong insists on coming. Naamari happened to be in Heart and gets dragged along by Sisu and Raya, complaining the whole time, but everyone knows she doesn’t mean it. Boun also shows up and exactly no one is surprised.

During this misadventure, Noi’s mother names Tong as Noi’s godfather/honorary uncle/whatever, undercover Naamari and Raya go “noooooo, we’re not the princesses of Fang and Heart, what on earth are you talking about???” on at least five separate occasions, and the crew discovers that Noi inherited her sticky fingers from her very clever mother. She’s basically a grade-A spy and thief but she’s also just like, genuinely a very nice woman.

Rayaari!

Raya and Naamari take a long time literally just figuring things out and reconstructing their friendship, because really, as much as I love sapphics, there’s also a whole lot of messy there, and because these are my headcanons, they work out their problems and have a healthy friendship for a couple years before any romance happens, because that’s how Real Life works and I don’t believe in ignoring those Pretty Important Things in fiction.

They do eventually start a relationship, but they take their time. A bit into it, Benja accidentally mentions that Raya told him she liked Naamari when they met. Naamari’s like “ha you did?” and Raya goes “BA NO.” Then Virana immediately says “oh yes, Naamari also liked her, she didn’t stop crying because she thought Raya turned to stone for like three days” and Raya goes “you did, hmm???” while Naamari turns bright red.

Before they start dating, as their feelings grow, they start calling each other “dep la” more and more and everyone is just kinda of like “oh my GOD just date already???”

Eventually Raya and Naamari get married and become the leaders of Kumandra. No I Won’t Change My Mind.

Unification of Kumandra

The unification of Kumandra felt a bit shoehorned, and I suspect the nations aren't united under one leader(s): it's more that they're now becoming close-knit again. Perhaps they have a meeting council of all their leaders that makes decisions that affect the whole land, otherwise that probably becomes a thing at some point.

When Kumandra eventually becomes totally unified, the capital of Heart (which I believe is on the island we see on the map of Kumandra) eventually becomes the capital. It still has five provinces/states, though.

Fang and Heart

Heart and Fang help each other out a lot with recovering from the “most of our people got turned into the statues” stuff. Heart has more resources, but most of its people have been stone for 6 years. So the two states/countries are both capable of different things.

Of all the kingdoms, Heart and Fang have the most to rebuild: Fang’s only standing city was destroyed in the finale of the movie, while Heart has been growing over for six years. Sure, Spine’s been stone for a while, and some of Talon’s docks and water ships and whatnot collapsed when the water vanished, but it’s still significantly easier to repair than “six years of overgrowth and rot and rust” or “literally the ground collapsed underneath us and wow um I don’t think that’s reparable.” So they really team up to fix it, and the others help them a lot.

The actual leaders stay in their capitals to lead until things have calmed down a WHOLE lot, so Raya and Naamari travel around Kumandra on their parents’ behalf a lot, and wind up going between Fang and Heart a lot to establish diplomatic relations and also to help with rebuilding.

Over this period, and while doing diplomatic meetings later on, Virana and Benja come to realize that the other person is actual quite decent. There’s some mess and distrust because of Virana’s thing with the Dragon Gem, but it eventually gets worked out. (Virana’s reaction is “yes that’s fair. In my defense, I was trying to do what I thought was right for my people, who were starving, but Yes, That’s Fair.” Benja’s reaction is “honestly if your people were starving from famine and you thought the Gem would help, that makes more sense.”) After a while, they become pretty good friends.

And suddenly Raya and Naamari regret everything. See, Naamari mentioned that both parents make terrible jokes. The girls are Suffering. Help them.

Sisu loves the bad jokes. Sisu also makes bad jokes. Raya and Naamari are silently dying.

It’s silly, but I like the idea that 3-4 years down the line, Virana and Benja consider getting married just for political reasons (alliance and all that) (they’re not actually interested in each other, it’s just practicality) and Naamari and Raya, who are not dating but are definitely in deep for each other at this point, are immediately like “NO. NO. DO NOT MAKE MY CRUSH MY STEPSISTER. DO NOT.”

Virana and Benja (mostly Benja) tease them by “considering” it for a bit longer, but they don’t, since they talked about it and both kids are uncomfortable with it. (”They like each other, don’t they?” Virana asks dryly. “Ohhh yeah,” Benja replies.)

Music? Music!

I was listening to a youtube mix this morning and “Too Far Gone” by Hidden Citizens popped up and it just reminded me of Raya’s attitude towards Kumandra at the start of the movie. Also it’s just a beautiful song.

“Knife in my Back” by Alec Benjamin is Raya @ Naamari before they figured things out, change my mind.

Other Stuff!

We can guess based off how long it took the crew to get from Tail to Fang even with side adventures (I think it was 3-4 days max, I wasn't totally paying attention) that one can navigate from one end of the river to the other within a couple days even in a boat like Boun's, and the royal families probably have even faster modes of transportation. (I.e. Naamari got from Tail to Fang in a couple days, then to Spine, then beat the crew back to Fang. On land.) Therefore, unlike I was originally thinking, it's actually totally realistic for the crew to be visiting each other once or twice a month.

It's even more realistic for Naamari to crash Raya's place on a weekly basis, since that's probably like six hours on cat at max.

I don't know what the cats are, so I will be calling them saber-cats until someone corrects me.

TUMBLR JUST MYSTERIOUSLY STOPPED ACCPTING MY "E" KY HLP I HAV TO US COPY PAST

Wait I think I fixed it. Crisis averted! Sorry about that.

Because Naamari is in Heart half the time, Virana visits quite frequently too. It’s not a long trip, anyway.

Virana is not straight (haircut) but I can’t decide if she’s a lesbian or what. She doesn’t have a spouse and never did. Only those Virana closely trusts know who Naamari’s dad is. Naamari does know and she’s met him, because Virana figured she had a right to. He and Virana never had a relationship, Virana just sort of needed an heir and a trusted personal friend offered to father the kid.

Tong’s wife is a total badass and instantly fits in with the crew. She and Noi’s mother quickly become very close friends.

Noi and Tong’s kid also immediately get along. As in, they constantly throw things at each other while giggling madly and both love the Ongis, and -- are they whispering to each other in that corner?? They might be conspiring to take over the world. Who knows.

Noi learns how to talk and becomes about 5 times more chaotic. Everyone is Regret (except Tong.)

[ponytailzuko]

Breaking the vow of "til death do us part" is actually a very big deal. I'm with the original anon on this. Divorce shouldn't be made light of or encouraged unless something drastic has happened, not because people go through a period of less passion or not like each other as much as they used to.

not every marriage is the same and marriage means different things in different cultures, and even to different people. are we talking about a christian wedding right now? not everyone does that. i can go get a courthouse wedding right now and my vows could most likely be different. some places don't even do vows, you can be married just by living in the same place for so many years. some people just get married for the tax benefits or because it's cheaper. when i talk about marriage, i mean the literal by-law marriage, not the connotations of what all that means (such as the particular vows) depending on who you are as a person.

anyways, i'm not saying that if you get in one argument with your spouse, you should get a divorce. what i am saying is that a lot of people are unhappy in their marriages and feel resigned to staying in them because "they need to make it work." or in some religions it's viewed as a sin.

and honestly? relationships are about being on the same page. about all parties wanting to be there. i'm not saying people should get divorced willy-nilly, but if a relationship has less passion or don't like each other and a person in that marriage doesn't want to be in that relationship anymore, who am i to say they can't leave it? relationships are very personal and different based on the people in it. people have different wants and needs and they have to come to their own realizations and conclusions if they want that relationship to work or not. sometimes, that ends in divorce. sometimes they work it out. either way, i don't see divorce as solely negative? it depends on the people going through it and their personal experiences.

[runningdownthatroad]

I just have to get this off my chest after seeing some very disturbing posts about 9/11 floating around on my dash as well as some truly crude commentary. A lot probably won't agree with my sentiments but I feel like this needs to be said.

I've seen a lot of things on Tumblr in the past that maybe I consider to be in poor taste or don't agree with but I usually just scroll past, sometimes block for curating sake, but today is the first time I truly was shell-shocked. To see the memes and blasé jokes people are making about this day are just absolutely horrific and appalling.

I get that a lot of people on this site now may not remember what happened that day and only learned second hand through school or media or other people telling them. I get that a lot occurred after this that wasn't right which we definitely should be learning from. I also get that there is a lot of anti-American and anti-white sentiments going around currently, especially on this site.

But here's the thing:

Not only Americans died that day. Not only white people died that day. That's the thing about terrorists and what these hijackers did: they don't care about your skin color, your culture, your religious preference, your sexual orientation, your gender orientation, your age, your economic status, your personality, whether you support them or not, your political persuasion, your job, or any of it. Everyone is fair game to them. For crying out loud, look at what the Afghani people are currently going through and how the Taliban are treating their own country's people, women especially. If you think this is bad (which it truly is), have you seen how things went under their rule before 9/11 even happened? Do you know their terrifyingly violent and brutal history? Women had acid thrown in their faces if they didn't wear a full hijab. People were mutilated or executed if they didn't fall in line with the law of the Taliban. And this doesn't even begin to go into Al-Qaeda or Isis. But I'm not here to talk about that or delve into that topic too much.

My point in mentioning all of this is that white Americans weren't the only ones that were killed that day. People of all faiths, of all colors, of different countries, died that day, too. And the unity that is consistently discussed every 9/11 anniversary is in regards to us being aware of that fact, us mourning all of their losses together, and the collective desire to come together and help once the planes hit and after the towers collapsed.

So when people say "why am I supposed to cry over white Americans getting killed that day" think about that. Not only white Americans died that day. And regardless of their color, their nationality, their culture, their religion, etc. anyone dying is always sad. Whether it be a jetliner being used as a weapon that crashed into their floor or someone dying of cancer or someone being killed in a mudslide or someone dying in a car accident -- it is always sad. And empathy should always be shown in response, even if it doesn't impact you personally. Let's not forget these people have loved ones that got left behind, that are still here.

So when people say "if something knocks into a cow and knocks it over, I'm not expected to care, but if something knocks into a building and knocks it over, suddenly I'm supposed to care?" think about that. People aren't grieving two large pieces of steel architecture. People aren't saying "always remember those two towers". The WTC Towers were a symbol (yes, for American wealth, I get it) but became so much more of a multi-faceted powerful symbol after 9/11. The towers represent a way of life before 9/11 happened, but more importantly they represent the people lost that day, who were in the towers when they collapsed. For all of the first responders who were stuck on those floors still trying to help evacuate people to safety when the buildings finally gave. The two footprints and two blue lights aren't a symbol of American wealth or a naivete and simpler way of life pre-9/11 - they are a symbol of memorialization for that day. The Freedom Tower was erected to show that despite the loss of that day, we stood united (even if there seems to be more and more division these days). It's a message to the world that yes, destruction and death happened that day in NYC, but so did rebuilding and life carrying on. It's a symbol of strength, resilience, and unity - something that was everywhere you looked days after this event occurred. The two towers (aka NYC) may have gotten knocked down but the city got back up. They weren't kept down - that's the point of the Freedom Tower.

When people say "I don't understand, what is it that I shouldn't be forgetting since I can't remember it anyway" here is what we all should be remembering despite our age or our connection (or lack thereof) with this event:

2,997 innocent civilians died that day. Among them were 343 firefighters, 37 police officers, 23 Port Authority police officers, 8 EMS workers, and 4 other first responders. Also among them were 246 people on the four planes that crashed.

The passengers of United Flight 93 made a choice to fight back against the hijackers and saved lives that day by sacrificing their own.

Many children lost parents. Many parents lost children. Many brothers lost sisters, and many sisters lost brothers. Many spouses lost their significant others. Many lost friends, family, and loved ones.

For those who want a better connection to this day who didn't experience it and/or don't remember it, and for those others who are seriously lacking in empathy: yes, it was a highly publicized event due to the hundreds of cameras (including media outlets) watching that day, but if the horrific images aren't enough to garner some of your empathy, then there are plenty of other resources at your disposal. Documentaries like 9/11 by James Hanlon and the Naudet brothers, 102 Minutes That Changed America (which shows you not only all of the first-hand eyewitness accounts that day but also lets you hear 911 calls, radio transmissions between firefighters, and people's reactions to the event and each other who were there), 9/11 Firefighters (on Discovery Plus) and even more recently, 9/11: The Turning Point (on Netflix) which provides a 360 degree view of the events that led up to 9/11, 9/11 itself, and what came after, displaying all different viewpoints. You can read the 9/11 Commission Report or there are several books and memoirs out there like Wake-Up Call by Kristen Breitweiser, or even historical accounts in books, newspaper articles, and online. But most importantly, listen to people's stories. The ones who were there, the ones who saw it happen, the ones who ran in to help, the ones who lost loved ones. That is the most important part and the most powerful. On Hulu, ABC News ran segments of 9/11 Twenty Years Later, "Women Of Resilience" being especially powerful. It's hard not to feel a human connection to these stories or any kind of empathy.

For those who are making these jokes and memes, if you like shows like 9-1-1 and Chicago Fire, etc, imagine those first responder characters rushing into those buildings to save lives and losing theirs in the process. If you don't remember 9/11 or feel any connection or empathy, imagine hundreds of Bucks or Eddies or Bobbys or Hens or Chimneys dying that day as they worked to save so many. Sorry to be so blunt because I love those characters too, but do you get a little bit of the connection now? Do you feel any empathy? I'm not trying to equate real life heroes and sheroes with fictional characters of course, but if it helps you to understand a little better in some way, well...I'm throwing it out there.

I myself lived in the Tri-State area at the time of the attacks. I remember seeing the second plane seconds before it crashed into the second building. I remember the devastation I felt watching the first tower collapse knowing that a loved one was most likely inside and how hard I cried thinking he was dead. (thankfully, he had been late to work that day and he got out of the area before the towers came down) I remember the relief and gratefulness we all felt hearing from him to assure us that he was alive when he finally was able to get to a phone, stating he was covered in dust and ash from the buildings. I remember the panic and fear we all felt, thinking the world was ending and we were all going to die, that this was it, this was World War III, after it was confirmed that the Pentagon had also been hit and there was also a downed plane in Pennsylvania. I remember the grief another loved one suffered because she lost her entire floor (she had been out sick that day) and every single one of her co-workers. I remember the race to pick up children from school and get them home as soon as possible. I remember the rage that coursed through us seeing the footage of some people in certain countries celebrating the attacks in the streets, enjoying the deaths of so many Americans, a couple of these countries who lost citizens themselves in these attacks. I remember the camping out in front of the televisions night after night for a week straight afterwards, watching the news 24/7, worrying that there might be more attacks. I remember the feeling of sheer terror anytime a plane was heard overhead or seen appearing low enough in the sky that you could practically make out which airline it was for months afterwards. I remember seeing the lights the first time they were lit from our home. I remember feeling pure fear not only for what happened that day but also what came afterwards (not yet understanding that these weren't practitioners of Islam that did this but radical extremists who had literally hijacked the religion). I remember seeing the devastation at Ground Zero through a tear in the fabric over a fence as we walked through the city months afterwards. I remember not wanting to fly for years. I remember the anger I felt that our government had failed us due to political bs between agencies and countless others (which we found out especially when the 9/11 Commission Report came out) and that because of this horrific and absurd failure, thousands of innocent people had died. I remember seeing the crushed ladder truck, and the toy of the little girl who was on one of the planes at the 9/11 Memorial Museum and all of the pictures in that room that just floored me. (I also remember being pissed off that many were treating it as a selfie op where they were allowed to take pictures, completely missing the point of the museum's existence) But most of all, I remember feeling that life would never be the same for any of us ever again, and that the feeling of safety we had naively enjoyed on September 10, 2001 would never return.

But I also remember the compassion and unity we saw rising in the country after those attacks. I remember the gratitude for all of our first responders, those we lost that day and those who were still with us, actively working to recover those lost and to clear Ground Zero. I remember the feeling of collectiveness, that we all shared grief and showed support to one another in those days afterwards. I remember the fallen heroes and sheroes who ran into those buildings, who were off duty but raced from wherever they were that day to come and help. I remember The Man In the Red Bandana aka Welles Crowther (and many like him who worked to save others) who has become another important symbol of that day. I remember hearing all of the stories of people helping one another before and after the towers collapsed. I remember the good that this day represents. That while we may have seen some of the worst of humanity that day in the form of violence, death, weaponized airplanes, and devastation, we also saw the very best of humanity in the form of our first responders and people helping one another.

Look, did Islamophobia happen? Yes. Was it right? No, absolutely not. As I stated above, I myself feared the idea of the religion until I was educated by a friend of mine about the difference between the religion and extremism. This form of hijacking ideology can be seen in examples like the Westboro Baptist Church or even Hitler. Terrorists do not represent the true spirit of Islam no matter what the former tries to force people to believe. Just as the WBC is not the true spirit of Christianity, and so on and so forth. But even during the time I had feared the religion before gaining understanding and clarity, I never confronted or mistreated any practicing Muslim or Arab-American. Ever. I never posted hate or spewed vitriol against them. Just like with the current pandemic, I still cannot believe there are people out there attack Asian-Americans as if this whole thing is their fault. That's still mind boggling to me and it is absolutely 100% WRONG. It should not be happening. Same with Islamophobia. And it breaks my heart to read that many Arab-Americans and practicing Muslims still worry when this anniversary comes around that they may be attacked. It might not mean much, but I just want to say I am truly sorry for that and you have my full support. Always.

Did we go to war and was it just? Yes we did go to war. Was it just? Afghanistan? I need more information in order to have a fully-formed opinion but there are plenty who say yes and plenty who say no. Plenty who say we made things better over there (before we exited and the Taliban advanced) and plenty who say we didn't and only made it worse. I truly cannot say which assertion is correct and I think it would be narrow-minded and completely moronic (and possibly arrogant and presumptuous?) of me to speak on a subject I know so little about, one way or the other. Iraq? No, I don't think it was just and I honestly wish we could go back and do things differently.

But coming back to 9/11 and what this day means for so many, the people who died, the people who rushed headfirst into danger, the people who lost their loved ones. We saw incredible bravery, selflessness, and compassion for your fellow human that day despite what happened. We saw the strength within ourselves despite the fear and anger. We saw resilience. That is what the anniversary is meant to be a reminder of. The sacrifices, the loss, the courage, and the strength. Black, White, Gay, Straight, Christian, Muslim, Man, Woman, Young, Old -- it didn't matter. We all came together.

So regardless of whether it's the cool thing to do right now on this site (or elsewhere) to hate on America or 9/11 or white Americans or the anniversary itself on the very anniversary of these attacks, I ask that you please consider when posting these hurtful (and frankly harmful) words of hatred and vitriol such as referenced above that there are people out there who lost their loved ones on 9/11, that yes some of them may be on this very site and going through the 9/11 tag, and that some of them may have even lost a loved one in either war and are again on this site reading your words. Regardless of what you think or feel, please consider them and tag appropriately if you're going to post. Please consider that some of these people are currently losing their loved ones due to 9/11-related illnesses because of the cleanup at Ground Zero. Please consider that there are children who lost a parent or loved one, or who were orphaned that day (yes, they exist, we had some in our school district) who are also on this site reading your words. Basically, please just consider and be considerate. Please stop spreading hatred on a day that happened due to hatred; please stop perpetuating that cycle.

Like Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

TLDR: Love and light, my friends. Love and light. ✌️❤️

[drev-the-procrastinator]

the mando fic for the wip title thing

As promised, I made this into its own post. @purplecarseat and @lastwordbeforetheend, here thanks for the asks, and hope you like this! 

Right, so the Mando fic!

This is the first Mando fic I came up with, not too long after the season 2 finale, and I've been kinda calling this like... the opposite of a fix-it fic? Like by coming up and possibly writing this I'm doing the opposite of manifesting, I'm manifesting for this to never happen in canon ever, you know :') This one's gonna be long too, I might put it under a read more. We'll see!

EDIT: This is definitely going under a read more, it's like 4k words or something. It's like, half notes, half almost-prose, so um. H. Hope you like it? Buckle up boys, this is a long one ajhdalsfhklaskfja

Right, so! Hm. Where to start. 

Let's try this. It's about 100 years after the season 2 finale. We follow Grogu, entering a bar or an inn or some other establishment. He's now maybe a teenager - I'm not sure how age works on his species - but he travels the galaxy alone, doing what? I'm not sure! He trained in the ways of the Jedi from when Luke picked him up to the destruction of the Jedi academy in the hands of Kylo Ren. He'd perhaps finished the necessary training by then, or was away by complete chance, but he survived, and spent the next few years running and hiding from the First Order. That threat is gone now, but he's still touring the galaxy. 

Maybe he's still looking for his dad, even though he knows, logically, that humans only live for a hundred years if they're lucky, and he was already older than his dad when they met, but... Or maybe he's looking for other Force-sensitive children? The Jedi way doesn't seem to be working since they've now failed spectacularly twice in a rather short tim, so maybe he's kind of doing his own thing. Maybe he's going to the children and teaching them to control their abilities and to live with them. He's trying to make sure no one else has to be separated from their parents and family, like he was. 

Anyway! He's been going around for quite some time now, and now when he walks into this establishment, he spots all kinds of patrons, including... Mandalorians. It's not that unusual - I don't know what happened to Mandalore, but there are more Mandalorians around now, he's witnessed their growth in his time travelling the galaxy, and he comes across them from time to time now.  He tries to talk with them whenever he can, which is usually when they're not hostile towards him, which isn't that rare! They are, however, rather guarded towards outsiders, which he knows he is, he did knowingly choose the path of the Jedi all those years ago after all.

Even so, he has learnt things about Mandalorian culture from those chats, and some Mando'a, too, but not much. Sometimes he's just had to sit near a group of Mandalorians to try to learn Mando'a by listening to them, when he's been desperate. He has learnt a lot though, different beliefs, dialects, clan names, clan signets - he's seen dozens of those, heard many stories behind them. These Mandalorians all have some part of their armor painted red - honoring a parent, he knows. Maybe Grogu doesn't see the signet well at first? He's too far away. The shape is a kind he doesn't remember seeing before, but it's somehow familiar. Maybe he creeps closer, gets a table near them, sits down to eat his food and to listen, brush up on his Mando'a, if they'll speak any, it's not always the case. 

Then. Suddenly. He hears it. A name he only vaguely remembers, but remembers anyway, despite hearing it only once or twice ages ago. A hundred years. Idk if it's just the Mandos in red beskar, or if they have someone else there too, but someone calls one of the Mandalorians by their surname. The sound of it cuts through the chatter of the establishment. Djarin. One of the Mandalorians was called Djarin.

"Tell them it's from Din Djarin-”

"-Carry this for Din Djarin until he is well enough to wear it-"

It's like he's been hit by lightning, energy crawling all over his skin, like he's supercharged. Hope surges in him, but dies as quickly. It's been too long, and surely, if it were him, he would've recognized him? And it's been too long. Even so, he turns in his seat to look at the group. He's close enough now that he spots it. The sigil, on the right pauldron. The vaguely familiar shape. 

It's a mudhorn.

-Him, in his small pod, straining, lifting a giant horned creature, using the Force for the first time in years, after the Dark, Dad looking at him in wonder, the two shiny pieces of his armor covered in mud-

Grogu doesn't sense the familiar, safe presence he remembers, but it must be the same signet. It must. One of the Mandalorians turns their helmet just a bit but he can tell they're looking at him now, so he turns to his food and tries to merely look fascinated by the beskar, even if it is kind of rude, and not like. Like he's seen a ghost, which is probably pretty close to how he feels. 

He probably finishes his food - it would feel rude to eat when others can't - and makes his way to the table where the Mandalorians are. He speaks Mando'a to them to get their attention, ljust a greeting, and they're surprised he knows any, and the discussion starts from there. He tells them he's quite fascinated by the culture and has taken any chance he gets to talk with Mandalorians. Even if his Mando'a isn't very good. He says he hasn't seen their signet before, and they tell him it's a mudhorn. Clan Mudhorn.

They introduce themselves, just a little, they're still cautious, but give their first names at least? One of them, a younger boy, a teenager maybe, is called Din, though he's not the one referred to as Djarin. Grogu remarks it's not a very traditional Mandalorian name, to which they tell him it's probably not, as the boy is named after the founder of their clan, and he was a foundling himself. "Oh", is all Grogu can say, because he's sure now, these people are from his clan. Their clan. Their little clan of two.

He asks about the story behind the signet, and they tell him quite eagerly! It's grown and been both simplified and exaggerated, polished, but Grogu can recognize the battle he remembers. He's in it too. Saving their ancestor - saving Dad - and to his surprise, the story doesn't end there, but instead includes also the betrayal and the redemption, when he was exchanged for beskar and when he was rescued. He didn't guess Dad would've felt so guilty about giving him away; he'd rescued him, Grogu had already forgiven him then.

They're still a little cautious, but maybe they've heard form other mandos that the little green guy with the big ole ears that speaks Mando'a is a cool dude, so it doesn't take that much for Grogu to get some more stories out of them. Like how their clan started to grow, a.k.a. how Din found his second foundling,  and the third, and how he was the Mand'alor for a sec, and how he did not like it at all, and of other things he did, and then, eventually, Grogu gathers the courage to ask what happened to him.

But about the foundlings. How the clan began to grow. If you thought Din "Mandadlorian" Djarin could turn off his dad instinct once it was activated, you'd be sorely mistaken. Granted, it took some time, but once the wound of losing literally everything scabbed over a little and the pain of having to have given up his child eased somewhat, he did find more kids for himself to parent.

I think the first foundling would've been, hm, not quite as young a child? I think maybe she were a teenager, or even a young adult. She wasn't a foundling, per say, but Din probably took her under his wing anyway? Maybe she was a young Mandalorian from a similar covert as the one he'd been in, but she'd survived some attack on it, as the only one, and crossed paths with Din, who then first was just gonna teach her to, idk, do bounty hunting, help her join the Guild, but then she stuck around. She would've already had her own name, so she's of the line the younger Din Grogu met is a part of.

The second would've been a small child again, this would've been around the time of the First Order's existence? They would've come across a village destroyed by an attack by the order, and from the ruins Din would've discovered a young child. Not much older than Grogu was, really. He would've taken them in, and raised them. Eventually he did adopt them both, and this younger child would've been given the name Djarin, because they wouldn't have found their original name, other than the first name. And the first child would've gotten married and the spouse would've joined the clan, and they'd found more foundlings, as would Din, too, eventually, I'm sure, and not all of them were kids? But he probably adopted them anyway. With the Mandalorian adoption vow.

There would've had to be a realization from him, though, I think at first he took his time saying the vows because he hadn't said it to Grogu when he'd had the chance and he would've felt like it'd been a betrayal to say it to these kids but not his son, the one who taught him to love like a parent. But he would get, quite quickly, that him loving these kids doesn't take away of the love he has for Grogu, and that it's not right by them that he would reserve a place in his heart only for one child. He can and should love all of them, and he does realize this, and does adopt them, and loves them all like the bestest single space dad he is. Grogu is happy to hear that; he was such a good parent to him that he's glad that other kids have had the chance to have someone love and protect them the same way he was loved and kept safe. He does feel a pang of sadness as he does everytime he hears of the adoption vow, and feels a little as if he's been forgotten since they don't know his name in the stories, but he does know they only had a relatively short time together, so it's no wonder then, if compared to the many years the others have spent with Dad, he had been a little forgotten.

The way the founder died, though. Family is important to all Mandalorians, but seems to be even more so to Clan Mudhorn, Grogu observes. When he hears about the story of the clan signet, they tell him that's not the only story everyone in the clan knows by heart. There's also the story of how the founder died, and the first time he's not brave enough to ask and no one offers to tell him, but later he gathers his courage and does ask. And they tell him.

Grogu hears of the restless times of the rise of the First Order. The chaos. Bloodshed. Tyranny. The clan had been more or less in hiding on a planet, trying to lay low and stay out of trouble, but they'd been found and attacked. For the beskar, for some other reason? Were they on Mandalore? Was that attacked again, by the order? Maybe? Whatever the reason, it had been calm, too calm, like the calm before the storm, and then the attackers had come. The founder had died protecting his family, the Mandalorians tell Grogu, he'd bought them time to escape. 

He'd saved the oldest of the foundlings, his first daughter, really, who'd been the mother of the eldest of the Mandalorians Grogu met in the inn, an older woman going by the voice and what the Force was telling him. Her mother had been pregnant with her at the time of the attack, and her life was directly saved by the founder of their clan, Din Djarin. Grogu's Dad. 

It's like a thread, connecting Grogu and his dad and this woman, through the decades. Something concrete, tangible proof that he, Din, Dad, had lived and been alive and existed in this world. Sometimes Grogu thinks it might all have been a dream he dreamed up in between hiding from the Empire and hiding from the Order, because a year feels like such a short time for him, sometimes, and it has been so long. But no. This person is proof. His father had saved her. She is alive because he existed. Just as Grogu is.

The final thing the founder had done before going into battle, they tell Grogu, had been to hand an object to his eldest daughter, something that'd been the Child's, and to make sure he would get it. And she had promised. That's the reason this story has been passed on with the story of the signet, to keep the promise and deliver the object to the Child, should their paths someday cross. 

What happened to the Child, Grogu asks  - he doesn't know if they haven't passed on his name or if they just don't want to share it with an outsider - and the Mandalorians tell him the clan founder tried to keep the child safe, but he wasn't strong enough and failed, and even when he rescued the child, he knew he couldn't provide for him in the ways the child needed, so he was given to the Jedi to raise. This is what happened, Grogu knows, but his heart aches to hear Dad thought he wasn't good enough. Grogu would've gone back, he tried, after the temple was destroyed, he's been trying, but...

And he tells them that it's not so simple. That even if the founder failed, he still came back for the child and saved him, and let him choose his own path, and loved him so much and so purely that he was able to let him go, to let him follow the path he'd chosen. And that he was the greatest buir the child could have asked for, and that anytime the child was terrified, anytime they were scared, anytime they felt they were not brave enough to take another step, there was the beloved, familiar voice telling them to not be afraid, and always the child found the courage. And the child tried to come back, he really did, but the galaxy was so big and the child so small and he could not find his way back until it was too late.

And it seems like the older Mandalorians had guessed, by now, but Grogu takes out the mythosaur pendant he's had all these years, and tells them it's from Din Djarin. 

And they welcome him home. 

Later, when they take Grogu to the rest of the clan he is introduced to everyone. There are so many. Their clan of two has grown so big. There are more than one species, too. Many foundlings. Not all choose to follow the Way, and the ones who do not are let go, to find their own paths, and loved all the same. 

He asks what they did to his Dad's armor. Most of it went to the foundlings - of this clan and of others who might've needed it - but for two parts. The right pauldron, which is now passed on from clan leader to the next, with the original clan signet, and the helmet. They'd thought the helmet was destroyed, it was stolen by the people who'd attacked their clan way back then, but they'd recently heard rumours of a helmet of pure beskar found in some stashes of the First Order that had been unearthed somewhere. No one knows where it is, though, but they're planning on getting it back, someday, somehow. Grogu promises his help in that endeavour. 

The clan also finally fulfills the eldest daughter's promise. The object is delivered to the Child. Grogu sees it and kind of wants to cry. 

It's the ball. The knob. From the Razor Crest. He takes it and probably does cry a little. It has so many memories written into every tiny scratch and groove. He thanks them, but when they offer him a place to sleep he declines and goes to the inn or his ship. He is not Mandalorian, he chose the path of the Jedi, and that's it, he thinks, sadly. He doesn't think he can really be a part of this clan, this family, because he chose not to be, you know? He's pretty sure you have to be born or brought into the Mandalorian Creed, to be raised in it, or at least adopted. He hasn't been, or someone would've mentioned it if he had, and as if he'd ever call anyone else his buir. No way. So, this is it, he thinks, he knows what happened to Dad, he can move on now, he guesses. 

That night, before bed, he examines the ball again. It looks a little strange to him, not as he remembers. Didn't it have a hole in it where it got screwed onto the gear stick on the Crest? It did, it must have. Grogu remembers turning it with the Force, around and around until Dad noticed and gave it to him. It doesn't have it now. That's strange. It's like... it's been filled in with something.... He fiddles with it and he must press or nudge something, or maybe it was the Force he used, but something pops out. It's an old fashioned holo-stick? Like an usb stick, but like, space-y.

It takes him some time until he finds a player (or maybe we'll just have the ball play it, idk) and he plugs it in one night, alone on his ship (or that same night if we skip this ahdkshd). A hologram flickers to life. It works! There's a small moment of triumph before his breath freezes. That's Dad. In the hologram. The armor and the helmet and the voice. All of it. Just like in his memories, just blue and flickering and transparent as holos are. But it's Dad. 

Grogu doesn't know when it was recorded, and he doesn't particularly care. He just listens to Dad's familiar, soothing voice.

What he tells him, though. If Grogu is seeing this, that means he couldn't keep his promise. 

"I'll see you again. I promise."

Ni ceta, ner ad'ika, he says, he hopes he can destroy the stick when they meet again in person and he can tell this to the kid face to face, but it has been. Restless. Recently. So he thought he'd make this, just in case. 

He wants the kid to know he has said these words to himself a hundred times, in his mind, out loud, and they have been true in his heart since at least the moment he looked upon the face of the child he had risked it all for, faced stormtroopers and all of the guild, that one night on Nevarro, when he'd shielded him and gently stroked his tiny little head, content with that being the last thing he would ever get to see but full of guilt for not being able to give this child a better life. Since then, at the very least. But, even if he can't say them to the kid face to face, he swears he has said them and meant them every time. They will hold true until the end of time, even after he's gone and joined the manda, even after this recording is gone and no evidence remains. 

Here, he pauses and takes off the helmet, and Grogu looks upon the face of his father for the second time in his life. He has gotten older, of course, grey streaks in his dark hair and wrinkles on his face, but he is still the same man, the same safe presence, with the same gentle sadness, the same overwhelming love in his eyes as that day that ended up being their final together in this world. Grogu has to blink away the tears blurring his vision to drink in the image of the one who saved him, one who protected him, one who cared for him as the first person after the Dark, the first one who loved him. His father. His buir. Dad.

Ni kar'tayl gai sa'ad, Grogu.

The hologram of his father smiles a little, almost like he can see Grogu's hand touch his face on the hologram, desperate to let him know he heard the words and has wished, known, to hear them for so long, and that he loves Dad, so, so much. Dad once again says he hopes he'll get to tell him in person, but that even if he won't, they'll be true all the same. He hopes Grogu has found his path and place in the world, and that whatever it may be, Jedi or Mandalorian or both or neither, he is, and will forever be, so proud of him. 

Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum. That's the last thing he says, before clearing his throat and a little awkwardly putting his helmet back on. It's so like Dad that Grogu almost smiles. When Dad leans forward to stop the recording, he stops for just a second with his head bowed. Grogu doesn't know if it was on purpose or just by coincidence, but it is the perfect spot for him to lean his head forward towards the hologram, and for a second, just a moment, he can almost feel the coolness of the beskar gently press against his own bare forehead, through the years and parsecs. Then the hologram flickers out, and he is left in the darkness. 

However, there's a warmth in his chest he hasn't felt in a long, long time. It will stay there, forever, long after the members of their clan have passed and joined his father in the manda, centuries, even after the recording will be unusable and he will have long forgotten his father's face and the sound of his voice, the knowledge that he was there and he existed and he loved him, loved Grogu, so thoroughly and deeply and so much, that will stay.

Tonight, though, they're both bright and clear in Grogu's mind, and the warmth in his chest blazes like a thousand suns, and even as he sleeps, and his tears dry on his cheeks, he smiles. 

And that's the fic. 

Hope you liked it! I've also got like, hm, a companion piece? It's like a shorter one shot, about what exactly happened to Din, like how he died? I've got that written in actual prose, not this half-ramble-half-fic format, but I didn't add it here becuse this is long enough already. If you'd like to see that, too, hit me an ask or a reply! I'd be glad to share that too! Hurted me to reread. 

Oh, and since I mentioned a song that inspired the space fic, this one's go two, too; Shelter by Porter Robinson & Madeon, and The Truth Is A Cave by The Oh Hellos, especially the bit that goes "I was blind to every sign you left for me to find", via the logic that like... after the stuff that went down at Jedi School, Din and Grogu kept looking for each other in the galaxy but kept just barely missing each other all that time, until his mortality caught up to Din, after which Grogu still kept looking. But, as he said, the galaxy is so big, and he is so small. There was also a third song for the part with the hologram, but I've forgotten what it was because I didn't write it down anywhere. :( It might have been Arctic by Sleeping At Last... I really don’t remember, and this annoys me a whole lot rn. Hm. >:/

In any case! If someone wants to see the part with Din, let me know, and I hope you enjoyed my ramble. Thanks for asking about it!

[morelike-bi-light]

As much as I love our meme culture where we romanticize or slam our favs, I do genuinely think there's really interesting flaws to explore with all of the Twilight vampires. It's not developed super well in the series, not front and center since whether we see main characters make mistakes with consequences largely depends on how Meyers personally feels about them and what they represent to her, but the complexity exists and there's a whole heap of potential to explore.

Like Carlisle's need to 'save' and how it conflicts with itself. There's that post that points out exactly how selfish his decision was, seeing as how he views vampirism as damnation, and yes! That makes it so much more interesting. What would he be without this conflict? A pretty one dimensional saint figure with a million PhDs. I love that Carlisle spent hundreds of years denying himself company and then crumbled beneath a single Chicago mother's plea to save her son, in my mind as an excuse to soothe his own crippling loneliness. And then when he had someone to exist beside, he just... he did it again, ostensibly because Esme deserved better. And again, this time for Edward. Then he did it for Rose. And then they picked up Alice and Jasper, and I wonder if he felt that much more guilty knowing that if he'd just waited a decade or so more, he might've found family anyways without having to 'damn' the others. Exploring how that interacts with his religious beliefs? Sign me up.

Then there's Rosalie's resentment. It's been covered in much better depth by other users, and I think I've reblogged those posts, but the validity of her anger and fear of losing the only things that give her comfort in a life she never chose bears repeating. Not to mention how this possibly affects her relationship with her coven - it's like when your child or spouse or sibling or best friend who has depression. How do you interact with a loved one who wishes they were dead? Who thinks life, even with you, whom they claim to love, is a prison? How do you interact with the man you believe to be your soulmate when you genuinely believe that you would be better off having died before meeting him? What does it say about her sense of self prior to death versus as an immortal?

Which leads perfectly into Edward's self-flagellation. He murders and feeds, because he's a monster who deserves to feel like one - but he's not the only one who suffers from that (though we give him some points for understanding that from the get-go and targeting people he thinks deserve it). But then he feels bad for acting like a monster and he has another reason to punish himself. He deprives himself of joy and distances himself from his family because how dare a monster like he ever find comfort in others like him, and how dare he enjoy a life that's so unnatural - but his family suffers alongside him. But then he feels guilty for being a dick to them, which gives him another reason to punish himself. He sends Bella mixed signals by alternating between caring, coldness, and cruelty, because he wants her to be happy but he also doesn't want himself to be happy - but Bella suffers because of this. Then he feels guilty about putting her safety at risk, which gives him another reason to punish himself. It goes on and on, and this line of thinking hinders his growth as a character through the entire series without being properly addressed.

Bella's bull-headedness. Jasper's survivalism. There is so, so much to be said here. Even with the three least developed of the coven, Alice has her impulsivity, Esme has her passivity, Emmett has his impatience.

On the flip side, we have the native characters, who are all either poorly developed or most characterized through off hand, arm's-length negativity, so as to make the vamps look better, and all I want for them is more content exploring all the good they have to offer.

Like, Jake's defining quality is his loyalty - Smeyer may have butchered his character, but I'm not talking about the bullshit she had him do in the last two books. I want to see more exploring how warm and good and patient and generous he is with his friends, no matter what it is he's up against, be it social conflict or an emotional crisis. I mean, in the books, we only ever get to see him really care about Bella. What about Embry and Quil? There's an entire foundation to their friendship that's hardly brushed by canon. I want to see his loyalty to his father and sisters and the memory of his mother. IT is interesting when loyalties conflict, preferably with greater nuance and weight than the Uley vs Cullen dilemma, but what's more satisfying is getting to see Jacob act in his element. I wanna see his other good traits explored too, the ones that exist outside of the necessity that he be a good friend/alternate LI for Bella - like the passion he has and his down to earth attitude.

And don't get me started on the Uley pack. Sam himself had so much potential to be a nuanced foil to Carlisle - I'm going to need to make an entire other post on it, it gets me so worked up, so keep an eye out for that! But also there's Paul, who is literally just an angry caricature version of Emmett, Emily whose entire characterization is built on a mess of racist and sexist tropes, and how many of the others even get characterized at all?

And Leah. Was she done the dirtiest of not only all the native characters, but also all the females? Arguably, yeah. I'd say so. Again, there was so, so much potential to explore her even in subtle ways through the later narrative and literally next to none of it was fulfilled. By the end of Breaking Dawn I was genuinely irritated, even as a kid, because it felt like Leah had been pointed out time and time again as being so special - only important native woman, only pack member to have been ostracized through the entire series, and the only female werewolf, hello - only for none of it to be relevant literally at all to the major plot. There wasn't even any follow up. Why is she the first female wolf? What does that mean for the future of the shapeshifters? (I'm absolutely thinking about this for my - probably shorter than planned - fic, jsyk.)

Thank God for Seth, I guess. We all love Seth, but still I think even he is basically just a puppy's personality given human form. It's as if Smeyer thinks that complexity is counter blank to goodness, friendliness, and openness. (And I think this is an issue with Emmett, Alice, Esme, and Angela, too, to be fair. It's just that where those four are just Defined by a trait - boisterous, fun, gentle, and nice in turn - Seth's behavior specifically plays into a... cutesy... paternalism? That makes me narrow my eyes a bit.) Anyways, I wouldve liked to see his feelings about Charlie and Sue, or about his sister's transformation and his father's death, or uh, any of the violence against the newborns many of whom were literally his age from Eclipse? And not just in an, oh, sad boy is sad kind of way. He's not a care bear - there's gotta be some conflict about what he's been through seeing as it's a LOT.

To be real, though? In some ways, I'm actually okay with it that Smeyer dropped the ball on so many of her characters, while still giving us what we have to work with - largely because it's actually so cool to think about all the potential buried in the content we have, waiting to be unearthed. It's why, regardless of when or why it started and how long it should've lasted, I don't see myself exiting the Twilight fandom for a long time. There's so much work to be done, you know, stuff to be said, and I think it's been and is and will be a beautiful conversation. This was just meant to be a long meta, but really, I have to take a moment and celebrate everyone in the fandom who has kept it alive and funny and interesting, whether you're a staple like @howlonghaveyoubeenseventeen and @shittytwilightaus or you're just here to reblog and enjoy. We all sort of rediscovered this thing we liked in our childhood and just collectively decided to fix it and make it something worth loving as the people we are, and it makes me proud to be here!

[purplesurveys]

1260

surveys by taco-tuesdays

What would be the pros and cons of a four-day school week? That was my schedule throughout college (we had Mondays off) and it really helped out a lot, especially mentally; and, on some level, emotionally as well. I’ve always thought 3 days is the most effective and ideal length of time when it comes to having a break.

As for cons, I honestly can’t name any as I was happy my schedule and I only heard miserable insights from my friends from other schools, who otherwise had to keep up a 5-day schedule in college.

What is a subject or topic that you would like to learn more about? My manager recently encouraged me to watch Going Seventeen – I initially thought I wouldn’t get the hype but I was wrong hahaha; they seem super interesting so I’ve been reading up about them today.

Would you rather live somewhere that was hot year-round or cold year-round? COLD.

What is something that you do during the summer that you don't otherwise? Give the weather the power to make me cranky. I’m not always vocal about the weather, but the summer heat just unleashes a monster right out of me.

Which professions do you feel deserve the highest amount of pay? Well, especially in the case of my country where essential workers are not paid nearly enough – medical frontliners.

What is your own definition of success? Reaching a point wherein I can honestly say I’m proud of myself. I’m my biggest critic and the worst overthinker I know, so if I’ve done something well enough to feel confident and comfortable about it, then I consider myself successful.

Do you have a favorite day of the week? Fridayyy.

What are some of your favorite songs? These days I’m really into Blue Side by J-Hope.

Do you donate to a specific charity or cause on an annual basis? Not annual, but there is an animal shelter to which I donate a small amount of my earnings whenever I can. I used to do it monthly but as more...life stuff that I need to pay for has started to pile up, I haven’t been able to keep up the habit as often as I would like.

If you won the lottery, how would you spend the money? Give half to my parents; use a portion of my half to get a new phone since my screen’s LED recently got permanently damaged and my phone now has weird colorful lines on the screen lmao; get sushi; save the rest.

Would you be a stay at home parent or send your kid to daycare? Ideally I would provide my child with their own helper that can watch them while I’m away for work. That’s a luxury I never got to have so my petty ass just wants to get back at my way-too-simple childhood and give my kid their own yaya.

What excites you more - tire swings or treehouses? Treehouses. I’ve never seen one; they’re not common at all here.

What's the highest amount of money you received in a card? I think around ₱2000? That’s roughly ~$40.

What's the last CD you purchased for yourself? My Butter set.

Dolphins, whales, sharks, or narwhals? Whales, then dolphins.

Did you get any scholarships or grants towards your education? No. But I technically didn’t need to apply for one; my entire college tuition was free.

Are spicy foods a yay or a nay for you? Absolutely the fuck yay. I have a pretty high tolerance and I think it just got even higher over the last year from all the kimchi and spicy noodles I’ve been downing haha.

Have you ever quit or been fired from a job before? No; but being fired is one of my biggest fears.

Have you ever wondered what your pets are saying to you? Just Cooper. I can read Kimi like the back of my hand at this point.

Did you walk or take the bus to school? My parents paid for a school bus service, which is the practice here. We don’t have a public school bus system.

--

Have you ever had to turn someone in before? For what? Hmm, not that I can recall. I don’t think so.

Describe a time where one of your parents embarrassed you. My dad belittled a staff at McDonald’s when we did drive-thru a couple of weeks ago. It has been like 11 in the morning and he was upset that his change came in coins, so he made a fantastic show of staying at the payment window for what felt like fucking years as he counted the coins one by one...like seriously? It’s fucking currency, are you really getting your panties in a bunch over coins?? Anyway, I didn’t talk to him for the whole day after that and didn’t touch my order that he paid for.

Do you prefer grapes, raisins, or prunes? Grape-flavored candies are fine, I guess. All of these choices in their pure form all suck.

Do you like knocking icicles off of things? Well no, considering I don’t encounter them a lot.

Have you ever had a party when your parents weren't home? I’ve never thrown a party at my own home.

What is something that irks you about your sibling(s)? There is a glaring lack of proactivity. My mom could be struggling with carrying something heavy and they will stay glued to whatever they’re doing, and will literally not move unless they’re addressed. It worries me sometimes as I don’t know to what extent it could possibly reach.

Does everyone really deserve to be forgiven? No.

How do we make men and women equal in today's society? Equal pay can be a good start to go with.

Did your parents favor one child over another when you were growing up? My mom clearly favored my brother and would give him millions of passes for shit I would otherwise be yelled at for; I didn’t feel any favoritism from my dad.

How much PDA is too much PDA to witness? I scrunch my nose even at light PDA all the time just to make my friends laugh, but to be honest about it it doesn’t actually bother me as much as I let it show. I’d only be grossed out if I see a full-blown makeout session or anything beyond that somewhere inappropriate.

If you get married, will you take your spouse's last name? I’d hyphenate so that I would still get to keep both my maiden and last names.

What's the last fight you had with your mother? Something about the courier delivery service I booked last week. The whole thing is too complicated to explain but I do remember retorting at her and her biting back with what I can best translate as, “How dare you have the gall to answer back,” which...as a minor probably would’ve been effective and made me feel guilty...but I’m literally 23. I had to hide my face to snicker because that kind of statement just doesn’t bother me anymore.

Do you still eat Lunchables as an adult? I’ve never had that; we don’t have them here.

When's the last time you made Kool-Aid? I have never tried Kool-Aid either.

Do you prefer photographs in color or black-and-white? Why? Color. Moments and memories just feel more alive that way.

What's your favorite comfort food? SUSHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII fuck I need some right now.

What makes you proud to be from the country you're from? I like our regional and local cultures.

If you had to work in a store, which would you choose, and why? Ooh...I dunno. Maybe a bookstore? so I can get to slowly rekindle my love for reading.

If you were a teacher, which subject would you teach? History.

Who shows that they love you more than they actually say it? I feel like this question applies to me more than it does for people in my circle, most of whom are quite vocal. I don’t usually throw around the words I love you, but I will show it a lot.

[benevolentbirdgal]

9. If you want to get married, what Jewish wedding practices are must haves and what are must have nots?

27. What is your ideal synagogue like?  

31. Have you been to any Jewish spaces while traveling, and if so where? 

(very cool ask game btw, thank u :D hope ur passover is going well!!!)

Thank you for asking! My Passover is going well, lots of scrambled eggs and salads. 

9. If you want to get married, what Jewish wedding practices are must-haves and what are must-have nots?

Must-haves: 

My new spouse must step on the glass/shard/whatever, regardless of whether they’re Jewish or not. 

Getting married under a Chupah. Some people have friends make them one and I think that sounds super cool. 

Not getting married on Shabbat, holidays, or the omer. Seems like bad luck anyways and I don’t want my anniversary to forever be “3rd day of Pesach” or whatever. 

Commemorative kippahs (yes, this is a modern tradition but I still hold it sacred).

Also modern: programs that have explanations of the Jewish traditions, because I have a ton of goyish relatives (and statistically, so will my future spouse). 

Absolutely nots:

Traditional Ketubahs. I object strenuously to the traditional ketubah’s wording and intent. 

Head shaving or wig-fitting. This is a thing is *some* orthodox communities do, so not quite my frame of reference anyways, but not something I’m interested in. 

Lukewarm:

Sheva Brachot and circling - I don’t object to either of these traditions, I’m just not that into it. 

If my partner really wanted a ketubah, I could compromise for a modern one but I’m not actively interested.

I was dropped at my sister’s Bat Mitzvah, so while I’m lukewarm about the Horah itself, I’m not going up in the chair. 

27. What is your ideal synagogue like?  

I LOVE PLAYING FANTASY SYNAGOGUE. I could literally write a thousand words on this and get incredibly specific, but in “brief:”

I’m not terribly picky about denominational labels, but I like the reconstructionist ethos and my personal practices and beliefs fall somewhere in the upper-Reform or lower-Conservative range. What this means in practice: 

Medium-length services, not so short I feel like I just arrived and not so long I’m reading the end matter at the back of the siddur. 

Mostly in Hebrew, particularly the Torah service. Full ceremony to take out the Torah and return it. 

Inclusive of women and LGBTQ+ people as full members of the congregation who can do all the things. 

Welcoming to interfaith families. 

Kosher kitchens, separate for meat and dairy. 

Services for holidays, Shabbat, Friday night, and regular minyans. 

Inclusive and demographically diverse (ethnicity, JOC, JBC, interfaith families, sexualities, gender identities, geographic origin, income, etc). Actively strives to avoid Ashkenormativity, proactively inclusive of LGBTQ+ folks, welcoming JBC, understanding that not all American Jews are from NYC (or adjacent).

Financially accessible:

Programming that is free or cheap for dues-paying members (not built around assumptions of massive disposable income).

Sliding scale for dues.

Scholarships for more expensive programs. 

Age-related:

Has good mix of different age groups, but skews a bit to young professionals. Has stuff specifically for said young professionals (disclosure: I am a 20-something and a recent grad). 

Separate kids services for most of the service. 

Programming for teens that is separate from kids, maybe some overlap with adults. 

Takes care of community: 

Checking in on people in vulnerable stages or transitions, like lonely seniors, kids going away to college, and families who have recently experienced a loss or gained a child. 

Relief program to bring food to those who need it. 

Ability to produce minyan for mourners to say kaddish. 

Social Stuff: 

Fun social events outside of services. 

Good place to hang out with Jewish friends. 

Dating/matchmaking/young adult mixers specifically for young professionals/singles. 

Educational stuff: 

Classes on Jewish topics (history, religion, culture). 

Judeo-language classes, especially Hebrew. 

General classes (philanthropy, food, travel, interfaith). 

Guest speakers on a variety of topics. 

Group trips to museums and other cool places. 

Adult classes as separate from kids’ classes. 

Classes specifically on how to do Jewish skills, like wrapping tefillin, kashering a kitchen, putting up a Mezuzah, etc. 

Good relationships with other nearby Jewish institutions, friendly relations with other nearby houses of worship (for interfaith and joint charity efforts). 

Up to date website with calendar and clear explanations of dues, events, and expectations. 

31. Have you been to any Jewish spaces while traveling, and if so where?

Oh, a whole bunch! The three I’ll answer about today are Savannah, George, Berlin, Germany, and Warsaw, Poland: 

Savannah: I visited the third-oldest active synagogue in the U.S. and the only gothic synagogue remaining in the U.S. It was built (mostly) by Sephardim fleeing the Portuguese inquisition, although it now affiliates with the Reform movement. It’s an active synagogue, but they have tours and a lot of information about their history visible as you walk through it. It was super interesting and I’d definitely go back. 

Berlin: 

I went to the Berlin Jewish Museum and did not like it. It felt like it was by and for goyim, not us, and was really a Holocaust museum for the most part (and I object to the Holocaust being presented as the whole of the Jewish or Jewish-European experience). 

I liked the Chabad of Berlin, which was a bit difficult to find but super welcoming. 

Warsaw: I’m really not a fan of Warsaw on the whole, but I LOVED the Polish Jewish museum. They advertise as “1000 years of Polish Jewry” and they really freaking mean it. It was fun, educational, and super well-curated. It balances modern history with medieval history, has some incredible artifacts, and is designed so you walk forward through time. It isn’t shy about the (many) traumas of Polish Jewry, but it also talks about the joys and triumphs as well. The design of the building and the progression of the exhibits really works, and the cafeteria was pretty good too.  

[canaryatlaw]

it’s late, and I do have to get up in the morning, though I may just go back to sleep afterwards. my church has been having very limited gatherings over the past few weeks, and in March they’re planning on opening them somewhat more, and restarting our kids program as well, so kids have somewhere to go while their parents are in the service, and tomorrow morning we’re having a training on how that all will take place, I’m assuming it’ll mostly be covering new protocols and the technicalities of how everything will work. They are holding it in person at the church but also on Zoom, and I’m just going to do Zoom of course because I am still always hesitant about going out, and an uber down to where it is is going to run me at least $25 each way, but I’m definitely not at a place where I can go back to public transit, not just because of the pandemic but more because of my stupid, not working legs that would definitely not cooperate with the distances of walking required to use public transit, even if it’s just a few blocks, it’s too much. I am still concerned that being at church and with the babies isn’t going to work well- that things are going to go wrong, like they did with soccer, and it’ll just be a dismal failure and I’ll be even more frustrated and upset with myself, but I have to try. I have to at least know there’s a reason I’m not doing something, not just too scared to take a chance and wind up stuck in my apartment for the rest of my life. I just hope nothing goes wrong especially when I’m with the babies because that concerns me greatly, but it’s really not like it would pose an actual risk to anybody, even if I’m like holding a baby I can control it enough that I can get to a sitting position and stable before I let it go and let it flail around until it gets its fill. I’m sure I’m going to have to give the other workers a disclaimer at the beginning of the service so they won’t be super alarmed or concerned if something happens, though I’ll still be pissed as hell that it did happen because I just hate feeling helpless oh so much, and just being in positions where I have to rely on other people to help me just drives me nuts, I don’t like sympathy I don’t like pity, don’t feel bad for me please, I’m fine, I’m fine. I’ll be fine, I can control this. I’m in control. 

sigh. that’s what I keep telling myself at least. I should probably actually get to describing my day now that I went on a whole rant about that. Alarm went off at 8:30 because it’s the Saturday of our once a month church legal clinic, which starts on Zoom at 8:45 for a brief powwow with everyone, then at 9 we start the consultation with the client until 9:45 at which point we go back and chat with everybody, and end roughly around 10. my friend from school that I know has been going to the same church as me for some time but of course between pandemic and everything else I haven’t actually seen her face to face, but I knew she was doing the justice center too and we were both in the general zoom room before we started so I private messaged her just a few things saying hi haha so that was cool. The actual consultation was fine, I’m always so anxious they’re going to ask me about stuff I don’t know about, but I did know this was another divorce case, and while I definitely don’t handle divorces at my actual work, it coincides with my work a lot of the time and from being in family law focused spaces I’ve learned quite a bit about it, so I know my way around it fairly well. this was a bit more complicated case so I did recommend she consult with a legal aid attorney to hopefully help her file things, because this was fair beyond what a self-represented litigant could handle, even with a legal advice clinic and the great resources we have to help pro se litigants, it was just way too much. but we got a start on things so she can at least have something to take to the attorney, so all of that was easy peasy. the notes we got prior to the consultation were from the client coordinator speaking to her earlier in the week, and also included a line that was like “I need a divorce, I know it’s wrong but...” and went on to cite spiritual and cultural baggage surrounding it, so when we were at the end of the session I just told her that something we say a lot in my work (we don’t actually say it a lot, generally just when spiritual concerns are interfering with a victim’s safety, which thankfully isn’t often, but the point is the same) is that people are more important than institutions, and that her worth as a person is much more important than the existence of a marriage that has clearly broken down beyond a state of repair by so much mistreatment and bad behavior from her spouse. And I really just felt like it was important to tell her that she is doing the right thing here, and that she should not feel guilty about doing this, even that it is explicitly stated in the bible (by Jesus, no less) that divorce is allowed when the woman (or either spouse practically) is being abused, and that emotional abuse is just as valid as any other type of abuse, and taking steps to protect herself was the best thing she could be doing right now. so I clearly had a lot of feelings about that, and our client support coordinator (that’s not what their actual title is but that’s what we call their equivalent at my job so it’s good enough) really echoed it and affirmed it from a cultural perspective as well (coordinator was Asian, client was South Asian) and the client ended up in tears and I just felt satisfied that I was able to get that message across, because very few things truly piss me off more than “Christians” trying to “save a marriage” at the cost of the safety of one of the parties, and it’s been well documented that abusers can very easily manipulate counseling situations and paint the other party out to be the one that is being ungodly because they want out of the marriage, and it’s a giant load of bullshit that loses sight of the importance of a human being and it’s such a perversion of what God actually wants for his children and is just the result of legalism taken to an extreme and people’s welfare not actually taken into consideration, only the rules. Thankfully I haven’t run into this situation too many times while doing this work (I can think of two off the top of my head, and both of those very clearly stuck with me, even several years later), and I have encountered a very opposite situation of a pastor being incredibly supportive and even accompanying the client to file and for court dates, and it was just so heartening for me to see- the pastor wrote me an email later that night saying thank you again, and I just expressed that as a Christian myself, I had so much gratitude at seeing his supporting a member of his church so strongly. so that positive experience has stuck with me at least. anyway. we wrapped things up and I did consider going back to bed lol but ended up choosing to stay up, I’ve had such a baking itch and now have a lot of things I have to eat haha but I had seen something a while back about caramelizing white chocolate, which sounded super intriguing and I really wanted to try it, but it very strongly focused on having high quality white chocolate for it to work, so I tried to get the fanciest I could from my instacart order and I couldn’t find the cocoa butter percentage listed (that’s apparently the most important part) so I thought it probably wasn’t good enough, but I was going to try anyway. it basically involves a low-temp oven (like 250f) with it being spread out on a baking sheet, and every ten minutes taking it out and like spreading it as it darkens and such, for like an hour. so I had started doing that but it was pretty obvious from the start it wasn’t going to work how it should, it was very grainy and just not cooperating, at around that same time friend messaged and asked if I wanted to do one of our taco bell and target runs that we’ve been doing lately like right then, and there wasn’t much else I could do with the chocolate at that point so I left that and got real clothes on and left for taco bell and then target. I was disappointed to find out taco bell’s build your own cravings box could only be ordered from their mobile app and not the drive-in, but as a result I ended up with chicken chalupas instead of my regular “seasoned beef” (because you know that’s deff high quality stuff) and they were actually really good, so I may continue those in the future, lol we’ll see. so we sat in the home depot parking lot to eat like we normally do then drove over to Target (the taco bell is farther away, so we have to drive there and then back to the Target) and go from there. I didn’t need too many things, mostly just toilet paper and a few random food items, and I ended up with toilet paper, a pint of my super favorite ice cream that’s like $8 but is so damn good it’s worth it, some actual popsicles, some lemonade (my sodastream canisters are MIA at the moment so I needed something else to make my water at least somewhat appealing), and these little frozen crushed garlic cubes that are each equal to one clove of garlic and I’ve heard very good things about, so I wanted to try that since I couldn’t find any garlic while making the chicken scampi the other night. so we checked out and I ended up obtaining a watermelon mountain dew, because I saw that and knew I needed to have it, though I still had baja blast left from taco bell, so the watermelon one is in my fridge yet to be opened (it’s a 20 oz bottle, not like a 2 liter). from there I got dropped off at home and put some stuff away and worked on a few things, eventually watching a few episodes of Scrubs before remembering I had some stuff recorded still that I hadn’t finished, so I watched 9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lone Star, which were of course very good, and while viewing was looking at various recipes for oreo rice krispie treats which I’d had a random craving for and bought supplies from instacart the other day, and after reading a few I decided to just kinda make up my own rules and go with it haha I had to revive some slightly stale marshmallows (put them in a ziploc and then in a bowl of hot water until they soften) as well as some stale oreos (350f in the oven for 3 minutes), though there only ended up being like 4 left in that pack and the rest from the new one, so that worked. I browned like 6 tablespoons of butter in a skillet and then transferred it to a big pot, addedt the old marshmallows (like 3/4 of a bag) as well as a bag of new ones, then crushed up most of the oreos and mixed them with a good amount of rice krispies and went from there. when I first dumped them into the pan it was just like this giant blob and I was like welp perhaps I made too much but then it kind of settled down to a more reasonable size, just still pretty large but that’s fine. I went back to the tv and watched For Life, and then to the news and SNL for a bit before getting in the shower and getting ready for bed, and of course now it’s almost 2 am and I am oh so tired, so I’m going to go to bed now being that I have to wake up at 10:15 (much better than 8:45 for work, but still). Goodnight friends. Hope you had an awesome Saturday.

[dailyaudiobible]

12/25/2020 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 8:1-23, Revelation 16:1-21, Psalms 144:1-15, Proverbs 30:29-31

Today is the 25th day of December Merry Christmas everybody welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you. We have worked an entire year to get to this place and now we commemorate with awe and wonder the reality that the Savior has arrived, that God would not tolerate the separation between he and us any longer and He came in person to rescue us. And may we respond with open hearted joy.

Song:

Joy to the world – Hillsong

Joy to the world The Lord is come Let Earth receive her King Let every heart prepare Him room And heaven and nature sing And heaven and nature sing Let heaven, let heaven and nature sing Let heaven, let heaven and nature sing

Joy to the Earth the Savior reigns Let men their songs employ While fields and floods Rocks, hills and the plains Repeat the sounding joy (repeat the sounding joy) Repeat the sounding joy Repeat, repeat the sounding joy Repeat, repeat the sounding joy Repeat, oh darling, Lord

Repeat, repeat the sound, yeah

Repeat, repeat the sound, yeah

Let the heavens sing

He rules the world (he rules the world) With truth and grace And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness And the wonders of His love And the wonders of His love And the wonders, the wonders of His love And the wonders, the wonders of His love

Joy, joy, joy to the world (his love) Joy, joy, joy, singing Joy, joy, joy to the world (sing it, sing it, sing it, sing it) Joy, joy, joy, singing

Joy, joy, joy to the world Joy, joy, joy, singing Joy, joy, joy to the world Joy, joy, joy, singing

Singing (singing) Singing (singing) Singing joy to the world now Singing (singing) Singing (singing) Joy to the world now (joy to the world now) Joy to the world now Joy to the world now Joy to the world now, now, now, now, now, now, now Ooh yeah (oh yeah)

To the world To the world You reign, You reign, yeah

Joy, joy, joy to the world Joy, joy, joy, singing

 Even though it's Christmas day, even though there's a lot going on on Christmas day we have a rhythm here around the Global Campfire and so we should spend a portion of our Christmas day together hearing from God's word, which is what we’ll do now. We’re reading from the New English Translation this week. Zechariah chapter 8.

Commentary:

Okay. So, today is Christmas day and I don't know what time of day it is that you might be hearing this. Maybe it's early morning Christmas morning before everyone's awake or maybe everybody gets up at dawn and so there's no time for that and it's been festivities and now you've just kind of found a second to catch her breath. Maybe it's Christmas night and this is how you’re kind of sealing Christmas, ending Christmas before falling asleep. And it's been a good…well…it’s been more than a month now that all of the lights and trees and all of the festivities are all over the place all throughout our neighborhoods all throughout our communities. There is no celebration like Christmas. The world over in all of our cultures and customs throughout the earth. Billions and billions of people are observing Christmas for all kinds of different reasons and not all of them are religious, but regardless, everyone that is commemorating and observing Christmas in some sort of way is acknowledging the arrival of God in the flesh. And there is no celebration on earth like it. As Christians we…we might argue that Easter, resurrection day, the day where it is accomplished is more or equally as important. I don't know. I guess it doesn't really matter. But Christmas is a day of joy and celebration the world over, and the whole build up to its brings our hearts closer together in unity. We sense goodwill toward people around us in ways that we really don't the rest of the year. And, so, the world is celebrating today, and we have either got in our cars and traveled across town or across the country to be with loved ones or we’ve gotten on planes. And it was a little more tricky this year than ever before, or maybe people have come into our town and they are with us, our friends, our family. We are surrounded by goodness and yet I know that some of you that I'm speaking to that's not the story. I’ve learned that over the years. I know that some of you may be together with your spouse, but that's…that’s how you observe Christmas. That's all there is right now. Or maybe nobody. Some of you are literally…have nobody today. You’re celebrating Christmas physically anyway, alone. I…I kind of grew up with a certain kind of Christmas. My mom she was determined to create a season around Christmas that she never really got to experience. And, so, it was really, really important for her to kind of build up the Christmas spirit. And, so, I just kinda grew up thinking that's how it was for everyone. It wasn't until I became older that I began to realize, no, not everybody even has a family. It wasn't until I got into ministry, especially ministry here at the Daily Audio Bible that I began to realize when we get to December 25th every year it is tremendous and joyous celebration. The church, the capital “C” church around the world, we’re like…we are in full bloom celebrating the arrival of the Savior and it sets an example and sends it out into the world but not everybody is involved. Some have no one and nowhere and that's always been a bit sad to me. So, every time we get here to the 25th  of December here at the Daily Audio Bible certainly we want to jump up and down and celebrate the arrival of the Savior, we want to jump up and down and celebrate, but not everybody gets this traditional type of celebration. And I’ve become more and more aware of that. And, so, each Christmas day that we come to on the Daily Audio Bible I want to acknowledge that. I acknowledge that this time that we’re having around the Global Campfire right now centered around God's word, knowing that, at least for these moments we’re not alone. Somebody else somewhere is connected to what we’re doing right now. I’ve found that for some of you this is your family Christmas, this is…this is the gathering, and this is one of those moments where I wish that the…I mean I’m so grateful for the Internet because it creates the community that we share but I wish that we could reach through it and actually be together. I guess it was maybe like six or seven years ago when reading through December 25th’s reading of the Daily Audio Bible, and of course we’re reading through the book of Revelation. I’m just reading out God pouring out bowls of wrath upon the earth and all the horrible things that are happening on the earth and earth's people are suffering tremendously because of this outpouring of wrath and it's like Christmas day. And I'm realizing that some of us are having joyful celebrations and some of us are completely by ourselves, and I just…I can remember like getting done with that reading and just going, “this doesn't feel like Christmas.” And I am an introvert and I'm a creative person. And, so, I’ve got a bit of a melancholy personality and…at times…and I can brood and especially if things are disrupted, I can brood. And, so, just kind of brooding realizing that every Christmas always for some reason feels like somethings missing…I don't know…missing. Even if its perfect somethings missing because I’ve felt like that at Christmas at some point or another long as I can remember. Like that…even today. We have festive joyous celebration with our family and we’re having a wonderful time together but there'll be a point in the day where I'll find myself somewhere alone whether I’m going for a walk or just finding a quiet place for just a little while…to let that sink in. And I used to call it like Christmas blues or something like that because…and I know I’m not the only one…and I’m not saying things that nobody else understands. I know that I'm talking to some of you directly, like I'm speaking your language right now. You're feeling it and you don't know how…I mean it's supposed to be joyous and it doesn't exactly feel that way. It feels like something's still broken. It was just a handful of years ago, the year my mother died. My mother, she…she lived through Christmas of 2016, but she passed away in the first couple weeks of January 2017. And it was that year…my mom in the hospital…just really having lost…lost any kind of tethering to reality. I’m running back and forth to hospitals seven days a week, keeping the Daily Audio Bible going seven days a week, run in from the hospital, come into the studio reading Christmas days reading feeling the…the fatigue of it all, feeling the blues of it all, and then reading Revelation and the bowls of God's wrath poured out on the earth and just feeling like this…this doesn't feel like Christmas. And then I read Revelation again and tried to consider it and the concept of Christmas and then I realized what's happening in Revelation for our Christmas day reading isn’t God just so angry at people that He's had enough and wants to destroy them at all. It’s God putting an end to evil. It’s God putting an end to everything that has destroyed us all along. It’s difficult to read of but it's God putting things right so that all things can become new again. And I realized kind of in that year in that particular reading this is what has to happen. This is why we are told so many times that we must endure until the end. Basically, what we’re reading in Revelation today is that baby Jesus all grown up eradicating the power of sin and death and the grave forever and ever. Amen. So, at least for me when I feel those blues kind of come, this kind of emptiness that something's not right I realize that all I’m feeling is the longing of my soul. We are in the in between. We can jump up and down and celebrate wildly for the arrival of the Savior, and we should, and we are, but we are in between. We are waiting for the second arrival of the Savior, when all things will be made new and all things will be put right. And in the meantime, everything isn't right, and we are here to endure and to share the good news and to be a part of the rescue for as long as we can, as long as we live. We are the living story of Christmas all year long through our very lives. It's not how many lights we can put on our house. It's how much of a light can shine out of our heart that’s gonna matter. And, so, no matter what's going on, if you’ve got all kinds of festivities and it's just crazy out there, if you find a moment to just sit with that to just understand this is the in between, that all things are being made new. We are being made new. The Scriptures have told us this over and over and over throughout this year. We are in process. It's okay where we are right now. This isn’t where we’re gonna be 12 months from now. Think about Christmas day last year. We had no idea what was on the horizon for 2020. We were going into this year with the idea of seeing clearly and vision and just moving forward and finally getting our legs under us. And this was gonna be a fantastic year and we didn't realize we were going to face some significant challenges that the world has never really seen before We were gonna find how divided we are. We were gonna get vision alright. The truth was gonna come to us. We were gonna see things as they really were and stop faking, stop pretending they were different than they are. And we got a good dose of reality. Last Christmas 12 months ago today we had no idea. So, in fairness, we have no idea what's in front of us, which is not a message of ominous things to come. I don't think that. I never think that. The truth is 12 months ago we did not know what we now know. We had not experienced what we have experienced together as humanity in the world in 2020. We've learned a lot, a lot about ourselves, a lot about each other, a lot about our cultures and societies, a lot. We aren't the same people we were on Christmas day last year and we’re not gonna be the same people 12 months from today on Christmas day next year. We are in process. It's okay. Because what we read in things like the book of Revelation is, even though there is a profound disruption to the status quo, a complete upheaval of things. The things that are being disrupted have to fall. They have to go away to be replaced by something new. And where this whole story is going is that all things will be made new again. And, so, let's take some time today on this beautiful celebratory day to certainly enjoy our presents and certainly enjoy giving the presents and O the twinkle in the children's eyes and the gratefulness and the thankfulness and the beautiful sense of family, yes to all of that. Let's dive into it completely, but let's also be aware of the deeper currents of what Christmas represents. This is all going somewhere and that somewhere is good. And, so, I love you guys. This is my 15th Christmas day doing this, being here behind this mic at Daily Audio Bible and I am profoundly grateful for the journey that we’ve been on and are on. And, so, from the bottom of my heart Jill and I wish you all a very, very joyous Merry Christmas.

Song:

O Come, All Ye Faithful

O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem O come and behold Him, born the King of Angels

O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him Christ the Lord

O come, all ye faithful O come, all ye faithful O come, all ye faithful to Bethlehem

O come, all ye faithful O come, all ye faithful O come, all ye faithful to Bethlehem

O sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation O come, o come ye to Bethlehem O Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels

O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him Christ the Lord

O come, all ye faithful O come, all ye faithful O come, all ye faithful to Bethlehem

O come, all ye faithful O come, all ye faithful O come, all ye faithful to Bethlehem

O come all ye O come all ye faithful O come all ye O come all ye faithful

O come all ye O come all ye faithful O come all ye O come all ye faithful

O come all ye O come all ye faithful O come all ye O come all ye faithful

O come all ye O come all ye faithful O come all ye O come all ye faithful

O come all ye faithful O come all ye faithful O come all ye faithful to Bethlehem

O come all ye faithful O come all ye faithful O come all ye faithful to Bethlehem

O come all ye faithful O come all ye faithful Born the King of Angels

O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him Christ the Lord

O come all ye faithful O come all ye faithful O come all ye faithful to Bethlehem

[dearmrsbitch]

December 27, 2019 - Boomers Need a History lesson apparently.

Dear Moneyist,

I very much enjoy your column, and you are much kinder than I am. It may be my age, but my parents weren’t expected to pay for college when I came of age. I am, yes, a baby boomer. From reading your column it seems like lots of people of varying ages seem to believe that they have rights to an inheritance, often by virtue of being a DNA relative and, sometimes, by virtue of a marriage.

I disagree with this assumption. Please educate me. Are my somewhat scornful reactions a reflection of my own age or ignorance? Or can I or anyone else write a will leaving their estate to whomever they like — say a charity, or the kid next door, or their nurse — instead of their kids and spouse? What is the law and etiquette regarding wills and inheritance?

Disgruntled Boomer

Dear Dumbass Boomer,

Your age group seems just hell bent on fucking everything up, taking no responsibility and then crying about everyone else who is younger or older.  Boomers historically have had everything the easiest.  You had the best college costs, cheapest houses, best economies, cheapest goods, most available jobs, etc.

I know you all hate younger people, but maybe you should remember who fucking raised us.  I am one of the oldest millennial, I am in my mid-30′s. My groups voting block hasn’t had half the time you’ve had to fix stuff, and yet you keeping fucking up. 

I mean, I didn’t see you out there, voting to keep the housing market stable, keeping rents locked in, or hey, even emailing your fucking alma maters to keep tuition at an affordable level.  When all of you defaulted on your loans to become doctors and lawyers, that was when they made those laws that you couldn’t include student loans in bankruptcy.  (I know because my mother was involved in that decision and it pisses me off) That was your generation - not fucking us.  No, instead you bought up stuff, jacked up rents to fill your coffers, allowed tuition to climb by HUNDREDS of percentages, and level a scorched earth approach to education and healthcare that have made the US the laughing stock of the world in those regards.  I have friends who have been living overseas for years because they can’t pay their student loans with all the jobs you allowed to be shipped overseas for cheap slave labor, and yet you complain that your kids want you to help? You selfish ignorant fool.  If you don’t the like you’re living in, you built it!

Entitlement culture...  do you not understand history?  Throughout history, even the entire concept of modern marriage, was dedicated to passing wealth and property down through family lines.  Men literally created the institution of marriage to keep women pumping out their blood kids so they could give things to them.  You are living in a world of entitlement, it’s why white men have all the money and power and women only make 77 on the dollar and black families are kept in cycles of poverty because all their years of slavery and discrimination haven’t given them generational wealth to pass down.  You are the beneficiary of centuries - CENTURIES - of entitlement, and just because you work some office job you don’t really love that pays you more than you are probably worth - doesn’t mean you aren’t getting more than any other generation in history.  You can admit it.  I admit that if myself and a black woman are at the same job, with all the same factors, that I have more just given to me that she does, and that is not my fault, but it is my job to notice it and take steps.

And here you write in to this column, whining and crying about other boomers, those are who those letters are from, btw, that they can’t rip off their spouse’s children of their inheritance as the third spouse, or that they are upset that they “didn’t get enough.”  The kids?  Us kids?  As you would probably say I am, we’re not hoping for inheritance because like, bro, I totes want new airpods!  I am hoping for for the money to pay off student loans, maybe get a house, maybe save for retirement. 

If you have a completely and totally undeserving piece of shit kid or spouse, only then it is okay to just fuck off what you have to someone who doesn’t play into your family. But if you have a shit spouse, then get a divorce.  If you have a bad kid, then you raised them.  We didn’t invent and give ourselves those little participation medals you loathe so much - I mean, we weren’t living out our fantasies through our kids by substituting proper parenting with mindless awards while letting the world the kids were growing into go to shit while wasting money on a “man cave” and a time share in Orlando.

Charity is one thing, and that does not included political causes, btw.  A deserving person is one thing.  But to write your family out of your will because you “dislike this inheritance culture” thing is simply a manifestation of your own ignorance and complete lack of mind and heart.  Your kid is not going to look back on your, still paying off student loans in their 50′s, after you’ve given your money to “Trump’s Let’s Build the Wall of Racism that the next Democrat will tear down,”  and say, “He was a good man.” 

Let’s use an analogy you’ve certainly said, “You’re teaching your kid to fish.”

Well that’s great, except now he has to get a loan that will take at least ten years to pay off to buy the fishing rod.  Then when he gets to the stream, if he can even catch a fish, it’s small, and instead of eating it, he has to sell it to rent a shack to live in just so he can survive to catch another fish to maybe, someday, make a profit.  And an industrial plant has moved in upstream and they’ve lobbied the local government to allow dumping waste in the stream, and the lobby money went to the politician that you voted for because they talked about “America First!”.  Now he’s simply got to pack up and moved before the fish die and he starves, but where is that money going to come from?  Either the money to move or just the money to get a new job? 

Teaching someone to fish does DICK when the stream is empty and they don’t have a fishing rod.

Boomers are and have been the problem for decades, with their blindness and consumption of resources.  The best thing you can do at this point is at least leave your money and resources to people who need it when you die instead of throwing it at randomness to “make a point.” 

History will not remember you fondly anyway, because we get to write it, and we are fucking pissed.

Mrs. Bitch

[leftfoottrapped]

jesus you getting all this hate from pea brain fans blindly supporting shit lmfao needless to say im very happy the ifandom has people like you, yaknow, with a brain and stuff. also side note i love ur fics they are one of the best i’ve read and ive been a fan for a looong time. anamnesis is one of my all time favs. anyway, i’ll be observing the fire in which jongdae has thrown his career into from the sidelines now. bye! ^^

thank you very much for loving my fics, that means a lot anon

anonymous asked: if he didn’t want to be an idol or be in the industry there would be rumors/gossip about retirement or his departure from the group. there hasn’t been any. sm announced that he would continue to work as an artist. “you’re saying so much with literally no evidence to back it up lmao” like they’re not in your inbox doing the same thing. we’re all speculating. ppl want to be happy for him and i get it but his career being over is also very plausible.

yeah, I was thinking about all those rumours with ksoo “not renewing” his contract or whatever, right before he enlisted. I think it’s more likely he negotiated less idol promos and more acting deals so he can be a full-time actor. and if it’s the same with jongdae, we should have heard those rumours as well. and yeah - that’s the issue!!! we are all speculating, and I know I’m using precedence/other idols to form my opinions, while other people are…. idk…. using blind hope? which I guess is one way to face a crisis.

anonymous asked: I have this thing when shit sucks to create certainty out of a situation to make it easier to cope with. Everything you have been writing makes logical sense. It is what precedent suggests is going to happen. I won’t sit here and argue with you about it. But it hasn’t happened yet. It is unfair of this other person to call you cruel. Or to shame you for writing fics (which are really good btw) they are essentially doing to you what they are accusing you of doing to chen: judging with out actually knowing you.

you’re right anon, it hasn’t happened yet! and we don’t know if sm will simply ignore the fans and double down and still make him continue his activities! the thing is - with his fansites closing, a fan petition gaining traction to get him to leave exo, and a questionable spouse - indicates there’s a very low chance of that happening, but a chance is a chance is a chance. and if people wanna bank their hopes on that chance, I guess I should let them. but I know I can’t do that, it’ll only make me sadder, and constructing a narrative of what his life is going to be like after this moment is a better way for me personally to cope with my feelings of sadness and loss over his singing career.

[homebrewpodcast]

Transcript: Home Brew 08: Skeleton Party

Transcript: Home Brew 08: Skeleton Party

Thank you for your patience! Please explore this transcript of our latest episode at your leisure and look forward to more transcripts to be posted here and on the homebrewpodcast.podbean.com page! 

Order of events:

☕ Hero Cultus!

☕ Main topic: Shadow Work & A Skeleton Party Near You

☕ Mythic feature: El Sombreron (A Guatemalan Tale)

☕ Devotional thought with Danny

DANNY: Hi, and welcome to Home Brew podcast. I'm Danny…

JOHNA: And I’m Johna, two pagan friends exploring spirituality in the Modern Age.

DANNY: We’re queer…

JOHNA: And definitely not so white.

DANNY: So please be aware that we are grown-ups, who may discuss sensitive topics as they relate to our own experiences.

JOHNA: That being said, we welcome and incorporate the experiences of our listeners. You can contribute by messaging homebrewpodcast.tumblr.com—

DANNY: Or by tagging @homebrewpagans on Twitter. And so, let’s get into the episode!

[transition music]

DANNY: This episode we're going to have a new segment that we're gonna introduce in lieu of Make Talk Good, definitely not because we forgot to do—

JOHNA: —we didn't forget, we remembered very good.

DANNY: It's fine. But as we have no Make Talk Good to show you today, we also wanted to introduce the segment anyway called Hero Cultist and we're going to talk more about that in just a second.

JOHNA: And after Hero Cultist we’re going to get into our main topic, shadow work.

DANNY: Whoo!

JOHNA: The Ultimate skeleton party.

DANNY: Yeah, and then after that we're going to wrap our myth and our devotional thought kind of together as one, and you'll see what I mean when we get there.

JOHNA: Dude. 

BOTH: [laugh]

JOHNA: I'm so excited about this segment because I know we've been wanting to do some other stuff, but here it is. We are introducing hero cultist. We just want to take a few minutes to recognize the figures that may not be gods but have nevertheless made a huge impact on our culture or our development as people. I know—well, Danny, you haven't read American Gods, but maybe our reader has read American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

DANNY: I've read American Gods.

JOHNA: Oh, wait you did?

DANNY: Yeah! I haven't seen the TV show, though.

JOHNA: Oh, I haven't seen that either, but I only care about the book

BOTH: [laughs]

JOHNA: Um. There's a character that remarks something like “heroes are the same as gods, except they're allowed to fail.” This stuck with me for a long time, so I want to find ways to respect the influence that some figures had in my real actual life practice. So, for Hero Cultist I have a shout-out to the spirit of Leonard Nimoy. Thank you, dude. Thank you for bringing your legacy of questioning to daytime television. I reblog “The Hobbit Song” in your honor.

DANNY: [chuckle] And I shout out to the spirit of Terry Pratchett. Thank you for bringing your legacy of righteous anger to comical literature. I will have a nice cigar in your honor, once I’m allowed to do so post-surgery, which is happening tomorrow. Or early—early today, it’s very very very late. It’s later than usual here, my listeners.

JOHNA: He would appreciate that cigar, dude.

DANNY: Though like having a cigar right before surgery is like such a Sam Vimes thing to do I kind of want to do it. I’m definitely not going to because I'd get uh beaten up by my spouse. 

JOHNA: Yay!

DANNY: Proverbially. With love.

JOHNA: Yeah. Don’t do that.

DANNY: [laughs]

JOHNA: Leonard Nimoy, Terry Pratchett. We honor you.

DANNY: Yes.

JOHNA: Moving along. 

DANNY: [laughs]

JOHNA: Shadowwork. Have you heard of it?

DANNY: I have heard of shadowwork.

JOHNA: As a cool fun Pagan pastime, perhaps?

DANNY: Yeah.

JOHNA: Oh my god, it pains me sometimes. Thinking about how shadowwork is used, at least in internet pagan land, as sort of a system of, like, dark and edgy personality tests can be bothersome. I mean, I know that like what we put online is not the sum of our practice. Basically, we're just trying to like share the fun bits, share what might generate interest, but new people who are just getting interested only have those superficial attention-grabbing tidbits.

So I’m going to give you a super quick rundown of Jungian psychology. That's Jung, J-U-N-G. So Carl Jung was one of Freud's proteges. When Freud realized that he couldn't be famous and successful and get money from benefactors by calling out family rapists for messing up perfectly good children, he sold out and he wrote all about how kids just latently desire their parents in a sexual way, so it’s actually all okay.

DANNY: Nasty.

JOHNA: Yeah. Ugh. Kay. Jung, who did study under Freud, managed to sidestep some of that and wrote all about how maybe it's horrific parents, maybe it's not, but maybe it might could be, but anyway he knows that for sure that it happens at kids, it happens to them.

My thoughts about Jung and Freud aside, the theory is very useful. In Jungian Theory, the shadow is considered the whole of the hidden and/or undesirable aspects of the personality. The shadow is sort of a potpourri of the id and the subconscious and the emotional all thrown together. It's instinctive and irrational and it tends to project our weaknesses onto others in the form of moral judgments, of jealousy or anger.

People tend to ignore or distract from their shadow personality aspects, but Jungian shadowwork tries to expose and embrace those aspects. So the work is meant to liberate your mind so that you can make deliberate choices that improve your mental health. Many times in therapy you'll find techniques that ask you to confront your shadow, like introspective journaling or guided meditations. But because this work requires a lot of emotional heavy lifting, many people find it useful to use a spiritual lens and approach it with techniques like divination and prayer and spirit journeying.

DANNY: So something to keep in mind as you approach the concept of shadowwork is that there are a billion different ways that shadowwork can be, and we’ll kind of get into those anecdotally in a second, but even deciding what type of shadowwork in the realm of secular versus spiritual is actually something that you're going to be faced with eventually.

For example, shadowwork in the realm of just therapy specifically for work that pertains to mindfulness is really really difficult for me. Mindfulness, just kind of a brief, like, definition, I suppose, is a technique that therapists use a lot, especially lately. It's a really effective, like, meditation technique on the fly that helps train your brain to focus on what is happening to you and about you and within you at the exact moment in time that you are present in. So it teaches you to not dwell on the past or worry about the future, but to be completely in the present.

It is a great tool and it does not work for me. So when I did have to do, when I decided to do shadowwork to benefit some of my, some of struggles that I was going through, it helped me to do that work through the lens of spirituality. And there's really no reason why or why not, it just be like that sometimes.

So when you approach the techniques of shadowwork, know that it might not work out the first time around, and it might be because you are approaching shadowwork in an entirely different realm to what is actually compatible with you. So if you want to do this thing but, say, spirit journeying and journals and tarot aren't working for you—I think everybody should go to therapy anyways just, just as a rule—but try maybe therapy or some kind of mindfulness or cognitive behavioral therapy, something that’s more secular. This can be interchangeable. It can be a little of column A, little of column B. But expect to also have that be some but you have to figure out as well, which I didn't really know what the time.

JOHNA: That's an excellent point. It all just depends on your goal.

DANNY: Yeah.

JOHNA: It depends on you, what works for you and your goal. I remember my first attempts at shadowwork were, I mean I remember them being very very aesthetic. I mean, I approached it from primarily a religious perspective, you know. I wanted to be close to my gods, I wanted to improve my energy work. So I would be like, like meditating after midnight, and only by the light of my Michaels-brand black pillar candles. But allowing, like, the perfumes of totally good and legit incense to allow me to journey into my deeper self.

So, like, I was experimenting a lot. I was trying a bunch of things all at once to see what worked and generally exploring. I didn't know what kinds of skeletons were in my closet. One time I did visualize a house, and I found a literal skeleton in the closet. And I didn't know what to do about it, not at the time. I didn’t know what it was or what I should do, so. That was just when I was first trying it.

Shadowwork’s not something that you do intensely always all the time, at least most people don't. But, you know, you come back to it when you're done or when you've figured out something else that you want to do. So my more recent attempts at shadowwork are obviously, you know, less theatrical and a lot more focused. And while I do pray, I also use techniques that are mostly secular. I might be more aware of the skeleton parties that are happening in the closets

DANNY: [chuckle]

JOHNA: But I'm less afraid of them now. You know, after all that get-to-know-you stuff. So they're more likely to talk and move and make conversation, and sometimes it can be scary and angry, but now I know what to do with them. And the shadowwork helps me decide who I want to invite to my skeleton party.

When you first start out, it’s actually really really fun to get to know yourself, especially because it's sort of like indulging in your vanity. You can talk about yourself all you want, because it feels purposeful now. But everything stays the same if you don't have a goal. I mean, when I first started, I had no goals except getting to know myself. But my new goals are things like, I want less anxiety about medical visits. So, I need to address those shadows. Or I want to spend less energy being annoyed at my co-workers, so maybe I want to look at those shadows. These things are in the shadows for a reason. I mean it takes a lot of energy to move them out to where you can see them, so unless you're going to do something that's where they’re always going to go back to. That's where they stay.

DANNY: Absolutely. And you know we talked about your first attempts at shadowwork. I was really lucky in my like first foray into shadowwork, because I was actually introduced to shadowwork and the concepts of by Johna.

JOHNA: Ooooh.

DANNY: Oooh! So that's like the pattern of, like, half of these anecdotes is like, Johna showed me, and it was neat. [laughs] But it's true. And it’s something that I really needed at the time, because I was going through a really rough patch in my life with regards to having toxic relationships, being kind of a toxic person. I had a lot of old coping mechanisms from earlier points of life that were now periods of trauma for me that I didn't need these coping mechanisms anymore because I wasn't in those places. So I had to learn, like, my goal for shadowwork is to kind of unlearn some bad habits and to reacquaint my brain with the fact that things are a lot safer than they used to be, for example.

So, part of that was figuring out, like I said, what works for me. I've been going to therapy for forever, but my shadowwork I sort of wanted it to be a separate venture and something that was a little more spiritual. And so, what ended up happening is that we had a group of myself, Johna, and another friend. That was like our shadowwork group. And we checked in with each other. Um, I know that our other friend did journaling for a while and would check in with, like, “I did journaling, this is what I learned today.” Daily tarot or, as daily I could possibly be, was really helpful for me. Boy did I get Temperance a lot.

And you know, I was still quite young in terms of practicing. I was like really new to tarot; I was really new to a lot of things. So having a group that helped me kind of like internalize what I needed to internalize and to like, positively reinforce this was really helpful. But, like we said, I had a good time taking, like, my spiritual personality tests, but also I learned how, like, you learn a lot of hard stuff about yourself.

I learned some methods about centering myself emotionally because I took the shadows of, like, my toxicity. regardless of how it happened to me and how I became that person, and I had to like stare that in the face. I confronted a lot of personal foibles. I confronted the fact that I have like a lot of moral absolutism, and that maybe that that doesn't really exist in the real world. 

I learned better ways to communicate with a lot of people. I learned better ways to communicate with my ancestors, because I relied on them a lot during this time to kind of reflect upon the person that I was. I learned how to communicate better with myself in different stages. I had internalized so much, like, unhealthy coping mechanisms as a teenager that part of these meditations where I would you know enter my own mental house, this house was something I had made as a teenager to cope with like stuff. So I would approach this house and find really honestly my teenage self as part of my skeleton party.

JOHNA: Mmmmm!

DANNY: She was still there, that poor bitch! 

JOHNA: Oh my god.

BOTH: [laugh]

DANNY: And so like, confronting that person and learning to cut that kid some slack was really difficult, actually. And it was like the culmination of all of the fun stuff. All the tarot and the journaling and the like, you know, stickers and memes that we shared with each other on Facebook Messenger, um, kind of culminated in this really slow process of learning like, okay, I am allowed to be angry, but I am not allowed to be mean.

JOHNA: Mm-hmm.

DANNY: And like, I am allowed to let go of, like, this, like, piece of trauma. I can tell, like, I don't have to be mad at teenage me anymore. That kid was just a teenager, you know? So that's like the highlight here and the reason why that, like, we kind of dwell on these anecdotes is to illustrate that there are, like, actually a lot of different ways to approach shadowwork.

But go--the underlying truth of it is that you have to be attuned to your own emotional needs, your emotional faults, your foibles. You don't have to, like, have a perfect knowledge of self. That's what you're doing shadowwork for. But you have to be prepared to have your self-perception change, and sometimes that perception is not super flattering. That's why you do what you do. You approach it with the understanding that you're going to be seeing some stuff. That’s why it’s called shadowwork.

BOTH: [laughs]

DANNY: Ugh I personally believe that if you can't confront yourself authentically and honestly, then it is not going to be a super successful venture for you. And it's just kind of a waste of your time. Uh, that's my onion.

JOHNA: Yeah, yes. You know what, the superficial stuff? Like, the personality test feeling stuff, that’s a lot of fun.

DANNY: Yeah, for sure.

JOHNA: But you're absolutely right. It is work. It’s called work for a reason. But it’s so worth it.

DANNY: Yes.

JOHNA: If it's what you choose to do.

DANNY: Yes, I learned a lot.

JOHNA: For sure.

DANNY: And definitely became a less shitty person.

BOTH: [laugh]

JOHNA: If you'd like to dip your toes in a little bit, I did prepare a suggested meditation, just so that you can figure out what skeletons you have, like, who's hanging out in there, and you have a place to start if you're just getting back into it or if you're exploring shadowwork for the first time. We are using a tarot number in this one, that you can use tarot to do a reading on it later. It helps. Helps to review.  

DANNY: Yes.

JOHNA: So, first about the meditation. You're going to create your house. Just want to visualize it. I mean, you can do that by drawing a picture, you can build it in Sims or Minecraft, but only the outside, cause that's all we need for right now. So once you have that visual, sit down someplace, get comfy, focus on your breathing and imagine. See the house in your mind's eye. 

When you start, you are 21 steps from between where you stand and the front door. So with each slow, controlled breath you take, you take another step closer. So starting at 21, smoothing patiently down to 1, till you get to the front door. Then, go into your house.

Easy, right? You go inside. It's your house! Look at your awesome stuff. But you hear music coming somewhere, and you know what? It's the closet. That's right, that’s right it was the skeleton party. You knew about that. So go knock on the door. Let them know you're coming in to check on them. I mean, they may be made of bones, but they’re still a part of you. And they’re a part of this kick-ass house. It’s an awesome house, ‘cause it's yours.

So then you open the closet and see who you meet. And if they want to come to where you are, or if you want to come to where they are, shake hands, say hello, learn new skeletons’ names. 

Then whenever you're ready, you can leave the way you came. From closing the door, step 1 all the way to 21, back to where you stood before. And you can exit your meditation from here.

There's a lot of ways to leave a meditation like that, and if you plan on visiting that house again, maybe you promised the skeletons you were going to come back, I might recommend that you lock up your house before you leave, so you don't like accidentally have any cretins waitin’ for you on your next visit. Another thing is that you might also pray and ask your gods or ancestors to come and visit, so maybe you can give them a key to your house. It's your house, you can do whatever you want.

So Danny and I actually did this meditation before we recorded this podcast. We didn't like do it together, but we did make sure to do the meditation. So personally, because I've been doing this for a while, I didn't actually exit the house, because at this point it's my house. 

DANNY: [laughs]

JOHNA: So I kind of just like sent myself to bed and counted 21 breaths until I woke up here in the real world. But it's my house. I live there, so I don't leave. But you can do whatever you want. The point is, you did your meditation, and maybe you have some skeleton names that you want to think about.

So here’s part dos, and it’s a suggested tarot reading. So you can use tarot cards if you have them, oracle cards, whatever. You can use a free online deck. Just go to Google and ask what a free online tarot deck is. You can use it. You can use a tarot app. You can do whatever you want. The goal is to just decide if you're going to do anything about who you met in your house and how you might do it.

So you start with a small number of cards. We recommend starting with just one so that you can focus on one thing to figure out.

So Danny, you want to demonstrate this part with me? We both have cards.

DANNY: Yeah, let's do it! I've got my cards.

JOHNA: Yes, okay.

DANNY: Let’s talk about my cards, I want to talk about my cards first.

JOHNA: Yeah, well you shuffle, shuffle good.

DANNY: Yes, I'm shuffling. They're called the Darkana Tarot, and I got them because they are—I think that they…quote “combine a modern grunge style with a non-traditional tarot symbolism.” But the frank way to say it is that the art is kind of muddy and ugly. [laugh]

JOHNA: Ooh!

DANNY: But I like it, I like that it’s—they're like kind of like, uh…stained and ugly deck. It seems like a good…it’s a good, um, set for me. And so I wanted to plug them a little bit, because I like them.

JOHNA: Wow. My deck is the opposite. 

DANNY: [laughs]

JOHNA: It is super pretty, gorgeous, dreamy watercolors by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. It's called the Shadowscapes tarot. It’s like, probably one of the like most popular decks on the market because it really is beautiful, but I remember waiting and waiting and waiting for Ms. Law to like finish the paintings for this deck—

DANNY: Oh my gosh.

JOHNA: —because she was updating as she went. I was like, I was one of the original fans of this tarot deck, dude, I was so excited. I pre-ordered as soon as it was available to get the shadowscapes tarot deck and I was not disappointed. So, that’s how I like it. Anyway.

DANNY: That’s awesome.

JOHNA: So usually, I don’t know. Not everybody has practiced a lot with tarot cards, oracle cards. You traditionally like shuffle the deck like a spiritually significant number of times. Seven is, of course, a common lucky number. I use five when I'm doing shadowwork, because it's traditionally a number for like change, even chaos, and change is usually my goal for shadowwork even if it means some chaos. Some people like nine because it's a number of completion. They want the bigger picture.

DANNY: I like nine.

JOHNA: Oh, that's cool.

DANNY: I don't usually, um, have a number when I shuffle though. I just shuffle. Till it's time to stop, I guess.

JOHNA: Oh man. I actually had to replace this deck. These cards are, like, still stiff and I'm like a little bit sad, because this is obviously a later printing and they are like not as good quality as—

DANNY: Oh no.

JOHNA: —the original printing, I know. This coating on the deck is like, plastic. I, and I'm spoiled when it comes to playing cards, because I like a nice waxed card. [sigh] But that's not a—that's neither here nor there. Let’s go. We draw the cards.

DANNY: We draw. [whip sound] Oh cool!

JOHNA: What does yours say?

DANNY: I got the nine of cups.

JOHNA: [gasp]

DANNY: Yeah, I’m like, oh hey! Um, and I guess for edification, because I don't mind if the internet knows my innermost thoughts, the--

BOTH: [laugh]

DANNY: Um, the thing I'm trying to tackle is my like stress around moving and relocation, just cause there's some stuff there. So that's what I kind of asked the cards about. That was the, the…the big chief skeleton in my skeleton closet party.

Um, and my deck, this deck is also nice because it has two, like, keywords underneath the picture. So under the nine of cups, keywords is fulfillment and pleasure. So like, a really super quick and dirty, like, analysis of the nine of cups is this is like, the cup overfloweth card. They—you are, uh, um, at a place of extreme contentment and satisfaction. Things are falling into place, and you will, like, receive a period of good fulfillment, usually emotionally. Cups are a, an emo--, a feelings card. And especially in this, um, picture, the cups have water flowing out of them. Water is like a feelings thing. So that’s a pretty optimistic one card reading.

If I wanted to, like, I guess for our listeners, if I wanted to ask a question from there, you can take this one card reading and expand upon it. Ask your cards some other stuff. You can also use rocks if you like. But we aren't going to do rocks today because I don't want to go get them. [laugh]

JOHNA: Oh, well you know what, I am glad you brought that up, because I definitely expanded mine. When I did this meditation, I met two skeletons. One of them I am not familiar with, and the other one is, uh, sort of a development because of some other work that I did. So I like went in the closet and, you know, wanted to see who was hanging out in there and the first skeleton to introduce itself to me was dementia.

DANNY: Oh.

JOHNA: Yeah. You know what, I didn't think that I had any, uh, had any stuff about that, but my dad actually had dementia, and maybe I should like, think a little bit about that because I might have like some unconscious anxiety making me act a little foolish sometimes. When it comes to like medical stuff, and maybe taking care of myself. So that's like, you know, that's good.

And the other skeleton I met, this was interesting. Usually I approach like the skeleton of “things I resent my mom for,” “the things I resent my dad for” separately, because I felt like, I always felt like they were two separate things. But this skeleton introduced itself as, “I am the failings of your parents.” And that was different from how I've approached it before because this skeleton was like, very kind and not shy at all and like very very gentle. And I have yet to approach that kind of demon in that way.

So, when I drew my one card I got the ace of cups, which is cool. It can be...I am reading this right now as like, a card of beginnings, particularly emotionally. That means that it's like meeting the tip of the iceberg, and I’ve got some exploration to do, but generally it's a good omen. But I wanted some clarification for that, so I drew two other cards. And one was the queen of cups, which I take to mean as, I'm going to have to be accountable and responsible for myself, but also that means I get to call the shots. Good deal.

DANNY: Nice.

JOHNA: And then the other one was the High Priestess, which comes to me off and on. One of those cards that follows me. So, in this case, I’m going to take this as like, sort of a current in the wheel of fate, you know what I mean? 

DANNY: Mm-hmm.

JOHNA: Like, whatever is coming is coming, and all I can do is just what I judge to be best in that situation. So, cool. All right. That's how you do it. That's how you start. What I definitely got was a place to start.

DANNY: Nice. [chuckle]

[pause]

JOHNA: Come on, where's our tagline dude?

DANNY: Oh.

JOHNA: You got to say it.

DANNY: Fuck. Do you want to hear a story?

JOHNA: I do!

DANNY: Hell yeah. [laugh] So, brief disclaimer on this story. I don't speak Spanish. My accent’s very bad, and I sometimes don't know how to pronounce words. I beg forgiveness. But. [laughs] This myth is a Guatemalan myth and it is the story of “El Sombreron.” It’s found on uexpress.com, the version that I'm using, because I thought it was funny. Uexpress.com has a tell me a story section, which is where I found this, and this is retold by Amy Friedman and Meredith Johnson.

Once upon a time in a Mayan village, twins were born to a hatmaker and his wife. The couple were overjoyed the day their sons were born, but their joy did not last long.

JOHNA: Uh-oh.

DANNY: One of the boys was kind, soft-voiced and even-tempered. But the other lad was born with the devil in him.

JOHNA: [gasp]

DANNY: He was always doing just what his parents told him not to do, and as he grew older, he continued to do whatever he was not supposed to do.

He wasn’t cruel, but he was mischievous. He hid his brother's toys; he stole fruit from the neighbors' gardens. He teased children, he spilled his milk, and laughed when he should have been quiet, and would not speak when teachers asked him questions.

I, as a side-note, have taught many of these children. I have loved all of them.

But he never stopped running and jumping and playing, and his parents fretted and worried and wondered what to do.

At last the boy's mother begged her husband to call upon the brujo for advice. Among the Mayan people, the brujos, wise men, were known to have the power and the magic to cure every imaginable ill.

I imagine in this case, I kind of, another author’s note, that “brujo” is being used in the same way that “curendero” would be used, um, instead of like the broader meaning of like “brujo” just meaning “witch” or “wizard,” I guess.

JOHNA: Mm-hmm.

DANNY: So, these brujos could cure bodies, minds and spirits, so the people said. They knew exactly what to do to fix every problem that arose.

So the hatmaker went to visit the brujo and begged him for help. "My son is a troublemaker," the man said. "Please, tell me how to calm him down and cure him of his mischief making."

The brujo sat and thought, for wise men always listen carefully and think long and hard. And they pray. Finally, the brujo spoke. "I know how to help you," he said. "You must return to your shop, and there you will make a huge sombrero, the biggest sombrero you have ever made. Bring it to me, and I will solve your problem."

The man returned home and worked for several days, fashioning a sombrero so large, it could have fit upon the heads of several of the villagers together. When he was done, the sombrero was so big he couldn’t carry it, and so, with the help of his good son and the neighbors, he carried it to his cart and rode it to the brujo's home.

"Now," said the brujo, "I will put my magic inside." He lit his candles and placed rose petals upon his altar, and closed his eyes and prayed. He began to weave. He was weaving magic into the sombrero, but no one was allowed to watch. People say this took him many hours; the sombrero was big, remember, and the magic was strong. But by sunset he had completed his task.

"Take this home now," said the brujo, "and place it in the middle of the floor of your house. Your son and the magic will take matters from there."

The man did as he was told.

In the middle of the night, the father awoke, startled, when he heard a large crash from the living room where the sombrero sat.

He ran to see what had happened, and there he found the sombrero moving, walking around as if powered by its own spirits.

"Help!" the man heard, and he bent down and listened. "Help me, father," came a voice from beneath the sombrero.

JOHNA: [gasp] Oh my gosh!

DANNY: The man tugged at the hat, and sure enough, there was his son, the head in the center of the sombrero, and his legs thrashing about.

"Take this off my head!" the boy cried. "I climbed under to see what I might see, and now I can't take this thing off!"

JOHNA: Mm-hmm!

DANNY: The father tried to lift the hat, but he could not remove it. It was stuck to the boy's head, and no matter how he struggled and pulled, and no matter how the boy pushed and shoved, and no matter how the neighbors pulled and yanked at the sombrero, it remained stuck to the boy's head.

JOHNA: Wow.

DANNY: The hat never did come off.

JOHNA: Oh!

DANNY: The boy had to wear it all the time, and the villagers began to call him "El Sombreron," the Big Hat.

JOHNA: Oh my god.

DANNY: They laughed when they saw him running through the village, only his legs visible, that enormous sombrero atop those little legs.

JOHNA: Oh my god.

DANNY: "El Sombreron" never grew taller that day.

JOHNA: [gasp]

DANNY: The hat was so big and heavy, it pushed him down, and he stayed short, like a little boy, even though he grew longer in years.

They villagers laughed at him only for a while, though. The trouble was, there was magic in that hat, and "El Sombreron" learned it all--

JOHNA: Mmmm.

DANNY: --and so he never did stop making mischief. He could make himself invisible; he could climb up walls and across ceilings--

JOHNA: Mm!

DANNY: --and he could walk through walls, so sometimes, when he was invisible, he would tear through the streets, stealing fruit and tipping carts. And some nights, still invisible, he would sneak into the neighbors' stables and steal their donkeys.

JOHNA: Wow.

DANNY: For a while people prayed "El Sombreron" would vanish altogether, but he never did. And it seems he never vanished at all, for all over Guatemala people still talk about him. It is he, they say, who turns things inside out and upside down, and is the cause of all the little annoyances in life that no one can quite explain. That's the way things are sometimes.

The end.

JOHNA: Oh my God. That's awesome.

DANNY: Isn't that the funniest way to end a fable ever? It be like that sometimes.

BOTH: [laugh]

JOHNA: Wow.

DANNY: Oh god. I’d never heard of this little creature before, though, so I was delighted to find him. But as you might recall, everybody, the—the devotional thought this episode is going to kind of relate to the myth. And I did that for a couple of reasons, but primarily because the ending of this myth is what I would one day like to actually internalize. 

After all of this effort and magic and like making a big hat the nuisances that this Village encountered never really went away, it just got more ridiculous. And the ending of—

BOTH: [laughs]

DANNY: And the ending of this version of this tale ends with, “that’s the way things are sometimes.” And I, I would like us all kind of while we consider the topic of shadow work and while we enter the winter time where sometimes things are hard, to really internalize that concept. Especially in the case of “El Sombreron,” when things are kind of turning all kinds of different ways, and there's all kinds of annoyances, to really remember that truly sometimes that's just the way things are. But it also means that it isn't going to be like that all the time. Things will be different.

It be like that sometimes. Don't sweat it man.

BOTH: [laugh]

JOHNA: So, our question for you this week is…are you doing shadow work? Did you try the exercise? Did you try a different one? Tell us about it.

DANNY: Did you find a technique that works better for you than even the ones we suggested?

JOHNA: Than even those?

DANNY: [laugh] Let us know!

JOHNA: For sure. Thanks so much for joining us this week you guys. Look for new episodes every other Friday.

DANNY: A big thank you to Vexento for the use of our theme song, “We Are One,” and to The Miracle Forest for the background music, “The Magical Tearoom.

JOHNA: Again, you can send your comments and experiences to us on Tumblr and Twitter with #homebrewpagans.

DANNY: We are at homebrewpodcast.tumblr.com and @homebrewpagans on Twitter. We’ll talk to you real soon.

[nookishposts]

What do we say?

Last evening I was privy to a conversation among comfortable friends who agreed that as we have explored the years north of age 50, some things become easier. Like saying “No thanks” to an invitation without a sense of obligation, justification, or apology. I am paraphrasing one of those friends who said:” I only have so much energy and I am careful how I spend it.” She’s nailed it. We can still do most of what we have always done, but now we build in recovery time; not just physically but emotionally and even spiritually. Most of us in the age 55-60 range will admit that we feel we’ve earned the privilege of making choices with more self-interest than we once might have. There is a great strength and a knowing comfort in having acknowledged this age and stage of self-awareness, the newer self-appreciation that allows us to quietly disengage.

Saying no isn’t limited to social engagements either; it also applies to a lack of interest, favours that come with strings attached, and most bullshit in general.It doesn’t mean we become unkind, we still find patience with one another’s fanciful whims and will step up in support whenever we are genuinely needed. We listen to one another’s secret fears and nod knowingly in authentic solidarity without the need to “fix” anything. We laugh outright at one another’s nonsense in a way that only friends can...gentle admonishments served with a heapin’ helpin’ of “ I love you you big turkey!”

Saying “No” comfortably marks a kind of rite of passage. I wonder then if the same is true of saying “Yes” ? Our self-definitions and our needs naturally alter over time: “I am a parent”, “I am a daughter”, “I am a spouse”, “I am (insert any culture, hobby, profession or livelihood here)”: “I am this sum of many parts.” “I am a work in progress.”

We not only say “yes” to saying “No”, we also are saying yes to time for ourselves, both recovery and self-indulgence. We say yes to travelling places we haven’t been before because there was no room for that opportunity  while we were busy raising ourselves and others and all that entails. We say yes without guilt to asking for things for ourselves: “Honey I really need a couple of hours of downtime/a weekend away with the girls/ something to drive other than a Soccer Mom van. I’ll see you when I get back.” We need the people in our lives to acknowledge that we are still growing, still testing our limits, still curious and are finally taking time to play with all of that because we can.

My Beloved and I have undergone a journey over the last 18 months or so of figuring out what things that together or separately we are saying no and yes to. It has been in the hunt for a different kind of life, a quieter and simpler one, that we have discovered so much about what we don’t need anymore as well as those things that could be deal-breakers. We have said a resounding “yes” to purging our closets and our habits, sometimes because they are outworn and sometimes, to make room for new growth. A successful yard sale is one that means nothing you took out gets to come back in the house; if it doesn’t sell it gets donated, etc, which can feel like losing 200 pounds of ballast. We put half our stuff into storage in order to show and sell our home and we were amazed at how much lighter both we and the house itself felt. It was a bit unnerving at first to not have stacks of books on every shelf, momentos everywhere,  and a chair in every corner, but boy, did it bring a lot of light into our spaces, both literal and figurative. We each had the opportunity to go through “stuff” and decide what was truly worth keeping. It opened our attitudes a little wider in terms of where we might like to find ourselves next. We dearly love our families and community but do we really need to stay in the city in order to keep them? We love the work that we do, but do we really need to keep doing it full-time when there are other interests that tempt our attention ?

Leaving a job to devote my full energies to painting and clearing an entire house was both wonderful and not, because it took away part of my self-definition. In conversation people invariably ask: “and what do you do for a living?” Right now, I don’t. And that’s all kinds of weird. I write in my spare time, but I don’t make a living at it so I can’t really call myself a Writer. My massage table is packed away into storage with most of our belongings because we thought we would have a new destination secured by now, so I am not a practitioner either. My Beloved is happy to have me doing all the background stuff while she luckily earns enough to keep us both, benefits and all. But right now we aren’t at “home” in the traditional sense. We define ourselves and our choices often by the company we keep, the employment we have and the place we live. When one or more of those key things become ambiguous, it presents a quandary about exactly what and even when to say yes or no. We have found ourselves fine-tuning the definition of what “home” means exactly.

Over 11 years we’ve talked about living much more simply and harmoniously with the land around us; producing most of what we consume, using the energies of our minds and bodies, hopefully staying healthy and independent within our means for as long as possible. 10 years ago, we were all prepared to reclaim a brown-space and build ourselves a green-run straw-bale cottage. We took courses, helped heave and plaster bales on other people’s builds and constantly modified our designs. As we got older, we looked into adaptive technologies; maybe taking an old building and greening it to be more efficient and sustainable; lower cost, less waste. We compared design/build features, studied geographic land values and took a hard look at our resources weighed against our respective ages and abilities. In the past 18 months we have looked seriously at several different options along the spectrum and missed out on several of them because they were contingent on the sale of our own little city house. But really, they haven’t turned out to be losses so much as lessons. Each place offered a different set of possibilities, and we know that between us, we can make almost anything work as long as the structural bones are good and the soil is clean. We’ve said “Yes”  several different times. But the Universe seems to say “No, not yet”, even though each successive option brought us closer to our ideals.Once our city house finally sold, we quickly said “yes”, and changed it to a “no”; it the first place that came along  and we were impatient to move on. We certainly could have made it work, but there were hidden costs we decided we could not say yes to without sacrificing  part of what we’d learned we truly need. Most recently, we found a property we thought ticked the greatest number of boxes yet on our yes/no list, but one more time, it was not meant to be. Someone else got there first. We’ve come so close, a couple of times, only to find ourselves back again, still searching. There have been moments when it all feels quite personal though we know that it’s not. We know the pieces are bound to come together but the patience is hard.

At ages 58 and 53, we are blessed to have the luxury of saying yes or no. We are technically without a home though we have been made very welcome and comfortable at a friend’s house for as long as we need one. We have politely said “no” to people who’ve suggested we are crazy and should just let go of the dream. We have said “yes” to every creative idea presented to us, no matter how outlandish or daunting they might sound, because we have many loved ones who genuinely want to see us have a crack at making magic, and who very much want to come along for the ride. We’ve never felt like we were doing any of this in isolation. Our cheerleaders are just getting louder. The most resounding “yes” always comes from our own contemporaries who are also giving themselves permission to stretch and learn and say “yes” to their own dreams.

And while we continue our search, there are so many things to always say “yes” to: the company of old friends, the laughter of “I knew you when” and the communal dissecting of ourselves as 50-somethings who know damned well we are a long way from done. To the decent wines, and using the good china, to the shredding of old hurts and the letting go of mouldy baggage sitting too long in the back of the cupboard. We finally have the courage to bring the shadowy bits into the light and watch them dissolve as so much night mist, because that’s how unsubstantial they have become. We give away things we once treasured to someone we know will discover new joy in them. We make space to expand our perspective as we fine-tune our focus. We adjust our sails, knowing that the wind will change again anyway.

There is such beauty and such hope in the luscious and judicious use of the words “yes” and “no”. Say yes to tears of loss and longing, then dry them with another “yes” of new people and experiences. Say “no” to the obligation of events you don’t want to attend and “yes” to the ones you’ve always been curious about. Contradict yourself now and then, it certainly is humbling to get caught in your own clumsiness and have to regain your footing. “Oops” , and “oh well” also come in handy. We all fall. We get up, usually with a little help , and we just get on with it. Yes, yes we do.