#but i coulded remember what fatima was i thought it was where those little girls saw hell in the mountain

[tia-amorosa]

Episode 33: The Stranger/Bella's disappearance

Longer Part

On the way to the lab, Pascal got a call from his half-sister Lola. The baby is here, a little green girl called Fatima. “Oh man, I think we'll soon be able to open an alien kindergarten here if this keeps up,” he joked on the phone. But the others couldn't laugh about it. The nervousness simply outweighed everything at the moment.

Chloe waited for the others in the lab. She took another deep look inside herself and went through everything she had thought about over the last two days, including the new data she had entered into the Reminder. „There must be something somewhere in her head. I'll leave everything else alone, for Dad's sake.“.

Only a few minutes later, the others arrived at the lab. It was the first time Bella had entered this area. And even though she was dead, she felt as if her heart was beating, strong and loud, “Welcome. You don't have to be afraid, Bella, today is all about you and we have time“/”that… That's really nice, thank you”. She looked around the room. She also took a look at the device, “I know it looks a bit strange… But I'll tell you exactly what I'm doing,” Chloe said calmly.

Bella went to the machine and looked at it closely. Somehow it seemed to her like a device from Dr. Frankenstein. “And with this… Can you bring back my memories?“/”I'll try , everything is set to her mind and her physical characteristics. “/ “Will I be in pain?” / “No, it's actually quite a gentle procedure”.

“Have you ever done anything like this before… Chloe?“/,,No, at least not in this range.”/,,that means I have to trust you blindly. What… What are you going to do? How does it work?”. Chloe took a breath. “I'm going to mentally link her to the Reminder. It might take a little while, because it has to connect to all your synapses and brain regions first. You have to imagine it as a huge network in your head.”.

“a network…“/”Yes. I am trying to get to the point where your memories lie, at least those that are hidden from you. When I get there, impulses will be sent to ensure that your memories are released. And if the whole thing is successful, the machine may even be able to show us your memories"/ ”You can then… see my memories?”…

Pascal was also surprised by this information and curious. “Wait, like a photograph or a video sequence?"/ ‘Yes, exactly, Pascal’/ ‘Wow, that's amazing’/ ‘hn-hn, that's right’/ ”It's definitely not something that can be done in 5 minutes. As I said, the brain consists of many areas that first have to be overcome. Various centers have to be bypassed in order to find the area for the memories“/”I understand that”.

Pollnation has now also arrived at the lab. “I… I just want to be able to remember everything again. My… Daughter told me so much, it's all gone"/ ”I've contacted Oasis Landing. They have an archive of Lunar Lakes, I've requested that they search everything that has to do with Bella“/”really? Wow, great, Polli, I hope they find something“/”I fell asleep…. Because of the anomaly”.

“the time anomaly. It's what happens when you travel too quickly into the past and then back into the future. And it must have been really fast for you."/ ‘What happens in a time anomaly?’ Cassandra wanted to know. “The body decays, very slowly, internally, everything breaks down,“/”that can't be cured?“/”unfortunately not“/”oh God, mom, that must have been terrible“/”yes… That was it”.

Bella turned her attention back to Chloe, “Can… Can anything go wrong?“/”Well, it's never impossible for something to go wrong. Like I said, I need to get to the point of her memories and untie the knot."/,,hh, well… I want to remember my old life again and I… Give you my trust“/”,all right. So, ready? “/"Yes.”

Bella walked over to the machine and slowly sat down on the chair. The material she was sitting on was smart technology that made it so she could relax, everything conformed to her body. “Manual protocol?” Polli asked in amazement. “Yes, so I can record exactly what's happening” / ‘You know that the machine can do that too?’.

“Yes, I know that, father. But I've spent the last five years worrying more about the functions than about little extras like that.” Her undertone was a little ironic again. She wanted to concentrate on her work. “Don't be afraid, Bella. You won't feel anything other than a few small pressure waves coming at intervals. Please tell me if anything feels strange or if you can recognize anything“/”mhm”. then Chloe switched on the Reminder.

Now it was time to wait. All you could hear was the quiet humming of the device, interspersed with a soft beeping, but it wasn't unpleasant. Cassandra watched her mother. Her eyes were straight ahead, but relaxed.. Many, many minutes passed like this. “mhm I'm close to that area now…. I'll start with the impulses, alright?” / ‘y-yes’.

Polli also watched the action in silence. And he hopes that something can be found in the Oasis Landing archives. (,,I spent the whole night trying to establish a connection. Until it finally worked. The High Council personally gave me their word to send me the information as soon as something is found. Something must have happened")

More seconds passed. Minutes… Minutes that seemed like an eternity to everyone. Chloe found it strange, however, that nothing had happened so far. In the simulations and with test subjects, it was always quite quick to bring back their memories. She used the impulses a little more strongly.

By now it was already 5:53 pm. “hm, I don't understand it…“/”What is it, Chloe?” Pascale asked, a little worried. “Something should have happened by now… Bella, can you tell me if you see anything?"/ It took her a few seconds to answer. “It's… everything is black, I can't see anything…everything is gone”. Chloe got a little anxious inside, but she didn't show it. I'll look at the connections again”.

“Strange… Like it's doing its own thing“/”what do you mean, Chloe? Hey, what's going wrong?“/”There's nothing wrong, but the device seems to be bypassing some memories and… Wants to get to a certain point,” Chloe said excitedly. Then you could hear Bella breathing faster, almost a little panicked. “h-h-hh, stars…so many stars and…oh my god, he…. he's there"/ ‘HE?’….

Cassandra jumped up, “Can you remember anything, Mom?”. Pascal looked at the screen, which began to flicker. “Is that a memory? Chloe, is that…"/ ‘now please stay calm,…I'm trying to visualize her memory…’. She tapped a few keys on the monitor…,,The image is quite dark, it's probably the middle of the night"/ ‘e-it was suddenly so cold…’, Bella said in a quiet, trembling voice. “Something's coming… Dad?” Chloe managed to clear the flickering on the screen and get a clear picture. “Can you get it closer?“/”yes…”.

Bella's memory

Then suddenly Bella's voice was crystal clear. And her mind was wide awake for a moment so that she could utter full sentences. “I forgot the time… And was completely absorbed in the stars. Suddenly, all I heard was a soft humming sound, and when I looked around, someone was suddenly standing on the roof… He was completely black and had… rainbow-colored dots on his skin… I wanted to scream, but I couldn't move, I was paralyzed…”.

Pascal: looked at the screen and was fascinated. “Rainbow-colored dots?”. Then Polli came a little closer and froze. “That can't be”. Cassandra looked at him questioningly. “Why, what is it? Do you know anything?"/ ‘Did he have white eyes?’/ ”Yes… That's the only thing I remember… “ said Bella, in heavily breathing . Polli drew in a sharp breath. “Gioric. But this race has been extinct for centuries… It looks like you were one of their victims”.

“Who are, excuse me, were these… Gioric?”. Polli straightened up again, his gaze still fixed on the screen. “An ancient race, warriors. They destroyed many other planets and were the first to travel through time. But they could also be different, especially when it came to protecting their companions, their females… and they chose them themselves. No matter from which solar system…”. Chloe gestured with her finger on the screen “look at this”. They could see the stranger ascending into the night sky with Bella. “Now I also know what was meant by the green ball of light that only a few eyewitnesses saw that night”.

The last memories triggered strong emotions in Bella, “release me, please release me again…”/ “There are more memories coming in, my God…”. Images kept flickering on the screen, showing her on the alien planet, what was happening there every day, all from inside her head. “I don't want… I don't want to see it anymore, please, turn it off“/”just a few more seconds,…3-2-1… O.K.”. Chloe shut the reminder down again completely. Then there was complete silence in the room. All you could hear was Bella's heavy breathing and sobs.

@greenplumbboblover , @solorisims , @honeywinesims ⭐

[the-evisceration-station]

What do you think book!addy’s feelings are towards beth? Even tho addy is the protagonist I still find her very hard to read. Which makes her interesting I guess Bc she’s very mysterious. I love and hate that a lot of the story is subtext haha

That’s a very interesting question and I’m sure everybody probably has a different answer for it, as Addy is such an ambiguous character and intentionally so, because she lies to readers as well as herself. Particularly book!Addy, who I do not believe is quite identical to TV!Addy, even if I do think the most important beats of her character remain the same. I’m going to answer this under the cut both because of potential spoilers and because this is probably going to get long.

In this essay, I will…

Well, I think much of the way Addy describes Beth is some of the way Addy genuinely sees her, rather than an entire farce. Beth being something almost goddess like, someone who knows all and always has some kind of agenda. I don’t think Addy’s actually lying to us when she describes viewing Beth in those ways, I think there is a major part of her that does see Beth as some kind of nearly divine entity.

I think she feels this way partially because Beth is something of a spooky kid, she’s violently protective of Addy to the point where “protective” crosses over into “possessive” territory. I also think Beth projects a powerful persona on purpose. Beth very carefully guards her vulnerabilities and she is, after all, Top Girl, the thing that Addy secretly wants to be. And that’s where I think Addy kind of confuses Beth with what Beth has, and what she thinks it means to have that. She thinks Beth is more powerful than she actually is, because Beth has the thing Addy wants and she believes she’d be more powerful herself, if she had it.

However, do I think Addy sometimes exaggerates about how powerful she sees Beth as?

Absolutely. Because Addy also reveals she knows Beth has vulnerabilities. She knows that laughing is Beth’s way of crying. She is fully aware of how detrimental and unhappy Beth’s home life is, another vulnerability. When she wants Beth to give her one more day before going to the cops, and asks her for it, she pleads, “for me,” because Addy knows that she, herself, is one of Beth’s weaknesses. So if Addy knows where the chinks in the armor are, chances are she doesn’t always see Beth as infallible as she acts like she does.

The fact that Addy knows she can get Beth to do what she wants with a “for me,” also implies that she’s aware that she’s the one who actually has more control in the relationship, which diminishes how godlike she constantly describes Beth as.

Look, I have seen some takes that describe the Addy/Beth relationship as “Addy has All The Power behind the scenes and Beth is just her pawn,” as well as “Beth has All The Power outright until Addy stands up for herself” and personally I don’t agree with either. I understand why people would come away with such interpretations, but I personally don’t think it’s either. I think Beth and Addy both have power in that relationship, and that there is push and pull between them. I actually feel that to insist one has all and one has none is to cheapen the complexity between them, the depths of the layers of this twisted relationship they’ve woven together like a tapestry.

However, I DO believe Addy has the lion’s share of the power. Not that Beth has none. I certainly think she has some, and she’s too aware of what Addy is like under the surface to ever be described as her pawn. But that I do feel that Addy has MOST of the power. Because Beth has more exploitable vulnerabilities in places Addy doesn’t. Because Beth will do anything for Addy, and Addy knows it, and Addy knows she can use it when she has to. Because when Beth goes too far, Addy can assert her quiet control and reel her back in line. Some of the other girls notice this much. They point it out more frequently in the show, but it’s book!Tacy who point-blank tells Addy that she’s more afraid of Addy than she is of Beth.

Hence, given that Addy has the lion’s share of the power, I think she has a tenancy to exaggerate how all-powerful she sees Beth as, because if she has to, she can control Beth’s power by proxy. Beth’s power isn’t an inevitability for her. Quite often, it’s even her asset.

What I do think almost feels like an inevitability for her, is her and Beth’s relationship. I actually think Addy has more internal conflict about this than she lets on. She is an unreliable narrator. She doesn’t tell us everything. What she does tell us, is what she wants us to know, and it’s dyed by how she wants us to see it. But I think it’s very interesting that after the fight at cheer camp, and the other girls think they’ll never be friends again, Addy’s just…of the mindset that well, of course they would. Because coming back together, being together is just what they are. Like it’s some force of nature, not a conscious choice. Like it is what it is, the same way gravity exists because it exists and when something is dropped, you can count on it to fall to the ground. Because gravity exists and things do not simply float away, it is not good, it is not bad, it is not fair nor unfair, it just fucking is. And Addy dismisses the other girls’ thoughts, because she thinks they could never understand. Well, I don’t think Addy really understands it either!

I think at this point in the book, Addy truly felt like what she and Beth had was an inevitability of a sort. I don’t think she wanted it to be. I think she genuinely wanted to move away from Beth already, but on this point, I don’t think she was lying to us. Relationships are complicated, codependent relationships specifically can feel very contradictory and confusing. And I think she failed to elaborate more on it, specifically because such feelings were confusing and contradictory, and she didn’t want to think about it any more than she had to. She didn’t want to look at it. There are many things Addy doesn’t like to look at.

Major YMMV on this one because it’s left incredibly ambiguous, but I personally do believe there was a point in time when Addy was in love with Beth. Addy is the one who kissed Beth. Addy is the one who initiated their borderline (or even, some people think it went that far, I personally don’t) sexual encounter.

“I started it, but I don’t even remember why or how,” is her input on her motivation. But when is Addy ever honest about her motives? Almost never, not even to herself.

Also, the hamsa bracelet. The story behind the little charm is that it’s the Hand of Fatima. Fatima was stirring a pot when her husband came home with a new wife, let the ladel slip from her fingers, stirred with her own hand, and didn’t even notice the pain because of how brokenhearted she was. Or, at least, that’s the version of the story presented in the book. The one I know of IRL is different, but for the purpose of discussing Dare Me book canon, I am using the symbolism of the version of the Hand of Fatima lore presented to us in the book.

Beth is Fatima in this story. Addy is the husband. The new wife is Colette. Fatima was the first wife. The husband married his first wife, chances are, he loved her at some point.

I think three things play into Addy no longer being in love with Beth.

1) Beth’s possessive behavior began to feel suffocating and drive Addy away.

2) Addy prioritizes ambition over love and accomplishing her goals wins out over any romance, at the end of the day.

3) Addy represses her sexuality and probably even holds some (unfair) resentment toward Beth for feeling attracted to Beth.

My gray faced friendo, I am going to repeat that: this is all just my take. I think in a subtext loaded book like Dare Me, people are bound to come away with over a hundred different interpretations. I am not the authority on Dare Me. That’s Megan Abbott. I’m not here to crap on anyone else’s interpretation if they feel different.

All of this is what I personally took away from the book and since you asked, that’s what I’m describing. I’ve been giving my own personal take throughout the entirety of this answer, of course, but what I’m going to describe going forward is a lot of me reading in between the lines with my magnifying glass, and may seem less coherent than the above. Okay, here we go.

Point #1: I feel like Beth’s possessive behavior began to drive Addy away, because it’s a lot to deal with. Beth gets dog leashes for all the girls on the squad at one point, but goes as far as to have Addy’s name embroidered on hers. Addy goes to another girl’s birthday party and when she gets home, low and behold, Beth is waiting at her house. RiRi outright refers to Addy as “Beth’s girl,” as if Addy belongs to Beth.

I think Addy even begins to feel like she does belong to Beth, in some ways, and becomes comfortable feeling that way. But eventually, she doesn’t want to feel that way anymore. Their relationship is extremely codependent, okay. I think in both the book and the show, it’s more obvious from Beth’s side, because we’ve reached the point in that relationship where Addy is beginning to pull away. Beth reflexively seems to cling on even tighter, because she feels it happening. But it’s absolutely codependent from Addy’s side too.

Throughout the book, there are many moments (I’m not going to comb for all of them, sorry dude, it’s almost 300 pages) where Addy behaves like she and Beth are an entity unto their own. Even as she’s moving away from her as she develops her bond with Colette, there are instances where Addy will describe sensing things inside Beth. There is even a moment where Addy thinks Beth is touching her ear (the ear Addy scarred, mind you) only to discover, no, she’s touching her own ear!

Plus, Addy feels like she needs others to verbalize her thoughts/feelings for her and for a long time, this person is Beth. Implying that not only does Addy rely on Beth to do such a thing for her, but she believes that Beth can know her thoughts accurately enough to do so.

Point #2: I think ambition outranks love for Addy, because her goals are her endgame. Addy is patient, Addy is deceptive. Addy likes the way power feels and I think it’s one of the reasons she gets so high on her relationship with Colette (even if it is an inappropriate and eventually damaging one). Colette makes Addy feel powerful, probably more powerful than she actually is. I’m going to repeat myself a bit here and even copy/paste some of my thoughts about this from a reply I left to a comment on Ao3 (that poor person, I went into a full on Addy rant) because I feel like what I said previously is relevant here.

*deep breath* When we begin the book/series, I personally believe like on some level, Addy does still have feelings for Beth. However, I do NOT think those feelings are as strong as they once were, and I don’t think they are feelings Addy wants to have. I think the remaining feelings Addy does have for Beth are mostly there because they’ve been in a codependent relationship for so long, one that consumes her identity, and in a relationship like that, even if you don’t want those feelings anymore, they’re difficult to move away from. Because at some point, you don’t really know who you are not just without that person, but without those feelings, even if you want to, even if wanting to is part of the reason you want to get rid of those feelings. Codependency is a strange animal, my friend.

Although Addy’s relationship with Colette was never mutually romantic nor canonically sexual, I do believe there was a part of Addy that was ‘killing’ her remaining feelings for Beth through that relationship. “Love is a kind of killing,” is one of the oft repeated lines of the book, and I’d even say it’s one of the themes. It is Beth who says it, and we see that she feels it too, her love for Addy is killing her. She nearly kills herself out of it (though I’d say other things impacted Beth enough to put her in such a state that suicide felt worth it, even if her feelings for Addy were the primary motive, again YMMV).

The Matt/Colette/Will dynamic is another example of love becoming a kind of killing. Matt kills Will for Colette. If we believe what she tells Addy, then he acted on his own in doing so and it was an accident. If we don’t believe her, she might’ve even been the little worm in Matt’s ear who told him to do it. Either way, he killed for love. None of the audience really cares for their hetero nonsense, because Matt is sexist and both Colette and Will are predatory people, but nonetheless, their debacle largely impacts the story. And it supports the idea that “love is a kind of killing.”

I believe love as a kind of killing is something Addy weaponizes for her own development. To her own detriment as well, because it ends up taking her to dangerous places.  Even so, I think Addy had/has some lingering feelings for Beth she uses forming a bond with Colette to metaphorically ‘kill’ inside herself. Like finishing off an already mortally wounded animal, if you will. This would also support “love is a kind of killing” as a recurring theme.

Addy’s relationship with Colette gave her a crutch and a new outlet, and Colette’s encouragement (while the audience knows its manipulation) also gave Addy affirmation for the way she was already feeling about Beth— that she wanted to distance herself from her and come into her own. In addition, Colette seemed to be ‘safer’ because Addy doesn’t have to compete with Colette.

The presence of specifically female socialization is very palatable in the book. The way the girls slut-shame each other. The way other people see them, the feminine appeal of cheerleading. Others take the glitz and the glam of it at face value without understanding the more masculinely-coded things that go into it, like dedication and athleticism. Colette is a villain, no doubt, but you have to give the devil her due, and her circumstances are as miserable and empty as they are because she finds herself boxed into traditional feminine roles she isn’t suited for. Although the show is not the book, and I will maintain that I don’t feel they are identical entities, I do think Willa had a lot of interesting input on this in her Build interview, alongside Taveeta and Abbott. Check it out if you have the time—

Wait, where was I?

Right, right, female socialization in Dare Me. Okay, continuing on.

I feel that female socialization also plays an important role in the relationships between the characters, namely the Beth/Addy/Colette dynamic. We live in a culture where women are socialized to tear each other down and compete with each other even outside of the athletic arena. Combine that with the athletic, cutthroat world of cheerleading and you’ve got yourself a powder keg of an environment where those competitive feelings are going to come out full force. Addy, wanting what she wants, is inevitably going to have to view Beth as a rival, romantic feelings or otherwise aside.  

Colette feels like a ‘safer’ object of attraction because her cheerleading days are over.

Colette does not pose a threat to Addy’s thirst for power, she can only help her achieve it. I definitely think the lack of Colette posing a threat to Addy’s goals plays into how comfortable she feels with her. I also think, to a teenager with dreams of grandeur already feeling suffocated in a relationship with her peer, this is where the age gap appeals to Addy even as it disturbs us readers.

Again, Addy doesn’t have to compete with Colette, because Colette has aged out of ‘cheerleader’ and into ‘coach.’ Colette is a seemingly self-sufficient adult (initially) who doesn’t spin out the way Beth does, and depend on Addy as heavily as Beth does. Colette represents the agency Addy covets, and feels nearer to when with her.

I mean, we all know things change once a dead body is brought into that dynamic and we all know that Colette is emotionally manipulating Addy for her own purposes. But I’m not talking about Colette’s perspective, I’m talking about Addy’s before all the crime scene hullabaloo. What happens after the night with Will changes things, but up until that point, I think this is much of what Addy got out of her bond with Colette, no matter how inappropriate a bond it was. No matter how much it shouldn’t have been happening.

I will say, I don’t believe Addy ever fully realizes the extent to which Colette was manipulating her, although it’s clear as the book goes on, she realizes some of it. She picks up on things that don’t add up, acknowledges some red flags she initially ignored, and refers to her as a liar at one point.

Wait JJ, why are you talking about Addy and Colette? The question was about Addy and Beth!

Yes, but I think you cannot always separate the two. Because I think many of the developments that occur in the book between Addy and Beth, and the way in which they occur, play out as they do because of Colette’s entry into the story. Abbott said herself that Dare Me is a love triangle. A triangle is connected by all three sides, okay, continuing on…

I think there are things Addy deliberately sought out in her relationship with Colette— I will repeat this because again, I personally view this as part of the theme and part of the answer to your question— including ‘killing’ what remained of her feelings for Beth. I think it’s also very clear that she thinks Colette is the key to getting what she wants and accomplishing her own goals.

But I would go the extra mile and say she projects some of her feelings for Beth onto Colette. I’ve brought this up before, but I will elaborate more about that now.

I think Addy is earnestly attracted to Colette, just as Colette. Yes, even book!Addy. It’s more subtle in the book, but contrast the way she describes Jordy to the way she describes Colette. Her fascination with the way Colette looks when Will is fucking her. It speaks of attraction and that’s perfectly fine. It’s normal when teens have crushes on adults, what isn’t normal is when adults indulge those crushes. When adults pick up on the cues Colette does, and choose to fan the flames instead of snuffing them out. That’s the part that’s fucking scary.

But I also think she projects her feelings for Beth onto Colette and I think that helps explain why Addy latched onto Colette so quickly. When Addy messes around with Jordy, she does it because Colette points him out. And when she tells Colette about it later and Colette doesn’t even seem to remember him, Addy is taken aback, almost offended… and yet, just a couple of pages later, she’s disparaging the girls who do similar things for Beth.

“…hitching jeans low and flashing thongs at security guards. Beth likes to make these girls run.”

Colette and Beth also share some notable similarities. Both can be cold, cutthroat, have calculating thought processes. Colette even looks like Beth in the book. Addy also sort of tries to recreate a ‘better’ version of the bond she had with Beth, with Colette and this is where I stop and I’m like, man, what a weird freakin’ kid. Addy, smh. But you see it, right?

Addy flips for her coach like she flips for her captain. Ties the same bracelet Beth once tied on her wrist onto Colette’s wrist. Does the thing with Jordy very comparable to the things other girls do when they’re trying to impress Beth. Uses Colette specifically when she wants to become her own person, but can’t quite do so yet, because she’s so used to her lifelong codependence with Beth.

And you know how earlier I mentioned that Addy can control Beth when she has to? How the control Addy has over Beth is a quiet, deceptive thing?

Well I think that’s something that Addy projects onto Colette too. Addy is so used to being able to assert that quiet control and maintain the relational power (which is not the same kind of power Addy is seeking endgame) with Beth, that when she begins using Colette as Beth’s substitute, she doesn’t realize she doesn’t have it anymore. I think that’s one of the things that gets her into hot water later, because she absently assumes she’s going to be ‘safe’ with Colette the way she is with Beth, have that ability that she does with Beth to reel things back before they go too far…but she doesn’t.

Addy uses Colette as Beth substitute. But Colette is not Beth. Beth is spooky. Addy is scary. Colette is terrifying. Addy can’t take control of Colette the way she can of Beth. Colette is an adept master manipulator, an adult who has years of experience that Addy lacks. Colette is better at her game than Addy is at hers, and Addy gets in deep shit partly because she doesn’t recognize that.

I would actually compare the Colette/Addy situation a bit to the Kurtz/Beth situation in the show. There are things Beth wants out of Kurtz, she talks to him because she plans to use him, and it inevitably has devastating consequences for her. Kurtz is a predator. And he’s better at his game than Beth is at hers.

The situations are not identical. The consequences are not the same. But both are exemplary of teens being naive fools and thinking they have some control in situations they definitely do not, with people they couldn’t hope to.

Addy gets what she thinks she wants in the end. I’ve addressed why I think this isn’t as cracked up to be as she thinks it is in another post, but that’s not really relevant here. Addy chooses to pursue having her own power above all, and it’s Beth who winds up giving it to her, not Colette. But I think Addy needed to eliminate her feelings for Beth to actually get there, or even if she didn’t actually, it’s what she felt she had to do and most of those feelings were deteriorating already because of Beth’s possessive behavior.

Point #3: I personally believe Addy represses her sexuality. And I do think that plays into how she views Beth, both when she had feelings for her, and when those feelings began to die. I feel Addy harbors some subconscious resentment toward Beth along the lines of a “I don’t want to be like this, but you make me feel this way, and I hold it against you” type deal. However, again, I think that’s a subconscious feeling rather than something Addy is cognitively aware of, and actually, I don’t think it’s separate from how she’s fed up of Beth suffocating her. I believe it only feeds into that feeling and makes it stronger, enhancing her frustration.

Addy is often very cruel when she describes Beth. I think there’s a bit more to it than the inevitability of viewing Beth as a rival outside her control and somewhat within it, the possessive behavior Beth suffocates her with.

I think forgetting that she and Beth had a borderline sexual encounter was repression on her part. I also think this line;

“…and who need to talk of such wonders? We nestle them away, deep in the fury at the center of us, where things can be held tightly, protected, and secretly cherished as a special notion we once held, and then had to stow away,”

wasn’t just about Beth. I think it was about Beth and just like, pursuing girls in general. At least openly. I’d go out on a limb and say another one of the things that drew Addy to Colette was because Colette was a ‘safer’ objection of attraction in the sense that the likelihood of something happening between them was very low. Fantasize safely from the closet, kinda deal. But maybe Addy’s less aware of her sexuality, or at least confronting it than I’m giving her credit for. I mean, she looked up RiRi’s skirt and was all like, “why are other girl’s panties more interesting than your own?”

Addy. Addy, baby. Why do you think.

Oh, and I think Addy kissed RiRi without telling us! At the marines’ party, Addy and RiRi are hanging and then this scene happens.

“She’s fumbling with her phone, trying to send a text. Because it’s all okay because these are Will’s men and nothing bad could ever happen, one of them is pressing our heads together, wanting us to kiss.

“Always ready,” he says. “Always there.””

Then RiRi hugs Addy and starts in about how she couldn’t be close to Addy before, because of Beth. But that’s the thing. It just has that creepy ass adult man trying to make these teen girls kiss, then goes into some dialogue, Addy never actually explains what happens in that moment. If the guy made them kiss or if he let go of them. If either of them protested or just went along with it.

I personally believe they did kiss and I believe Addy doesn’t mention it for two reasons.

1) She’s trying to convince herself and us readers that Will is safe to be around, ergo his men must be too. But some grown ass dude physically trying to force teen girls to kiss each other is obviously a fucking creeper. Will is also a fucking creeper.

2) She enjoyed kissing RiRi and doesn’t care to elaborate on what enjoying that was like, because doing so would mean confronting her sexuality. Her sexuality being one of the many things Addy doesn’t really confront.

Wow, that was a long ass essay. In this essay, I done did. So that is my interpretation of Addy’s feelings for Beth. Feel free to take ‘em or leave ‘em, maybe we don’t feel the same way and that’s totally cool. But you asked, so I answered. That is what I feel is going on with all that mess there.

This essay probably has a shit ton of typos and for that I apologize, but I can’t comb through all this now. This long as hell and I’m hungry, I need to go eat. 

[mxliv-oftheendless]

Writer’s Month Prompts Day 4

Day 4: Magic

So I, uh... MAY have had a little too much fun writing this one XD hope you guys enjoy! Thanks @tanookiroxx for this awesome request!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Husani, Ahmed, Sami, Omar, and Makalani were five teenage boys who weren’t known for polite and respectful natures. Rather, they were known for obnoxious, loud behavior, blatant, almost childish disrespect for authority, and their tendency to harass people, especially girls. They belonged in a place like Anarkia rather than Sphynxia, many were known to say.

All of that changed, however, one fateful night. The five boys were seen running screaming out of an abandoned building, frightened out of their minds. And afterwards, they never again were seen harassing another girl again. What exactly happened to them, no one ever found out; whenever the boys were questioned, they would blanch with fright, their eyes would dart around, and they would refuse to say anything.

And although people dropped it eventually, some still wondered: what exactly happened to the five troublemaking boys that fateful night?

                             EARLIER THAT NIGHT

“No, if I were to do it with anyone, it would be Miriam,”

“Ah, you’re right. Miriam is beautiful.”

“Those curves…”

“I bet she likes it rough,”

“No—you like it rough, Sami. You just won’t admit it.”

“Shut up, Ahmed.”

“Help! Somebody please help me!”

The group of five boys turned around and saw a girl about their age frantically running towards them. She had a dark pink headscarf over her head, dark skin, and dark eyes there were at the moment full of terror. She dashed towards them and grabbed Husani’s arm pleadingly. “Please, you have to help me!”

Never one to pass up a chance at a pretty girl, Husani gave her his signature lopsided grin. “What’s the matter, little lady?”

“M-My brother, we—we were looking around this old abandoned building and it was dark so we couldn’t see anything, and—and something came out of the shadows and attacked him! You have to help me! Please,” she looked at him with wide eyes. “You all seem like you wouldn’t be scared, but I am… I don’t want to go back there alone…”

Husani glanced back at his friends, then grinned at her. “Sure. We’ll help you. Where’s this abandoned building?”

The girl looked like she could have cried from relief. “Oh, thank you, thank you! It’s this way, just follow me.”

As they followed the girl down the street, Omar nudged Husani. “Why are we helping this girl?” he whispered.

“Yeah, I thought we were going to go to a hookah lounge,” Ahmed agreed.

“We are. But we can help her first. I bet her brother was just pranking her and she thinks it’s real.” Husani spared a glance at the girl to make sure she wasn’t listening. “Besides, you saw her. If we help her, we’ll have a better chance of getting a piece.”

Understanding dawned on his friends’ faces. “Ohhhhh, I see,”

“Good plan,”

“Yeah, great plan, Husani,”

“Shut up, Ahmed, I know it’s a great plan,”

The sun was just above the horizon as the group approached an abandoned, dilapidated building. “This is it,” said the girl. She twisted the end of her scarf in her hands. “Oh, I hope he’s okay. Baba’s going to be so worried if I don’t come home with him.”

Makalani eyed the building warily. “Why were you in there?”

“My brother wanted to see what was inside. We’ve never been in this part of Xois before.”

Sami and Ahmed looked unpersuaded. “Guys, maybe we shouldn’t go in there…” Sami began. “I’ve got a bad feeling…”

The girl’s face fell. “You mean you won’t help me?” Her bottom lip quivered. “B-But he could be in trouble!”

“Of course we’ll help you, baby,” Husani said to her. “Don’t be stupid,” he turned to glare at Sami and Ahmed. “Just lead the way inside. We’re right behind you.”

The despair was thankfully replaced by relief. “Good. Follow me.” The girl turned and ran inside the building.

“Hey, not so fast!” Omar called as they ran to catch up with her. “Wait for us!”

They ran inside, and were forced to stop soon after. The building was almost pitch-black, and the girl was nowhere in sight. “Where did she go?” Makalani asked aloud.

From where she had hidden herself in the deep shadows, Ayesha smirked and spoke. “I’m right here,”

She waved her hand, and the door slammed shut, plunging the large room into complete darkness.

“What the fuck?!” Omar shouted.

Sami suddenly jumped. “Something touched me!”

“C-C’mon, baby, this isn’t funny,” Husani called out, trying to keep the waver out of his voice. “J-Just come on out so we can find your brother and get out of here.”

“Find me?” The boys jumped at the sudden male voice. “But you don’t even know what I look like.”

“It’s true,” came the girl’s voice from out of the darkness, sounding nothing like the frightened girl that had come running up to them. “Why don’t we let them get a good look at you?”

There was a sudden flash of red light, and the boys jumped back in fear when they saw a face emerge; it was that of a young man, older than them, with shaggy black hair, horns, olive skin, dark eyes, and an evil grin. Then they were plunged into darkness again.

“What was that?” Ahmed asked fearfully.

“Shut up, Ahmed!” Sami hissed.

“Why, my brother, of course,” the girl’s voice echoed. “Didn’t you see the family resemblance?”

“D-Don’t freak out, guys,” Husani insisted. “If we can’t see them, they can’t see us,”

The man’s voice laughed. “There’s where you’re wrong,”

A flash of blue light, and the man’s face appeared again; this time he looked at them with the whites of his eyes, and his mouth was open and a freakishly long tongue was protruding, along with sharp fangs that were dripping blood. Then blackness.

“Alright, listen,” Husani shouted. “If you think we’re scared, you’re wrong. Because we’re not!”

“I am,” Ahmed whimpered.

“Shut up, Ahmed!” the other four boys snapped in unison.

“Oh, don’t say that,” the girl’s voice said aloud. It sounded almost mocking. “He’s right to be scared. And soon, all of you will be just as scared as he is.”

“O-Oh yeah?” Makalani challenged. “Aren’t you scared someone’ll hear us screaming for help?”

“Mmm… not really,” the girl’s voice replied, bouncing off the walls and crashing into their ears. “Not when they can’t even hear you.”

“Yeah, they can!” To prove his point, Ahmed began to shout. “HELP! HELP!”

“Oh, shut up,” came the man’s voice.

Another flash of light, this time green, and the young man appeared again, raising clawed hands dripping blood in the air with a bloodthirsty look on his face. He looked to be lunging toward them, making the boys jump back.

“Like she said,” the man’s voice said once everything had gone black again. “No one outside this building can hear you.”

“Not when I—” a flash of gold light, and this time the girl flashed in front of them, exposing to them a horrifying face streaked with blood open in a silent scream, “—put a soundproofing spell around the building.” Another flash of pink light, revealing her smiling wickedly. “So no one can hear you scream.”

The girl’s voice began to laugh, and the young man’s chuckle joined it. The laughter grew louder, until the boys were surrounded on all sides by loud, evil laughter.

“W-What do you want from us?” Husani asked aloud, not even bothering to hide the fright in his voice.

The voices fell silent. “What do we want?” the girl’s voice repeated.

“We’ll do whatever you want, please!” Omar begged. “Just please don’t hurt us!”

“Awww, we got one of them begging,” the man’s voice laughed. “Adorable,”

“You’re scared, aren’t you?” the girl’s voice sounded cruelly amused. When there was no response, there was a flash of green light, flashing before their eyes the girl’s face, twisted in a dark scowl. “Aren’t you?”

“Okay, we’re scared!” Husani shrieked. “There, we said it!”

A hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder, making him scream, and whirled him around. There was nothing in front of him except eyes that seemed to be burning flames. “I bet you felt soooo powerful preying on those girls,” the girl’s voice hissed. “Didn’t you?”

“Th-That’s what this is about??! We were just having a little fun—!”

“Shut up!” Husani fell silent. The voice continued, letting go of his shoulder and slinking into the shadows. “Do you remember Fatima?”

“F-F-Fatima?”

“Th-That girl who was in th-the Order or something?” Omar whimpered out.

“Oh good, one of you isn’t as dense as we thought you’d be,” the male voice said scornfully.

“Anyone else, I could possibly forgive,” the girl’s voice said, and the boys began to tremble in fear when they heard the anger. “But Fatima… She is far too important for me to ever consider forgiving you. And for your transgressions, you are going to pay.”

“W-What are you gonna do to us?” Husani asked fearfully.

A flash of purple light, and the girl’s smirking face appeared, and it was in the purple light that they noticed the large book in her hands. “You’ll see, baby.”

“Are you gonna kill us?” Sami whimpered.

“Are you gonna sacrifice us?” Ahmed asked.

“Of course we’re not going to kill you,” the girl’s voice scoffed. “Or sacrifice you. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“But you are going to be punished,” the man’s voice continued. “And it’s not going to be pretty…” he began to laugh.

Alongside the laughter, the girl’s voice suddenly began to chant in an ancient language, and although the boys couldn’t understand the words it made the already-standing hairs on their necks and arms stand even taller. Orange flames suddenly burst out, and within the flames they saw the silhouette of the girl, and her mouth moving as she read from the book.

Her voice reached a crescendo, and the flames expanded around her, lighting up the room. The boys saw the man’s gleeful face come from out of the shadows. Then the flames suddenly dispersed, plunging the room into darkness once again.

Silence. And then the door slowly creaked open. “Run, little boys,” the girl’s voice sang. “Run, run away.”

The group of five boys screamed aloud and took off, fleeing out the door into the night as fast as their legs could carry them, followed the entire time by the sound of laughter.

As soon as they were gone, there was the sound of snapping fingers, and the room suddenly brightened, with the help of lanterns set up in the corners.

“You know,” Nikolai laughed as Ayesha tossed him a rag to clean off his face, “when you came to me and asked if I would help you with this little scheme, I gotta be honest; I didn’t think it would work.”

“I told you, I’ve been planning this for weeks.”

Nikolai grinned at Ayesha. “I know; I’m pleased it did work.”

“Did you see their faces?” Ayesha giggled as she wiped the fake blood off her own face. “They looked like the Gods themselves were punishing them.”

“Or Father,”

“True, or Baba.” Ayesha went to set down the spell book. “Come on, let’s leave before Aiutu and Baba start wondering why we haven’t come home yet.”

As they cleaned up the building, sweeping up the residue from the multicolored explosives they had periodically thrown on the ground, Nikolai spoke again. “By the way, what was the spell you just read off?”

“Oh, it’s more of a curse,” Ayesha replied as she gathered her things together. “You have to say exactly what the victim’s done while you’re saying it.”

“So what’s going to happen to them after this?”

Ayesha grinned as she put on her dark pink head scarf. “Whenever they so much as think about hitting on another girl, or harassing her like they harassed Fatima, the girl is going to be replaced by the ugliest, most horrifying, most disgusting thing their minds can possibly think of.”

Nikolai blinked at her incredulously. Then he grinned widely. “All that just to avenge your friend? I think you’re the devil child here, not me.”

“Thank you,” Ayesha giggled. She went over and picked up one of the lanterns. “Come on, let’s go.”

The older demon went over to pick up the other lantern, grabbed his things, and joined Ayesha. And together, the two siblings left the building, still laughing over their little stunt.

[marvelmadam08]

The Princess & The Nomad (1)

Sequel to The Captain and The Culprit! With your hypnosis gone and your identity fully known, you and Steve reunite and pick up right where you left off. But with The Avengers disbanded and a new danger looming in the future, what’ll keep everything from falling apart?

Summary: Things are going great for you on Asgard, until a ‘threat’ to the throne is revealed

Warnings: Slight angst, jealous non-girlfriends, treason

You ran through the garden, face covered in a light sweat, as you looked for a place to hide before you could be found. Ducking behind a large bush, while quieting your breathing, you listened out for a sign of your approaching opponents. The soft footsteps along the grass alerted you to the two people closing in on you.

The sun peeked from behind the clouds, your shadow cast out from behind the bush. You roll out the way in time for a blade to slice through the top of the topiary.

"Sif!" Hogun protested "Thor said we were no longer permitted to use the swords during training."

"Got caught up I suppose." Sif gave you a sly grin as she replaced the sword in its sheath "Are you alright- Princess?"

"Fine." You grimace helping yourself up

You'd been on Asgard for the last ten months, learning and training with your powers and hand to hand combat from only the very best: Lady Sif and The Warriors Three.

"I apologize for Sif." Hogun says to you in a whisper "She's still a bit testy about you."

The day Thor arrived with you by his side, the whole kingdom was in uproar about how the future King of Asgard had an illegitimate child. You had to be confined to the palace for nearly three weeks, and palace guards had to escort you everywhere when you were eventually allowed to leave. Many speculated if you were actually the daughter of Thor, one of them being Lady Sif herself. She was constantly giving you jagged glares and making sly comments under her breath in passing, but never around Thor. He would occasionally drop in on a session whenever he returned from his search for the infinity stones, but lately his visits grew shorter and less frequent.

"Of course she is." You look over your shoulder at Sif, now polishing one of her daggers "Mind if we end a little early? I’ve made plans for the rest of my evening."

"Not at all Your Highness." Hogun bowed

"(Y/N), please." You still hadn't grown accustomed to having an Royal title, you still enjoyed being simply (Y/N)

"Are we boring you Princess?" Sif called after you "Rather go out gallivanting with your friends?" 

You don't bother to respond to her as you leave the garden to return to the palace halls. A few servants stop to bow at you while you stroll pass them, heading towards the throne room. You smile when you see the older gentleman standing in the center of the room, admiring the artwork on the ceiling.

"Gainor." You run to him, wrapping him in a tight hug

"(Y/N)." He hugs you back, kissing the top of your head "My beautiful granddaughter. How are you my child?"

"A lot better now. Where's everyone else?" you look over to the doors, expecting to see other people waiting for you

"Cadence thought it'd be best we didn't overwhelm you with the screaming hoard of relatives. They're all waiting for us back in Norheim."

“(Y/N).” Odin approached you with a proud grin, an expression that dimmed slightly when he made eye contact with Gainor “I see you’re finished with your training today.”

“Yeah- I mean yes Allfather. I’m off to Norheim today.” you feel the growing tension between your grandfather's “Remember I told you about it last week.”

In addition to the uproar of your arrival, a long standing feud between Odin and Gainor resurfaced. Gainor blamed Odin for everything that happened all those years ago with you being cast out as a baby as well as the unfortunate falling out between Thor and your mother.

“Yes of course, please enjoy.” Odin patted your hands

“Thank you.” awkwardly bowed to him.

Gainor steers you out of the throne room, throwing a spiteful glare back at Odin. Two horses were waiting for you out front, along with a palace guard (You still weren’t allowed to go far without them). Once you mounted the horses, you all start off for Norheim.

“I do wish you chose to stay with your grandmother and me, instead with that- Frost Giant of a man, you unfortunately have to call blood.” Gainor says lowly to you to keep the guard from hearing

“Odin isn’t that bad, he’s just...he’s....” You couldn’t seem to define Odin in just a small matter of words. There were times where he was lively and attentive and other times where he was completely blank and lost. “I guess he is a bit off.”

The day you met Odin, he called you ‘Thor’s new pet’ and was completely taken aback when you corrected him. Telling him that he was there the day you were sent to earth, but he appeared as if he had no recollection of the event at all. As if he had no idea you existed in the first place. Although he welcomed you with open arms, he always kept his distance from both you and Thor; most days you believed it was because of guilt, but other days you felt as if you were dealing with a completely different person.

Upon your arrival in Norheim you felt your palms get clammy, you'd slowly been introduced to your mother's family, starting with your grandparents Gainor and Cadence. They were reduced to tears when they saw you. After them you met uncles and your aunt, all with kids of their own, that’s who you were meeting today.

"Gainor, is that you?" Cadence shouts over the commotion in large yet cozy Villa

It seemed to filled to the very brim with people, all buzzing and quickly swarming around the door to see you.

"Yes my Love, I've brought- back away you'll scare her-" Gainor pushed through the large group "(Y/N) is here with me!"

"Oh my she looks just like her mother." An older woman squishes your cheeks "May her soul finally rest peacefully knowing you've made your way back home."

"Let the girl breath for Norns sake." Cadence, your grandmother pulls you back from the woman holding your cheeks "(Y/N), this is my sister, your Aunt Fatima. She's dipped into the mead a few times before your arrival."

"Have not!" Fatima hiccuped

"Come meet the others."

After being introduced and reintroduced to relatives, you were able to find a moment of peace when you slinked off to Gainor's study. You enjoyed being in there, surrounded by many books and other small family heirlooms, you knew that if you grew up on Asgard your fondest memories would be in this room, and not on a Hydra examination table.

You shudder at the cold memories, things you hadn't thought about in what felt like years. Unlike Steve, who was on your mind constantly. You sighed, playing with the dog tags around your neck. Although you loved seeing Asgard and getting to know yourself, you couldn't wait to return to earth and be with him again.

"(Y/N)? Is everything alright?" Cadence pokes her head in to see you curled up on the chaise lounge

"Yes Ma'am." You nod

"I've told you before. Stop being so formal." She sits next to you and kisses your forehead before examining your face "You really do look just like your mother."

"Tell me about her again?" You find yourself resting your head in her lap "About how they met."

“Your mother was incredibly smart, such a kind and beautiful spirit. They met while your grandfather was tutoring Thor, your mother would tag along with him to the palace. And they were smitten with one another." Cadence starts, stroking your hair while speaking "Time passed and Thor decided to court your mother. Or what did you call it on Midgard?"

"He asked her on a date."

"Yes, although Odin did not approve completely, he set aside his belief that royal blood should marry royal blood for his son's happiness. And then one morning I caught your mother climbing through that window, after spending the previous evening out with your father." Cadence pointed to the window next to the lounge chair. "I didn't know it then, but that was the night you came to be. And it was also the last night your father would be on Asgard before traveling to Vanaheim to finish his studying."

"Was she sad?"

"Oh, your mother wept for days, until she realized she was going to have you. She ran away to the palace, she feared we'd disown her.... Unfortunately Odin decided it would be best to keep you a secret, being conceived out of wedlock, and with them being so young."

"What happened afterwards?" You frowned, already knowing the answer

"Your mother was a strong woman, but even a mighty bolder gets worn down by crashing waves." Cadence sighs "Being in that palace, under his thumb for so long, Odin somehow convinced your mother that Thor would be unwavering to the idea of a child. That giving you a home elsewhere would be better than living with a father that resented you.”

You felt the stray tear running along the side of your nose and quickly wipe it away before Cadence could see. You never went into full details about being raised by Hydra, never bringing up the torturous experiments and hypnosis just to save them from imagining you being put through all of that.

“The day she put you in the bifrost, the day she returned home, the light in her soul vanished. She was gone come winter.” Cadence stopped stroking your hair, you sit up and see her staring out the window  

“Grandmother?” you held her hand, bringing her out of her trance

“But thank the Norns you crossed paths with Thor, and he brought you home to us.” she gave a sad smile and a gentle touch of your cheek “Your mother would be proud of who you became. We all are.”

You fight back the stinging tears as the palace guard storms into the room.

“My apologies Princess, but we must return to the palace immediately.” he holds a hand out to you

“Why? What’s happened?” Cadence asks holding a protective arm to you

“It’s the bifrost keeper, Heimdal. He’s just been sentenced to death for treason.”

Taglist: @classybai @moisoverennyi-thestarlessone @floralandspice @bi-bi-bi-bisexualz @theonelittleone @grey-junior @marvelousbuckystark @captainsthor @sebbystanlover-vk @jovialcalzonepaperzine @chook007 @dontchawishyouknewhowtosalsa @geekysimmerthings @codename-buckybarnes @marvelfansworld @emmaschhh @bruisedfaye @mackyk06 @teamcap4bucky @paigeem96 @lily-horvitz @tshollandlove @nerdypisces160 @mrs-captain-evans 

[shirlleycoyle]

Why This Teen Walked Away From Millions of TikTok Followers

This is part of a special series, The Future of Fame Is the Fan, which dissects how celebrity became so slippery. It’s also in the latest VICE magazine. Subscribe here. 

Sixteen-year-old Ava Rose Beaune was hanging out at a friend’s house on an otherwise unremarkable mid-July afternoon when her cell service briefly shut off. She tried to text her dad, but it wouldn’t send—definitely odd, she thought, but not alarming.

Then people started messaging her: Did you see what’s on your Twitter? Your Instagram? What’s going on? She logged on to her social media accounts and saw that her new Facebook status alluded to suicide—but she hadn’t posted it.

“My whole family thought I was going to kill myself,” Ava said.

Suddenly, a man she’d never met was calling her parents, demanding to speak to her. He had control of all her contacts, texts, emails, and social media accounts. The next day, he texted her: I just want to talk to you. (Spoken and written quotes from Ava’s alleged stalker are italicized to indicate they are not necessarily direct quotes but are as she remembers them.) He called her, and she answered, begging him to do whatever he wanted to her Instagram account, if that’s what he was after. “Delete it. Delete it and leave me alone if that’s what you want,” she told him. You don’t want that, he said. “I do,” she replied. I just want to meet up with you and have sex with you, he said.

“That’s when I hung up the phone, and I was like, this is getting weird,” Ava told me. This stranger had managed to hack her accounts using a method called SIM swapping, in which he contacted her wireless service carrier and convinced them that he owned the account and needed them to transfer access to the SIM card to the phone in his hand—effectively taking over her digital life.

In screenshots viewed by VICE, the hacker can be seen posting a Story to her Instagram about being Ava’s new boyfriend, issuing rape threats, and writing things like “I can’t wait til I impregnate you and marry you. you only live 5 MIN away from me.” She got her social media accounts back in her own possession and resolved the problem with her carrier. “OK, this is, you know, the end, whatever,” she recalled thinking.

With more than 2 million followers on TikTok, Ava was a minor celebrity in her own circles. So, she said, she was used to men being creepy, or even hostile. This was extreme, she thought, but it was over.

But it wasn’t. This was only the beginning of weeks of daily harassment so severe it would uproot her life entirely.

As of this year, TikTok likely has more than 1 billion monthly active users, and the market research firm Statista estimates that adolescents between 10 and 19 years old make up 32.5 percent of those users. The spiritual successor to Vine, TikTok is a micro-video sharing platform that favors an off-the-cuff, do-it-yourself style: People of all ages lip-sync to movie clips and songs, mimic elaborate dances in their living rooms, and use filters to edit the 60-second videos into tiny works of art. It’s also something of a fame lottery.

All this manic, frenetic energy combined with massive audiences is addictive in the same way any social media platform is: with casino-style scrolling and a notification system and the looming chance at virality. Normal teens like Ava—who signed with a talent agency in January 2020—become voracious consumers as well as unstoppable creators, hoping to strike it big, get discovered, or at the very least, make it to the For You feed, where one video plucked by some mysterious algorithm from a user’s feed can get in front of millions of eyeballs instantly.

“I’d rather not give those people the satisfaction of being noticed.”

Despite all this, cyberbullying experts say that TikTok isn’t the worst social media app for harassment. “The way that TikTok is built reduces the likelihood of cyberbullying when compared to other apps,” said Sameer Hinduja, the co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. Features like direct messaging that only allow mutual followers to contact each other, and the inability to add images or videos to comment sections, set it apart from other apps. “To be sure, cyberbullying can manifest itself in hurtful TikTok videos directed towards others, as well as in comments and in livestream chats—but these possibilities are no different than on any other social media app,” Hinduja told me.

According to TikTok’s transparency report from 2020, 2.5 percent of videos the platform removed were for bullying or harassment. But there are some features unique to TikTok that make it prone to a different, more personal kind of harassment. “Duet” allows other users to repost your video with a split-screen video of their own. Most of the time, it’s used innocently, for singalongs or miniature skits. But some users say it opens a portal for disturbing abuse. In 2018, BuzzFeed News reported that people—often young children—would duet their videos with a video of them acting out suicide, putting plastic bags over their heads or belts around their necks, to show their disgust at the original post. And a Duet from a more popular account can send a wave of attention from their followers to your page, not all of it positive.

Nick, who runs a TikTok account with his five-year-old daughter Sienna (the family goes by their first names publicly, to protect their privacy), told me that they experience Duet-based harassment on top of the usual comment section cruelty. “Some users would duet our videos and say mean, nasty things that were just not true,” he said. “In the beginning, it made us second-guess the path we were going down.”

It hasn’t stopped since they started the account, in October of 2018—and they’ve since gathered more than 14 million followers. But they have gotten better at managing it, Nick said. “Sienna is luckily very intelligent and knows that this is not OK. I made sure to sit down with her, emphasizing how special she is and that people may not see that right away.”

Nick believes TikTok does a good job of handling harassment, and giving creators the tools to handle it themselves. “If there is consistent harassment from a specific account, I block and delete their hateful comments,” he said. “For the negative comments in general, I tend to just ignore them. I’d rather not give those people the satisfaction of being noticed.”

TikTok does allow users to opt out of Duets. But these are the features that foster that slingshot fame; opting out of them means opting out of your chance at going viral or just growing your audience.

Fatima and Munera Fahiye, who are sisters and TikTok creators with around 3 million followers each, told me that they also find the platform to be responsive when they need support. “There were multiple accounts on TikTok impersonating me on the app, and TikTok helped me by verifying my account to let people know that my account is the real one,” Munera said.

Whatever harassment they do receive—which often means racist comments—they say is outweighed by the support of fans. “I have been on TikTok for a year now, and I have not experienced any harassment, but after gaining some followers I have seen some mean comments about my hijab every now and then, but I try to not give it any attention, because the love and support that I am getting from my fans is more than the little hate, so it does not matter,” Fatima said.

The harassment that happens on TikTok doesn’t stay there, however. On Reddit, whole communities are devoted to catching women and girls on social media in the middle of wardrobe slips, where you can see down their shirts, up their skirts, or anytime they shift and move and reveal a glimpse of more skin. Standalone websites are made for this purpose, too, and for doxxing and harassing women who might have a TikTok in addition to an OnlyFans or other separate adult platform.

In 2020, a server on the gaming chat platform Discord took requests for TikTok creators to be made into deepfakes—AI-generated fake porn. Although child pornography is against Discord’s terms of use, even in the form of deepfakes, one of the most requested targets was only 17. A request for another deepfake noted, “by the way she turns 18 in 4 days.”

Creators also find their content, clothed as in the originals or deepfaked, reposted to porn sites. In concert, the people on each of these platforms work together to create an overwhelming environment of virtual assault for many young women.

Until TikTok, Ava had never really been into social media, she told me on a Zoom call in her parents’ house. She was taking a break from high school distance learning; this was her senior year, spent over video chats because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I always told myself I’d never make a TikTok because my friends all had it and I was like, that’s so cringe,” she said. “Like, I’ll never start that. But they were like, ‘Come on make one,’ so I did.”

She said she made her first account when she was 15, and posted the usual stuff: trend dances, makeup videos. Within a few days, her audience went from the friends who talked her into joining to 150,000 followers—a leap in popularity that she still doesn’t entirely understand. The sudden attention startled her; she deactivated the account.

She accidentally reactivated the account later, and at this point, having gotten over the initial shock of attention, decided to give it another try.

A rock smashed through her mom’s car window with a threatening note tied to it: I want to take you and impregnate you.

Once Ava started posting new videos, the hateful comments started. “I thought that was like the worst it could get,” she said. “It was like, body shaming and hate—the body shaming especially never bothered me, and the normal hate comments were just like, whatever.” A few users created accounts to post rape threats about her, and this did disturb her, but she took it as par for the course as a young woman online.

That is, until one of her followers started stalking her and her best friend, Gabriel. That follower messaged Gabriel, mentioning her home address and demanding to know who she was dating. “So, we’re both kind of like laughing like this guy’s obviously just some weird fan,” she recalled.

I have something planned for Ava. You’ll see in the next three months. I’m planning something big, Ava says he told Gabriel. He hacked her phone three months later, on Gabriel’s 18th birthday. After that, the man texted Ava every day.

“It was stuff about how he wants to rape me, how he’s going to get me, how I can easily stop this—he was texting my dad saying, She’s not allowed to hang out with her friends, if she goes out I’ll know. Saying he’s watching over us and stuff like that.” Every time Ava thought the situation was as bad as it could get—that this man she’d never met was going as far as he could go—he went further.

Then a rock smashed through her mom’s car window with a threatening note tied to it: I want to take you and impregnate you.

Cyberbullying has proven long-lasting effects on teens and young adults. As Hinduja noted, studies show that it’s tied to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, family problems, academic difficulties, delinquency, school violence, and suicidal thoughts and attempts.

“So at this point I was like, ‘OK, this is getting a little serious.’”

“Most important to me is how negative experiences online unnecessarily compromise the healthy flourishing of our youth at school,” he said. According to his and his co-director Justin Patchin’s research at the Cyberbullying Research Center, over 60 percent of students who experienced cyberbullying reported that it “deeply affected” their ability to learn and feel safe while at school, and 10 percent of students surveyed said they’ve skipped school at least once this past year because of it.

“That cannot be happening,” Hinduja said.

“In general, I hope people will remember that everyone is a human being just like them. We are all capable of feeling hurt and disappointment, and just because there are numbers and a platform attached to our lives doesn’t mean we are impervious to hurtful words or harassing comments,” Nick said. “TikTok is a space where everyone should feel safe to express their creativity, and in order to do that we need to be kind to others.”

Maxwell Mitcheson, Ava’s agent and the head of talent at TalentX Entertainment, told me that he’s seen harassment take a direct toll on young people. “A lot of creators are growing up in front of millions of people, and that involves making mistakes and learning and growing from them,” he said. “The hateful rhetoric definitely weighs on them; some don’t even look at their comments section anymore just to try and stay positive.”

“It’s the inability to make mistakes, being attacked for being authentically yourself, and the sudden lack of anonymity,” Mitcheson said.

Ava’s experience was on the extreme side, he explained, but creators at his agency have had instances of hacking and stalking, or fans randomly showing up at creators’ homes. “We’ve had to involve security and PIs before, but Ava’s was a situation that could have ended in tragedy if it weren’t for the Toronto police intervening.”

After the window-breaking threat, Ava said the police told her that she couldn’t stay at home. She went to stay at a friend’s house, but he still reached her there, she said. “He just kept going saying like, look at what you’ve done, this is all your fault,” she said. He sent her a private message that would delete after it was opened, so she recorded it using a friend’s phone:

I need you to accept the fact that I’m extorting you right now, you need to accept that this isn’t going to end no one’s gonna catch me, the police haven’t ever caught me when I did this before, accept it, give me what I want, I want you to meet up at this park right behind your house I want to do this this this this to you

if you don’t I will kill your parents in front of you in your living room and take you.

“So at this point I was like, ‘OK, this is getting a little serious,’” she told me.

She said she sent the message to the police, who told her whole family to stay somewhere else, hours away. They did, for two weeks. He kept texting her: are you going to be there Saturday you’re making the wrong decision you better answer me.

Eventually, Ava recalled, he was caught. He left the VPN he was using to mask his location off for a half a second, according to her—just long enough, she remembers the police telling her, for the investigators to capture his location data and pinpoint where he was texting her from.

Ava said that the police told her that when he was caught, they found six separate phones and a bunch of SIM cards in his possession—full of pictures and videos of Ava that he’d taken from her accounts. According to the Toronto area detective Ava and her family worked with, the case is still in the courts.

Talking to me now, over Zoom, in between classes and facing midterms, Ava seems fine. She’s able to recount this story in delicate detail, without flinching. She understands the gravity of what happened to her, and how it upended her life. Her family decided to move away, “to the middle of nowhere, pretty much,” she said.

But she is different now. She stopped posting to her TikTok to focus on her friendships and family, though she still posts sporadically on Instagram. She would like to be more active on social media, but she’s not pushing herself. She has anxiety that she describes as “really bad.”

“It’s really affected me, like, you know, just like not being able to live in your own home, and like, even when you are at home, not being safe… It’s really hard, especially when I was only 16 when this happened,” she said. “It is hard, and knowing that my parents were always stressed out and not being able to go outside and walk without feeling kind of scared…”

Before she stopped posting new TikTok videos, she tried to open up on the platform in videos about her mental health and her experiences. But people weren’t receptive to it.

“Especially when they’re like, Oh, a TikTok girl that all the simps love, or What are you complaining about, all these boys love you, kind of thing,” she told me. “I’ve been trying to go to therapy and trying to get over it, but when that kind of thing happens you’re not really the same afterwards. You have a different outlook on social media. You’re kind of scared of if it’s going to happen again. You don’t think those people exist until it happens to you, and then you’re like, wow, this is crazy.”

Online harassment has a silencing effect on people of all ages and genders, but women have it especially bad—and young women are pushed offline, out of the center of conversations and control of their own narrative, at earlier and earlier ages. As adolescents, harassment online makes them do worse in school, seek riskier behaviors, and contemplate or even attempt and follow through on self-harm and suicide. As grown women, this looks like anxiety, a lack of self-confidence, not sleeping, and stepping out of the online conversation altogether to protect their own mental health, and, in severe cases, the safety of themselves and their loved ones. When harassment is allowed to carry on, and women are shamed for seeking help, the damage digs deeper—and we lose those voices.

I asked Ava what she wishes more people understood—about her, about what it’s like to have a big social media following, about how it feels to have millions of eyes on you at such a young age. “I just wish they knew that just because you have followers, doesn’t mean you have this perfect life,” she said. “Just because boys love you, that doesn’t complete your life. When these kinds of things happen, you should be able to be open about it.”

Follow Samantha Cole on Twitter.

Why This Teen Walked Away From Millions of TikTok Followers syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[spilledwink]

part 1

of my tribute to @stylesmixed

It was two years ago that everything fell apart. It was only 3 months ago since a battle that had left Freya shuffling through the used to be magnificently magical double doors that lead into the great hall. Gasps left the mouths of her housemates as they saw the reform of the had been front line. Even she could not help but to raise her eyebrows at the work that the ministry, and Freya guessed, the professors and older students had put in.

Instead of four segregated vertical tables set, there was now eight smaller jumbled and hectically placed tables all distributed over the stone floor. House unity was important to Miss Mcgonagle's new regime, one that Freya had full support in. she would now be able to enjoy the social company of any and all of her peers instead of dodging jinxes from immature little second years or have to listen to the droning gossip of the theatrical seventh years that would be them in a years time.

A year used to feel like a tick of a clock to Freya. Ever since her almost fatal fifth year however, she had learned that three hundred and sixty five days could make a lot of difference.  With only 3 months Hogwarts was back to its former chaotic self. Thank Merlin for magic.

The stampede of students almost overwhelmed her as she was carried off to what was now the sixth year table, at the far left of the hall. Something was different however. Not just the fact that there were now less students or in the fact that even the younger kids had a slightly jaded look in their eyes, she just couldn't put her finger on it. Don't take it the wrong way, after an excruciating summer most were all too ecstatic to be back. Especially those taking their OWLS that year. Freya had the sudden realisation of how unprepared she was every ten minutes or so. Stop thinking, she thought, it’s a whole year away, not a week. Besides if they can rebuild this post apocalyptic wasteland in three months, you can learn a syllabus in a year.

Freyja was only pulled out of her worries as her arm was tugged gently by the friend who had sat by her the whole journey back. Fatima was already sat down, looking up at her. Fatima was tiny in the way she sat and the way she spoke which was unusual for a gryffindor however Freyja knew the bravery that lay just beneath the surface, she had seen it.

“Are you okay?” Fatima spoke as Freya flumped down beside her.

“Yeah of course” Freya would rather look down at the table than have to look at Fatima’s raised eyebrows.

“Yeah okay, if you say so,” fatima said nonchalantly.

Freya made the mistake of taking a peak at Fatima's face only to be met with that explosive smile that was so uniquely brilliant to her. Fatima was not conventionally pretty. She didn't have porcelain skin and a little button nose but Merlin did she have the most gorgeous crooked, toothy grin and beautiful mind. In Freya’s opinion, Fatima should have been sorted into ravenclaw. She was so curious to learn and everything that could be known about everything was in that little head of hers. Freya loved her. They had never been as close as you would think however Fatima was always a quiet companion to all life's events, big or small. They only became friends over the past year. Freya was always too driven and opinionated and closed off  for Fatima and Fatima was always too quiet and studious for the other girl. They went from being amicable acquaintances to joining forces for a common goal, a resistance they could both get behind. And in the most important ways they weren’t that different. They had the same fears of failure and the same hopes for the future of the wizarding world and despite them not having an enemy uniting them, they still decided to stick around.

Looking over at the obvious first year table that was still completely empty, Freya had a sudden burst of excitement. At around this time the little kids would be rowing, staring wide eyed and wide mouthed at their enchanting  new home. They would feel the nervous excitement of being sorted and find where they fit into this bewitching world. The fondness of the memory gave a spring of hope into her heart. Maybe this year wouldn't be so bad after all...

***

“This crumble!” exclaimed Freya “I missed this fucking crumble!” A hufflepuff girl from opposite giggled and looked up,”I know right! It's what home tastes of”

Freya smiled back. Her and the stout red headed stranger in front of her both melted into their own seat at the same time with an audible sigh after taking another mouth full of the syrupy dessert. This caused them to glance up at each other and erupt with laughter at their mutual appreciation for a good rhubarb and apple crumple. Even Fatima joined in when the red headed hufflepuff ended up spilling custard in the middle of their hysterics. Their laughter only came to a close when they heard an amplified clearing of a throat that was clearly an attempt at quietening down the students getting to know one another all over again.

The whole hall turned to face the front of the great hall to see Miss Mcgonagall in her full glory for the first time. She was wearing her usual formal witches hat and juniper dress that she used to wear every year at the welcoming feast. This time however she was not the one to sort the first years but the one give the headmistresses speech.

Freya would never admit this to anyone but she secretly thought that Miss Mcgonagall becoming head mistress was the best thing for the school. She would miss having her for a transfiguration teacher but she was fair and stern and possessed more compassion than she thought an old scottish witch could ever have.

“So, boys and girls, i would like to start by saying welcome to those coming back and to those joining us for the first time,” she spoke expressively, “as you can see there are many changes being made to help run this school in a more cohesive and effectively. The dorms will now be sectioned into years where you will be roomed with a mixture of people. Friends can come from a multitude of places, we  all just need to have an open mind.” her voice became stern then, “This year may well be difficult for all of us. We need each other, a community, a home, in which we can learn safely and happily. I know that each each everyone of you will be supportive and make this happen, with help and support of teachers and prefects.” she softened again, “the door to my office is always open.”

The whole hall was silent, looking down at their hands or their food. A jaunty laugh pierced the silence then while miss mcgonagall cleared her throat clearly misty eyes, “right then. Now a reminder rules for those who need reminding….”

***

The great hall never looked this big. Maybe it was the reconstruction or maybe it was the decrease in population but it was starting to swallow freyja up. The hornets nest in her chest had started to pipe up. Escape was the only word on her mind. Fatima saw her wide eyes but it was too late. It was better to vomit in the entrance hall where only filch would have to see it to clean it up.

She felt as if she were under water. Running but never fast enough like every dream she’s had for the past months. The sound of clattering cutlery and cacophonous voices had turned into a bustling madness. It sounded too far away and yet so intensely close that she felt her eyes water.

Only when the cold air from the vacuous entrance hall hit her skin did she finally feel a gasp of breath punch her lungs. She could see in front of her. The watery eyes had made everything look as if it was a monet painting so instead of trying to find her way through the changing staircases and avoiding the school caretaker, she decided to walk back until the cold stone wall hit her shoulder blades and slid down with an exhausted thump. Keep breathing, she reminded herself, you will not cry. She kept the mantra going until she finally could hear the kerfuffle of the great hall over her hurried heartbeat.

“You too?” a soft voice from her right sighed.

Turning her head way too fast she saw a girl in almost the same position sitting a few metres down the stone wall. Freya wiped her eyes and sniffled looking closer and squinting without her much needed glasses. It was Em, a fellow gryffindor 6th year. They ran in different circles and freyja didn't remember the last time they spoke despite sharing a common room. A wave of familiarity enveloped freyja as she saw a similar demeanor of her own. This other girl however had a soft smile and a knowing glint in her eye.

Freyja coughed “yeah” and looked away noticing that they had held eye contact for a little too long to be comfortable. Freyja looked away taking a deep breath “i guess i should have expected that this year would be hard on everyone.”

“Well” the soft voice spoke “at least we know we're not alone right?”

“Right”

[aftaabmagazine]

Hope Street

By Rasam 

[caption: The author, Rasem, with his father in Kabul, 1978]. 

The journey from Kabul to New York took us two years. I won't go into all our difficulties except to say the time did not pass pleasantly. I was a carefree seven-year-old when we left Afghanistan, an anxious nine-year-old when we arrived.

No one met us at JFK airport. We sat down to wait. What were we waiting for? I didn't know. When I asked Dad about it, he just muttered something about "some nice people." I could see that he was nervous, and that made me nervous too. The hours passed, and my butt went numb, sitting on those hard plastic airport chairs. At one point, I overheard my mother, asking what we were going to do about money. Dad assured her everything would be okay but didn't say how.

Finally, two men in a van picked us up. Who they were or where they were taking us, I didn't know, but that was my normal state. We drove for three hours because our destination was not New York, but in West Philadelphia. The men dropped us off in the pitch-black dead of night and drove away. We could see that the apartment was completely empty. Dad did the light switch-- nothing happened. He moved the switch up and down: still nothing.

"Is this America?" I asked Dad.

"Can we go back?" said my sister.

Dad didn't say a word to either of us. He just took our only suitcase inside, and our new life began.

The next day, a local church supplied us with a bunch of mattresses, and just in time because on our third night in America, Mom started having contractions: she was pregnant with her fifth child. We didn't have a phone, so Dad went out to look for help, leaving my sister Perveen in charge. By the time he came back, 14-year-old Parveen had delivered our family's first American citizen: Azam.

I remember how the sheer abundance dazzled me the first time I went to the supermarket with Dad. Look at all the milk! Look at all the everything! I couldn't believe my eyes. Shelf after shelf of...stuff! My mother had often described heaven to me as a place with rivers of milk. Standing in that supermarket, I could believe we were in heaven. "Is this America?" I thought.

Then we started home with our groceries. All of a sudden, an African American guy came up behind us and asked my father for a light. My father was wearing a suit jacket, as many Afghan men do. When he took out his lighter, his food stamps showed. In a flash, this guy grabbed the stamps out of his father's pocket and took off. My father just stared after him, not even bothering to chase after him. I felt dazed, but then, dazed was how I mostly felt during our early days in America.

West Philadelphia was just a pause for us. After only two years, my father decided to move us to North Philadelphia, where the rents were cheaper, even though the neighborhoods were much worse. We ended up in an old, broken down, two-story on Hope Street, and there we spent the next eight years. The house had three bedrooms and one bathroom. A large crack ran down the front of it from top to bottom, and the whole building looked like it was about to tip over. A sewer pipe ran right across the basement, and when that pipe broke (as it often did) the basement flooded with sewage. Dad had to fix it himself, and I always served as his assistant how I came to dread that basement!

Dad had a room to himself. My brother Ibrahim and I shared another room because we were the oldest boys. The rest of the pack, all six of them, jammed into the third room with Mom. That's right: six: Mom had given birth to two more children after Azam was born, Fatima and Ahmad Shah (and would have on more later on). I don't have to tell you life was tight in that third room!

North Philly was a little more diverse than our old neighborhood. We had black people, white people, and Puerto Ricans living around us, but we still didn't fit in because we were none of the above. My people thought we came from India-- if they were told that we were from "Afghanistan," they just scratched their head: they didn't know where that was.

The summer after night grade, my father decided to get me a job working on a hot dog stand owned by a Pakistani friend of his. The "stand" was a metal booth in front of a busy hospital. In the summer, it heated up to about 120 degrees in there. I worked 12 hours days and made $200 a week- and I worked hard! I had to wonder: Was this really how hard people had to work to make a measly $200? After two weeks, the owner let me go (he said I was too slow). I had never been so glad! I hated that job, hated the heat: it reminded me of Pakistan.

Losing the job, however, left me at loose ends. Then one day, my friend George said, "Hey, you want to help me in my business?" I need the money, so I said okay.

George's "business" was selling crack cocaine. In the beginning, I was just a lookout: I stood on the corner while the older boys sold drugs, and every time I saw a cop, I yelled "Agua!" which was code for "here-comes-a-cop." For this "work," I got paid $200-- a day, not a week.

That job opened doors. George trusted me because I didn't cheat, didn't try to rip him off, and didn't do drugs. Soon enough, I was moved from scouting to bagging, a mark of trust. I would be given a whole kilo of cocaine, and I would divide it up into little "dime bags."

After six or even months, George and the people he worked for promoted me to dealing. I became one of the guys standing around in the street, waiting for white junkies from the suburbs to come by. We worked on commission, getting dime bags for seven dollars and selling them for ten; and believe me, they sold like hotcakes. On a busy day, I could make anywhere from $400 to $1,000.

At one point I had a ring on every finger, gold medallion, lots of bling even though I was only 14, I drove one of my friend George's many cars. It was just crazy how easy it was to be doing that-- and how hard it was not be doing it-- because in that neighborhood if you weren't on the corner selling crack, you were in an aluminum hot dog stand, working twenty-hour days, in 120 degrees heat, for less than minimum wage.

Even with all the bling, I couldn't get a date. I just didn't have much confidence in myself. I came across as a tough guy because I knew certain people, but I wasn't tough at all. The actual tough guys accepted me and liked me, though, and the more they trusted me, the more I wanted to be trusted, so I did my best not to let them down. Looking back, I find that whole era very strange, yet I understand why I fell into it. The temptations were just so strong. In junior high, all my clothes came from thrift stores. We never went to barbers because we couldn't afford it. The first part of sneakers my father ever bought me brand new was in eighth grade. Besides, by the time I was in high school, I had expenses. My father insisted on my paying rent.

There's one day I'll never forget. I was at George's place, working at my daily chore of bagging cocaine. I had about two kilos of white powder sitting there and maybe $20,000 in cash, plus some guns. Suddenly I heard the dut-dut-dut-dut of somebody knocking, went downstairs, opened the door, and saw a cop standing on the porch with a middle-aged couple. My heart starting pounding, but I kept my cool. I wiped my fingers casually against my jeans-- I never used gloves when I bagged, so I had all this cocaine packed under my fingernails. Then I invited them into the house-- I figured it would look suspicious if I didn't.  Now I had a cop standing in the hall and two kilos of coke heaped on a table upstairs; that was my whole life on the line, right there.

The couple turned out to be the parents of a 15-year-old girl George knew. They couldn't find their daughter and wanted to ask George about it. I said, "Well, I'd love to help, but he's not here. When he gets back, I'll ask him to call you..."

They accepted what I said and left. I rushed upstairs, frantic-nervous, gather my stuff, and took off. That was the closest I came to going to jail. I was totally in the life, though, the whole nine yards. I was there when fights broke out because somebody was trying to take over our hot corner. I mean fists, guns-- you could not believe what went on. When you're in that life, you lose perspective. You could kill someone, get killed, go to jail-- you don't notice. It all seems normal. Guns are like some joke. You're living on some edge, but you don't even know it. I spent almost all my time out on those streets. I rarely went home, and when I did, I paid scant attention to the rest of my family. I had no idea what was going on with my siblings.

One day, right in the middle of that time of bling and coke and guns and money, I came home and saw a bunch of strangers in the house. I went upstairs and found my mother fixing my sister Perveen's hair and putting mascara on her eyes. Perveen must have had a pound of makeup on her face, but behind that mask of makeup, she was wearing a devastated look. I knew something big was going on, but I didn't know what.

My father then came upstairs and spoke to Perveen and Mom in a voice too low for the guests downstairs to hear. "Do you want this marriage?" he said. "Now is the time to say something. Will you go through with this?"

Marriage? This was the first I had heard of any marriage. As it turned out, this was the first that any of us had heard of it, including Parveen! At 18, according to our Pashtun traditions, Parveen was too old to be single; she was, however, barely out of high school. Yet my father had suddenly arranged a match for her.

He didn't know the man he wanted my sister to marry. He didn't even know much about him, except he was Afghan-- that was the only thing that mattered. The only other Afghan family we knew in Philadelphia had referred him to my father.

I don't remember Perveen responding to my father, but Mom said, "Yes," with her eyes cast down. She was just telling him what he wanted to hear. I think my dad wanted to feel like he was giving the women an option, but there was no option, really. There was no way my sister or my mother could have told him, "Call the whole thing off. Send them home." Not at that point.

I went to my room, feeling very confused. I didn't know what to make of it all. I didn't want to be connected. My life was outside, hanging with my friends on the streets. A few minutes later, I went out to meet some of those friends. On the way out, I saw Perveen sitting downstairs with her head drooping, surrounded by strangers, all of whom were smiling at her. One of the strangers, a blad older man with a round belly, had a particularly big smile on his face: he was to be Perveen's husband.

A few days after the marriage announcements, my sister went out as if was going on an errand, but she never came back-- or rather she came back just once, very briefly, accompanied by a gigantic, intimidating African American guy. My father was out, but she told my mother that the marriage was off. Then she left again, and she was gone for good, just gone.

Eventually, we found out she had run away to Puerto Pico with her boyfriend. My father didn't even know Parveen had a boyfriend. He didn't know a whole lot about any of us. For that matter, none of us knew much about each other, either. I had no inkling about the boyfriend, for example. I was too involved in my life outside the home.

None one us ever even saw the boyfriend. He wasn't the intimidating black guy, who was just a friend. The man Perveen ran away with was a Puerto Rican fellow who lived up the street from us.

My father reacted badly to Perveen's disappearance. Basically, he said he was going to kill her for this. Would he really have killed her? I don't think so, but he did have an intensity about him that she feared. We all did. NO kind of his could talk to him without being scared. He wasn't a big guy, and outside the house, especially around other Afghans, he was unbelievably charming, friendly, courtly, and diplomatic, but he did not have a drop of emotional weakness in him: he was one of these proud Pashtuns who held his own, any time, any place.

God knows I was afraid of him: he beat me mercilessly many times-- many, many times. I don't even know how many times. He'd take the radio cord and hold my feet up. He'd take a broomstick and hit me on the back.

And yet, in that whole drama surrounding Perveen's engagement, I lined up with my father emotionally. I was angry at Perveen! I remember doing stupid things like cutting her picture out of a family album. I saw ashamed of her on father's behalf. He beat me, but I still identified with him and only later looking back di dI come to understand my feelings. I was an adolescent, still trying to discover my own identity, my manhood, and I couldn't stand any humiliation to my father. Shame on him was shame on me. Being the oldest boy, I felt like a had a to upload whatever was left of our family honor. Looking back, I can see that ignorance was a big part of it all, but this didn't soften what I felt at the time; painful, painful shame.

We never had much contact with the tiny Afghan community in Philadelphia, but after my sister broke her engagement and ran away with her boyfriend, even that slight connection was completely severed. My father felt his prestige had suffered with the community and that every time Afghans looked at him, they were thinking, "That man can't even control his own daughter." In his heart, the worst thing that could possibly happen to an Afghan man had happened to him.

And it was then-- amidst all that turmoil of my father's rage, my life on the streets, Perveen's disappearance-- it was amidst all that madness that my mom gave birth to her eight and last child: Nicolle.

We didn't keep her. After what had happened with Parveen, my father announced that he didn't want another girl in the house, so we would give this one up for adoption. My mom had no say in it, nor did any of the rest of us. Nicolle was sent away at birth, and we didn't see her again for eighteen years.

My friends ask if all that abuse scared me. I say, not at all, not at all. I'm not scared because I've learned to let go of that kind of grudge. I know it does no good to hold onto hatred. Besides, I've always reasoned that my father suffered in his own way when he was young. His mother died when he was little; he never had a mother to love him. He got hit a lot when he was young, as a way of being disciplined. The fact is, he didn't know how to deal with any situation except to hit. He didn't know any other way to solve things. His communication skills just weren't there. The beatings? They were his way of communicating. His way of saying, "I love you."

My drug dealing days didn't last long. Within one year, George's cocaine business had gone down. He got locked up and lost most of his money and all of his cars. I never did get caught, and I broke away from the business to look for a safer route through life. Perveen came back from Puerto Rico after a year, but I had little to do with her at first. I was still angry. I didn't really connect with her again until many years had passed and I had gone through my own changes.

The only Afghan Dad kept in touch with after that was his friend  Ibrahim in California. They had known each other since their teenage years, and Ibrahim had often urged Dad to come to California, telling him that he would have a better life there because the San Francisco Bay Area had a much bigger Afghan community.

I longed for us to make that move. I longed to live where I could find other people like me. The day my father told us we were moving to California, I felt so happy. I couldn't sleep. I just lay in bed all night thinking about that warm California sunshine. Dad and I got a 15-passenger van for our drive across the country and small U-haul trailer for our few possessions. When the day of our departure came, at last, we packed quickly, much as we had done the day we left Afghanistan. Dad said, "Bismillah-i-Rahman-i-Rahim" (In the name God, the bountiful and the merciful) and started the car. Once again we set off almost empty -handed with no idea of what new life we were heading toward, only that we were leaving Hope Street for a better future-- we hoped.

Notes

This autobiographical story was first published "Snapshots: This Afghan American Life" edited by Tamim Ansary and Yalda Asmatey 2008. The publisher Kajakai Press kindly permitted to republish this story on Afghan Magazine.

Purchase the book at Amazon.

Visit the Tamim Ansary's website

About the Author Rasam

Rasam was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and came to the United States at a very young age. He began drawing at the age of nine. As a shy kid in a new environment, it was easier for him to communicate with others through art than with words. Over the past several years, his art education has been centered on classical realism.

Visit Rasam's website 

Read Rasam’s piece Cultural Taboos

April 2019, AfghanMagazine 

[magiimaginationdestination]

Beauty and the Beast (II)

(Kouen x Fem! Reader)

Summary: Jamil is a nuisance and your father has a new invention.

~~~~~~~~

Jamil smirked as he stared at you with your nose stuffed in a book. You were the only woman in town that could ever match his beautiful looks, the best of the best and as he told Budel, he deserves the best.

Jamil sighed blissfully and wrapped an arm around Budel’s shoulder, right from the moment when I meant her, saw her, I fell for her. For she is the only girl in town that’s as beautiful as me,” he said as he gazed at himself on a store window. 

From inside the store, one could see the various woman getting fitted for gowns, hats, shoes, and other accessories. In the store at the moment was Brigit, Fatima, and Dunya. All squealed at the sight of him.

“Look there he goes!” Exclaimed Brigit. As she pointed at him through the window. 

“Isn’t he dreamy?” Sighed Fatima as he looked at Jamil from afar. It seemed that even some men were attracted to him as well. He immediately went to fix his silver hair as Jamil looked his way. 

Dunya placed a hand on her chest, “be still. My heart.” Her heart felt as if it was going 1000 miles a minute as she so much as looked at him. They all swooned as Jamil made his way throughout the town. 

“Oh, he’s so cute!” They all said in unison. Jamil seemed to be the only thing they had in common as they always tuned in to be his cheerleaders. 

“He such a tall, dark, strong, and handsome brute!” They said as they all collapsed on top of each other when Jamil sent them a charming smile and walked off. Budel rolled his eyes at the clueless girls and followed after Jamil to help him win you. 

Jamil scanned the town for you when he found walking away with your head in the book, he grabbed a random bouquet of flowers to make his way over to you and propose.

Jamil ended up getting sidetracked most of the way on account to all the townsfolk in the way. He squeezed through most of them to try and get to you before you got home, “please let me through!” He yelled as he got passed all the townsfolk buying produce and greeting other people.

“You call this baking?”

You sighed as you kept your attention on the book, not paying attention to all the normal gibberish you hear every day. 

“What lovely grapes!”

“How long is that yarn!” 

Your attention was gripped by the book and you soon felt yourself wanting something like the adventures in the books as all of the same phrases you heard every morning were repeated. You ripped your attention away, among all the rowdy clutter you said, “there must be more than this provincial life!” 

Jamil smirked as he quickly got through, “just watch I’m going to make Y/N my wife!” He declared. As they heard your name the townsfolk soon began to say their gossip once more. 

“Look there she goes, that girl is strange!”

“A most peculiar mademoiselle!”

You rolled your eyes and made your way down the dirt road back to your home with your father waiting for you. He was the inventor that most thought was odd, not to mention he used to be the main event in gossip but it was soon switched over to you when you began to read.

Jamil sighed as he realized the town wasn’t going to move, he gripped the top of the roof and proceeded to climb on top of them with Budel trailing behind him on the ground.

“It’s a pity and a sin.”

“That she doesn’t quite fit in.”

“She really is a beauty but a funny girl that Y/N!”

You rose a brow and looked back only to see the people go about their day, you soon shrugged and continued with your walk with your eyes back in the book. 

You heard a thump in front of you and didn’t look up as your full attention was on the book. You were just getting to the good part, you knew what happened after reading a few times but each time was more exciting than the last.

“Good morning, Y/N!”

You peeled your eyes away to greet the person but all you saw was a bouquet in your face. You moved it aside to see Jamil with a grin on his face, it started out with a bit of silence but then he spoke up, “wonderful book you have there!” He said smoothly.

You rose a brow, curious, “have you read it?” You asked, having never seen him read before. 

Jamil said nothing and grabbed it from your hands, he stared at it with a perplexed expression, “well not this one, but... Others...” He said hesitantly. You slowly nodded, not believing him in the slightest. 

Jamil disregarded the book and threw it behind him, making it fall in the mud. You gasped and grabbed it, wiping off the mud with your white apron before it stained. 

“Y/N, it’s about time you get your head out of those books and pay attention to more important things- “ he flashed a smile- “like me.” His look turned sympathetic, “the whole town is talking about this. They say it’s not right for a woman to read, she starts getting ideas and thinking.”

You rolled your eyes and put the book in your basket to avoid further damage to it. Your father didn’t think like that, he was your only friend in this town. Sounds a little sad but if one met the people in this town it would be understandable. 

You rolled your eyes, “Jamil you are positively primeval,” you said, chuckling while wiping down your book. 

He smirked, “why thank you,” he said as he glowed under your supposed praise. It wasn’t praise but he didn’t have to know. 

He then brought up the flowers, “for your dinner table. Shall I join you this evening?” He asked with a confident demeanor.

You shook your head, “no...” You said slowly, trying to hide your feelings on the standpoint. If he came it would be a disaster and a horrid one. 

“Busy...?” He asked, unsure of himself. You shook your head again and at this point, Budel came jogging up to you two, most likely to help Jamil. 

The three girls followed Jamil around looked at you in disbelief. “What’s wrong with her?” Asked Fatima, pointing at you.

Brigit clenched her fists, “she’s crazy!” She exclaimed, if she could have just one minute with him she would faint.

Dunya sighed dreamily, “he’s gorgeous!” She squealed as he looked at him with you.

“I have to help my father with something.” It wasn’t a lie as he always asked for your help on new inventions or small paintings he did on the side. 

Budel started to crack up as you mentioned your father, “that crazy old loon?! He needs all the help he can get!” He said causing Jamil to crack up with him. 

Your fists clenched, “don’t talk about my father that way!” You yelled. You can deal with people talking about you but you always got defensive when ti came to your father. 

Jamil frowned and turned to Budel, “yeah! Don’t talk about her father that way!” He said to Budel, knocking his fist on the top of his head. Budel groaned and almost passed out due to force. 

“My father is not crazy! He’s a genius!” With that said you made your way back home, leaving Jamil and Budel to laugh amongst themselves. 

You rested a hand on the wooden railing on the steps of your house. Hearing soft music come from the attic, you stopped. He must have been working on that music box as of now. 

A small smile graced your features and you walked down to the attic where your father normally worked on his inventions. You quietly opened the wooden doors and were immediately met with paintings, canvases, nut, bolts, and all other assortments. 

You looked to see a familiar purple head sitting at a desk while gazing at a small windmill playing a soft lullaby. You smiled and remembered he was planning on taking it to the county fair soon. 

Your father smiled as he looked at the inside of the windmill which held a ceramic woman wearing a red dress while holding a baby with e/c eyes and h/c hair with a purple haired man painting the both of them. 

How does a moment last forever

How can a story never die

It is love we must hold onto

Never easy, but we try

Sinbad looked back at the painting that showed your mother and you as a baby. He smiled and turned back to the windmill which showcased their old home in Paris. 

Sometimes our happiness is captured

Somehow our time and place stand still

Love lives on inside our hearts

And always will

Sinbad closed up the windmill and glanced up to see you there, “oh, there you are. How was town today?” He asked as he put on his glasses to get a better look at the gears, he reached for a tool but didn’t get it as you chuckled and handed it to him. 

He smiled up at you and his gaze went back to the gears. You then sighed, remembering his question, “same as always. People gossiping about and the same normal morning as always.” You reached into your basket and pulled out your book, “I did get a new book though!” You said, excited.

Sinbad pressed a kiss to your head, “that’s good but something seems to be on your mind, what is it?” He asked, squinting his eyes as some screws seemed out of place. 

“Jamil... He asked me to join us for dinner! Can you believe that?!” 

Sinbad knew better than to interrupt you when you were going on a rant. “I mean one could only guess what goes through his mind when he wants a woman to marry. He even had the nerve to laugh at you!” You exasperated, you fell onto a chair, “honestly, papa, this town isn’t for me... I don’t fit in here... Do you think I’m odd?” You asked referring to what all the villagers say.

Sinbad scoffed, “the only people that are odd are the small-minded townsfolk here! They gossip because they don’t have anything else going on that’s interesting in their lives!” He declared while putting his handmade tool down and turning to you. 

He grabbed your hands, “even in Paris I knew of a woman that was like you, ahead of her time. People mocked her but soon found themselves imitating her,” he said as he was referring to your mother who was just like you in the sense that she was stubborn and strong-willed.

Your grip tightened on your father's rough hands, “please just tell me one more thing about her,” you persisted as you never remembered much about her on account that she died early in your childhood.

Sinbad sighed and let go of your hands, he began tweaking around with the gears again. “You mother was... Fearless...” He said as he screwed something in, locking a gear in place. 

Sinbad closed up the windmill as it was finally ready. You smiled and wrapped your arms around your only family left, “I love you.”

Sinbad rested a hand on your head and one around your waist, “I love you too.”

[fatimanaeemahmed]

An open letter to my English teacher

The first time I saw you was when you walked in our class almost two years ago, I’ll be honest my first thought was “wow such a tall teacher”lol. My second thought was “ yay(totally sarcastic) another teacher same rules same ritual of being told what to do and who to be(both notions that go against every fiber of my being)”.I wasn’t exited at all except a little maybe because I thought this teacher isn’t a lot older than we are, it’s obviously her first job and she’s definitely new here so that means less homework(boy was I wrong about that).

I remember we were doing a class activity that was basically everyone putting in their confessions anonymously and you reading them out and discussing those problems with us. I vividly remember one of the chits was a prank by a classmate who wrote “I don’t know what to do, my boyfriend doesn’t talk to me” and we all laughed because we as a society are hypocritical, almost everyone dates and yet we shame and mock one another and treat it as such a taboo like how a 13 yr old boy would react to seeing breasts for the first time in the pg 13 Titanic. I thought like all teachers you’d just ignore the confession or give us a lecture on how immoral dating is because obviously falling in love is immoral but raping your bride isn’t or how throwing acid on women’s faces and child marriage is totally moral but valentine’s day oh well that’s the real devil. Morality has a strange definition in our culture, doesn’t it? Anyway to not make this a rant I’ll proceed to say that to my surprise you actually discussed the issue, you gave advice on how we need to respect ourselves and walk out on relationships that are simply mental gymnastics of whether someone really deserves our time and love or are they in it with ulterior motives that lead to nothing but our own hearts being shattered into a gazillion pieces. In that moment I thought wow now that is someone I would not only love to learn from but also would like to get to know, at this point I was curious about who you were as a person and what led you to walk the doors of our class and our lives (creepy Fatima girl crush alert lmao).I knew one thing for sure that you weren’t just going to be my teacher, you were going to be my mentor! and don’t get me wrong I’ve had amazing teachers before too ,who too have been wonderful people but there has always been a huge generation gap that doesn’t exactly make me feel comfortable enough to talk to them about certain aspects of my life.

There are so many memories that have been made since then, like our discussion on women’s rights and how you opened to me the world of writing .Honestly I had never thought in my life about the impact writing has on the world. At this point I’d admit something that is by far my most self loathing truth which is that I had never read a book in my life before the age of 17 yes not even a single book and no not even the ladybird books when I was little, I had all those books but I only looked at the photos. It was August of 2015 that I finished my first book and that was around the same time you became our full time teacher, I had already just begun to fall in love with reading and you opened up a whole new writers’ world for me. I don’t know if you remember but I told you how you were inspiring me to write, I also vividly remember being in the common room and stalking your writings on your blog and one of the things that is still stuck with me is what you wrote about how a leader isn’t just a politician or a person in power but it could be anyone a writer, a painter or even a beggar on the street as long as the person makes you stand still and think. You did make me stand still and think! And I can’t thank you enough for that.

I didn’t know that there were progressive liberals and secularists besides me in my country (yes so up in my head right?).I didn’t know that there were Pakistanis out there that were real, genuine and brave about being different because either people are part of the crowd or they pretend to be but I didn’t know that there were people who could take ownership of themselves even in a society as disgusting and barbaric as ours.

I have read most of your rants on Facebook and I take from that, that you get a lot of judgment and filth thrown your way and I can imagine what kind it is too but I just want to say that screw all those haters who wish they were you, who wish they could spread their wings and breed freedom and those filthy lewd men who are afraid of you, who’re so scared that they are inclined to shame and shun you because they’re afraid you’ll ignite the flame of freedom in the hearts of their sisters, their wives or their girlfriends that they’ve caged for so long. I know I really can’t tell you anything that you don’t already know. So take this as a list of all the things that I as a young person and especially a Pakistani girl finds admirable about you and think is worth celebrating.

You probably don’t know this but I’ve casually asked you so many personal things that bothered me or perplexed my mind. I can’t sum up everything that makes you dope, from your journey of losing your father to being a kikass daughter and sister to how I’m totally in love with your parents too (btw they’re my relationship goals) but here’s to the past two yrs and here’s to more yrs to come because no matter where I am, I promise I will bother you always.

Love Fatima.

[sarahfazli]

Muharram & Me: Now & Then

Approaching Ashoora, I asked her how she would spend her Muharram. Wanting to go on a spiritual cleansing, she quoted Hazrat Ali (RA):

“Let go of your pride, put down your arrogance, and remember your grave”

These lines have, somehow, always resonated with me. And then sparing no detail, she narrated what Muharram meant to her.

“The first ten days of Muharram rituals were one of the most important religious rites I eagerly participated in as a child; I still do – as we speak today, although for altered reasons. There are several ways in which we memorialize the Karbala events that occured in 680 A.D. Muharram is accompanied with an ambiance of genuine sorrow, centered on the martyrdom of Imam Hussain and his family. Rituals undertaken include memorial services (majalis al-ta'ziya), flagellation (tatbir), visiting Imam Hussain's tomb in Karbala – particularly on the tenth of Ashura and the fortieth day after the battle (Ziyarat Ashura and Arba'in), public mourning processions (al-mawakib al-husayniyya) or re-enacting the battle of Karbala in the form of a play (the shabih).

As a very aware youngster, I remember my daadi crying, as the zakira recounted the brutality with which the Prophet’s (sw) family was slaughtered during Muharram. And because she wept, I wept too – unaware at the time of the reasons behind her tears. In retrospect, any spirituality was illusive, at best – despite the tears being present.

Growing up, my parents ensured I was completely conversational with, “Ya Allah, Ya Nabi, Ya Ali, Ya Fatima, Ya Hasan, Ya Hussain”. With time, I began preparing for Muharram long before the new years’ crescent was sighted. I’d attend majlis with my parents and participate in the zikr. This was when niyaz and nazr would become a regular feature at home and somberness was observed. As is characteristic of being in mourning, sober attire replaced regular (read: colourful / bright) every-day wear. I was taught very young that Muharram was one of the four most sacred months in the Islamic calendar – the other three being Rajab, Dhū al-Qa'dah, Dhu al-Ḥijjah: the seventh, eleventh and twelfth months respectively. The importance of righteousness during these months cannot be overstated:

“The number of months in the sight of Allah is twelve (in a year) – so ordained by Him the day He created the heavens and the earth; of them four are sacred; that is the straight usage. So wrong not yourselves therein and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together. But know that Allah is with those who restrain themselves.” (Surah Tawba, verse 36)

None of this really sits well with you, when you live in an environment fraught with ethnic, political and sectarian marginalization. You know it’s a thing when children talk about the goats eating the last ten juz of “their quran”, when our Shias brethren are declared kaafir and are considered wajib e qatal. For people like me, the sting is very real. We tend to go on the back-foot: hiding our beliefs, becoming indifferent and apathetic.

But life has a way of showing us that perspectives can change. And it’s unbelievable – how vastly they change. Muharram 2017 saw me travel to Iraq for Ashoora – something I had never thought possible, even in my wildest dreams. Talking to people before I was due to travel, I realized this pilgrimage takes on a mythical, unreachable status for so many of us. Through teary eyes, they told me it was “Jannat on earth” and that this journey would be the proverbial “once in a lifetime trip”. Others requested prayers at Ruza Abbas (as) and Ruza Hussain (as) and asked that I take their names while I prayed.

Having spent a week between Karbala and Najaf, I can safely describe it as one of the most surreal experiences of my life. On my first day in Karbala, I recall watching a little girl urging her mother to kiss the entrance to Imam Hussain Mosque in respect. Her mother dutifully pressed her lips against the huge wooden doors of the mosque, before entering; I couldn’t help but follow suit. We spent 8th Muharram in Najaf; having fallen asleep on the way, I was not entirely sure of what to expect when we reached. Najaf is where the house of Hazrat Ali (RA) is – adjacent to Masjid Koofa. Standing outside the structure, I was unable to overcome its simplicity – despite the stature of its occupants. I had initially feared not having any emotion; but it was instant and I don’t recall when the first snuffle gave way to a flood of tears that I had tried so hard to control. It is indescribable, how small I felt the moment I realized where I was standing. Back in Karbala for Ashoora, I remember another young mother requesting me to help her, with her daughter outside the Masjid Hussain on the night of tenth Muharram. They say only a selected few are tasked with helping others, on such occasions; I couldn’t help but smile up to the heavens above.”

Completely engrossed in her narrative, life suddenly dealt me a sixer – which could very aptly be described as an epiphany, of sorts. She was reciting the durood shareef and it suddenly hit me.

As Muslims, we know that the Durood Ibrahimi starts with “Allahumma salli ala Muhammadiw wa ala aale Muhammad”. Recall that the “ala Muhammadiw wa ala aale Muhammad” refers to the family of Prophet Muhammad (sw). So in sending salutations to Prophet Muhammad (sw), we are also conveying our respects to His family – making them central to all of our faiths, regardless of us being either or.

And as a significant part of Islam, this is the true message of Muharram: that connecting with the rest of humanity – in its truest sense is a divine obligation. And this can happen, only after we change both our individual and collective mindsets. It is time we revisit and reassume the basic principles of thinking before acting; of connecting to people’s hearts before connecting to their minds; and purifying one’s intention before attempting to reform.

So ponder, plan or simply perish. The choice is entirely yours.

[dragnews]

For Saudi Women, Challenges Go Far Beyond Driving

Women in Saudi Arabia will be legally permitted to drive for the first time on Sunday.

The ultraconservative Islamic kingdom has championed the new law, which follows a spate of recent reforms, as a step forward for Saudi women’s rights and the opening of its society.

But many Saudis view the change with apprehension. The shift has coincided with a crackdown on activists who campaigned for the end of the driving ban. And the kingdom’s strict guardianship system, which requires women to get the consent of their husband or a male relative for a variety of basic needs, remains in place.

Earlier this month, we asked Saudi women how their lives had changed, if at all, under the new reforms. We heard from scores of women in both Arabic and English. These are some of their responses, translated, condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Because of the sensitive nature, we gave readers the option of remaining anonymous or omitting their surnames.

‘I Have Learned About My Liberty’

Fatima

Ad-Dawadmi, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

During the last few years, I discovered that I have rights that have been usurped for a very long time. I have learned about my liberty, and I am now more assertive about it.

What Saudi Arabia is doing now could lead to considerable change. However, the guardianship by men over women is a big obstacle. If a woman ventures out, her guardian could report her to the authorities as a runaway.

I am optimistic that, with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed, the laws will be on our side — God willing.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My life as a Saudi woman is very different from that of my mother. My experience as a female is very sad. I cannot go out of the house unless my older brother gives me permission, as if I were a prisoner. I cannot go to the market or any recreational place — not even to the hospital.

In comparison to my mother’s life, in the past, women had it better. They didn’t have to deal with guardianship because there was no such thing at that time.

What changes would you like to see next?

We need a law that determines the age at which a woman becomes an adult. I am 29 years old, not a child. We shouldn’t be treated like minors for the rest of our lives.

Rola

Jidda, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

The law allows us to sit at soccer stadiums, go to the cinema and, soon, drive. However, there is still a lot of resistance from the government and religious figures against granting women total freedom.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

We thought it would but were very disappointed when the crown prince ordered the arrests of the women pioneers who fought so hard to get the driving issue on the table. We are back to a country of facades, as much as it was before, only now with a liberal slant.

‘Getting to Drive Is Essential’

Jory

Ras Al-Khafji, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

All the bans against Saudi women are slowly being lifted. Two years ago, I was struggling a lot. But now, it’s really becoming better for women.

The L.G.B.T.Q. community still does not see the light of day here. But I have a tiny bit of faith after everything that has happened.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

Yes, I don’t need to annoy my father or brother to drive me to my friend’s house anymore, or pay a driver just to run errands.

I will go to college this year, so getting to drive is essential. I remember seeing tweets from girls in college about always being late to school, or staying at school longer because their driver was late. I don’t want that to happen to me. I’m so grateful that this came at the perfect moment. I’m secretly proud of this dysfunctional country.

Fareeda Al-Sajan

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

Frankly, the changes that have been implemented in the last three to four years are small enough to only be truly appreciated by those who did not have the privilege of growing up in an open-minded household.

I was lucky to be brought up by parents who made sure that nothing was out of my or my sisters’ reach because of our gender. However, there has also been a noticeable change in the status of women in Saudi society, with many starting businesses and holding more positions in government.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

The lifting of the driving ban is one step closer to the independence and liberation of Saudi women. Many people do not realize how significant the ability to drive — to freely transport yourself of your own accord — is, because they have never had to live without that right.

The new driving law will aid many working-class women who cannot afford drivers and taxis to sustain jobs, to drive to school and university, and to simply have other aspects of a normal life that women of other nationalities have always known.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My mother is Egyptian, and when she first married my father and moved to Riyadh, there was a culture shock. Egypt, which also has a patriarchal society, was still more progressive than Saudi Arabia. Back then, the Saudi hai’a, or religious police, held absolute authority in enforcing Shariah law however they saw fit. Now, although the religious police still exist, they hold little to no authority. I can walk freely in public spaces without covering my hair.

Anonymous Woman

Khobar, Saudi Arabia

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

One of the obstacles for me is that I can’t go to the hospital. When I was 15, my father beat me with a stick and broke it on my head. Since then, I have suffered from headaches and other problems. It gets worse every day. I can’t go to the hospital because my guardian won’t allow me to go alone, and he is always busy and has no time to take me.

I don’t remember the last time that I saw the light of the outside world. I am giving myself one year. If life doesn’t change, there is no solution except suicide, as many other girls have done.

The Challenges Still Facing Saudi Women

Abeer Alkasbbi

Columbus, Ohio (born and raised in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

Ms. Alkasbbi, who was born and raised in Riyadh, shopping with her daughter, Noor, in Columbus, Ohio.CreditCourtesy of Abeer Alkasbbi

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

I am lucky to have a family that could afford a private driver since I was born. Now, after studying (and driving) in the United States since 2013, I miss how my driver used to drop me off where I wanted to go and then pick me up when I called him, without worrying about parking or traffic.

I know that there will be some women who will benefit from the new driving law, but they probably won’t be able to afford a car if they couldn’t afford a driver. I always viewed the driving ban as the “privileged women’s” problem because there are many women who are concerned about money and food more than anything else.

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

The biggest obstacles are twofold. First, there are the constant international interventions in Saudi issues and the Western standards that are often forced on us, threaten our identity and make it hard to have a fair conversation about the “real” issues facing Saudi women.

Second, the media’s representation of Saudi women is biased. Stories of Saudi women that make the headlines “fit the narrative” of showing how oppressed, victimized and unintelligent they are. News organizations rarely make a genuine effort to understand the people in Saudi Arabia, including women and their opinions, values and reasons behind what they do.

Raghad

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

I am subjected to violence and beatings and am denied the most basic rights, including the ability to go to a hospital. I have been insulted and cursed in ways that are anathema to Islam.

I have been denied the opportunity to study or work. I am forced to wear the black abaya and to cover my face and eyes. I am forced to remain inside the house. I am prevented from going out even to buy my essential needs.

I can’t benefit from the laws that allow women to drive or to attend concerts or sports events because the guardianship law denies me my independence in my own house.

May

Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

We need to stop the guardianship law. Anything else is just wasted effort.

The law prevents me from doing what I want if it doesn’t suit my guardian, including driving.

Hiya

Hafr Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

Many things have changed. The powers of the man responsible for me have been curtailed a lot. As a woman, I can now make decisions without my guardian’s permission.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My mother was a Bedouin. She never had the educational or job opportunities that I do. I continued my education through my master’s degree, all paid for by the government. In the past, there was no education for girls. That is why my mother didn’t get one. Now it is different. The state takes good care of educating girls, granting many full scholarships to the best universities in the world, and offering them great financial support.

What changes would you like to see next?

I would like to see the government give priority to the role of education in helping society get rid of norms and habits that keep women inferior to men. As long as those habits continue, girls from those traditional families won’t be able to benefit from the laws of gender equality because the power of norms in our society is stronger than the power of the law, especially when it comes to women.

Nour Youssef contributed reporting.

A note to readers who are not subscribers: This article from the Reader Center does not count toward your monthly free article limit.

Follow the @ReaderCenter on Twitter for more coverage highlighting your perspectives and experiences and for insight into how we work.

The post For Saudi Women, Challenges Go Far Beyond Driving appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2Kf0H4k via Today News

[party-hard-or-die]

For Saudi Women, Challenges Go Far Beyond Driving

Women in Saudi Arabia will be legally permitted to drive for the first time on Sunday.

The ultraconservative Islamic kingdom has championed the new law, which follows a spate of recent reforms, as a step forward for Saudi women’s rights and the opening of its society.

But many Saudis view the change with apprehension. The shift has coincided with a crackdown on activists who campaigned for the end of the driving ban. And the kingdom’s strict guardianship system, which requires women to get the consent of their husband or a male relative for a variety of basic needs, remains in place.

Earlier this month, we asked Saudi women how their lives had changed, if at all, under the new reforms. We heard from scores of women in both Arabic and English. These are some of their responses, translated, condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Because of the sensitive nature, we gave readers the option of remaining anonymous or omitting their surnames.

‘I Have Learned About My Liberty’

Fatima

Ad-Dawadmi, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

During the last few years, I discovered that I have rights that have been usurped for a very long time. I have learned about my liberty, and I am now more assertive about it.

What Saudi Arabia is doing now could lead to considerable change. However, the guardianship by men over women is a big obstacle. If a woman ventures out, her guardian could report her to the authorities as a runaway.

I am optimistic that, with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed, the laws will be on our side — God willing.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My life as a Saudi woman is very different from that of my mother. My experience as a female is very sad. I cannot go out of the house unless my older brother gives me permission, as if I were a prisoner. I cannot go to the market or any recreational place — not even to the hospital.

In comparison to my mother’s life, in the past, women had it better. They didn’t have to deal with guardianship because there was no such thing at that time.

What changes would you like to see next?

We need a law that determines the age at which a woman becomes an adult. I am 29 years old, not a child. We shouldn’t be treated like minors for the rest of our lives.

Rola

Jidda, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

The law allows us to sit at soccer stadiums, go to the cinema and, soon, drive. However, there is still a lot of resistance from the government and religious figures against granting women total freedom.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

We thought it would but were very disappointed when the crown prince ordered the arrests of the women pioneers who fought so hard to get the driving issue on the table. We are back to a country of facades, as much as it was before, only now with a liberal slant.

‘Getting to Drive Is Essential’

Jory

Ras Al-Khafji, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

All the bans against Saudi women are slowly being lifted. Two years ago, I was struggling a lot. But now, it’s really becoming better for women.

The L.G.B.T.Q. community still does not see the light of day here. But I have a tiny bit of faith after everything that has happened.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

Yes, I don’t need to annoy my father or brother to drive me to my friend’s house anymore, or pay a driver just to run errands.

I will go to college this year, so getting to drive is essential. I remember seeing tweets from girls in college about always being late to school, or staying at school longer because their driver was late. I don’t want that to happen to me. I’m so grateful that this came at the perfect moment. I’m secretly proud of this dysfunctional country.

Fareeda Al-Sajan

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

Frankly, the changes that have been implemented in the last three to four years are small enough to only be truly appreciated by those who did not have the privilege of growing up in an open-minded household.

I was lucky to be brought up by parents who made sure that nothing was out of my or my sisters’ reach because of our gender. However, there has also been a noticeable change in the status of women in Saudi society, with many starting businesses and holding more positions in government.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

The lifting of the driving ban is one step closer to the independence and liberation of Saudi women. Many people do not realize how significant the ability to drive — to freely transport yourself of your own accord — is, because they have never had to live without that right.

The new driving law will aid many working-class women who cannot afford drivers and taxis to sustain jobs, to drive to school and university, and to simply have other aspects of a normal life that women of other nationalities have always known.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My mother is Egyptian, and when she first married my father and moved to Riyadh, there was a culture shock. Egypt, which also has a patriarchal society, was still more progressive than Saudi Arabia. Back then, the Saudi hai’a, or religious police, held absolute authority in enforcing Shariah law however they saw fit. Now, although the religious police still exist, they hold little to no authority. I can walk freely in public spaces without covering my hair.

Anonymous Woman

Khobar, Saudi Arabia

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

One of the obstacles for me is that I can’t go to the hospital. When I was 15, my father beat me with a stick and broke it on my head. Since then, I have suffered from headaches and other problems. It gets worse every day. I can’t go to the hospital because my guardian won’t allow me to go alone, and he is always busy and has no time to take me.

I don’t remember the last time that I saw the light of the outside world. I am giving myself one year. If life doesn’t change, there is no solution except suicide, as many other girls have done.

The Challenges Still Facing Saudi Women

Abeer Alkasbbi

Columbus, Ohio (born and raised in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

Ms. Alkasbbi, who was born and raised in Riyadh, shopping with her daughter, Noor, in Columbus, Ohio.CreditCourtesy of Abeer Alkasbbi

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

I am lucky to have a family that could afford a private driver since I was born. Now, after studying (and driving) in the United States since 2013, I miss how my driver used to drop me off where I wanted to go and then pick me up when I called him, without worrying about parking or traffic.

I know that there will be some women who will benefit from the new driving law, but they probably won’t be able to afford a car if they couldn’t afford a driver. I always viewed the driving ban as the “privileged women’s” problem because there are many women who are concerned about money and food more than anything else.

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

The biggest obstacles are twofold. First, there are the constant international interventions in Saudi issues and the Western standards that are often forced on us, threaten our identity and make it hard to have a fair conversation about the “real” issues facing Saudi women.

Second, the media’s representation of Saudi women is biased. Stories of Saudi women that make the headlines “fit the narrative” of showing how oppressed, victimized and unintelligent they are. News organizations rarely make a genuine effort to understand the people in Saudi Arabia, including women and their opinions, values and reasons behind what they do.

Raghad

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

I am subjected to violence and beatings and am denied the most basic rights, including the ability to go to a hospital. I have been insulted and cursed in ways that are anathema to Islam.

I have been denied the opportunity to study or work. I am forced to wear the black abaya and to cover my face and eyes. I am forced to remain inside the house. I am prevented from going out even to buy my essential needs.

I can’t benefit from the laws that allow women to drive or to attend concerts or sports events because the guardianship law denies me my independence in my own house.

May

Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

We need to stop the guardianship law. Anything else is just wasted effort.

The law prevents me from doing what I want if it doesn’t suit my guardian, including driving.

Hiya

Hafr Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

Many things have changed. The powers of the man responsible for me have been curtailed a lot. As a woman, I can now make decisions without my guardian’s permission.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My mother was a Bedouin. She never had the educational or job opportunities that I do. I continued my education through my master’s degree, all paid for by the government. In the past, there was no education for girls. That is why my mother didn’t get one. Now it is different. The state takes good care of educating girls, granting many full scholarships to the best universities in the world, and offering them great financial support.

What changes would you like to see next?

I would like to see the government give priority to the role of education in helping society get rid of norms and habits that keep women inferior to men. As long as those habits continue, girls from those traditional families won’t be able to benefit from the laws of gender equality because the power of norms in our society is stronger than the power of the law, especially when it comes to women.

Nour Youssef contributed reporting.

A note to readers who are not subscribers: This article from the Reader Center does not count toward your monthly free article limit.

Follow the @ReaderCenter on Twitter for more coverage highlighting your perspectives and experiences and for insight into how we work.

The post For Saudi Women, Challenges Go Far Beyond Driving appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2Kf0H4k via Breaking News

[dani-qrt]

For Saudi Women, Challenges Go Far Beyond Driving

Women in Saudi Arabia will be legally permitted to drive for the first time on Sunday.

The ultraconservative Islamic kingdom has championed the new law, which follows a spate of recent reforms, as a step forward for Saudi women’s rights and the opening of its society.

But many Saudis view the change with apprehension. The shift has coincided with a crackdown on activists who campaigned for the end of the driving ban. And the kingdom’s strict guardianship system, which requires women to get the consent of their husband or a male relative for a variety of basic needs, remains in place.

Earlier this month, we asked Saudi women how their lives had changed, if at all, under the new reforms. We heard from scores of women in both Arabic and English. These are some of their responses, translated, condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Because of the sensitive nature, we gave readers the option of remaining anonymous or omitting their surnames.

‘I Have Learned About My Liberty’

Fatima

Ad-Dawadmi, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

During the last few years, I discovered that I have rights that have been usurped for a very long time. I have learned about my liberty, and I am now more assertive about it.

What Saudi Arabia is doing now could lead to considerable change. However, the guardianship by men over women is a big obstacle. If a woman ventures out, her guardian could report her to the authorities as a runaway.

I am optimistic that, with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed, the laws will be on our side — God willing.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My life as a Saudi woman is very different from that of my mother. My experience as a female is very sad. I cannot go out of the house unless my older brother gives me permission, as if I were a prisoner. I cannot go to the market or any recreational place — not even to the hospital.

In comparison to my mother’s life, in the past, women had it better. They didn’t have to deal with guardianship because there was no such thing at that time.

What changes would you like to see next?

We need a law that determines the age at which a woman becomes an adult. I am 29 years old, not a child. We shouldn’t be treated like minors for the rest of our lives.

Rola

Jidda, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

The law allows us to sit at soccer stadiums, go to the cinema and, soon, drive. However, there is still a lot of resistance from the government and religious figures against granting women total freedom.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

We thought it would but were very disappointed when the crown prince ordered the arrests of the women pioneers who fought so hard to get the driving issue on the table. We are back to a country of facades, as much as it was before, only now with a liberal slant.

‘Getting to Drive Is Essential’

Jory

Ras Al-Khafji, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

All the bans against Saudi women are slowly being lifted. Two years ago, I was struggling a lot. But now, it’s really becoming better for women.

The L.G.B.T.Q. community still does not see the light of day here. But I have a tiny bit of faith after everything that has happened.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

Yes, I don’t need to annoy my father or brother to drive me to my friend’s house anymore, or pay a driver just to run errands.

I will go to college this year, so getting to drive is essential. I remember seeing tweets from girls in college about always being late to school, or staying at school longer because their driver was late. I don’t want that to happen to me. I’m so grateful that this came at the perfect moment. I’m secretly proud of this dysfunctional country.

Fareeda Al-Sajan

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

Frankly, the changes that have been implemented in the last three to four years are small enough to only be truly appreciated by those who did not have the privilege of growing up in an open-minded household.

I was lucky to be brought up by parents who made sure that nothing was out of my or my sisters’ reach because of our gender. However, there has also been a noticeable change in the status of women in Saudi society, with many starting businesses and holding more positions in government.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

The lifting of the driving ban is one step closer to the independence and liberation of Saudi women. Many people do not realize how significant the ability to drive — to freely transport yourself of your own accord — is, because they have never had to live without that right.

The new driving law will aid many working-class women who cannot afford drivers and taxis to sustain jobs, to drive to school and university, and to simply have other aspects of a normal life that women of other nationalities have always known.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My mother is Egyptian, and when she first married my father and moved to Riyadh, there was a culture shock. Egypt, which also has a patriarchal society, was still more progressive than Saudi Arabia. Back then, the Saudi hai’a, or religious police, held absolute authority in enforcing Shariah law however they saw fit. Now, although the religious police still exist, they hold little to no authority. I can walk freely in public spaces without covering my hair.

Anonymous Woman

Khobar, Saudi Arabia

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

One of the obstacles for me is that I can’t go to the hospital. When I was 15, my father beat me with a stick and broke it on my head. Since then, I have suffered from headaches and other problems. It gets worse every day. I can’t go to the hospital because my guardian won’t allow me to go alone, and he is always busy and has no time to take me.

I don’t remember the last time that I saw the light of the outside world. I am giving myself one year. If life doesn’t change, there is no solution except suicide, as many other girls have done.

The Challenges Still Facing Saudi Women

Abeer Alkasbbi

Columbus, Ohio (born and raised in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

Ms. Alkasbbi, who was born and raised in Riyadh, shopping with her daughter, Noor, in Columbus, Ohio.CreditCourtesy of Abeer Alkasbbi

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

I am lucky to have a family that could afford a private driver since I was born. Now, after studying (and driving) in the United States since 2013, I miss how my driver used to drop me off where I wanted to go and then pick me up when I called him, without worrying about parking or traffic.

I know that there will be some women who will benefit from the new driving law, but they probably won’t be able to afford a car if they couldn’t afford a driver. I always viewed the driving ban as the “privileged women’s” problem because there are many women who are concerned about money and food more than anything else.

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

The biggest obstacles are twofold. First, there are the constant international interventions in Saudi issues and the Western standards that are often forced on us, threaten our identity and make it hard to have a fair conversation about the “real” issues facing Saudi women.

Second, the media’s representation of Saudi women is biased. Stories of Saudi women that make the headlines “fit the narrative” of showing how oppressed, victimized and unintelligent they are. News organizations rarely make a genuine effort to understand the people in Saudi Arabia, including women and their opinions, values and reasons behind what they do.

Raghad

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

I am subjected to violence and beatings and am denied the most basic rights, including the ability to go to a hospital. I have been insulted and cursed in ways that are anathema to Islam.

I have been denied the opportunity to study or work. I am forced to wear the black abaya and to cover my face and eyes. I am forced to remain inside the house. I am prevented from going out even to buy my essential needs.

I can’t benefit from the laws that allow women to drive or to attend concerts or sports events because the guardianship law denies me my independence in my own house.

May

Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

We need to stop the guardianship law. Anything else is just wasted effort.

The law prevents me from doing what I want if it doesn’t suit my guardian, including driving.

Hiya

Hafr Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

Many things have changed. The powers of the man responsible for me have been curtailed a lot. As a woman, I can now make decisions without my guardian’s permission.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My mother was a Bedouin. She never had the educational or job opportunities that I do. I continued my education through my master’s degree, all paid for by the government. In the past, there was no education for girls. That is why my mother didn’t get one. Now it is different. The state takes good care of educating girls, granting many full scholarships to the best universities in the world, and offering them great financial support.

What changes would you like to see next?

I would like to see the government give priority to the role of education in helping society get rid of norms and habits that keep women inferior to men. As long as those habits continue, girls from those traditional families won’t be able to benefit from the laws of gender equality because the power of norms in our society is stronger than the power of the law, especially when it comes to women.

Nour Youssef contributed reporting.

A note to readers who are not subscribers: This article from the Reader Center does not count toward your monthly free article limit.

Follow the @ReaderCenter on Twitter for more coverage highlighting your perspectives and experiences and for insight into how we work.

The post For Saudi Women, Challenges Go Far Beyond Driving appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2Kf0H4k via Online News

[cleopatrarps]

For Saudi Women, Challenges Go Far Beyond Driving

Women in Saudi Arabia will be legally permitted to drive for the first time on Sunday.

The ultraconservative Islamic kingdom has championed the new law, which follows a spate of recent reforms, as a step forward for Saudi women’s rights and the opening of its society.

But many Saudis view the change with apprehension. The shift has coincided with a crackdown on activists who campaigned for the end of the driving ban. And the kingdom’s strict guardianship system, which requires women to get the consent of their husband or a male relative for a variety of basic needs, remains in place.

Earlier this month, we asked Saudi women how their lives had changed, if at all, under the new reforms. We heard from scores of women in both Arabic and English. These are some of their responses, translated, condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Because of the sensitive nature, we gave readers the option of remaining anonymous or omitting their surnames.

‘I Have Learned About My Liberty’

Fatima

Ad-Dawadmi, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

During the last few years, I discovered that I have rights that have been usurped for a very long time. I have learned about my liberty, and I am now more assertive about it.

What Saudi Arabia is doing now could lead to considerable change. However, the guardianship by men over women is a big obstacle. If a woman ventures out, her guardian could report her to the authorities as a runaway.

I am optimistic that, with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed, the laws will be on our side — God willing.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My life as a Saudi woman is very different from that of my mother. My experience as a female is very sad. I cannot go out of the house unless my older brother gives me permission, as if I were a prisoner. I cannot go to the market or any recreational place — not even to the hospital.

In comparison to my mother’s life, in the past, women had it better. They didn’t have to deal with guardianship because there was no such thing at that time.

What changes would you like to see next?

We need a law that determines the age at which a woman becomes an adult. I am 29 years old, not a child. We shouldn’t be treated like minors for the rest of our lives.

Rola

Jidda, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

The law allows us to sit at soccer stadiums, go to the cinema and, soon, drive. However, there is still a lot of resistance from the government and religious figures against granting women total freedom.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

We thought it would but were very disappointed when the crown prince ordered the arrests of the women pioneers who fought so hard to get the driving issue on the table. We are back to a country of facades, as much as it was before, only now with a liberal slant.

‘Getting to Drive Is Essential’

Jory

Ras Al-Khafji, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

All the bans against Saudi women are slowly being lifted. Two years ago, I was struggling a lot. But now, it’s really becoming better for women.

The L.G.B.T.Q. community still does not see the light of day here. But I have a tiny bit of faith after everything that has happened.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

Yes, I don’t need to annoy my father or brother to drive me to my friend’s house anymore, or pay a driver just to run errands.

I will go to college this year, so getting to drive is essential. I remember seeing tweets from girls in college about always being late to school, or staying at school longer because their driver was late. I don’t want that to happen to me. I’m so grateful that this came at the perfect moment. I’m secretly proud of this dysfunctional country.

Fareeda Al-Sajan

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

Frankly, the changes that have been implemented in the last three to four years are small enough to only be truly appreciated by those who did not have the privilege of growing up in an open-minded household.

I was lucky to be brought up by parents who made sure that nothing was out of my or my sisters’ reach because of our gender. However, there has also been a noticeable change in the status of women in Saudi society, with many starting businesses and holding more positions in government.

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

The lifting of the driving ban is one step closer to the independence and liberation of Saudi women. Many people do not realize how significant the ability to drive — to freely transport yourself of your own accord — is, because they have never had to live without that right.

The new driving law will aid many working-class women who cannot afford drivers and taxis to sustain jobs, to drive to school and university, and to simply have other aspects of a normal life that women of other nationalities have always known.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My mother is Egyptian, and when she first married my father and moved to Riyadh, there was a culture shock. Egypt, which also has a patriarchal society, was still more progressive than Saudi Arabia. Back then, the Saudi hai’a, or religious police, held absolute authority in enforcing Shariah law however they saw fit. Now, although the religious police still exist, they hold little to no authority. I can walk freely in public spaces without covering my hair.

Anonymous Woman

Khobar, Saudi Arabia

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

One of the obstacles for me is that I can’t go to the hospital. When I was 15, my father beat me with a stick and broke it on my head. Since then, I have suffered from headaches and other problems. It gets worse every day. I can’t go to the hospital because my guardian won’t allow me to go alone, and he is always busy and has no time to take me.

I don’t remember the last time that I saw the light of the outside world. I am giving myself one year. If life doesn’t change, there is no solution except suicide, as many other girls have done.

The Challenges Still Facing Saudi Women

Abeer Alkasbbi

Columbus, Ohio (born and raised in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

Ms. Alkasbbi, who was born and raised in Riyadh, shopping with her daughter, Noor, in Columbus, Ohio.CreditCourtesy of Abeer Alkasbbi

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

I am lucky to have a family that could afford a private driver since I was born. Now, after studying (and driving) in the United States since 2013, I miss how my driver used to drop me off where I wanted to go and then pick me up when I called him, without worrying about parking or traffic.

I know that there will be some women who will benefit from the new driving law, but they probably won’t be able to afford a car if they couldn’t afford a driver. I always viewed the driving ban as the “privileged women’s” problem because there are many women who are concerned about money and food more than anything else.

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

The biggest obstacles are twofold. First, there are the constant international interventions in Saudi issues and the Western standards that are often forced on us, threaten our identity and make it hard to have a fair conversation about the “real” issues facing Saudi women.

Second, the media’s representation of Saudi women is biased. Stories of Saudi women that make the headlines “fit the narrative” of showing how oppressed, victimized and unintelligent they are. News organizations rarely make a genuine effort to understand the people in Saudi Arabia, including women and their opinions, values and reasons behind what they do.

Raghad

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

What are the biggest obstacles that remain for Saudi women?

I am subjected to violence and beatings and am denied the most basic rights, including the ability to go to a hospital. I have been insulted and cursed in ways that are anathema to Islam.

I have been denied the opportunity to study or work. I am forced to wear the black abaya and to cover my face and eyes. I am forced to remain inside the house. I am prevented from going out even to buy my essential needs.

I can’t benefit from the laws that allow women to drive or to attend concerts or sports events because the guardianship law denies me my independence in my own house.

May

Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

Do you think the new driving law will change your life in a significant way?

We need to stop the guardianship law. Anything else is just wasted effort.

The law prevents me from doing what I want if it doesn’t suit my guardian, including driving.

Hiya

Hafr Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia

What, if anything, has changed about your life as a woman over the last several years?

Many things have changed. The powers of the man responsible for me have been curtailed a lot. As a woman, I can now make decisions without my guardian’s permission.

How is your life as a woman different from what your mother experienced?

My mother was a Bedouin. She never had the educational or job opportunities that I do. I continued my education through my master’s degree, all paid for by the government. In the past, there was no education for girls. That is why my mother didn’t get one. Now it is different. The state takes good care of educating girls, granting many full scholarships to the best universities in the world, and offering them great financial support.

What changes would you like to see next?

I would like to see the government give priority to the role of education in helping society get rid of norms and habits that keep women inferior to men. As long as those habits continue, girls from those traditional families won’t be able to benefit from the laws of gender equality because the power of norms in our society is stronger than the power of the law, especially when it comes to women.

Nour Youssef contributed reporting.

A note to readers who are not subscribers: This article from the Reader Center does not count toward your monthly free article limit.

Follow the @ReaderCenter on Twitter for more coverage highlighting your perspectives and experiences and for insight into how we work.

The post For Saudi Women, Challenges Go Far Beyond Driving appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2Kf0H4k via News of World

[litl-theinterview]

Stephanie Tran

1. What is your favorite thing right now? 

I'm slightly embarrassed that this isn't a deep answer. But right now my favorite thing is Noosa yogurt. I can't stop eating it to he point of buying bulk at Whole Foods (it's on sale)! 2. If money (and access) was no object, what would you buy today? 

So many things. Probably in order of priority: I would buy a brownstone, a beach house, and a wood-fired hot tub (maybe one for each place). I would also buy ceramics from BDDW, because Tyler Hays is a genius and it would make me really happy to be surrounded by his beautiful objects all of the time. I would also buy a first class plane ticket to see the Brancusi Atelier in Paris and visit the Museo Canova in Italy — not to see the sculpture here, but to see the architecture work of Scarpa. I would stay in the fanciest of hotels and order room service and drink bottles of the best champagne. 3. Have you ever gone on a pilgrimage? 

This question threw me, because no one ever asks it, and so I rarely think about it. But, yes. I have been on a real, religious pilgrimage. Every year growing up, my father tortured the family by dragging us to the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine in Lewiston, NY to celebrate Vietnamese Day. This always took place Labor Day weekend, when all I and my sister's wanted to do was run around with our friends doing American things like going to barbecues or the mall. Instead, we had to entertain tons of Vietnamese people who came from New York City where my dad lived (and who I would I later learn were my half-siblings and their mom's and extended family)...anyway, that's another story and I'm sure it subliminally had something to do with why I never enjoyed it. Also, I remember it always being really hot but having to wear our Sunday best, so that meant some kind of frilly dress, white ankle socks with lace, and patent leather maryjanes. Every year we got new rosaries, which I would proceed to throw away as soon as I got home. Clearly I just hated being forced to do anything against my own will...which is still true today. 4. What is your Kryptonite? 

That's a tough one for me to answer. I really do not know how to actually. 5. What is your favorite time of day? 

I am no longer a morning person, but I really try to be because my favorite time of day is usually the early mornings - 7am-ish - in the spring/summer/fall when I'm walking around, en route to work or the gym and it's still pretty quiet, and the air just smells really special. Dewy or crisp. But always sweet. It gives me those I <3 NY feelings all the time. 6. Do you have a go-to “power” song? 

When I think of a power song, I think of it in terms of running - what song really gets me started, what gets me moving, what gets me past the hump, and what song gets me through the finish line. That means there are 4. They translate into life power songs, too. Short Answer: 1. Planting Seeds - Built to Spill

I can listen to this song for a whole run. A whole 8-mile-run. I’ve done it many times. When I was at my fastest (which is still a jog to a lot of people), that meant a little over an hour. I am not sure how I came to this song or this band even - at some point I probably would have hated them before - his whiney voice - but for whatever reason when I found this song I immediately fell in love with it. I think it was during the end of a relationship. It felt right. And then I listened to it through that break up and the time it took to get over it - over and over, the only song on repeat for a while. I am sure it annoyed all of my friends, but it made me feel good, even though it made me feel sad. There is an endless sense of longing in it. I will never get sick of. It reminds me of a time, a bittersweet time, but when I am running, sometimes that is what I need. To get lost in that weird, sad feeling.

2. Rue the Day - The Walkmen

I had an unhealthy obsession with this band back in 2002. Ok, I still do. I love the whole album this song is on, but this song is particularly special. Listen to the lyrics. It's sexy. It's about teenagers and crushes and hooking up. Young love-ish. More longing. I am pretty sure he wrote it about his high school girlfriend that he broke up with and then got back together with years later. They are married and have kids now. I know this not because I know them, but because I witnessed it; I went to every show. So it's a sweet love song as much as it is sexy. And I am officially outing myself as a stalker.

3. Hybrid Moments - Misfits

I got into the Misfits when I was visiting someone who lived in a "skater house” and woke up in a haze from a nap and realized the same song that was playing had crept into my dream. It was a 9 minute song recorded onto a cassette over and over. Probably for the length of the tape. It was that long ago. Anyway, I kept thinking about it, but it just didn't hit me until a week later that I loved the song. My friend I was staying with didn't know what I was talking about because he wasn't there at the time. By process of elimination, he thought it was Misfits. I listened to EVERY SONG by them (that's a lot of songs), hoping I would find THE ONE. Of course in the end it was actually Danzig, not Misfits (the lead singer's solo effort), but these two songs (this one and the next) really stuck out while I was listening to the catalog. Glenn Danzig is a beast of a person, he looks scary, and he sings about creepy things; but his voice is so melodic and beautiful, and I guess I really like the contrast. Hybrid Moments usually comes on right when I need it - the height of the run when I am super warmed up and ready to go. It makes me feel like I am dancing at a punk show with all of my heart, and that feels good.

4. Last Caress - Misfits

This is one I am cautious of telling to anyone who doesn't love Misfits. The lyrics are macabre. In a time of hyper-sensitivity, I know they could be interpreted literally,  but I really don’t think they mean what they say, or anything for that matter. Hard to say. But the music and his voice in this particular song really gets me going. It would be my sprinting song. My fuck you, fuck you, and fuck YOU, I’m going to keep going song. I guess my ultimate power song, but I like having the warm up before. 7. What is your happy place? 

I have two and they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Active/Inactive. The first is on a long run along the West Side Highway, all the way up towards the George Washington Bridge and back (to Brooklyn where I live). I haven't yet run across that bridge, but the other day I decided that it would be a goal for this summer. My second happy place is sitting in the sun, reading a book or a magazine. At the beach, upstate, wherever. Just melting into my chair. 8. If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

Lou, my little lap dog. What does she do and think all day? What she she feel when I'm away at work or on vacation without her? How does it feel to be so adorable and loved? What's her happy place? All of the questions you've ask here I would want to know of her! 9. What do you think you do best? 

I’m really good at getting people to open up about and explore their feelings. Selfishly it helps me understand my own! 10. What is something you do to cheer yourself up? 

I feel like I will always have a little bit of sadness in me — I've always been this way. And there is something comforting about being in your feelings when you are down; letting it sink in. That said, if I need cheering up, I’ll spend a whole month binge-watching something that makes me both happy and sad at once. Something nostalgic, relatable, comforting, aspirational. Usually about relationships and love. Gilmore Girls, Mad Men, Friday Night Lights. Love, Actually. I dive deep into the abyss of these shows (and one movie) and then I pick myself back up with some self-care in the form of massages, facials, and some form of exercise. YAWN. BARF. I know that "self-care" phrase is kind of overused and now everyone will think I am annoying, but...  11. What is the best advice you've ever been given?

This doesn't really count as advice given to me specifically, but a woman I consider a growing friend and have mad respect for (Karen Wong, the Deputy Director of New Museum) said at a panel when asked about how she presents herself, how she wants others to see her, "I don't really care about being liked. I just care about being respected."

I come back to this quote a lot. I think we can all interpret it in our own ways, and for me it's a reminder to live with integrity and in forward motion. I annoy myself by even saying that because it sounds so preachy and self-helpy. And isn't that how we should all live? But reminders are good because we don't live in a bubble and sometimes (READ: ALWAYS), life is hard.

12. Who would you like to see interviewed here? 

Fran Lebowitz. Totally serious. Please try.

Stephanie Tran is the co-founder of The New Jock, a site that explores fitness, sports, and athleticism.

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“Above all, trust in the slow work of God”

So this past Sunday, by recommendation of my doctor, I made a retreat with the visiting Int’l Statue of our Lady of Fatima, on her 100th year anniversary, at a cloistered dominican monastery (*major Catholic fan girling over here*!!), and I think this quote kind of sums up what visiting her meant for me...

First of all, my doctor was there, and I was blown away by how blessed I am to have her in my life. I mean, I always knew she was awesome. She's gotten me over some steep hurtles. She's assured me countless times that I’m in her prayers. But seeing her in her actual prayer life. Seeing her actually encounter the Lord…goodness, that’s a whole other ball game. She not only kept checking in on me and expressed such joy to see me there, but she kept checking in with the people all around her. I just got to see a whole other side of her. I got to see her love in action. I got to see her motherly heart. I don't know what it is but that was probably one of the best parts of Sunday. Maybe it was just assuring knowing this is the kind of woman God has placed in my life to help take care of me. That meeting her was no accident,  but that it was totally on purpose, orchestrated by God to have such a holy woman in my life walk with me through my deepest wounds. It was just the most comforting thing. 

But mostly, my favorite part was the most wonderful surprise of all - Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament was exposed! Right above the sanctuary in just the largest tabernacle/monstrance I’d ever seen. It was just so beautiful. I knew Our Lady would be there, I knew the sisters would be there, I knew all these prayers were gonna go down, I even had a feeling confession would be available. But I did not know that I would have the chance to sit with our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to do that?! No, since I’ve brought myself to do that?! I’ve always had the opportunity. It’s no big deal to drive myself 2 miles over to the nearest Adoration chapel. But I never did because I’ve just been so mad, so confused, so unsure if I could trust Him anymore because of all I’ve been through in the last year and a half. But for the first time in a long time, probably like even before I left Michigan, I prayed a prayer of surrender. I don't remember if I actually said the words “I surrender,” but for the first time in months I fell to my knees, and I just cried in surrender. I cried all my hopelessness, all my helplessness to the Lord. I finally cried out to Him and begged, “I have no idea how to do this.” Because I finally let it hit me - this is my new reality. 

People have been saying that around me all this time, and it’s crossed my mind quite a few times as well, but it’s never really hit me. This is my new reality. 1) Bipolar. This is real. My depression can be triggered but also can my hypomania, and I’m gonna have to start being conscious of that. I’m gonna have to start really thinking of my actions and their consequences. I’m gonna have to learn the balance between truly embracing life and taking advantage of all this time to make memories with loved ones, and strictly living a reckless yolo life, where I say whatever I wanna say, do whatever I wanna do without considering anyone else around me, living selfishly for myself. I’m gonna have to watch how I put my worth in my work, in the fruits of my labor, in the impressions I leave on people. Because it’s all of those things that can cause my downfall once again into a pit of depression. I’m gonna have to watch my overzealous, motivated days because those can turn into deep, dark, self loathing days. My bipolar is real, and it’s time I start really taking care of it. 2) Lupus. This is real. If I don't take my medicine, my body will start attacking itself again, and I’ll be right back in the hospital practically dying. If I do take my medicine, it’s going to suppress my immune system which makes me vulnerable to any kind of simple and complex illness. That means even a common cold, a regular cough, feeling a little tired, headaches, all of that is not to be taken lightly. If I’m feeling the slightest bit sick, if I’m feeling the slightest bit weak I need to rest because it can get worse. Just like anyone else, if you’re sick and you don't rest, it’ll only get worse. But it’s even more important for me because I basically don't have an immune system which means anything can take me down. My new reality is that I need to start doing what I can to live a healthy life. My new reality is that I need to understand that I simply do not have the same strength that I used to have. My new reality is that I’m sick. And no, that doesn't need to define me. I don't need to be stuck in bed paranoid of falling to pieces again. But I do need to consider my new limitations. My new reality is that I need to be ok with taking things slow. I need to be ok with saying no to things. Saying no to things I wish I could commit to, no to things I wish I could help out with, no to events I wish I could attend, no to trips I wish I could go on. My new reality is I need to be ok with regular doctors appointments, with these people knowing every part of my business, asking all kinds of questions because it’s these questions and my honest answers that’ll keep my healthy. My new reality is that I’m sick.

But what hit me the most with being with our Lady and our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is that yes, I’m sick, but that’s also not the end. For the first time, I realized the reality of my situation. I saw the severity of it. And I saw how scared I actually am. Scared to change my life around. Scared to redefine my limitations and who I am and what I’m capable of. Scared of letting go of who I think I’m supposed to be. But what struck me was not only the reality of my situation, but the truth that God still has something great in store for me. That this truly is not the end. That He has something good to come from even this, the most shittiest experience of my life, my whole world turned completely upside down. That even this, He is completely aware of and He knows what He's doing. That even this, He has a way. He has a way for me to get through this. And He has a way for me to come out even better at the end of this. That even with this, He has a great plan. That even with this, He's there with me. It may not feel good and I may not understand it, but who said I have to? Who said it was gonna feel good? And who said I have to understand it every step of the way? That’s what I kept thinking of. 

I kept thinking of talking to Ate J about all this and asking, “I just don't understand why He would put me through this.” and Ate would say, “but does it matter?” At the beginning of the retreat, all I could think was I need to ask Ate or a priest or a sister or just someone holy, “have you ever been mad at God? and how do you move on from it? how do you push forward? how do you trust again?” And I was so stuck on that. I was getting ready to figure out how I was gonna get a priest or sister to talk to me that day or how I was gonna word my text to Ate. But then the priest gave his talk and all he had to say was “offer it up.” That term has become so cliche to anyone who spent their four years of college at Franciscan. It was totally overused and after my time there I basically dropped it because it started to lose meaning. And then when the real suffering started to hit, and I would think of that, but I would push it away even further in anger like “fuck that, I’ve bore my cross, it’s time for me to reap the fruits of my labor.” But that’s what it came down to that day. That yeah I’m suffering, yeah this is my reality. And maybe there’s no immediate or obvious reason for it, but who cares; I need to offer it up. 

...Cause that’s what I was thinking. All my suffering in the past seemed to be caused by something. Suffering in school was because I procrastinated or I didn't understand my professor. Suffering in prayer was because I was looking for feelings or becoming complacent. Suffering with the Lord was because I stopped praying and got prideful. Suffering with depression was because I had wounds I didn't want to acknowledge. All my suffering seemed to have a reason, so it was somehow more bearable. But this suffering just seemed so pointless. Why, after suffering all that crap with my mental illness, fighting hard against suicidal thoughts and desires, fighting through my days of endless therapy in the hospital, why after all that, after giving up my life in Michigan that I loved so much, why after all that I still had to suffer this most random physical illness that I have completely no control over. This suffering just seemed to come out of no where. And it didn't just stop with the illness, it came with so many following consequences. This illness kept me from religious life. This illness kept me from jobs. This illness kept me from going out, from going on trips, from going on hikes. This illness seemed to take everything away from me, and I just couldn't see why. Even on a medical or scientific level, there’s literally no reason for me to have this. There is no defined cause; there are things that may lead to a trigger, but there is nothing you can absolutely point to and say this is why you have this. And even more, there is no foreseeable cure. So not only is there literally no reason for my suffering, there appears to be no end in sight. And so my biggest question through all this has been, why? Why after all the suffering I’ve already been through? And why this particular suffering that is effecting all parts of my life and is changing every plan I ever had set for me? But what came to me that Sunday is, “does it matter?”

The fact is, this is my reality. But it’s not just my reality. This is my cross. This has been specifically given to me by our Lord. He knows what he's doing. And if I heard that maybe a month ago, that would’ve made me even more upset because it’s like, if He knows, then why would He choose for me to suffer like this, if He loves me so much, if He's true to His promises, if he's so faithful and so loving, why would He knowingly bear this load on me? How is that love? But for some reason hearing it this time, actually by grace alone, by the intercession of grace by our Lady, hearing that our Lord knows what He's doing, that He is very aware of my suffering, very aware of the heaviness of it all, of how it’s completely crushing me, hearing that He is right there with me was the most comforting thing. Because I think that was the most frustrating part of it all. That yeah I’m suffering. But I’ve suffered before. The difference this time was that it felt like God was opposed to me. Like He was causing the suffering because He simply hated me, because He was simply tired of me and just wanted to see me suffer, wanted to see me hurt. But knowing that He’s in control of all this made me feel assured that “ok good, if His hand is in all this, then I know i won’t be crushed because i know He would never do that to me.” It was just finally assuring that I wasn't alone. That He wasn't opposing me, but that He is in fact on my side. And whether I ever find the reason or not for all my suffering, the fact of the matter is that this is my cross, and like it or not, I need to come to accept it, embrace it, and simply offer it up. Do it for the salvation of souls. Do it for the reparation of my own soul. Do it for the glory of God because He suffered first, and this is my part in His cross. Thinking of my suffering as a cross versus a punishment just makes a world of a difference. Because a punishment feels isolating and never-ending. But the Cross, I know, has an end, and it’s redemptive, and it leads to greater life for myself and for all those around me.

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.” — This Sunday, Our Lady of Fatima made me see that our Lord is at work in my life. That He’s right there with me. That she's right there with me. And that it may be slow, this suffering may be long, but there will be something good at the end. There will be life. There will be more. She made me realize that yeah this sucks and everything is changing and everything is out of my hands (which I hate!) but everything is also good because it’s all orchestrated by God. So no matter the reason and how long it takes, I feel like I’ve been assured that the good is still yet to come, and that’s a promise.

But i’m just amazed that Christ would love me enough to seek me out like that. it was literally to Jesus through Mary. Because I honestly wasn't even thinking of Him. That’s probably why Adoration never even crossed my mind. Cause I was literally just thinking of our Lady, and if there’s anyone that could help me, it would be her. So I came desperate to be close to her, desperate for her to hold me and console me and show me a way back to Him. I came for her, but I found Him. She literally led me straight to Him. My time there that Sunday was barely even about the statue; it was about our Lord being present, exposed in the Blessed Sacrament. Amazing. Talagang to Jesus through Mary. I’ve never seen it so real before. So thank You, Lord, for doing what You can to bring me back to You. For using who You needed to use to bring me back to You. For giving me time with You. You totally set me up, and I’m just amazed that You would do that. After all my anger, all my cussing You out, all my avoiding You, all my pride, Lord after all I’ve put You through, all the ways I tried to run away, You still came running back for me. You still never gave up on me. And I just can’t believe it.

Anyways, thank you all for your prayers. Thank you for reading this, haha. All glory to God through Mary! Praise Him!