#feminist wedding conference

[sunlightandsuffering]

Feminist Mikasa and Fratboy Eren could be married for 10 years and Mikasa would still act like she doesn't like him😭

YES, IT'S GIVING CORRUPTION AU A LITTLE BIT BUT UR NOT WRONG! But real talk okay Mikasa grows up to be a lawyer or some hot shot professor doing groundbreaking research on sexism etc, and U KNOW she's speaking at women's conferences all the time. AND PPL ARE ALWAYS SHOOK WHEN THEY FIND OUT SHE'S MARRIED! Like she's out here slamming men left and right, using very SPECIFIC examples and everyone is always SHOOK when it's her fucking husband who takes her home after the convention 😭 and she's the very definition of girl in love but she would ratehr DIE than admit it. She's like what ?? No im not! R u kidding me?? I tolerate him ew, we had to elope bc i didn't want ppl to see me at the wedding 😪😪

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"[David] Dellinger meanwhile continued to speak out against the war, riding the rails and hitchhiking as needed to reach whoever would listen. In delivering an antiwar speech to a Christian student conference in Ohio over the Christmas break of 1941–42, he had met lively, twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth Peterson, a minister’s daughter known as Betty, whom he would quickly marry. Both were radical Christians with a demonstrated commitment to activism. And despite two brothers in the armed forces, Betty was a pacifist. “David was my ideal,” she recalled years later.

He believed in voluntary poverty, which was something I was coming to after working in a migrant camp one summer. And he believed in communal living, which I felt was closer to the original idea of Christian living.

She could not possibly have known what she was in for, yet despite years of trials their marriage would endure. It did so despite the burdens of five children, the lack of money, the notoriety, David’s protracted absences, and infidelities by both parties. It endured even though, as Betty later told an interviewer, “I was not active in David’s causes.” It even survived a period of separation late in life, when decades of accumulated grievances and rising feminist consciousness drove her to explore living apart. David, too, came to feminism as time went by, but in 1941 it wasn’t a paramount concern. He was, with his fellow male radicals, the creature of an era when only a quarter of women worked outside the home, and ideas about gender roles were different. It’s not clear that Betty had any more feminist consciousness in those days than he did. She could not know the fullness of the future when she got married, and she knew relatively little about her fiancé when they were wed. She likely knew nothing of his bisexuality and was even ignorant of his family background:

He hid a lot from me before we got married. I didn’t know he’d gone to Yale. I didn’t know his family was very well off. I was mending his pants the day before we got married because there was a hole in the knee.

But she knew he was a draft resister, and that his continued resistance meant another arrest was likely. He’d already told her how, hitchhiking west for his own wedding in Seattle, the police had arrested him in the Sierra Nevada mountains because they thought he had helped steal the car he was riding in. He was innocent, of course, but, worried about his lack of a draft card, decided to risk escaping through the window, which involved leaping onto a nearby fire escape. Still athletic, he managed to get away. Once married, he and Betty took a bus to Salt Lake City (in order to disguise their real transportation plans from her parents) and then hitchhiked the rest of the way across the country, including a stop in Chicago to visit Union Eight chums. They covered the last few miles on foot, suitcases in hand, arriving at the ashram exhausted. Betty had never been east of Detroit, never stayed in a hotel or motel, never hitchhiked. Years later she called the journey “traumatic.” As a newlywed, she now had the communal living she would later say she had wished for. “It was quite a cultural shock,” she said. There was little privacy, and a bunch of people with whom to work out household chores such as cooking, cleaning, and maintaining the building, not to mention all the other exigencies of group living. But there was also teamwork on the ashram’s outreach programs and cooperative store, among many other ventures. Dave for a while worked the graveyard shift five nights a week at a big commercial bakery to bring in money. Dallas and Benedict worked there, too (but the latter soon moved on to a similar project in Detroit). Dellinger insisted on being paid in cash so as not to contribute to the war effort through his taxes, a policy he would follow for the rest of his working life.

Life at the ashram wasn’t easy for women, especially for Betty. “She was the most fragile of the group,” Henry Harvey, who lived at the ashram at the time, observed in a 1988 interview. Harvey was a pacifist and Union Theological alumnus whose mother was first cousin to the secretary of war, Henry Stimson. Evidently young Harvey came from money; he and fellow Union student Francis Hall had put up $1,000 each to buy the house, according to Willa Winter. Told that Betty was still married to Dellinger after all those years, the elderly Harvey said with a laugh: “She’s a lot tougher than I thought.” Betty’s focus was homemaking, she would recall, and there was plenty of it to do. Draft resisters slept on floors and sofas, antiwar meetings were held, and supporters including Dorothy Day came out from the city. “We were deluged with visitors,” Dellinger writes, many of them staying for days or weeks. Among residents, there was continual turnover. The ashram was a well-known center for draft resisters and their supporters, and as the war progressed the FBI hauled away one resister after another. Virtually all the men present—and of course their loved ones—lived under the cloud of future arrest. “Every man there was either on his way from prison or on his way to prison,” Betty recalled. “Every woman there was related to one of these men and had that sense of never knowing when it was going to happen…There was quite a bit of anxiety.” Sutherland was arrested at the ashram in July of 1942. Benedict was picked up in Detroit in 1943 and would serve a second, personally quite consequential prison term at Danbury. Dallas, too, would be back in custody before long. “The FBI was always floating around,” he recalled years later. “It got so we could spot them anywhere.”

Dave and Betty knew his time was coming, but he didn’t lay low or move far away. On the contrary. In the first few months of 1942, by which time his father was chairman of the Boston United War Fund, Dellinger had joined the War Resisters League in a move emblematic of his increasingly secular radicalism. He would be joined there by many of his fellow war resisters, who were eventually to take over the place. Meanwhile he launched his own miniature antiwar organization, the People’s Peace Now Committee, which conducted small public protests against the war that all parties were prosecuting with such terrible ferocity around the world. Prospects for peace seemed to grow worse in January of 1943, when FDR was flown secretly to a conference with Winston Churchill in Casablanca. After the meetings, Roosevelt made public a notion previously discussed among the Allies privately: that they would require from the Axis powers “unconditional surrender” in order to end the war. The news dismayed pacifists, who hoped that a negotiated end to the fighting might save countless lives. The People’s Peace Now campaign held small protests in Newark and outside the Capitol in Washington. “Month after month the peoples of Europe and Asia are being shattered by mass bombing raids, deliberate starvation and total war,” said a leaflet from Dellinger’s group. In a poke to the eye of Selective Service authorities, the leaflet added: “Peaceful Americans have been conscripted to help commit these acts of destruction.”

On April 6, 1943, the twenty-sixth anniversary of U.S. entry into the previous world war, Betty and David attended a Peace Now protest in Washington, outside the Capitol, where they distributed leaflets saying that “Truth and Brotherhood will not be helped by Unconditional Surrender.” The flyers predicted Hitler’s overthrow by the German people and called for an end to anti-Semitism, Jim Crow, and colonial exploitation. (Police confiscated leaflets and signs but made no arrests.) Dellinger attended other antiwar events as well, each time putting himself further at risk. He and Betty, knowing what was ahead, decided quite deliberately to have a baby. Betty’s first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, but she managed to conceive again.

The whole time, her husband had been engaged in a tussle with his local draft board, which conscripted him just a month after his release from prison on the basis of the registration form completed on his behalf—and against his will—by Danbury’s warden. After ignoring a series of official notices, Dellinger finally wrote back explaining his religious objections to war and pointing out that he’d already served a prison term for his stance. In 1942, his Newark draft board responded with a furious condemnation of conscientious objectors:

Citizenship should be taken from them regardless of their birthplace and, as soon as it is practicable, all such should be removed from the soil they refuse to defend…Cowards, slackers, and hypocrites, who hide behind so-called conscientious scruples, must be denied membership in a free society. We owe it to our fighting men.

A.J. Muste rose to Dellinger’s defense, writing to Hershey and Biddle to suggest the removal of the board members, whose words he feared could incite violence against COs, and who appeared either ignorant of the law or eager to flout it. “Unfortunately,” Muste added, “a good many members of local boards throughout the country have expressed similar opinions regarding conscientious objectors.” The difference is that those other unlucky COs didn’t have organized pacifism, what little there was of it, in their corner. Dellinger’s corner was not an easy one to inhabit, as Muste would soon learn.

Later that summer the Dellingers risked arrest again at another antiwar event, attended by about thirty people, in downtown Newark, where they encountered no interference. But when they returned the next day for another protest, Dellinger reports, police confiscated their materials. Andwhen they returned home to 37 Wright Street, federal agents waiting there arrested him, probably on July 7, 1943. In custody, he refused to pay bail— another lifelong practice, albeit with exceptions. “I usually refuse because I believe the amount of money that a person can command should not determine whether or not he or she stays in jail,” he wrote later, describing defendants who can’t make bail as “hostages” held “for a ransom that neither they nor their families or friends are able to pay.” Betty, pregnant, went to see the judge, explained her husband’s point of view, and Dave was soon free on his own recognizance. She picked him up in “a flamboyant new sports car” driven by their friend Louis McMillan, a naval lieutenant in uniform who nonetheless supported the Dellingers’ work in Newark. Dellinger was borne away from jail by capital in concert with military power, but he still managed to enjoy the ride." - Daniel Akst, War By Other Means: How the Pacifists of World War 2 Changed America for Good. New York: Melville House, 2022. p. 220-224

[hose270]

On 2023

I stand upon the precipice of 2024, considering the errors made and chances missed before. Of joy, I think, of misery, of hope and of regret, and mental mirrors fill my head while watching the sun set.

A year ago, I focused on accomplishments and goals. My homework and my love left me no time to shape my soul. I got a job as a T.A.; I went to DLC; my roommate had a Nazi flag ‘cause he liked history.

I planned an awesome Valentine’s and gave a decent gift; we seemed to spend every weekend in Utah on a trip. I planned a sci-fi birthday heist and shared my favorite world with friends who loved it—but not her. In truth, that kinda hurt.

But not as much as did my throat for fourteen following days! Mononucleosis sucks; that’s all I have to say. I went to my first national scholastic conference and spoke about the views of a medieval feminist.

An angel from a comm class taught a lesson about friends: connections are created when you’re vulnerable with them. But when I tried to share myself, I felt she didn’t care. Afraid of getting something wrong, I asked for help in prayer.

And so I broke her heart—mine too— ere winter ceased her chills. I looked for peace in Hyrule’s fields and Idahoan hills. I failed to make connections both with Frisbees and with friends, but as I wrote “The Fount”, I felt my heart begin to mend.

I learned to recognize—to feel!— the power telling brings, and found a way to channel it through small and simple things. I went to Pride; I made a game about being the light; I made a movie for a class on dreams inspiring life.

A tabletop adventure with my friends taught me to quit obsessing over endings and look for beginnings. It was summer soon: my brothers and my father and I spent a week to bond and bike and hike all to our heart’s content.

My friend was wed; I soon realized that funds were a concern. No options left, I went where I’d swore never to return: the service deli, Albertsons. Although I made new friends, it still was hell; I felt relieved when school began again.

Dating sucks, I quickly learned, but tried it anyway, and finally found myself living with friendly, good roommates. A new FHE group of friends played Frisbee, which I caught! The PPC launched story to the forefront of my thoughts.

The Lump was taken for repair; I shared my poetry; watched FNAF—that girl got bit in half!— a Minion Halloween! And then a diagnosis shook my family’s world… but a promising prognosis eased the fledgling fear, somewhat.

Inside a cabin with new friends beside a mountaintop, I wrote my dreams and wished that I would never have to stop. I learned my lines as Death as I went home for turkey day, and realized I feel more like I’m at home when I’m away.

I wrote a book on rhetoric and playing D&D, and helped my friends reclaim a heart upon an endless sea. I went ice skating with a girl, delayed returning home, and spent my Christmas researching how stories help us grow.

And now I stand upon the edge of 2024, considering the choices made and lessons learned before. Of friends, I think, of amity, of hope and faith’s duet, and to this nascent year, I say, “You’ll be the best one yet.”

[buckets-and-trees]

King [Steve x Reader]

Characters/Pairings: mob boss!Steve x female!Reader Word Count: 1k Summary: As an archeologist neck deep in a library for research or out in the wilds of desserts and jungles searching for ancient civilizations, you’re not the type you ever thought would catch the attention of one of the city’s mob bosses. They meant nothing to you, and so you never expected it, and you certainly didn’t know how it happened, and yet you find yourself entering the early domestic stages of a serious relationship with Steve Rogers, king of one of the most powerful mob networks in the country, and he’s made dinner for you, seemingly with no agenda…

Content Warnings: a bit of angst, feminist frustration

Additional Notes: Another day, another short piece for my 2022 Holiday Extravaganza! This one was inspired by King by Florence + the Machine. It really hit me hard when I first heard the single earlier this year, and it’s been clawing its way into this little story for many months in my brain.

You threw you plate down into the sink, shattering it, taking Steve completely off guard.

“Hey!”

You slam one hand down onto the counter, and cover your mouth with the other, hanging your head as tears burn behind your closed eyes.

“Hey,” he says again, more quietly now, coming up behind you. “What’s-?“

“No!” You shout, flinching away when his hands went to rest on your shoulders. “I’m not ready!”

“Not ready for what?”

“Kids!” You turn abruptly to face him. “I’m smart enough to know that my mob boss boyfriend isn’t dropping idle comments about children without intent behind them, and they’ve been stacking up all week!”

“Fine. You’re right. I want kids and I want to have them with you.”

You turn to face him finally, the tears having spilled over. Sad and angry. “I’m just not ready now, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be.”

“How can you say that?”

“It’s all so easy for you! You only have to dump your seed and then wait nine months for a baby to pop out, and then, what? Pat it in the head once or twice a day? Go off and continue doing what you do every day, while I, on the other hand, a pregnancy will change every single moment of my life! Carrying it to popping it out and then watching over the child for the following eighteen years! I won’t even be able to fly on a damn plane in the third trimester of the pregnancy, and if I can’t fly, how am I supposed to remain one of the forefront archeologists in the field when I can’t even get to the field?”

“Sweatheart–“

“No! Don’t sweetheart me, Steve! Growing up, I was definitely one of those girls who just wanted to go to college, meet the man of my dreams, be swept into the perfect wedding and marriage and pop out five babies before I was thirty. House with the white picket fence, dinner at six, kiss my husband goodbye every morning, but then I finished college, no marriage. Went to grad school, dove into this field, found something exciting that I’m passionate about and damn good at. Still no man in sight. I turned thirty. I actually went to a conference with a bunch of strangers over my thirtieth birthday weekend - it was kind of an unexpected thing that came up, and I accepted because I was so relieved I wouldn’t have to be around my family and friends turning thirty and still single and alone.”

Steve moved forward, wanting to take you in his arms, but you moved back, and held your hand up.

“I need to finish saying this. It took me so long to untangle myself from the fluffy housewife propaganda I was told was the only thing I should aspire to be, to shove away the silent disappointment from other people’s expectations of what I was supposed to do, and to find things that made my heart sing, made my soul burn with purpose just because I wanted them any no one else. And I was happy before you.”

“Are you unhap–”

“No, I was happy before you, and I’m happy now,” you cut him off quickly. “But it’s unfair how easy it is for men, and it’s not your fault, but it is a reality. For me… you know I can’t half-ass something even if I tried. I won’t do it if I won’t do it well, and I don’t know how to… I don’t even know how to be your girlfriend yet. I know you’re not asking me to just give up my life, but I do know you’d prefer it.”

“I wouldn’t,” he said simply.

You shake your head. “Don’t lie. I overheard you on the phone with Bucky last week say how much easier it would be if I could be the simple housewife type of girlfriend.” The words had been horrifically branded into your brain.

Steve exhaled and put his hands on his hips.

You raised your eyebrows, waiting for him to respond.

“Yes. That’s true. I did say it would be easier. I didn’t say it’s what I want though.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I didn’t. As you so aptly noted, I’m always very careful with my words. It would be easier, but I don’t want easy, I want you, and I want you to be happy. The closer we become, the more of a target you are.”

“Oh,” you responded quietly. Steve saw you start to let your guard down, so he stepped forward and brushed his fingers up and down your arm, then grasped your fingers.

“I have been dropping comments about kids and our future because I am ready to talk about it with you. A future with you is what I want, but I was testing the waters trying to get a read on if it’s what you want.” A smirk flitted across his face, and he added, “You have been playing things very close to the chest.”

“Yes,” you huffed, “well, that’s because I’m terrified of falling for you.”

He gently pulled you closer, and you melt against him. “Fall with me then. I’m already at the edge of this terrifying cliff, I’m ready to jump.”

“How can this be terrifying? You’re a mob boss!”

Steve laughed. “That’s nothing compared to handing my heart over to someone else and trusting them not to smash it or throw it away, to literally give them everything – to give you my everything.”

Your chest constricted, breath catching at his words.

His hands moved to the small of your back, securely holding you closer to him. “I mean it. Everything.”

His eyes locked on yours, and you couldn’t look away if you wanted to. The moment stretched out between you – he would wait for you to answer – and your heart seemed to stop, freezing the moment in time.

Then finally you reached up and pulled his lips down to yours, crashing fiercely together. You still had so many questions, but you did at least know you were certain about each other now. You would rule your worlds together.

And that's day three of the Holiday Extravaganza! Do we want to see more of mob boss!Steve and his reader? (Archeologist because... why the hell not?)

I think I might have something totally out of left field for you lovelies tomorrow, just depends how the muses go...

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

I do not do tag lists, but FOLLOW @buckets-and-stories and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS to be updated any time I publish a new work!

[femsolid]

“The preoccupation with involving, engaging and ‘educating’ men precludes a critical examination of heterosexuality: how can this oppressive institution be examined and rejected if women’s boyfriends and husbands are present? 

The lack of consciousness-raising means that many UK feminist groups currently tend to construct patriarchal oppression as somehow ‘over there’ – in Parliament, in pornography, in ‘lads’ mags’, in The Sun newspaper – rather than ‘right here’, in one’s personal life and relationships. In this construction, the words ‘patriarchy’ and ‘misogyny’ themselves come to stand in as convenient abstractions that facilitate the avoidance of naming men directly as oppressors. This tendency in turn means that mainstream UK feminism is currently limited to a predominantly liberal, reformist agenda, which often means single-issue campaigning. 

Feminist organising is reduced to a reformist tactical repertoire of petitions, placards, Twitter hashtags, marches and demonstrations, rather than revolutionary acts of refusing to accommodate men, rejecting femininity, forging primary bonds and relationships with women, setting up all-female collectives, and creating lesbian feminist communities and culture. The construction of patriarchal oppression as ‘over there’ means that heterosexuality stands out as one of the last bastions of patriarchy where the notion of individual choice remains thoroughly unexamined.

This leads to curious scenarios such as the phenomenon of feminists who might be critical of the notion of ‘choice’ and ‘agency’ in relation to oppressive systems such as pornography and prostitution, posting pictures of themselves in wedding dresses on social media, and defending their ‘choices’ in relation to marriage – even to the extent of taking their husband’s surname – as a purely private affair.

The consequences of a lack of critique of heterosexuality and the erasure of lesbian feminism from feminist politics are extremely serious in terms of the future of a feminist movement and ultimately, the future of women generally. As long as mainstream feminism is preoccupied with including men, it is obstructing the very thing that most needs to happen: the building of a mobilised, enraged and woman-loving women’s liberation movement. It seems extraordinary that at the moment, a woman seeking support after experiencing violence from her male partner is unlikely to encounter a lesbian feminist support worker in a women’s refuge or rape crisis centre. It seems equally extraordinary that among all the support that she will be offered, the insight that heterosexuality is not inevitable is unlikely to be forthcoming. It is even more extraordinary that such observations are seldom made at all within the women’s sector, and within feminist activist circles.

Nonetheless, in the face of the lack of feminist politics around heterosexuality, there have been some crucial departures in recent years. The first has been the flourishing of a number of radical feminist blogs critiquing heterosexuality and showing a renewed interest in lesbian feminism. These blogs, and the presence of radical lesbian feminist individuals and groups on social media, are currently producing pioneering lesbian feminist work in the face of relative silence from academic and mainstream activist feminists. Other important UK-specific developments include a number of women-only, radical feminist conferences, two of which – RadFem 2012 and RadFem 2013 – foregrounded lesbian feminism, generating huge interest among younger women who previously had little chance to discuss these topics within other groups. Finally, in the wake of these conferences, the task of rebuilding lesbian feminist politics and community has begun, in the form of online networks, artistic output and small local, intergenerational groups. It is the commitment and vision of those involved in these projects that is helping to create a space where the tyranny of compulsory heterosexuality can at last dare to speak its name.”

- The Oppression That Dare Not Speak Its Name? Silences Around Heterosexuality In Contemporary Feminism by Julia Long

[bridgertonbabe]

Shinnie, I can't stop thinking about your royals au. Do you have anymore ideas to add???

I do indeed 😏

A week following the public announcement of their engagement, Sophie's first official royal event is Prince Edmund's christening. She's sat with Hyacinth and Francesca as Benedict stands alongside Edwina as Edmund's godparents, and Sophie practically melts at the sight of Benedict bouncing his young nephew in his arms, envisioning him holding their own baby one day. Later on at the family reception, the baby who will one day be king is passed over to Sophie by his mother, and Sophie can't help beaming with joy as Edmund gurgles gleefully in her arms. Though in conversation with his brothers, Benedict can't take his eyes off of his soon to be wife cradling his nephew, his heart practically bursting at the sight of Sophie with a baby in her arms, feeling almost giddy at the thought that she would one day be the mother of his children.

At their wedding Sophie walks down the first half of the aisle by herself. During the planning of the wedding she had initially been upset at the thought that she had no father or anyone remotely resembling a father figure to give her away, but after a rousing speech of feminist encouragement from Eloise, Sophie realises there's no need to adhere to tradition. For the second half of the aisle, she is met by the Queen herself, Kate, who links arms with her and escorts her down the rest of the way to meet Benedict, who of course is welling up with tears the second he sees his bride.

During her pregnancy with Charlie, Sophie begins to grow overwhelmed at the prospect of presenting her newborn to the rest of the world on the front steps of the hospital, as Violet, Kate, and Daphne had all done before her. Even being assured she would have a hair and makeup team to doll her up before she is paraded outside to the waiting world does nothing to quell her fretting, and one night the anxiety gets too much and she pours her heart out to Benedict. He is distressed to see his wife so upset and knows she is fearful of the birth itself due to her own mother passing in childbirth. He makes a decision then and there that Sophie will not be subjected to the immediate media interest and that they will do a photo opportunity with the press when Sophie feels ready and recuperated from the birth. Charlie's birth is kept under lock and key with Sophie being discreetly rushed to hospital and snuck out without anyone knowing a thing. Benedict then holds a press conference several hours later while his wife and son are resting and his absolute joy radiates whole-heartedly to the awaiting media as he announces the safe birth of his baby boy and expressing his gratitude and awe for his wife.

The closest Sophie and Benedict came to breaking up was during the weeks following the news of their relationship being broken. Once they arrived home from holiday Sophie found herself hounded by the press as they camped outside her flat and her work, following her everywhere she went, shoving cameras in her face and incessantly asking her about her relationship with the prince. The intrusion was bad enough and then Araminta and Rosamund came crawling out of the woodwork, leeching off of Sophie's sudden fame and selling stories to the tabloids and making TV appearances where they made disparaging remarks about her and painted her out to be social-climbing gold-digger who had seduced the prince for her own selfish interests. Benedict hadn't been able to see Sophie due to several public engagements he had to attend to across the country but he was growing concerned when she wouldn't respond to his calls. When she finally picked up he could feel his heart breaking when he immediately heard the lump in her throat and the tears rolling down her face. "Ben, I can't. I can't do this any more". She apologised to him for not being strong enough to deal with the media attention but she begged him not to believe a word her step-mother and sister were saying, telling him she loves him more than anyone else in her life. Benedict insisted he would fix things and told Sophie he couldn't lose her, that he'd rather give up his position and move away for a quiet life with her than live a life without her in it. Immediately Benedict released a press statement (a la Prince Harry when he and Meghan's relationship first became public knowledge) telling the media in no uncertain terms to back the fuck off from Sophie, endearing himself to the general public with just how fiercely protective he was of his girlfriend. He then got a car equipped with his own security detail to pick Sophie up from her flat to bring her to his palace apartment and once she was reunited with him he held her tightly, vowing to never let her endure such intrusion ever again. Though Sophie was still melancholy and trying her best to gently let him go so he could be with someone better equipped for his life, Benedict told her she was stuck with him and that he meant what he said earlier of giving up his royal life so they could be together. "Soph, I'm sorry, but you're not getting rid of me that easily." he told her in earnest. "You're the love of my life, so you can let me go all you want but I will never let you go. I'll spend the rest of my life loving you regardless." Unable to deny her feelings, Sophie reciprocated and told him that he was the love of her life, but she would understand if he broke up with her after everything that had been exposed about her background and after all the shit Araminta and Rosamund had been selling. Benedict scoffed, telling her he knows Araminta and Rosamund are scum, and that her background doesn't change the way he sees her. Sophie is then amazed when Benedict then asks her to move in with him, having wanted to ask her after their holiday anyway, and though the last few weeks have been the most stressful of her life, Sophie comes to the decision that so long as she has Benedict by her side that there's nothing she can't handle, and she accepts.

[boogiewrites]

No. 9 The Body Ch. 8

Characters: Diego Hargreeves & OFC Eve Corpuz

Summary:  Eve learns more about her powers while on a real date with Diego.

Warnings/Tags: Flirting. Sexism. Threats of violence. Canon Typical. Date. Diego Protecc. 

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT! If you’d like added to the tags, just let me know. This is a multi-chapter fic.

The day had started strong for Eve. She was being interviewed by a local women’s club for her transformation from using their services to becoming a respected doctor with a winning reputation. It’d been flattering and put a little perk in Eve’s step admittedly.

She was headed from a conference room, a much easier place to get to for a non-employee than her small office. But the ease for the interviewer was something she quickly wished she’d not cared so much about as she felt eyes on her, walking alone back towards her wing. She didn’t typically have to be around the board member hallways, it was a place most women avoided.

“Evie?” A familiar voice that immediately made her nose wrinkle came from behind her. “Long time no see.” Bryon Gray, a son of a bitch who happened to be a son of a chief of staff. They’d gone through residency together and every woman that had ever met him had quickly learned to avoid him. “What brings you over to this side of the hospital.” He gives her arm a faux friendly smack of greeting and she grimaces.

“I had an interview.” She answers flatly, his cross-fitted, legacy-name body blocked her path as he manspread across the hall and put his hands on his hips as if everything he said were to be stopped and observed most intently.

“Now I know everything going on around here.” He winks and taps his temple. “And I haven’t heard about you interviewing for anything.”

This may come as a shock to you Bryon but you don’t know everything, which is what she preferred to say. But instead, “It wasn’t for a job. I was interviewed for a magazine.” She says with a low brow.

“Oh! Which one? I mean, which ones are even in print anymore?” He laughs. “We talking the big NEJM?” He laughs. ”Oh wait, that was me.” He brags.

“No. It’s called Ms.” she begins to lean to initiate an exit.

“Mrs.? It like a wedding thing?” He asks with narrowed eyes. “I thought you were single.”

“It’s M. S. A feminist magazine started by Gloria Steinman in the 70s.” She wanted to slap herself for trying to defend it. He wasn’t worth it.

“Yeah that’s hot right now, isn’t it? What was it for?”

She sniffs and twitches her nose trying to not have such a knee-jerk reaction to this... jerk. "My work.”

“You are all work aren’t you Evie? Always have been.”

“Well, you know me.”

“I know Dads noticed the numbers you've been managing. Makes sense word would be getting around about an ex-stripper turned doctor who has the least amount of deaths of patients by a landslide would be a feel-good piece.”

She wanted to defend herself. To slap him and tell him to kiss her ass but she knew it would be fruitless. “Next thing you know they’ll be making a Barbie of me for all the things I’m great at.” She decides to retort with praise instead of defense. ”Stripper heels and a stethoscope would be a hell of a combination for accessories, huh?”

He gives her a look up and down. “You sure you aren’t dancing anymore? You’re looking... great by the way. Very… tight.” He motions a squeeze with his hands. More like how old male plastic surgeons do when they explain implants to young girls.

“I’ve been working out.” Another flat response as she clears her throat and begins to move far past him to continue back on her path. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Keep up the good work there Evie. Both professionally and personally.” She didn’t need to turn to look at him to know what look he had on his face. It was one every woman had had to suffer at some point in her life.

——————-

Eve was determined not to let some silver-spooned dumbass ruin her day. She had much more important things to put her energy on. Like going out with Diego that night. Oh, and saving people. Can’t forget that.

For early spring the air felt heavy and it didn’t help the sour mood that had followed her that day. She had stood too long in the shower, getting pruney, debating on whether to shave above the knee or not. She wasn’t gonna fuck him on the first date. No, she didn’t do that stuff anymore. But was it a first date? She’d known him for months now. Maybe best to not shave to deter her from making any rash decisions.

She’d been particularly mean to herself while trying to find an outfit to wear. She didn’t think she should be so easily frustrated with something like this but she realizes it’s been a long time since she cared about her outfit. Much less fussing over what to wear for a date. As always she played it cool, even when she wasn’t. She was relieved by the few pairs of stretchy denim she had still fit. She wrapped herself up in a black jacket and made her way to the gym in shoes that were nowhere near as comfortable as her usual sneakers. She figured boots with a heel were more low key than pumps. She rolls her eyes and swings her head to shake out the non-productive stream of thought.

“Hey Eve.” Diego’s voice breaks her out of the intrusive thoughts and she gives a smile that doesn’t give away that she’s been in a mood all day.

“Hey, Diego.” She answers in a relieved exhale.

They exchange pleasantries before heading off on foot in the direction of the bar. Her hands kept to the strap of her purse that was across her body. She hadn’t hugged him when she’d greeted him, but should she have? Should she… try to hold his hand? Was that too much? How do you date again? She chews the inside of her cheek.

“You worked today right?” He asked partly to kill the dead air but mostly because he was curious.

“You know I did.” She rolls her eyes and smiles.

“Overnight shift, huh? Have to pull anything out of anybody’s butt?”

He gives a wide boyish smile and she laughs in response. “Not tonight no.” she shakes her head. “What about you?”

“I luckily have not had to pull anything out of anyone’s butt.”

She laughs and gives him and below that knocks him slightly and as he returns to her side he stands closer than before. “Smartass.”

He smiles closed-lipped but proudly.

“Everyone’s always asking me about gross stuff. There are other things to ask a doctor…to ask ME about.”

“Like what?”

“Anything besides butt stuff.” She chuckles at her answer.

“Oh I didn’t think that was where we were going with this so soon BUTT-“

She scoffs and laughs and shoves him again before he comes back at her and smoothly, she must admit put his arm around her shoulders as they walked. “If it’s not then where IS is going?” She gives a playful pause. “Why’d you decide to ask me out?”

“Why’d you say yes?”

“I asked you first.”

“I respect you playing by grade school rules.” He teases before answering.

“What took this from two super freaks helping each other out to Diego asking Eve out on a date?”

“We’re still super freaks.” He corrects. “What do you wanna hear huh?” He gives a cocky nod. “That you’re… pretty? Smart? Funny?”

“I mean it’s a good start so go on…” she smiles.

“I...y’know. You don’t annoy me... all the time.” He shrugs slightly to play it cool. “It’s… easy with you. You aren’t a dick. Well I mean, a real dick. You’re a DICK don’t get wrong-“

“A dick but not a DICK-dick.” She clarifies.

“See! You get it.” He nods his head her way and she feels the sincerity he’s trying to give her in his way. They walk for a moment, the location in sight now. “You not gonna tell me I’m pretty now?” He jokes and hip knicks her before separating for the door.

“You’re very pretty Diego.” She coos as he holds open the door for her.

“That's better.” He bats his lashes and she walks in first, him close and protective behind her.

———————

Diego looks down at his phone with a sigh. “It’s my brother. I have to call him.”

“The serious little one from the gym?”

“ that’s the one.”

“ he doesn’t seem like a patient kind of guy.” She gives a soft laugh to show no hard feelings. “Go on, it’s fine. I understand.” She gives a nonchalant shrug. “If you have to leave just tell me first. Don’t disappear like you’re so good at.”

He gives a quiet, almost apologetic chuckle in response. “I won’t. I’ll be right back.”

Eve takes out her phone to keep to herself and pass the time. Five seemed like a very intense guy. Especially if he was someone that could get Diego to do something he didn’t want to.

“Hey.” She’d heard it already but kept her expression unmoving. “Hey, Girl.”

After the 4th time, it’s clear the guy sat between two friends who looked like they all fell out of the same legacy fraternities, and was not going to stop trying to get her Attention. she turns to meet his eyes with the most indifferent face she could manage.

“There she is. That guy leaves a hot thing like you alone?”

“No.” She answers flatly.

“He...uh, ya brother or somethin’?”

“No.” Another monotone answer

“Ah so is that lucky bastard ya mans then?”

She slowly blinks and takes her time to answer. “Why do you care?”

“I wouldn’t be letting you be nowhere alone if I was your man sweetheart.”

“Duly noted.” She turns back away.

“Oh, a smart one, fellas. You know I like it when they get feisty. What you do baby? You lookin' good as hell. You one of them dancers? Those freaky European girls over at the school?” He laughs and elbows his cohort. “Those broads talk all kinds of smart.”

“I’m a Doctor.” She continues to look at her phone and not engage. Diego would be back soon. And this guy was an idiot.

“Oh! a fuckin DOCTOR bros!” He mocks. “I might’ve listened to my doc if he had an ass like that.”

She sighs and feels her jaw tighten.

“Hey! I got something I need ya to look at sexy doctor. I bet you’ve never seen one like this before.”

“I’ve diagnosed the clap before so I have seen it.”

The guys with him laugh but he doesn’t.

“Why the ones with the smart mouths always such bitches?” He complains with a childish retort. “I was being nice and you gotta go act like that. You’re lucky your so hot sweetheart. Most men wouldn’t put up that shit.”

“Would you put up with it?”

“Fuck no, I keep my woman in line.” He says proudly

“Ah, good. So you can quit talking to me then. Because I’m just going to use words that further confuse you if you keep it up.” She rolls her eyes and keeps on her phone as Diego walks back to the table. For the moment the guy was silent.

—-

Eve excused herself to go to the bathroom, perhaps the beers had gotten to her. Or all the water she was forcing down her pie hole constantly it seemed. Trying to be properly hydrated was hard.

She was still distracted in thought, wondering how much she’d drank in water tonight to know how much she could pour out when she got home. She’d bought a jug with hourly markers because targeted ads worked and it was black matte and had-

Her train of thought is sharply interrupted by a forearm jutting out in front of her path. She looks to the perpetrator and there stands Chad. She assumed his name was Chad. He looked like one, acted like one. And if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...well you know how that goes.

“I saw you walkin' back here in those tight fuckin jeans and was compelled to continue our conversation from earlier.”

“No thanks, dude. I’d like to get back to my date now.” She answers flatly.

“Ya little man’s left sweetheart.” His other arm comes up and her now to the wall back was tense and defensive. Their bodies blocked the small back hallway and she hoped someone would interrupt them soon.

“Then he’ll be right back.”

“He answered his phone and jetted babe.” He tsks. “Yahate to see it. “ a predatory pout comes across his face as he reaches to caress her forearm. “And to a dime like you.” She tenses and noisily exhales. “His loss my gain yeah?” He laughs and she smells a nauseatingly familiar combination of nacho cheese and cheap beer.

“Excuse me...Chad? Is it Chad? I’d like to get back to my seat if you-“

“I’m right here baby.” He smirks and wiggles his jaw. “Face or my cock girl, I ain’t picky.” His hands move to her waist and pull her against him. She didn’t want to make a scene. To let this asshole ruin her date.

“I’m giving you one chance to get your fucking hands off me bro.” She bucks back, deeper voice and glaring into his eyes.

“Mmm, what are you? Where ya mama from eh? You must be a little Latin mami lookityou.” The slurring was beginning to stand out more. He did loosen his grip and she put as much space as she could between them. Progress.

“It’s none of your business and you’re being rude and you’re drunk. You should go home.”

“Only if I’m taking this back with me mami,” he reaches his hand to her ass and before he’s fully grasped she’s shoved him hard against the wall. “Oh fuck yeah hard to get. I’m gonna hold you down and beat that pussy UP.”

“You couldn’t even get hard you needle dicked dumbass.” She straightens her jacket. “Let me say this so you understand. Leave me alone. I am not going to fuck you, you fuckin rapist. You should be ashamed of yourself. I hope your mother's dead so she doesn’t have to see what a piece of shit she raised.” She moves to walk away.

His glassy eyes look a strange mixture of hurt to mad to confused.

“Everything okay here?” A tone she hadn’t heard from Diego before as he stood with a wide stance in front of Eve but eyes on the walking cliche. “You okay?” He asks softer as he flicks his eyes to hers, a hand lightly on her arm.

“I’m fine. This guy is garbage. Don’t bother he’s not worth it. Just another moron who never got to the cognitive thought stage.” She sighs and pats his hand, heading back to the table.

After doing a poor job of acting interested in Diego explaining something about knives, she kept seeing Chad eye fuck her from across the bar. She could feel his eyes boring into her. He kept looking and acting casual otherwise, eating and running and talking with his beef necked buddies. Eve was no stranger to harassment. She was a woman and a woman who worked in the medical field. She’d been accosted more times than she could count. From old men winking and having their dicks out to young men locking her inside of an exam room and not letting her leave until he got what he thought he was owed.

She wasn’t even mad about him anymore, her rage was fueled by every man that ever made her feel uncomfortable. Every creep ass ex, every older man trying to take advantage of her. She felt like her face should be hot and Diego’s words become background noise.

-

Diego didn’t notice for a while, too excited to talk about a new knife rig he was working on. He looks behind him at the sound of choking and sees the guy that was bothering Eve earlier trying to clear his throat. He notices Eve isn’t responding even when he stands and tries to gasp. He moves to see her still and focused with flickering eyes. Like electricity was behind them. He watched her curiously, eyes set like a lion in the tall grass. He looks back to Chad, now red and holding his throat.

“Eve…” he reaches out to touch her arm and he’s met with a crack of static electricity. She doesn’t even acknowledge him and the guys turning a weird shade of purple. “EVE.” He says harsher and grasps her forearm, feeling the tingle of hair rise on the back of His neck. “EVE! HEY!” he reaches and as Chad's eyes bloodshot he turns her face to him and breaks her focus.

The desperate gasp of air from Chad was immediate.

“Eve… what the hell was that?”

“What?” She blinks rapidly as if she’d just come to.

“He was choking and you were…” he lowers his voice and moves closer to her. Everyone was now preoccupied with Chad. “...using your powers weren’t you?”

Her mouth holds open as her eyes now normal flit back and forth. “I…” she feels it. Something she could identify. A cooling rush in her veins. “I hurt him.” She whispers in shock.

“Yeah, you almost choked him to death. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m… I did that.”

“I didn’t know you could do that?”

“Neither did I.”

———-

Diego and Eve sit back in her apartment after a fast exit. She seemed worried, so he tried to hide his concern. He kept having to reach for her wrist to keep her on track and eventually settled on holding her hand. They hadn’t said much on the walk back. She was coming to terms with a lot and once again they’d fallen back into the roles of helping each other through these secret things only they understood and out of the dating pool they’d tiptoed in successfully tonight.

“Look you can control them, alright? You can control healing and you can control hurting. They’re the same thing. You got carried away. And that guy was an asshole and he deserved a scare honestly.”

He rubs her upper arms and she wipes at her face with a tissue. “I’m sorry for...ruining tonight.” She sighs out with eyes now makeup-free.

“You didn’t ruin it.” He grimaces. “We’ve just… got sidetracked. It happens.” He shrugs and tries to be supportive.

“I’ve had such a bad day, Diego.” She laughs to not cry and meets his eyes. “I didn’t want to cancel because of it and let it win. But I’ve been so sensitive today. I don’t know.”

“What happened?.” He moves to pull her to the edge of her bed.

“There’s just this guy, Brian at work and he was shitty to me today-“

“Brian who?” Diego quickly interjects in such a dramatic way it makes her crack a smile while he remained serious.

“You don’t have to beat him up.” She gives a thankful smile and pats the back of his hands. He takes her hands into his and lays them in her lap.

“If someone's makin' you so upset you lose control I'm pretty sure I DO have to kick their ass.”

“Thanks. Your heart is in the right place. I appreciate it. Seriously.” She frees one hand as he holds tight to her others. “I don’t want to be known as the woman who you can’t talk to because her b- her friend might beat them up.”

“Your what might beat them up?” He teases with a smile.

“Friend. My friend. That’s what I said.” She whines playfully and he smirks. “He’s one of the director's sons.” She shrugs.

She’d just given him enough information to easily find the guy. Not like he wouldn’t have gone through every Brian in that hospital. “Why would he be a dick to you?” He takes her hand back into his and it makes her smile as she looks down at them. He held her hands in a clear expression of his want to protect her. She thought it was very sweet of him. But she didn’t know he had full intentions of beating the white off Brian.

“Sexism mostly?” She offers and Diego gives her a look of impatience.

“I ran into him and he said some things about my past in a tone that wasn’t nice and he’s in general very… sleazy and gives uncomfortable compliments. No one says anything because he’s Knox’s son so...he’s a privileged white dude. That should tell you enough.”

“It does.” He accepts her elaboration. She was quickly learning he was stubborn as a mule when it came to wanting something, particularly information.

“Then the guy at the bar.” She rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, that asshole.” He sighs. “I would’ve decked him but you seemed like you didn’t want me to.”

“I could r done it myself if I wanted. But I didn’t want to ruin the evening.” She emotes dramatically, saying it didn’t matter in the long run. “He was talking to me while you were gone the first time too.”

“Seriously? Eve. Why didn’t you let me knock his punk ass out?”

“Because Diego I wanted to have a nice date with you. Without involving fighting. We can work it out at training later. I didn’t want to…” she groans.

“Okay, okay. I...get what you’re saying. And I think you’re wrong. But I understand.”

“Thanks. Maybe we’ll get it right next time.” She offers with a tired smile.

“Next time?” His smile gives away his glad reaction to the insinuation.

“Yeah. I figured we could go out on another date. Unless you don’t want to?” He feels her hands begin to pull away and he keeps them close.

“No! I do! I do Uh “ clearing his throat, “I mean I’d like that. It’d be..chill”

She snorts a laugh at his recovery. “I’m excited to go out with you again too. Don’t try to play it cool I already know you. I know you aren’t” she teases.

“That’s cold man.” He deflects and they share a nice pause between them. “We’ll go somewhere where no one can upset you.”

“If you’re with me you could.”

“Normally I’d agree. But I don’t plan on upsetting you... You know. I mean it might happen but like...I don’t wanna hurt you. For real.”

“I think I knew that Diego.” She gives him a warm smile and squeezes his hands. “I don’t wanna hurt you either. I’ve gotten pretty fond of you. As much as I hate to admit.”

“I don’t hate to admit it.” He gives a dopey smile and she pays his cheek.

“Thank you for… everything tonight.”

“Was nothin,” he answers cockily.

“You can be really sweet when you aren’t trying too hard.” She says as they feel their heartbeat flip for a moment as they look into each other’s eyes a bit too long for it to go unnoticed.

“I don’t have to try hard with you.” He answers back softly and he sees his moment. She sees the tell of his eyes moving to her lips, that tilt of his head that made him look like a sweet little pitbull puppy.

She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to thank him for everything he’d done for her. Properly. They could both feel the tension between them now. “Diego… I do-“

“Uh yeah, you’re right. It’s not- yeah-..” he stutters in reaction to what he thought could be rejection.

She smiles and rises to go after him as he puts space between them. “I WANT to, Diego I just don’t think right now is the right moment.” She explains gently with her hands to his chest and she yawns. “I’m exhausted from using my powers tonight. I don’t want to be… not giving you 110% if you get what I’m saying.” She wiggles her eyebrows and it knocks his defenses down as intended.

“Oh. Good. You...you’re right.” He chuckles shyly. “I can go now and I’ll see you at training then?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” She offers a hug instead of a kiss and he happily takes it. His temple to her temple for a moment and feeling her let out a content sigh in his arms. “Be careful headed home.” She offers as they part. “Despite everything I still had a good time tonight. For the record.”

“I did too.” He offers before ducking out the door with a “Goodnight. Sleep tight.”

She knew she would thanks to him.

@jaegeeeeer​ @diegos-butt​ @anglovesthis @likedovesinthewnd

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I have seen the future

2021, Trump will pardon several of the capitol terrorists and then himself.  Republicans will hem and haw over whether or not to denounce this; they’ll say that they wouldn’t personally have done it, but they’ll support Trump’s legal right as president to pardon whoever he wants for whatever reason he wants.  The self-pardon will go to the Supreme Court, which will decide 5-4 in his favor but will also somehow find a way to carve out future presidents from their ruling so that Biden can’t do the same thing himself.  Melania will finally divorce Trump, and he’ll quickly proposes to and marry some 20-something blonde Republican starlet as a publicity stunt.  It will be hyped up like a British royal wedding, the biggest tabloid story of the year, all in an effort to hide the fact that he could face legal consequences for the first time in his life.  If by some miracle the court didn’t let the self-pardon stand, then Attorney General Merrick Garland will recuse himself from a bipartisan special counsel investigation into Trump’s 2015-2021 crimes, which will find plenty of evidence against him but won’t follow through on any of it because Biden will want the nation to heal and move forward and forgive and forget and blah blah blah.  Likewise, the Supreme Court will decide 5-4 in Trump’s favor that Section 230 is unconstitutional, or they’ll say that Twitter can be held liable under the first amendment despite being a private company, and he’ll get his account back.  He’ll use it solely to advertise his own social media platform which will become a wretched hive of scum and villainy, a free for all for Qanon nutjobs and white terrorists and Republican politicians.

2022, Trump will either be acquitted and claim total exoneration, or he’ll be convicted and given a slap on the wrist as punishment.  Maybe a few months in minimum security prison, during which time he’ll still be able to make phone calls and hold business meetings and maybe even travel to give speeches at rallies (supervised, of course).  He’ll play the martyr, invoking Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela, claiming he was wrongfully imprisoned like they were, and when he’s released on house arrest he’ll be seen as the hero of the Republican party.  To spark even more controversy, he’ll hold press conferences with OJ Simpson, just to remind his supporters that he could get away with murder and still be praised for it.  Like Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch, he’ll get off scot free, just in time for the 2024 election cycle.

2023, Trump will float the idea of running for a second term.  His supporters will give him record breaking millions in donations, all of which he’ll funnel into personal bank accounts via legal loopholes that Garland won’t be able to catch him on.  He’ll endorse a bunch of right-wing nutjobs for the House and Senate; maybe one of his kids will primary Rick Scott in Florida (or more likely he’ll step aside and let them run in exchange for some political favor), the gun girl who pooped herself will try and become the conservative AOC, a bunch of the pardoned capitol terrorists will be invited on Fox News, it’ll be a total shit show.  We’ll look back on 2016 and 2020 fondly, 2024 will be that bad.

2024, before the primaries begin, Trump will announce he won’t be seeking a second term, but that he wants to pick the nominee himself.  The RNC will cancel many of the caucuses and primaries at his behest and the states will award delegates to whoever he ends up endorsing.  He’ll get an hour long block on Fox every night where he’ll host a reality TV show in which Republican candidates vie for his blessing (it’ll be the Celebrity Apprentice all over again).  They’ll compete against each other, give testimonials, form alliances, backstab one another, and one by one get voted off as the candidate pool narrows until Trump names his successor on the season finale ahead of the Republican National Convention (which will be hosted at one of his properties, for ludicrous profit).  Whoever he chooses will become the nominee by unanimous voice vote, and go up against Biden or Harris in November.  If it’s Harris, then Trump will probably pick Ivanka or Nikkki Haley or that congresswoman who wanted to bring her glock to the capitol, so that the 2024 election will guarantee us the first woman president, and both candidates will pretend to be feminist icons, #GirlPower #MargaretThatcher #ParamilitaryDeathSquadsInNorthernIreland

[hernandopride]

Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin (May 5, 1921 – August 27, 2008) and Phyllis Ann Lyon (born November 10, 1924) were an American lesbian couple known as feminist and gay-rights activists.

They founded the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) in San Francisco in 1955, which became the first social and political organization for lesbians in the United States. They both acted as president and editor of The Ladder until 1963, and remained involved in the DOB until joining the National Organization for Women (NOW) as the first lesbian couple to do so.

Both women worked to form the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH) in northern California to persuade ministers to accept homosexuals into churches, and used their influence to decriminalize homosexuality in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They became politically active in San Francisco's first gay political organization, the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, which influenced then-mayor Dianne Feinstein to sponsor a citywide bill to outlaw employment discrimination for gays and lesbians. Both served in the White House Conference on Aging in 1995.

They were married on February 12, 2004, in the first same-sex wedding to take place in San Francisco after Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the city clerk to begin providing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but that marriage was voided by the California Supreme Court on August 12, 2004. They married again on June 16, 2008, in the first same-sex wedding to take place in San Francisco after the California Supreme Court's decision in In re Marriage Cases legalized same-sex marriage in California. In August 2008 Martin died from complications of an arm bone fracture in San Francisco.-Wikipedia (artwork by @helloworld-itseli )

[your-fave-is-catholic]

Your Fave Is Catholic: Leah Darrow

Known for: Former fashion model, author, podcast host, & public speaker, she first gained recognition for appearing as a contestant on the television series America’s Next Top Model. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it too far, but still had a successful career as a fashion model for a long time. She has since retired from modeling, & now spends her career doing her best to follow her passion & inspire other women to do beautiful things with their lives. She now is a public speaker who speaks in favor of feminism & her faith (more about that shortly), she hosts a podcast titled Do Something Beautiful, she is one of the founders of the LUX Conference for young women to help them make beautiful lives, & she is the author of the book The Other Side of Beauty. In short, she is a beautiful woman on the outside, but she is EXTREMELY beautiful on the inside, as she is someone who clearly wants to make the world a better place in the most positive ways possible.

Evidence of Faith: Oh boy, where to begin? Leah is probably one of the most Catholic individuals you will ever meet, & most of her public speaking events center around Catholicism. The short explanation is this: there is more than enough evidence out there that Leah is Catholic, but if ever piece was listed here, it would end up being way too long. So, to make this as concise as possible, the more notable things will be mentioned. To start with, both her Instagram page & her Twitter page show plenty of photos & tweets of her expressing her faith or showing herself in religious settings. Secondly, she was featured as a special guest on the Catholic Feminist Podcast to discuss her book The Other Side of Beauty, & you can listen to it here. Third, she has her own profile on Catholic.com, which goes into more detail about her story, her Catholic faith, & how great religious figures like Mother Teresa & Pope John Paul II inspired her to use her faith to do good in the world. Fourth, there’s a photo on her Facebook page that shows her & her husband at their wedding outside the Catholic church where they were wed. Finally, & the most clear piece of evidence, her own website directly states that she is Catholic! You can visit her website here, which will lead you to several places that express her love for Catholicism! In short, she’s a beautiful Catholic woman with an extremely big heart!

10/6 Update: @hislittleflower-throughconcrete informed me that one of the pictures in my photoset was not actually Leah Darrow. I’ve fixed it with an actual photo of Leah Darrow, & I’m sorry for any false information. But now, everything is correct, & the picture you see at the bottom is of her holding her son Victory. Also, thank you for informing me of my mistake, @hislittleflower-throughconcrete!

[latoyadixonphotography]

{un}convention RVA: A Feminist Wedding Conference by Catalyst Wedding Co

Finding {un}convention

Last August in 2016, I wrote a passionate article about why spaces dedicated to people of color only exist. It was a response to witnessing the policing of black voices in an online forum where the safest bet was to silence the complaints, rather than address the problem at hand. From that debacle, a black woman photographer took it upon herself to create another online group that invited creatives with values of intersectional feminism, diversity, inclusivity, and tolerance for people of all races, religions (or lack thereof), and creeds. As the conversations began in the new space, photographer Carly Romeo shared that there was an upcoming conference in Richmond, VA called {un}convention "for wedding space disrupters", sponsored by Catalyst Wedding Co.

About Catalyst Wedding Co

I hopped at the opportunity to attend the conference. Richmond was just a quick flight and never before had I been to a professional conference where values were the common theme that united its attendees. Catalyst Wedding Co provides a print magazine and online resources for "feminists, the LGBT community, and woke folk".

Catalyst's Mission: Our aspiration is to increase diverse representation in wedding media and to engage in critical dialogue about love, sex, marriage, and weddings. We seek to empower our community of readers and business owners to bring race, gender, sexuality, class, bodies, and more into the conversation.

Since attending the conference I have come to know, love, and respect the Catalyst team. Liz, Carly, and Jen are doing a phenomenal job in uplifting the voices of people of color on their platform and connecting us.

Catalyst featured me here on their Woke Wednesday series.

My own Woodlands Treehouse styled shoot was featured on Catalyst here.

{un}convention RVA 2016

{un}convention was held in the beautiful Quirk Hotel. Even in my late evening arrival, I could see why-- it was beautiful. A designer's masterpiece, a photographer's dream. The conference kicked off with a panel from creatives and other wedding professionals that discussed the turning tides of inclusivity in the wedding industry and how we can assist in being catalysts of that change. Following the panel was a keynote pep talk by Kelley Raye. Our workshops in the afternoon included brand critiques, a DIY class to create our own essential oil blend, and headshots by Tiffany Josephs Photography. After a full day of connecting with the attendees, we were treated to a gorgeous styled shoot designed by Wood Grain and Lace. 

 In fact, here's the entire creative team:

Design | Wood Grain & Lace

Florals | Amanda Burnette Flowers

Desserts | Sweet Fix

Paper Goods | Carly Reed Designs

Rentals & Signage | Paisley and Jade

Hair & Make Up | Vero V Judith

Jewelry | Nine Roses Jewelry

Venue | Quirk Hotel

Save The Date

{un}convention is headed back to Richmond this fall. It will be held at the Quirk Hotel again on November 5. Click the link below to get updates on the speaker line-up and for news on when registration opens!

[nationaldvam]

Our favorite childhood stories tend to stick with us. For me, rabbits seemed to be prominent characters in the books I loved – from Uncle Wiggily to Watership Down, Peter Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland. And more than the adventures of the bunnies, I remember the way the stories made me feel, and the lessons I still carry with me. There were lessons of survival, persistence, curiosity, risk-taking, and problem-solving that reinforced values of leadership, compassion, community, respect, and kindness. These rabbits live on in my subconscious, holding power and space having shaped my understanding of the world and all of its love and pain. Now, as a parent, I’ve come to know just how critical these choices are for my own children, and just how much power a simple picture book can hold.

Enhancing Social Justice Literacy

In 2015, Tanya Nixon-Silberg and Francie Latour, two Black mothers, authors, and community activists, drew on their own parenting practices – especially their use of children’s books to disrupt dominant narratives with their kids – to launch Wee the People (WTP) in Boston. WTP is a social justice project for children aged 4-12 that explores activism, resistance, and social action through the visual and performing arts. As part of their work, WTP hosts Social Justice Storytime at the Boston Public Library for their “Little Voices, Big Changes” initiative, built on the belief that if kids can understand fairness they can understand justice. Tanya and Francie work to builds parents’ capacity to confront topics like racism, deportation, gentrification, misogyny, islamophobia, and homophobia.

Innosanto Nagara, a Southeast Asian immigrant father, author/illustrator, and graphic designer creates new-wave board books that inspire conversations about social justice and encourage children’s passion and action around social causes like environmental issues, LGBTQ rights, and civil rights. With titles like A is for Activist, Counting on Community, and The Wedding Portrait, Innosanto explores themes of activism, free speech, political progress, civil disobedience, and artistic defiance. Innosanto is on the editorial team of M is for Movement, a site dedicated to exploring social justice and activism in children’s literature. The contributors to M is for Movement are children’s writers, illustrators, and book creators who are long-time activists and advocates who “come from and stand with marginalized communities living at intersections of identity, experience, race, class, gender, religion, sexuality, and ability.”

At the 2018 Facing Race National Conference in Detroit organized by Race Forward, Wee the People co-founder Tanya Nixon-Silberg and author/illustrator Innosanto Nagara presented a workshop together on racial literacy for children. They stressed the importance of racial literacy from an early age in the process of dismantling racist systems and structures.

Through their work, Tanya, Francie, and Innosanto are invested in inspiring social action through the arts, and have found that children’s books offer a powerful medium for moving new generations of people towards justice. Louise Derman-Sparks from Social Justice Books (a project of Teaching for Change) agrees:

“Children’s books continue to be an invaluable source of information and values. They reflect the attitudes in our society about diversity, power relationships among different groups of people, and various social identities (e.g., racial, ethnic, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, and disability). The visual and verbal messages young children absorb from books (and other media) heavily influence their ideas about themselves and others. Depending on the quality of the book, they can reinforce (or undermine) children’s affirmative self-concept, teach accurate (or misleading) information about people of various identities, and foster positive (or negative) attitudes about diversity. Children’s books teach children about who is important, who matters, who is even visible” (Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books, 2013).

Social Justice Literacy as a Prevention Strategy

Social justice literacy is an effective gender-based violence prevention strategy – a proactive effort to stop violence and abuse from happening in the first place by interrupting the cultural rules, norms, and constructs that support it. Several projects highlighted in the PreventIPV Tools Inventory demonstrate the effectiveness of social justice literacy in creating a more peaceful and just world. For example, Teaching for Change is a project that strives to build a more equitable, multicultural society by promoting social justice activism in the classroom. Their strategies center on leadership development and civic engagement for students, parents, and teachers that draw on real world current events. Teaching a People’s History offers classroom materials that emphasize the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in shaping history. And Rethinking Schools focuses on strengthening public education through social justice teaching and education activism with a specific focus on promoting equity and racial justice in the classroom. These approaches focus on impacting the outermost layers of the social ecology to shift our cultural norms and values.

Priya Vulchi and Winona Guo, youth activists and creators of The Classroom Index, a textbook on racial literacy, identified two gaps in racial education:

The heart gap: “An inability to understand each of our experiences, to fiercely and unapologetically be compassionate beyond lip service,” and

The mind gap: “An inability to understand the larger, systemic ways in which racism operates.”

TED Talk: What It Takes to be Racially Literate by Priya Vulchi and Winona Guo

Children’s literature is one way to bridge these gaps by inspiring, educating, and engaging readers of all ages in a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of all people, families, and communities in our wide and vibrant world. But the fact is that marginalized people and communities are outrageously underrepresented in books available to children in mainstream American classrooms, libraries, and catalogues – in terms of both those authoring the books, and characters represented inside them. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center found that in all children’s picture books published in 2015, you are more likely to find non-human characters like bunnies (12.5%) than African Americans (7.6%) and Latinx (2.6%) combined. White characters are primarily depicted in the vast majority (73.3%) of these books.

Illustration: Diversity in Children's Books 2015 by David Huyck, in consultation with Sarah Park Dahlen and Molly Beth Griffin

Social Justice Books serves to identify, vet, and promote multicultural and social justice children’s books, building on the tradition of the Council on Interracial Books for Children which offered a social justice lens to reviews of children’s literature. They also help parents and children develop critical literacy skills and promote activism around diverse representation in libraries. One example is their #StepUpScholastic campaign urging Scholastic to “publish and distribute children’s books that reflect and affirm the identity, history, and lives of ALL children in our schools.” Engaging children in proactive efforts to both notice and address the underrepresentation of people of color in literature, as illustrated above, builds their social justice literacy.

Books that Promote Justice and Peace

For those looking for books that promote justice and peace, resources like Social Justice Books offer vetted booklists on a variety of topics, as do Raising Luminaries: Books for Littles and Little Feminist: Books for raising conscious kids. Topics include:

Learning about family structures

Talking to kids about violence

Books for tomorrow’s leaders

Honoring single mothers

Promoting healthy fatherhood

Fostering social and emotional health, compassion, and independence

Helping kids recognize privilege

Cultivating healthy sexual boundaries

Preventing sexual violence

Bullying, civil disobedience, and disrupting injustice

Seek out books by authors of color like Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Honor receipient Kwame Alexander. Additionally, several anti-violence organizations offer book lists specific to addressing trauma. For example, The Child Witness to Violence Project offers books about trauma and violence for young children.

As M is for Movement explains, “Children’s literature—both fiction and nonfiction—is full of inspiration and examples of children and adults who stand up for themselves and others. Whether it’s ducks organizing animals to oppose unfair farm rules, a student listening to her classmates’ concerns when running for student council, or a boy joining his first march, young people’s literature can demonstrate how individuals and communities have the power to act as agents for social change.”

Through children’s books, we can teach justice and peace across generations. By engaging a child in a book with a strong message that fills the heart and the head, we can help build their understanding, compassion, and confidence to impact social change in ways that are meaningful and important to them. And these lessons and values will likely stick with them their whole life long

Images:

The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld

Counting on Community by Innosanto Nagara

Illustration: Diversity in Children's Books 2015 by David Huyck, in consultation with Sarah Park Dahlen and Molly Beth Griffin

[gowns]

do you have any advice on how to make friends? i've been a long-term shut-in throughout my extended time in undergrad and haven't really had a friend irl since high school when i just sort of stumbled into friendships out of proximity? my hobbies and classes aren't very social at all so i don't really know how to even find social spaces where the possibility of friendship seems like it exists. thanks for all the wisdom and general good thoughts over the years, it's been much appreciated!

hello!

i think this issue has intensified over the past several years. when i think about my college years, i would say that i made a lot of friends simply out of proximity, like you say about your high school years. people sat next to me in class, i struck up a conversation, we became friends. i’d make friends with my roommate’s friends of friends. i met my husband in college because we were living in the same apartment complex and both volunteered at the college radio station. (which is where i made a lot of my longer-lasting friendships!)

so my immediate thought was “look around you and make friends out of proximity then!!” but i can see how the college landscape is totally different now. it seems like people are more in their own little bubbles.

it’s crazy how much things can change in the span of a few years.

--

i thought about your phrase when i was taking a walk with my kid this morning. “stumbled into friendships out of proximity.” every time we move, i try to make friends with my neighbors, but it just doesn’t seem possible anymore. i thought that when i had a kid it would be easier; surely other parents would see me and would want to arrange playdates. but that isn’t the case at all! people regard each other with a cheerful guardedness. 

i used to be open and trusting, but i find myself matching other people’s energy now. i’ll see the same moms around the neighborhood, and we’re lucky if we remember each other’s names. we’ll nod and wave and say a few remarks about how the kids are playing together, then wave goodbye. i thought being a mom would bring me back into easy friendships, but we live in an age of cultivating. we cultivate our music, our shows, and, it seems, our people. we are all so much more selective. we are all gradually becoming a little more shut-in.

social interactions aren’t being destroyed, though -- they’re just changing. so you have to put yourself into the mindset of cultivating your friendships, and build that skill now while you’re in college, if you can. because after college, it will become more difficult.

--

here’s how i’ve made new friends in the past couple years (and i am your local friendly anxious semi-agoraphobe):

tumblr friends --> meet up when they’re in my area / when i’m in their area --> now the online interactions are even warmer than they were before and every time we see each other again in real life there is another lovely dimension to our friendship :)

briefly meet a friend of a friend --> follow each other on instagram --> we respond to each other’s posts and stories --> the next time we see each other it’s like we’ve known each other for years

facebook groups for very specific local interests (e.g. women of color in comedy los angeles; women calling out sexual harassment in the film repertory community; freelance writers with kids; feminist documentary photographers; RIE/attachment parenting groups (LOL my groups are very funny all written out like that, but i guess that’s who i am!))

actual real life things like: a collage-making night hosted by a local bookstore; an open mic for comedians at a local coffee shop; a storytelling hour at a bookstore; going to see a friend’s play and chatting with the people next to me; going to a conference for the field i work in; babysitting and becoming friends with those moms

for good measure, here’s how i can remember meeting my very good friends of many years, back in college - give these things a try!!! they still work, probably! just takes a little more time to whittle down people’s defenses!:

M. was sitting next to me in a first year humanities course, and i noticed her funny doodles on her notes. we started trading doodles, then chatting outside of class; i invited her to an improv show; she invited me to a party for a ____ club; we started hanging out more often gradually; we became roommates at one point; we were witnesses at each other’s weddings; to this day we still like to sit on tumblr together or make fun of movies on the couch with some beers

B. was an economics major, i was an english/drama major - how the hell did we meet again? i think it was a friend of a friend from the college radio station. i immediately thought she was the coolest girl ever and when we started talking about movies we wanted to see, we decided we should see “grindhouse” together (which was in theaters at the time). even though we have totally different life paths career-wise (and live in different areas), we’ve ended up having kids close together and we chat via text and calls constantly.

i met O. through a post she made, selling old photography equipment -- i showed up, i loved her vibe -- and i took a chance by saying, “you know what, you seem really cool, can we hang out again sometime?” and she said she thought i was cool too! and we made a date to get coffee! and ever since then we have been inseparable!

my lovely friends K. and A. and D. and K. and M. and P. and B. were always just at parties of friends, and friends of friends, and sometimes did stuff around the college radio station. once i had seen them several times in a row i decided we should hang out outside of parties, and i would invite them out (or they would invite me) for movies, brunches, comedy shows, tacos, etc etc.

anyway! my ultimate suggestion is to use some of your incredible “shut-in” superpowers of internet and social media to 1) find events 2) find cool places around you 3) make friends through internet networking groups 4) make your internet friends your real friends.

when you meet someone for the first time: ask lots of questions! ask follow up questions! do it in a way that doesn’t seem like a police interrogation. more like you’re mr rogers and find this other person’s deal way fascinating. and you know what -- the more you talk -- eventually, they will be fascinating because every human being is infinitely fascinating!

when you meet someone for the second time: do little callbacks to whatever you can remember about them from the first time!

if you feel awkward, try laughing and being like, man, i feel kinda awkward right now! or like, hey, it’s cool to finally talk to you! just be as honest as you can about your feelings and what you’re reading off the other person. they will appreciate it!

if you have social anxiety, i feel you man! i am currently sitting on these two emails i need to respond to, and these are two people who are offering me money to do the creative work i like to do, but both of these people are asking if i can negotiate my price, and when i get emails like that i tend to break out in hives and my mouth gets dry and i have a stomachache. like, “i dunno, why do i deserve money, client? why does anyone?” and see, that’s kind of the way my mind works when i’m interacting with people, whether there’s $ involved or not.

all i can say is: there’s nothing to it but to do it. you recognize there’s a problem. so take a chance. strike up a conversation before class or after class. join a club. it only gets harder from here. so start building the muscles for it now!!

[inktaire]

I know i dont make long personal posts often but like. I just need to get some things out:

First of all, I’m sick, and while that sucks ass, I have so many things to look forward to ! 

I’ve been asked by a student Dramaturg to be a featured speaker for a short talk on Friday that’s taking place immediately following a production of Bare: A Pop Opera. The talk is about how the LGBTQ+ community is treated and viewed in social reality and linking it to the parallels that I notice in the show. I’m super nervous but also insanely excited about this. I’m literally honored. Also I get a free ticket to the show which is always a plus.

The only reason I GET to do this talk in the first place is because the Dramaturg found my contact info via my status as Vice President of the LGBTQ+ org on campus. Which is a great position as it is, but the reason she found out about me is because I put together and hosted a pretty successful small panel on LGBTQ+ people and their intersecting identities as people of faith.

Which was also complemented by the HEAD OF THE RELIGION DEPARTMENT and my old gen ed religion professor.

I just locked down a TA position for next semester which makes this my 3rd semester of being a teaching assistant in a row! That’s so much more than most people can say tbh. It’s with my favorite professor for a class I’m currently taking right now (and lowkey have a 100% in thus far in the semester- including daily quizzes and a midterm).

I’m ALSO currently TAing under the same professor for a class I took a year ago, AND

I’m getting an independent research position under the SAME PROFESSOR next semester as well. He said he’ll try his best to try to get my research published (!!!)

This man, very high key, is the love of my life

He’s invited to my wedding, but that’s because he’s the groom

I’m joking (kinda). He has a wife and kids, and they’re all so cute. His kids all have gender neutral names and wear whatever the fuck they want. Both he and his wife wear their wedding bands on their right hands because they don’t fuck with the heteronormative, misogynistic tradition of marriage. We stan.

I’m also enrolled in a blogging internship class for my university’s feminist blog next semester!! I don’t know how that’s gonna go, but I’m definitely looking forward to it

I have a crush on a cute gal who I think is also flirting with me. I haven’t asked her out yet but??? It seems to be going well even just as friends for now :)

THANKSGIVING BREAK IS ALMOST HERE

I’ll be working for most of it (and Thanksgiving is bullshit), but I’m excited to see my friends from back home and my family. I also need a break for my mental sanity

This isn’t looking forward, but I just got back from a conference in Pennsylvania which was hella fun :) I got to see friends from a leadership camp I went to back in the summer who all live in PA and NY, so it was nice to get the opportunity to do that.

[kqduane]

U. S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, 64 – Massachusetts Democrat

Ms. Warren is another influencial radical, second-wave feminist who thrives on irrational lies and is incapable of connecting-the-dots in order to determine the falsehoods that underpin her bizarre assumptions. And the reason? She has adopted the Marxist infused ideology of radical, second-wave feminism, as her bible.

Radical, second-wave feminism is notoriously successful at diffusing the truth, especially for women who are susceptible to their socialist way of thinking. And in 1970, Ms. Warren was that perfect young, female patsy – white, middle-class and one of the oldest female baby boomers, having been born in 1949.

Ms. Warren followed radical feminism’s handbook almost from Day 1. She married her high school sweetheart Jim Warren in 1968, just as feminism was coming of age. But soon after having her two de rigueur children, Warren began to veer away from home.

Soon after graduating from Rutgers University Law School, she began teaching law at Rutgers in 1977, divorced her inconvenient engineer husband in 1978, married another lawyer, Bruce Mann (but kept her surname) and never looked back.

Concerning her first marriage (to the now deceased Jim Warren) she would say that he was “not a bad guy.” But, it was the 1970s and she was the mom, which, thanks to radical, second-wave feminism, was no longer enough.

Later, Warren would again write about her first husband, “He had married a nineteen-year-old girl, and she hadn’t grown into the woman we had both expected. I was very, very sorry, but I couldn’t change what I had become (a radical, second-wave feminist). I was supposed to be the Betty Crocker award winner, but I set things on fire.” Typical snarky feminist remark.

Concerning her second marriage —- as soon as her Aunt Bee agreed to come and care for her two little children (so that Warren could keep teaching law), she filed for divorce. Not surprisingly, Warren was already involved with Bruce Mann. They had met earlier at a reception for a conference on law and economics in Florida.

Elizabeth Warren and Bruce Mann’s wedding day

The very timid Mann, who had never been married, was immediately smittened by the outgoing Warren and would soon begin to fly to Warren’s home on the weekends. Elizabeth Warren and Bruce Mann would be married within six months of her ­divorce. And, Aunt Bee? She would stay for the next 15 years.

So, in less than 10 years, Warren was transformed, by radical feminism, from a stay-at-home mom to a full-blown radical, second-wave feminist. She was the product of the feminist-imbued 1970s, jettisoning the traditional values of her Christian faith along the way and adopting radical feminism’s ideology in its place, becoming a liberated, self-centered, free-love, divorced, “career” woman instead.

According the radical feminism, Warren “had it all” – a “career” at a university that was looking for female law professors, a wimpy man (wife) waiting in the wings, and a babysitter for her inconvenient children. So now, it was truly, all-about-her.

In 1995, after having taught law at universities in Texas, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the final transition to official radical, second-wave feminist would come when she began to vote Democrat. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that this was a coincidence, as she was made the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard University at the exact same time. So now, she was now a full-fledged, radical, feminist “believer.”

Scott Brown

By 2011, Warren was no longer content to spread feminist ideology, just to the young. She decided to expand her sphere of influence and enter politics. She chose to run, as a Democrat, for one of the two U.S. Senate seats in Massachusetts. This race would be against Republican Senator Scott Brown, who won a special election in 2010 to complete the remainder of the term of deceased Ted Kennedy.

Unfortunately, the highly touted Scott Brown, who was the first Republican elected to the U. S. Senate from Massachusetts since 1972, blew his credibility when he crossed party lines on many major issues. He voted for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the START Treaty and a $13 billion payroll-tax exemption for employers willing to hire unemployed workers.

Brown also voted against Republican Paul Ryan’s plan to overhaul Medicare. And then voted to support taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood and the two month extension of unemployment benefits.  All of which a majority of Republicans, especially the leadership, opposed. As a result, Brown’s strong support from the Tea Party, in his 2010 bid for Kennedy’s seat, all but disappeared and Warren won the 2012 election by a margin of 53% to 47%.

Former Republican Senator from Massachusetts – Scott Brown

Elizabeth Warren and her husband Bruce Mann

Warren’s campaign would begin to expose her devious nature and her inability to stick with the truth.

1.  It began with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi’s, efforts to manipulate the race. Her company, Demos.org sued the state of Massachusetts to enforce the National Voter Registration Act. The state settled and mailed voter registration forms to welfare recipients. Sen. Brown claimed this was done to boost Democrat voter numbers and to increase the turnout for Warren.

Amelia Warren Tyagi

Amelia Warren Tyagi and Associates

Demos.org

Pauline Reed Herring and her daughter Elizabeth

2.  Then it was revealed that she had lied on employment forms and law teaching directories when she claimed to have Native American (Cherokee and Delaware) ancestry on her mother’s (Pauline Reed Herring) side of the family. It would soon be shown that her claims were based only on family lore and that there was no documentation, or evidence, to prove her assertions. In fact, no one who attended her mother’s funeral in 1995, or her three older brothers, or her two children have come forward to corroborate Ms. Warren’s, “I’m a minority. Give me special treatment”, story.

3.  Warren also took liberties with the truth when she claimed to be the “first nursing mother to take a bar exam in the state of New Jersey.” Oh please. How pathetic that she resorts to fabrications on this low level. She reminds me of Texas gubernatorial candidate Sen. Wendy Davis’s pathetic pattern of inconsequential lies.

4.  Once elected, Warren’s one-sided, radical, second-wave feminist views on capitalism, and the Christian businessmen whose monumental efforts sustain it, would continue to color her politics when she was quoted as saying – “You Didn’t Built It.”

“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Obviously, every American is provided with those same “advantages” and yet very few men are capable of creating a thriving, successful business. And their success has nothing to do with the roads and everything to do with the talent, tenacity, trustworthiness, character, ambition, honesty and the drive each man brings to his business every day! Only a radical, second-wave feminist, who has been trained to abhor strong men in general, and strong, successful, Christian men in particular, could come to such an outlandish, irrational, and socialist conclusion.

Bill Gates – Microsoft

Donald Trump

Steve Jobs – Apple

5.  Now lets talk about Warren’s minimum wage IQ. I can’t even decipher her twisted views on this topic. But basically she thinks that the minimum wage should be around $22.00 per hour, based on “economic developments” since the 1960s. And since it’s only $7.25, she claims the missing $14.75 was “stolen” by those baaaadd male employers. If you want to torture yourself with her reasoning, click here Realclearpolitics.com

Larry Summers

6.  Now let’s move on to why the Catholic Church will never allow women to become priests. Simply put, women can’t keep a confidence. And Ms. Warren’s stunning, and naive revelation, about her conversation with Larry Summers, shows that she doesn’t even know enough to keep a confidence (given to her as a newbie) by very big “insider”. The very same Larry Summers, who at the time was the director of the National Economic Council and a top economic adviser to President Obama. She wrote the following in her book:

“After dinner, “Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticize other insiders.”

Granted, I’m not the least bit impressed with Mr. Summers legacy, but, as a Progressive, Ms. Warren should be. So, why did she do it?

Well, being a feminist first, this deliberate betrayal has to have its roots in radical feminism once again. Hummm? But, of course! This Larry Summers is the very same Larry Summers who was ousted as President of Harvard (while Ms. Warren was employed there) because he had the unmitigated gall to speak the truth about the statistical disparity between men and women and their mathematical abilities. This is what he said while speaking at the National Bureau of Economic Research conference in 2005:

“It does appear that on many, many different human attributes—height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability—there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means—which can be debated—there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population.”

Remember, radical feminists are feminists first and foremost and they reserve their greatest ire for those who refuse to maintain the smoke screen of lies surrounding their ideology, especially when it comes to the radical feminist high jinx, concerning the “equality of the sexes.” Mr. Summers overlooked this little detail and now we know why Warren threw him under the bus.

7.  Now for her claim that interest rates on government issued student loans are “morally wrong.” Despite Ms. Warren’s claim that she is a consumer finance expert, she fails to connect the dots on the simple fact that if the kids, who take out the loans, don’t pay something for the privilege, the taxpayers will have to pick up the slack! AGAIN! Considering the fact that, even with the kids interest payments included, the government’s student loan “program” is already one billion dollars in debt, Warren’s comment is upside-down, off-the-charts, socialist, STUPID!

8. In her misguided efforts to get the minimum wage raised again, Warren tweeted that it “no longer keeps a mom and her baby out of poverty.” What? It never kept single mothers (aka. radical feminists) out of poverty because it was never intended to support a mother and her children. Moms and their children are not a viable economic unit under any circumstances. That’s why God invented fathers! The minimum wage was originally intended for entry-level jobs for unskilled teenagers, period. And for Warren to claim otherwise is just plain dishonest (something at which she excels).

Sen. Elizabeth Warren

It is rumored that Warren is considering a run for the Presidency in 2016. She better reconsider because there’s just too many of her own quotes to use against her. Shall we continue?

The following is a list of more preposterous quotes from Warren which were put together by thedailybanter.com in 2013.

1. “People feel like the system is rigged against them, and here is the painful part, they’re right. The system is rigged.” (It is rigged against average people – by politicians like radical feminist, and socialist, Elizabeth Warren. kqd)

2. “If there had been a Financial Product Safety Commission in place 10 years ago, the current financial crisis would have been averted.” (OMG. What a simpleton. The financial crisis was deliberately caused by financial ditz’ s Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank (Heads of Federal Banking Committee) who relaxed the banking regs which caused a feeding frenzy in the industry.kqd)

Sen. Chuck Schumer, 64 NY

Sen. Chris Dodd – Conn, (D)

Rep. Barney Frank – Mass. (D)

3. “You built a factory out there, good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads that the rest of us paid for. You hired workers that the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.” (Duh, again. kqd)

4. “Look around. Oil companies guzzle down the billions in profits. Billionaires pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries, and Wall Street CEOs, the same ones the direct our economy and destroyed millions of jobs still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them. Does anyone here have a problem with that?” (WHAT? Radical feminist ideology again. Capitalists don’t destroy jobs, they create them!!! Plus, they are the primary supply line for the taxes on which the government functions! What an arrogant dope! kqd)

75,000 employees

255,000 employees

4,700 gas stations

5. “I do not understand how it is that financial institutions could think that they could take taxpayer money and then turn around and act like it’s business as usual. I don’t understand how they can’t see that the world has changed in a fundamental way, that it is not business as usual when you take taxpayer dollars.” (Well, maybe this would be true, if it weren’t for the fact that the incompetent, meddling GOVERNMENT REGULATORS initiated the meltdown that the banking industry endured. kqd)

Sen. Chuck Schumer, 64 NY

Sen. Chris Dodd – Conn, (D)

Rep. Barney Frank – Mass. (D)

Mitt Romney – Former Massachusetts Governor, Christian and co-founder of Bain Capitol Investment Firm

6. “Mitt Romney is the guy who said corporations are people. No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people.” (OK. I’m not even going to respond to this totally absurd comment. kqd)

7. “You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything in your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did.” (A repeat. For radical, second-wave feminists, the “battle” never ends – radical feminist vs. Christian men, over and over again. kqd)

8. “In a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights in Congress, can’t win their fights for the presidency, and can’t win their fights in the courts. For this right-wing minority, hostage taking is all they have left, a last gasp for those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.” (Hostage tactics? Cannot cope with the realities of our democracy? Come on. I don’t think so. Warren and her ilk are the ones who are trashing democracy. It’s very difficult to win when the system is rigged against the productive Christian businessmen, by influential lesbian-led, radical, second-wave feminists, like political hack Ms. Warren, and her socialist cohorts, who are in cahoots with atheists like the vindictive, litigious Atty. Mikey Weinstein. It’s time for Christian men to FIGHT BACK. kqd)

9. “If you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you’re going to jail….Evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night.” (Only if he’s, i.e. a friend of Democrat Eric Holder/Bill Clinton. kqd)

Eric Holder

Bill Clinton

Marc Rich

10. “Nobody’s safe. Health insurance? That didn’t protect 1 million Americans who were financially ruined by illness or medical bills last year.” (OMG! Alert! Alert! Nobody’s safe! – The truth is that nobody’s safe because radical, second-wave feminist Elizabeth Warren is roaming the halls of Congress and, the truth is, she knows EXACTLY what she’s up to! Beware. If the Christian men don’t stop her soon, she’ll throw us all under the bus! kqd) Current EVEntS – Radical, Second-Wave Feminist Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Mass (D) – Just Doesn’t Get It, or Does She? U. S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, 64 - Massachusetts Democrat Ms. Warren is another influencial radical, second-wave feminist who thrives on irrational lies and is incapable of connecting-the-dots in order to determine the falsehoods that underpin her bizarre assumptions.

[rougeskies-jm-blog]

For That Skeptics: Ideas On Traditional Master of business administration Programs

I authored the above mentioned for any Plywood People ebook known as Seem Advice. I'm grateful for that daily possibilities to increase my DIY education, and I have found immense pleasure in discussing these training with other people because they craft their very own education.

  I have had the chance to see organizations like Chick-Fil-A and Gather Workshop, and that I now make a start with start-up leaders in most stages every day via my role with Plywood People, a non-profit leading a residential area of start-ups doing good. Put around you supportive people. Allow the naysayers stay without anyone's knowledge. If necessary take them off out of your existence temporarily.

  A different way to deal with this really is keep the intent to yourself. Create a self-resolve internally to complete exactly what the naysayers don't believe that you can do. Once you accomplish your career you'll feel happy for overcoming what others didn’t believe you could do this. Remember you do this on your own not for other people. Rev. Cameron Trimble may be the Executive Director, Chief executive officer from the Center for Progressive Renewal.

  She most lately offered being an consultant towards the Congregational Vitality and Discipleship Group of Local Church Ministries for that US Church of Christ so that as Affiliate Conference Minister of Church Rise in the Southeast Conference from the UCC. In her own ministry within the national setting, Rev. Trimble was responsible to add mass to national technique for birthing new places of worship.

  In her own conference setting, she directly oversaw the birthing of places of worship through the Southeast Conference. Each setting has provided her a distinctive perspective around the challenges of cultivating leaders outfitted to meet the requirements for the future of mainline Protestantism. Copywriting may be the single best technical skill a business person might have. I understand that's a bold claim, nevertheless its true. Now, whenever you hear copywriting you are mostly likely considering creating sexy advertisements. But it is not what I’m talking about. I’m getting used to this web based course factor. It's much simpler to complete than forcing yourself to get a magazine by yourself. 

  The classes (in some instances a large number of people) have cleverly organized themselves with wikis, social networking groups, mailing lists etc., so there's really a feeling of community learning. That does not mean the classes are always more enjoyable than getting a couple of pints together with your mates, however it entails I'm learning. Hello fellow DIY Master of business administration available, it has been just a few minutes since I have published an update towards the site, and so I figured I'd meet up with all of you really quick.

  The primary reason behind the delay is the fact that I've been hard at work on my Master of business administration.  That’s right, I've attended the dark side If validated learning was recognized more within the mainstream a few of these products would not have went to individuals stages because individuals people might have been in a position to believe that failure to make a viable product around the try isn't a bad factor.

  In the end you're learning a great deal along the way and after some persistence you'll eventually produce a viable service or product. So next time you are feeling you’ve hit a wall or taken the incorrect path just chalk up among individuals costly business courses and call it Validated Learning. The paint is barely dry, yet edX, the nonprofit start-up from Harvard and also the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has 370,000 students this fall in the first official courses. That’s nothing. Coursera, founded just last the month of January, has arrived at greater than 1. Seven million growing quicker than Facebook, boasts Andrew Ng, on leave from Stanford to operate his for-profit MOOC provider.

  Obviously, that's among the primary advantages of becoming an audiobook producer: you receive thoroughly uncovered with an excellent content! Especially whenever using a writer as productive and focused as Josh is. His stuff is really helpful, so relevant, that simply focusing on his projects has impacted my company with techniques which go well past the action of recording them. And also, since it was Josh’s second turn at bat narrating themselves, we could really get ready and revel in ourselves Leading a congregation in renewal or beginning a brand new ministry requires an entrepreneurial set of skills that values risk-taking, innovation and proper thinking. This program will explore the abilities, models, concepts and practices church leaders have to effectively guide congregations or non-profits right into a high-impact future. The skill of War meets "The Artist's Way" within this no-nonsense, profoundly inspiring help guide to overcoming creative blocks of each and every kind. 

  A succinct, engaging, and practical guide for succeeding in almost any creative sphere, World War 2 of Art is nothing under Sun-Tzu for that soul.

My conjecture for future years If you are no entrepreneur or perhaps an attractive female (who'll soon be overtaking the entry/mid amounts of corporate America) then you'll require an advanced degree. I don't believe that there's every other quality as necessary to success of any sort as the caliber of perseverance.

  It overcomes just about everything, even nature. John D. Rockefeller, Titan Life moves fast in the realm of internet marketing. Actually, since 2013, digital media consumption within the US States has elevated by 49 percent, based on comScore.

  Clearly I already got drawn underneath the personal time management riptide. I've been silent for 3 days as visitors traipsed through my house. The final three days continues to be literally exhausting because of so many house visitors, birthdays and family weddings. And So I made the decision I will consider using a new goal. Instead of stay with 99 days I’m just likely to read no less than 2 hrs. each day a minimum of 6 days each week on whatever book I've showed up at from my list. I've the following ten so as and I’ll observe how it progresses. I ought to mention I'm quite busy lady despite the fact that I'm not presently working full-time.

  I operate a household by myself for that summer time several weeks of every year. Additionally for this I'm busy with Toastmasters, Scouting, as being a board person in the neighborhood Women’s Center and volunteering in your area having a Nonprofit that can help Immigrants with Settlement. I'm wishing to obtain a job soon so I'll be doing my community activities additionally for this blog and running my household.

  I'll complete this book list and that I aspire to compile my very own because when a lady I've recognized to date that many of these books appeal more to men. Their list has 99 books onto it and just 4 from the books possess a lady author in it 2 which are co-written having a man. And So I intend to suggest a summary of my very own with mainly women authors. I understand one of the reasons I'll have a problem with their list happens because the books won’t always attract my interests.

  So additionally to studying their email list I'll from time to time review books personally I think are simply as helpful to finishing a Feminist or Sustainable Master of business administration.