#i do not need to write a religious dissertation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stuckinapril · 7 months

Note

i saw ur post on how there isnt rlly a big arab figure, and wow like. i think that if i had been younger and saw just one or two arab people on tv in a positive way, it would have helped me a LOT. like yeah. There ISNT a big singer or character or actor or model that’s arab. And now im sitting here wondering how many kids are going to be sitting and watching tv and just blocking out their arab heritage and culture because then they wouldnt be like their favorite singer or wtver.

Exactly. Exactly exactly exactly. I’ve full chest said this before, but I wasn’t always as attached to my Arab heritage as I am now. I actually grew up pretty distant from it all around, and it’s only in recent years that I started making a concerted effort to delve into it. And I can’t even blame it on my mom tbh, like I grew up in a lax household that allowed for ample self-expression. It was always the outside world that would make a little Arab girl like me question the worth of her ethnic roots—especially when Arabs are painted as terrorists at worst and as monocultural heathens at best where I’m from (hint: the USA). There is so much to unpack w being raised American but being ethnically Iraqi!! Because that means I literally hail from two countries!! A country that’s thirsty and a country that’s on fire!! But that’s a whole other loaded topic I could write a separate dissertation on.

I’d always have toxic thought loops like “I don’t look Arab enough” “I’m not religious but all the Arab girls I know are Muslim” on and on and on. And like I said in that ask, there was never an Arab American A lister for me to kind of have a frame of reference w. This is specifically an Arab issue too I feel like, bc a lot of brown people do have that star-studded figure to look up to growing up. We do not.

It’s kind of why I decided to be that for myself. I don’t need a cool Arab girl celebrity who’s into fashion or music. I’ll be that. I don’t need an Arab academia girl character. I’ll be that too. There’s no such thing as not looking Arab enough bc Arabs are so diverse. It’s okay that I’m not religious bc Arab culture is not solely defined by religion, and even if it were Arabs are not a hive mind and everyone engages w their culture in vastly different ways (which is okay!! It doesn’t make me any less Arab). I’ll literally just discard other people’s preconceived notions and trailblaze my own path!! I’ll be my own Arab girl representation. I refuse to fit myself into any preexisting mold. I like what I like and the rest just falls into place.

I think that’s why I’ve been so vocal about my Iraqi heritage lately… I’m literally healing my relationship w my roots in real time. Even advocating for Palestine is feeding into that in major ways. It’s legit all coming together for the first time in my life. Now I’m so proud to be Arab—to be Iraqi—that the idea that anyone could shame me for it is as incredulous as it is hilarious. Iraq is literally called the Cradle of Civilization & you want to make me feel BAD for being Arab… for being Iraqi… it’s just impossible bc I can’t imagine myself being anything else. I’m so content to have my multicultural background and to be who I am. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

It’s also cool that I have people following me, that they could also be exposed to diverse facets of Arab culture bc of that, but tbh a lot of this is also purely for me. I want the Iraq tag to be flooded w beautiful Iraqi poetry and beautiful Iraqi art and beautiful Iraqi cinema as I familiarize myself w Iraqi culture more and more, bc there’s so much more to it than the Iraqi War stats that pop up when you look it up on here.

I’m a 21 year old girl AND I’m Arab. That’s literally double the self-discovery to work through. Fortunately I think I’m finally cultivating a strong sense of self, so I really don’t think anything anyone has to say could deter me from my path (whether it be in terms of reconnecting w the beauty of my Arab heritage or legit just growing into my own). It’s not always perfect by any means, but I’ve made so much headway. And absolutely nothing could take away from that.

#I had a LOT of thoughts on this but thank u for giving me the opportunity to rly unravel this anon <3 <3 <3 #I still have a lot of things to go to therapy for lmao but suppressing my Arab roots is absolutely one thing I’ll never have to talk about #the confused Arab girl who was disconnected from her heritage is DEAD give me all the Iraqi history books I want to devour them all #ask #arab tag

30 notes · View notes

aritany · 8 months

Note

what's the origin story for dgdss? if you don't mind 🥺

oho! well. as it happens, i love telling this story.

if you want to know how my childhood best friend writing a short story about me ended up leading to me getting a big 5 book deal, read on.

tw for reference to self harm and some...... unpleasant commentary (not mine) about it later on, folks.

so.

i was homeschooled until my very last year of high school (yes, like mean girls, except my mean girl dominated the first 15 years of my life and that last year was just blissfully chill) and like many homeschooled children, i was a part of a co-op.

cool, right? it's like School Lite™ where you put a group of feral children in a classroom, except you're all varying ages and grade levels, and also, nobody in the room is an accredited teacher, and nobody seems to have an issue with this.

my mom and her mom were best friends, and we were born around the same time, so naturally, we were best friends too from birth, and we were part of the same co-op all through my elementary and junior high school years.

anyway. i won't air all of the dirty laundry regarding our early friendship, because the whole book deal thing doesn't touch it, and i also think there's no need to be pointing out the behaviour of an Actual Child in retrospect. all you need to know is that we were best friends, our relationship was fraught, and by the time we hit 12-13 it was to the degree that people started telling me, hey man, this is Very Strange Behaviour and You Might Be A Victim, and i had to go do some introspection.

the introspection led to the general conclusion oh shit, but we stayed friends, because obviously. when you're 13, breaking up with a best friend is literally The End of the world, and anyway, there was a lot of good in there too, right?

right?

anyway, things took a turn when we were about 14. i struggled heavily with mental illness and self harm as a closeted religious teenager (who'da thunk?) and i confided in her about a small fraction of what was going on, because she was my best friend. i didn't tell her details, because even then i knew what i was experiencing was heavier than was probably appropriate to burden another kid with (and i stand by it!), but she knew the gist.

several Tense moments resulted, one of which was the day she pointed out self harm scarring in front of other people and asked me what happened, ran away, and refused to talk further about it, so i had to talk to her mom, who told me i should apologize to her, considering my mental health struggle had been so difficult... for her.

yeah, you know the type of people we're dealing with, here.

she was determined to undermine me in front of our mutual friends. anything to make me look worse, in one way or another. anything to step just a little higher. if i was interested in something, here's a public dissertation on why it's a dumb thing to be interested in. if i had a crush, forget keeping it a secret, and forget the notion that it's normal, because it's not, it's stupid, and shallow to have a crush in the first place. if we had a similar interest, here's a dressing down about how all i ever do is steal the things she likes (even if i liked them first).

needless to say, by the time the whole deal with the short story is going down a few short years later, we're on the rocks.

let me set the scene. we hadn't seen each other in several months, due to the On The Rocks of it all, and were meeting up for coffee while our moms were also getting coffee. hashtag classic homeschooled behavior, etc.

we're catching up, and she tells me she needs to apologize for something. i am, as you might imagine, agog, considering the rarity of apologies from this girl. she tells me she wrote a short story and submitted it to her university journal to be published, and that in hindsight she thinks she should have asked for my permission first.

i am, obviously, suspicious. to her credit, she gives it to me to read through and then leaves to go do christmas shopping. it's a muddy-ish faux-deep piece about a narrator who has a best friend struggling with mental illness and self harm.

(oh, you might say. to which i say, yeeeeah.)

in the story, the narrator depicts the struggle of trying to care about somebody who is in pain, referring to the best friend as 'cariad' the whole way through, which is just so weird i'm not even going to touch on it. google it if you'd like. the line that i still remember (and will probably remember until the day i die) is the one where she describes her cariad as feeling the need to use a razor as a microphone.

i honestly don't recall what i said when she eventually came back, but i contained all of the aggression of a piece of pocket lint at the time, so i imagine it was along the lines of oh. yeah, okay. [insert image of the saddest wettest cat you've ever seen]

i never saw her again. we went our separate ways, and that was that. we never talked about it.

(the one upside of it was that my mom, with whom i have a Notoriously Contentious relationship, was outraged on my behalf. that was the first (in many years) and last (ever) time we were on the same side of a battle, so, you know. silver linings.)

but the real indignity of it to me was that my friend never really knew. i never really told her about what was happening in my head. she never knew why i was hurting myself, or how bad it got, because i did everything i could to keep that to myself, and at the end of the day, she thought it was all for attention to the degree she wrote a transparently biographical account of it and chose razor as a microphone as a phrase on purpose.

dead girls started as a way to process the complicated feelings i had about that friendship and then obviously ultimately became a whole different creature in the process. i wanted to write about how it felt to go through that never having had another close friendship to compare it to, and how confusing and nauseating it was to have other people point out shitty behaviour.

it became about healing when you can't get closure. how do you move on when you'll never know why somebody hurt you?

nothing that happens in the book is based on real life events between us, partly because i'm not a hypocrite, and partly because if your work can be traced back to your personal experiences, perhaps you should do what you can to be kind.

'my julia,' as i like to call her (she is not named julia, because, oh my god) is nothing like julia hoskins in appearance or general personality. but the way she made me feel? oh, that's all there. nora feels it the way i felt it.

i wrote dead girls back in 2020, and got agented with it in 3 weeks of sending my first query. we got a book deal for it with a penguin random house imprint 1 year later to the day, and next week it's going to be out in the world, and i'm not going to lie, it feels really damn good.

also, her short story got rejected by her university, because it was bad. so you might lose some, but you win some, too.

#alex talks #storytime with alex #dead girls don't say sorry #dgdss #toxic friendships amiright

28 notes · View notes

witches-pierre · 1 year

Text

I recently have been getting back into divination and witchcraft as a means to try and unpack my rampant religious trauma. It’s been… a struggle to say the least. Some days are better than others, some days I get filled with an intense anxiety that maybe the god of my old religion will turn my life to hell for even daring to consider anything else.

But I now that’s not true; and that along with so many other ideas are so unhealthy.

That little dissertation out of the way; here’s a list of things I did recently that I’m proud of myself for doing. Cause we all need to be proud of ourselves from time to time; especially when dealing with trauma:

• Number one biggest thing! I’ve started doing shadow work! I’ve started to work through identifying my different triggers and it’s challenging to say the least. While I won’t get into it here let’s just say I’m not in the most accepting environment atm. So while I’m working to move out I’m hoping shadow work will allow me the mental clarity to survive just a little longer.

• I’ve managed to record my tarot readings somewhat often; sure maybe the longest I’ve gone is about 4 weeks between them but the fact that I had able to do it at least twice in one month is incredible by my standards!

• Speaking of tarot; recently I’ve started to get better at interpreting the meaning of the cards outside of using books. I have about 3 tarot books that I read the meaning of my cards from (I like to get multiple perspectives) and recently started interpreting the cards myself, writing it down what I got and THEN consulting my books. More often than not my interpretations tend to lineup with the books. This is uber exciting for me since I have terrible memory and the fact it’s starting to stick makes me hopeful!

• I made my first oil; that being rose oil! And it’s been three months and it hasn’t gone moldy!! (Another incredible thing by my standards!)

• I made my first spell jar! (A protection jar of course) I usually stay within the realms of Knot magick, but I wanted to push myself a little further. I’ve spent months watching videos and reading books (both witchy and practical) about different herbs and ingredients used in this kind of spell work. Now the finished thing sits nicely in the corner of my room hidden from prying eyes.

• I figured out how to make my grimoire aesthetic looking! The key is, you don’t!

Well I mean, let me explain. I realized that the overwhelming pressure of making my writing look good was… overwhelming. So instead I use an old animal crossing themed notebook I got for my birthday. It takes a lot of the pressure off.

And I know what your thinking; Pierre that’s not really a solution! All the witch influencers always say that and then still have amazing looking grimoires anyway!!!

Well yeah; but here’s the kicker, that shitty little notebook that’s an unorganized mess where all your ideas go; that’s your working grimoire.

Think of it like a sketchbook; a place where all your incomplete thoughts and scribbles go. It’s okay to have it look messy cause it’s you learning. Write down work in progress spells; ideas, and the like.

That way when you come up with a spell that has results; or you feel like you’ve studied and gathered enough information on a topic; you comb over that information in that crappy little book; take the valuable bits and then take the time to put them in pretty little book.

I ramble to much about it already; maybe I’ll make a whole separate post on it. And if did it will be linked here

Feel free to join in with your list in the comments!

#witchblr #tarot #witchcraft #witches of tumblr #witch community

10 notes · View notes

imanes · 1 year

Note

hi imane! i hope ur doing well <3 i just wanted to ask: what do you do during times of uncertainty? im a uni student abt to go on placement and I've been applying for part-time jobs that's centred around my field but to no avail sadly :/ i wanted to save up at least so i wouldn't stress during placement and everything's so overwhelming.. there are other external factors that's making me feel this way too like a friendship break-up i had few months ago and its affected me quite badly but im starting to pick myself up again. anyways sorry for the rant and i hope ur day is lovely x

hey! just sat down after hours of procrastination to work on my dissertation and i wish i were done already akjdkfgj but it could be worse!! ok it's gonna be long and probs unhelpful but i know that you wanted to vent more than you thought i was holding some solution so I'll just ramble and hope something resonates with you lmao <3

for me uncertainty makes me feel like my life is in shambles, it's hard to cope with things going south and not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel but during my yearly flop era in march/april i had a talk with a friend who's much older, wiser, and more experimented, and basically it helped me put things into perspective and learn how to let go. there are only so many things that you can control so i split my different issues into different categories for a more systemic approach to my problems lol: things that i can actually somewhat control (my emotions, my reactions, my efforts, what i can do moving forward to alleviate some of my stress), things that are out of my control (how people misconstrue me, external stressors like shitty coworkers, refusals from jobs i was applying for) and things (and people) that i don't need in my life. learning to let go of things for me internationally infamous control freak was not easy but it was liberating, idk if you're religious so if you aren't the next part isn't going to be helpful lol but i don't think i should be chasing things because i am exactly where i am meant to be, and if i start clutching at the things that aren't meant to be in my life, it's just my ego getting in the way, and i prayed that Allah just lets me find the place that i would fit better in and that He'd take me away from it if i wasn't going to be doing or feeling good there. i guess the non-religious version would just be to trust the process and understand that things in life wax and wane, whether it be job opportunities or relationships. obviously there's like a plethora of other factors like what do i do if i can't pay the bills and stuff? that was how i was thinking just a couple of months ago when my dissertation was not writing itself and nobody was hiring me! but a few weeks have passed and looking back on it i was starting to chase things again and it made me feel like i was stuck in a rut when in fact it's normal for things to take some time to settle down and for opportunities to arrive.

so basically whether you stress about it or not, literally nothing is going to change except the way you frame it in your head. for me i just continued applying and gave interviews my all while also being detached enough to simply trust myself to find the space that i was meant to occupy eventually, and after many many many rejections i finally found something a week ago, but it took a couple of months of steady job application to get there. looking from the other side of the mirror it's easy to say things like "don't get discouraged!" but it is true that if you keep throwing shit at a wall something's going to eventually stick, hence the power of consistency and of never giving up.

i'm glad you're slowly building yourself back up after your friendship break-up, i know how much it can drag you down but again some people are meant to be with you for a season only and at the end of the day with the effect of time making things more bearable and by working on your self-esteem and knowing that you can do things that you set your mind to, whether it is finding a part-time job or picking yourself back up, in a few weeks you're gonna look back on where you were mentally at when you sent me this message and where you'll be then and you'll thing "well i guess things DO pass huh who would've thought!!" lol life is a cycle of stability and unsteadiness, doesn't matter how much you prepare something's always going to go sideways but another truth is that things fall back into place again and you have to have faith in that, in yourself, and maybe in something else like i am w/ my relation to religion if u need extra help. speaking of help if you have a support system, confide in them and let them carry some of that weight for you!! you'd do the same for them so don't feel like you're a burden for needing help when you are facing instability. wishing you the best of luck and i really hope you find a good part-time job before your placement babe

7 notes · View notes

ettelwenailinon · 1 year

Text

Tag game to better know you

I was tagged by @b1uetrees, thank you!! thank you ☺️💚💚💚

what book are you currently reading?

uuuuuuhhhh many books relating to my dissertation, one that has been very enjoyable and well written that I want to finish after is jacobites: a new history of the '45 rebellion. from fiction books I've been reading the song of achilles since last september, I'm Busy okay 😭

what’s your favorite movie you saw in theaters this year?

I have not been to a cinema in years 😂 but I am going to go and see the barbie movie after my deadlines dtcgtbzh

what do you usually wear?

a shirt (the puffier the sleeves the better), a big skirt, kneehigh stockings, potentially some sort of vesr

how tall are you

recently got measured and 159 cm, 5'2.5'', short king ✌️

what’s your star sign? do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event?

aquarius!! and I had no idea but apparently I share my birthday with lord byron 👀 (probably where my love for puffy sleeves comes from)

do you go by your name or a nickname?

I go by a domestic version of my name as my legal name is too long and I hate it dftgzgzgz

did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child?

there's always work to be done but I'm happy where I am :)

are you in a relationship? if not, who is your crush if you have one?

@uighean is my girlfriend and we're getting ever so closer to finally live together!! ❤️

what’s something you’re good at vs something you’re bad at?

uuuuuuhhhh good at art (maybe) and bad at. sports. and maths. and breathing.

dogs or cats?

I love both but to have, cats

if you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favorite picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you created this year?

honestly all the work I've done on my dissertation so far but I can't post it here because I want to keep my professional and private life separate and I do not need people finding my tumblr where I can just be a freak dkfkdkkdk

in terms of fanart, probably this one

what is something that you’d like to create content for?

I mean. beyond evil, when I have the time 😭

what’s something you’re currently obsessed with?

my dissertation and the meow meow from my histories to the point that I tried to find historical rpf do not @ me

what’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year?

when I was supposed to go to a museum to take photographs of an object for my dissertation but the day prior I got a message from them that they can't open the safety case it's in, resulting in me loosing £45 because it was too late to cancel the bus and then it took them a month to get a locksmith and they didn't even manage to open it but I was waiting and was stuck with my work 🤡

what’s a hidden talent of yours?

well, it's called hidden for a reason 😅

are you religious?

not in an existing religion sort of way though I was raised casually catholic

what’s something you wish to have at this moment?

money, a place to live with my girlfriend and a phd position with a full scholarship or my dream job dftvttvvyvyyh

and I tag @uighean , @doctor-punkenstein , @hanjuwonsupporter , @fire-burning-brighter , @tiffanylamps and anyone else who wants to do this, no pressure 💜

7 notes · View notes

religion-is-a-mental-illness · 8 months

Text

By: Ryan Burge

Published: 26 Jan, 2024

One of the most challenging aspects of this job appears simple to those who haven't done it before: crafting survey questions. It’s such an impossible task, especially when you are trying to develop new measures that haven’t been used before in other surveys. To put this in some context, I met with a team of three graduate assistants every other week for an hour for the entire Fall semester just to get a survey in shape to be rolled out to a select group of early reviewers. Sending out that first draft is nerve-wracking because you know that many aspects won't work and will need adjustments or removal. It's akin to typing into a Google Doc, and a collaborator logs in, leaving you feeling vulnerable.

Over Christmas break, I had sent the test link out to some folks that I really trust and I know that they will provide some excellent feedback. I was not disappointed. Our research team met earlier this week to review the feedback and make some changes; we all agreed that this moved us closer to a finished product.

But there’s one comment that I received that I have been thinking about a lot. There's a section of the survey that inquires about spirituality and spiritual practices. Most reviewers had the same critique: they wished for a clear definition of spirituality within the survey. I get that impulse. I really do. But, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do that for a simple reason:

I don’t know that our team could write a definition of spirituality that most people would agree with. It’s very much “in the eye of the beholder.”

However, I may actually understand spirituality a bit better now thanks to some recent data posted on the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) that was funded by the Fetzer Institute. The National Religion and Spirituality Survey, conducted in late 2022 with a total sample size of 3,651, provided valuable insights into how people perceive the words 'religious' and 'spiritual’.

I know it’s a cliche when I write this, but in this case it’s true: I honestly understand the world a little bit better after doing this data work. It absolutely sharpens my understanding of the religious/spiritual world and how the average person relates to both those concepts.

There was a question battery at the beginning of the survey that listed a whole bunch of terms (13 in total) and folks were asked if that word described spirituality to them. Then they were given the same list of terms and asked if those described religion to them. It offers a peek behind the curtain of how these words are understood in the general population.

The general consensus that emerges is that people tend to associate many words with spirituality, but fewer terms describe religion. For example, eight of these terms clearly describe spirituality more than they describe religion: clarity, inspiration, love, peace, purpose, transcendence, transformation, and wonder. And in many cases the percentage difference between religion and spirituality is pretty large. It’s thirteen points for peace (68% vs 53%). It’s eight points for love (55% vs 47%) and seven points for inspiration and clarity. The most chosen terms here are peace, love, and inspiration.

In contrast, there are only a few terms clearly associated with religion: belonging (35% vs. 29%), structure (32% vs. 22%), and values (51% vs. 47%). Eight for spirituality and three for religion. The words that are most likely to be associated with religion are peace, values, and love. Only 17% of folks say that transformation and wonder describe religion, just 12% say that transcendence is a part of religion. I feel like there’s an entire dissertation to be written about that.

But how do religion and spirituality work together? Folks were asked, “How spiritual are you?” and then were asked, “How religious are you?” They were given four response options ranging from “not at all” to “very.” What I think is fascinating is the result when you put those two questions into a heat map.

Just 9% of the population identified as both very religious and very spiritual. The most common response was that they were both moderately spiritual and moderately religious, with 23% in that category. In contrast, 12% of the sample said that they were not at all religious and not at all spiritual. Clearly the diagonal line across the middle of the heat map was where most people found themselves - these four squares represent 56% of the sample.

Only .2% of folks said that they were very religious but not at all spiritual. In contrast, 3.2% were very spiritual but not at all religious. One throughline that I see is that there are lots of people who are not religious but somewhat spiritual, but the opposite is much less prevalent. Almost everyone who says that they are religious also says that they are moderately or very spiritual. It’s almost like spirituality doesn’t need religion but spirituality is an essential part of religion.

One question I had when I started looking through these questions was: are young people more likely to embrace spirituality and reject religion? And are older folks more attracted to religion and less to spirituality? There’s a decent sample size here so I can answer these questions.

Among the youngest adults, slightly less than half claimed to be moderately or very spiritual, while the share for religion was about ten percentage points lower. These trends remained relatively stable from ages 18 to 40, with a persistent ten-point gap. But then both lines began to slowly drift upwards among those in their forties and fifties. The share who say that they are moderately/very spiritual moves up to about 50% around 50 years old. There’s also an upward movement among those who say the same about religion.

But then the lines basically flatten off again - from 55 years old all the way to 75 years old. Even among the oldest Americans, spirituality is embraced more than religion. Among those who are 70 years old about two-thirds say that they are moderately/very spiritual and around 55% say they are moderately/very religious. So, spirituality is clearly more popular across the board. And it’s really fascinating how that gap is basically the same size across the entire age spectrum.

I wanted to end this piece by analyzing a series of questions about whether spirituality or religion has any bearing on how people act in the real world. For instance, folks were asked how much they agreed with this statement, “My <Religion or Spirituality> Impacts My Political Views.” Response options ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

Just 13% of people strongly agreed that religion impacted their political views, while it was 16% for spirituality. Thirty-eight percent agreed that spirituality influenced their political views, compared to 30% for religion. Folks were 21 points more likely to strongly disagree with the statement “religion impacts my political views” than strongly agree. That’s not a small difference. For the spirituality question the difference was only ten points (26% vs 16%).

But, how about their political activity like protesting, attending campaign events, etc? The same kind of gaps emerge here, too.

The most common response for the statement, 'My Religion Impacts My Political Activity,' was strongly disagree at 37%, with only 10% strongly agreeing. In total, people were twice as likely to disagree as to agree (47% vs 24%). Spirituality fares just a bit better. Nearly a third of the sample agreed that their spirituality impacted their political activity while 37% disagreed. But big chunks of the sample neither agreed nor disagreed with each statement. It just doesn’t feel like religion or spirituality are motivating folks to get engaged in the political process.

I wanted to show you all one more question that used this format, but this time it was the impact of spirituality or religion on civic engagement which is activities like volunteering their time for a nonprofit or donating to charity.

Again, a similar pattern emerges, with spirituality driving civic engagement more than religion. In terms of religion, 28% said it drove their civic engagement, while for spirituality, it was 34%. A third of the sample strongly disagreed that religion drove their volunteerism, it was only 25% who said the same thing about their spirituality. Across the board, it’s spirituality that seems to be doing more work than religion.

There’s a belief out there that spirituality tends to be more selfish than religion. For instance, things like meditation and yoga are more individualistic practices. Meanwhile, religious practices (especially corporate worship) are outwardly focused toward engaging not only with the rest of the religious body but also the community at large.

But in a great paper published in 2022, Jaime Kucinskas and Evan Stewart tested this hypothesis and what they found largely comports with what I just showed you in the last three graphs. Spirituality is not necessarily selfish. Instead, they argue for what they call, “substituting spirituality.” They describe it this way, “spiritual practice (works) as a substitute for religious engagement among groups alienated from religious institutions, with the former capable of fostering similar proclivities for political action as the latter.”

I think almost everyone in the United States has heard the term Religious Right, but that seems to be anachronistic given the changing spiritual landscape of the 21st century. It’s not religion that drives political engagement, it’s spirituality.

An obvious question needs to be, "what is the point of religion, then?"

#Ryan Burge #religion #spiritual #spirituality #spiritual not religious #atheism #religion is a mental illness

3 notes · View notes

thebindingofpillo · 2 years

Note

Talk about your babygirl (Judas) more, a treat from me to you (~ uwu)~

Judas my babygirl the blorbo supreme, thank you for asking about him because I have SO MUCH to say about the man. I’ve already talked about him (at length) in a different post some time ago, and while it’s a bit old, most of it still kinda holds up. Anyway here’s even more stuff about him (AND A WARNING! MENTIONS OF SUICIDE BELOW!!) (this is gonna be very scattered too, I’m just gonna write stream-of-consciousness style)

Judas (or at least Judas in this current life) comes from a British family of middle-lower class. Both his parents died in a car accident when he was too young to really remember them, and he’s been living with his grandmother ever since. He’s always got a pretty terrible relationship with her. She was always the first to point out any flaws in him (perceived or otherwise) while being absolutely unbearable herself, never putting in the effort to ask for help while still expecting her grandson to drop everything and come to her every call and not speaking to him for days if he failed to do so. Suffice to say, they’re not really close as of right now.

Judas grew up an unbearable kid, considering basically everyone to be beneath him while at the same time being incredibly insecure. He found himself in middle school without a single friend, but he convinced himself that he didn’t need them anyway, so he buried his nose in every book he could find and patiently waited to school in general to be over. This is around the time he met Isaac and Magdalene, who apparently weren’t intimidated by his abrasive attitude and the three quickly became inseparable, with Judas even managing to grow up and not be a prick anymore. The trio stayed strong throughout highschool and college (when Azazel also came into the picture, but I’m not gonna delve into all of his relationships now). He’s currently working on his archeology degree, but kinda put his studies on hold to work so he could support Maggy’s writing. He’s a librarian.

Personality wise he’s… polite. Distant, even. He grew out of being a prick, but he still has a condescending aura about himself, like the whole world is bothering him on his lunch break. This is not true to his partners tho, who have first hand experience of the more chaotic and passionate sides of his personality. He’s also a pretty witty person, and oozes sarcasm from every pore, but doesn’t really like talking to people he doesn’t know, so only his close friends have seen him crack jokes and actually smile. With that being said, Judas would lay down his life for the people he loves, and the fact that in his first life on Earth he had a hand in the murder of his best friend eats at him immensely. So much so, that he usually cannot bear the guilt and usually ends his life before due time. Every single time. In the roughly 2000 years his soul has roamed the Earth, Judas has never reached old age. Belial is also a major factor in his suicides every time, and you can read more about him here bc this is getting long enough already lol.

Speaking of Belial, while not being overtly religious, Judas had a passing interest in the occult that kinda morphed into a quasi-hobby. He likes to collect weird artefacts, ancient tomes and the like, that he stashes in his studio, right next to his school books and dissertations. This interest of his actually meshes pretty well with his passion for ancient history, and he has written quite a few essays about the portrayal of demons, angles and God throughout the ages. He might have tried to use a Ouija board when he was a kid, but it never went beyond that. The only true dangerous artefact in his possession is the Book of Belial, a magical tome that seems to find its way to Judas every single life. He doesn’t even remember where he found it this time, maybe he’s always had it.

More stuff that I didn’t know where to put so you get it here lmao

He sounds incredibly posh when he talks. Dear old grandma thought his accent was too lower-class (and by extension, hers too, but she would never admit it) so she was quick to point it out every time he spoke and ridicule him. With time, she managed to beat it out of him, but his accent still comes out when he’s very stressed or angry. He hates it.

He is also freakishly strong, but as durable as a wet paper bag. He could easily punch a hole in a wall, but would shatter all of his bones in the process. Couple this with a sour attitude and a complete disregard for his own safety and safe to say he’s been in quite a few fights. He’s won some of them, even if he woke back up at the hospital a couple of times.

His hair loss is supernatural in nature, due to the influence of the BoB (and tied to his body being weaker and more fragile that a normal person’s). His hair started to fall out around highschoo, but it’s not a case of simple alopecia like Isaac’s, Judas is completely hairless, doesn’t even have eyelashes.

Cannot stand to have anything around his neck. He even stopped buttoning his shirts all the way up because it was too uncomfortable. Just the lightest touch on the neck is enough to trigger horrible flashbacks and send him into panic

Despite knowing both God and Jesus exist (and the devil too) he considers himself more of an agnostic. For him, knowing God exists and having faith are two completely separate things. This goes the other way too, he doesn’t really believe in Satan either. And if Azazel is to be believed, the guy sucks and isn’t really worth praise anyway.

Tea is also one of his interests. He could talk for hours about the right temperature for brewing and the like, and has to be physically stopped from filling the cupboard with nothing but tea.

Isaac is his best friend, he loves him like a brother. Seeing how things are going with Magdalene, they might even become brothers-in-law too.

Speaking of Maggy, the two of them started dating after highschool and are still going strong. They seem to gravitate towards eachother in every single life. Judas is convinced it’s because they lived in the same period, Maggy prefers to think it’s destiny and stuff like that.

#reincarnation au (working title)#tboi reincarnation #tboi judas #i need to make a ref for him sometime #him maggy and azazel will be my main priority once the next comic is all done #I’m sure I’ll think about more stuff i wanted to say after i post it but i have to go now sorryyyyy #ask tag

8 notes · View notes

aqueeracademic · 1 year

Text

morse being queer (and other commentary) pt 8:

season 2, episode 4, “Neverland”:

TW: episode is about child abuse

- there is nothing capable of preparing me for this episode

- these posts are very quickly becoming my reaction to the episode rather than an analysis of queer behavior and we all have to live with that

- i love that morse is in a choir but it also doesn’t make any sense to me that he would willingly engage in a group activity

- let alone when the group activity is inherently religious

- bro just made escaping from prison look easy

- morse is never gonna wear that scarf ever again 😐

- “bloody place turns my guts. bleach, sweat, boiled cabbage, and everything on tick. never-neverland.”

- i’m gonna write my dissertation about jakes

- the way that people just did absolutely nothing about child abuse in that period is absolutely wild to me

- “we’re not strangers, we’re coppers!”

- believe it or not, that does not make it better thursday!

- i need to pay attention to this episode

- because this is the one plot i could not get to add up the first time i saw it

- actively keeping notes below this as we speak

- the way morse huddled under thursday’s umbrella he’s so 🥺🥺🥺

- MORSE IS A MUNCHHHHHHHH

- munch activity

- i can’t blame him i’m also obsessed with monica

- the wintergreens are so annoying

- jakes is a fucking flirt with any man he’s in a ten mile radius of and i hate him for it

- also i love him

- wish i was him

- it’s all very complex!

- morse stopping to look at engagement rings 🫤🫤🫤

- strange is so embarrassing

- i’m obsessed with him

- jakes coming to morse with URGENCY to tell him about the kid

- childhood trauma bonds them and i will not elaborate

- jakes reaction to the guy pulled out of the water 🥲

- his actor does such a good job being subtle but intentional i’m obsessed

- morse has such a short temperament for people who are bad at their jobs and i respect it so much

- everyone shut the fuck up

- i feel PHYSICALLY SICK watching jakes meet deare

- the way his face just changes so completely is fucking sick.

- and morse being the only one who noticed the sudden change in him 🤮🤮🤮🤮

- ALSO jakes’ face when morse is discussing the origin of aldridge’s coat

- it’s like he’s terrified morse is going to figure everything out but he’s also desperate for morse to figure everything out

- his voice is so small i want to be DONE

- morse is so quickly able to tie it to blenheim vale i am obsessed with his brain

- “i didn’t stay in oxford to work under mcknutt”

- you TELL HIM MORSE

- comparing them to the lost boys in neverland is so insane to me

- because FIRST OF ALL the use of the word “lost” is devastating. not only were they ‘troubled’ when they were kids, making them undesirable and easy to get rid of, but it also implies that they would never feel safe or at home in their future ever again because of what happened to them at Vale.

- they are the lost boys because they were never granted security in childhood and therefore will never feel it as adults

- BUT ALSO.

- the idea that the lost boys are known and remembered for never growing up

- they never get older.

- none of them will ever move past their childhoods because of what happened at the Vale. they will never grow past it. they will never grow up.

- i am FUCKING SICK.

- morse thinks of the most normal thing he can imagine if he can’t be a cop because he thinks being a cop is all that makes him special

- “it’s what people do”

- morse, babes, YOU are not people

- county police being helpful for once

- morse hates old white men (not thursday) as a RULE and i respect him for it

- “oh, Jesus” “you alright?”

- ^jakes seeing that wintergreen is dead

- i’m ending it all

- everything about jakes in this episode is so fucking personal and he’s so deeply affected by everything and can’t show it

- deare is so sketchy and thursday is the only one who clocks it

- benny topling being the first time they see how messed up the kids are is so…….

- like do you think once morse realized jakes was there he put it together? like do you suppose he realized that jakes must be so traumatized he can’t even talk about it???? because i bet he put it together

- doorknobs in britain are way too high up

- why is it by her head

- they should be low

- like? where your hand is?

- jakes handling the beads 😀 i’m so normal about him i promise 😀

- “there were five or six of us, and Petey. Petey Williams…. Me, George, Benny, Ed, and the two Petes. Big Pete, little Pete.”

- “Little Pete what?”

- he’s figuring it out. i hate it here!

- they were FUCKING CHILDREN. THEY WERE KIDS. LITTLE KIDS.

- sometimes i think morse should be allowed to fucking murder people

- “One weekend, Big Pete went off, and we all knew where he’d gone, only this time he never came back.”

- the way they all tried to find him after they got out and never did 😀 i can’t handle this shit rn

- the fact that the fucking cops are helping cover it up i HATEEEEE it here

- props to dr fairbridge for not abusing them but also fuck him for never doing anything to help them

- bright needs to get OFF his high horse and listen to morse

- not a single person cares who you’re friends with! not a single person cares how high up or powerful they are! they are bastards and child abusers trying to cover up their crimes!!

- everyone say thank you frazil!!!

- fr keeping morse alive another day via the newspaper

- dying because morse recognizes that jakes is someone he can trust and therefore seeks him out to help him

- “little pete” 😧

- he’s so gentle when he says it i’m dying

- the way jakes leans across the table and reaches for morse

- i will #neverforgive morse for just LEAVING JAKES LIKE THAT

- i know you’re in a hurry and i know you need him to join you because you trust him

- but listen.

- you could have said ANYTHING to make him feel less guilty about what he did

- and less guilty about not being able to go

- he shouldn’t have just walked away

- angela did what she SHOULD have done and i support her

- she did what morse and thursday and jakes should all be doing tbh

- look, murder is wrong! but in this scenario it is the only. option.

- thursday gives morse the option to leave and tells him he won’t think less of him, while morse made jakes feel bad for not pulling through

- woah!

- they fr just shot him

- 0 warning

- that was crazy

- murdering a FRIEND in cold blood just to frame morse is so crazy

- “history is written by the survivors” so… not you?

- morse panicking when he hears the second gun shot 😭 i hate him but he’s so baby

- GO ANGELA GO

- NO ANGELA NO

- morse getting arrested and no one doing ANYTHING to help him is fucking insane

- bright just fucking stands there

- jakes 🥲

- he looks like a child in that shot of him

- because they’re the lost boys

- and they don’t get to grow up

- the three musketeers finally finding Pete’s body is my final straw

- you’ll all be glad to know that i understood the plot this time!

- i am no longer an idiot

#this episode ruined me #i’m never gonna shut up about this #i’ll never be ok #i also won’t be forgiving morse #any time soon #but that’s a personal problem #endeavour #endeavour itv #endeavour morse #morse #itv endeavour

6 notes · View notes

psslresearch · 2 months

Text

20 Tips for Distinction Grade Postgraduate Research

Achieving a Distinction in your Dissertation is as easy as ABC if you know what to do.

If you are studying in a UK, U.S. or EU University, there are some vital tips that you need to consider.

While full details of the tips and hacks are presented in this ebook, “Dissertation Hack: The Secrets of Distinction”, here are 20 tips you need to take seriously:

1. Study and religiously follow the guidelines of the school

2. Peruse previous dissertation samples as may be provided by your supervisor or the school library to know what the standard is.

3. Avoid plagiarism of any form

4. Never-ever submit a work written with AI

5. Show the balance in your writing and write critically i.e. if Obi stole the Yam, then to have a balance, you need to consider that “the Farmer did not secure the Yam”

6. Manage your supervisor and engage with them from DAY 1

7. Get a standby research assistant from Day 1.

8. Never generate your references with AI, most AI references are fake

9. Choose a “Researchable Topic”, your topic can make or mar your grade.

10. Collect and have a sufficient number of references, at least 80 citations for your MBA work.

11. Work with evidence, not your passion, your experience or your feelings — research work is scientific

12. Your literature review MUST have a conceptual framework

13. Make sure your Literature Review connects with ALL your research objectives/questions.

14. Ensure that your research instrument (Questionnaire or Interview) collects data that can speak to EACH of your research objectives/question

15. Ensure that your methodology is justified i.e. why Questionnaire & why not Interview.

16. Where possible, collect data from different sources to achieve triangulation.

17. Choose a data collection method that WILL enable you to have evidence.

18. “Sweat” the data collected from the field i.e. why use only percentage analysis all through when you can do correlation analysis & arithmetic analysis.

19. Connect your data analysis, findings, conclusion & recommendations to your research objective.

20. Start your research work early; you’d be shocked how three months or six months will count down so fast that you will now be working under pressure.

These tips have been taken from my ebook, “Dissertation Hack: The Secrets of Distinction”.

I am Sani Emmanuel and I love discussing research themes. Let’s relate, WhatsApp/Telegram Chat, +234–706–818–0074.

0 notes

writingsofmax · 2 years

Note

what albums do you think ed/riddler would be into? what would he play for Y\N in disarm?

ANON THIS MADE MY DAY-- i'm putting this all under a read more bc this basically is a dissertation

Okay so I think that there's 3 groups of music Eddie listens to, sad introspective music, harsh angry wall-of-sound music, and then music he discovered in college So if you read his journal there is a lot of (imo) really really sad stuff in it. He writes about how he was born into hell and that the only reason he was put on this earth was to suffer and that no one understands him or will ever understand him, that when he looks in the mirror all he sees is hell/pain and suffering. So when Eddie gets into this state of thinking about being in pain and suffering and feeling out of step with the rest of the world I think that he would be into listening to quiet, introspective sad music. I'm thinking Elliot Smith specifcally and that is because Elliot Smith had some demons, and his songs have a LOT of despair and rage written into them. I think that Edward could heavily relate to a lot of the lyrics in them.

Elliot Smith Lyrics that remind me of Edward: Christian Brothers: Fake concern asks, "what's the matter, man?" And you think I oughta shake your fucking hand. Well, I know how much you care // Nightmares become me, it's so fucking clear

Riot Coming: And I want to tell you that there's a riot coming, like a drug in the water. A punch in the stomach makes sons into daughters. Roman Candle: I wanna hurt him. I wanna give him pain. I'm a roman candle, my head is full of flames. I'm hallucinating, I'm hallucinating. I hear you cry, your tears are cheap. Wet red hot swollen cheeks, fall asleep. Ballad of Big Nothing: Watching the parade with pinpoint eyes, full of smoldering anger. You can do what you want to, whenever you want to. You can do what you want to, there's no one to stop you. Okay anyway, I really could write out Elliot Smith lyrics that relate to him all day long but then this post would be 10 miles long so I'm gonna stop there. Okay so when Edward is in Riddler Mode, he's very manic, he has so many thoughts that they spill out of his head onto every other surface in the room. I think that when he's like that or going into that mode he's listening to loud, screamy, heavy, angry, wall-of-sound type music. Sometimes when your brain is screaming at you and everything is a lot, a lot, a lot, then you need music that will Drown That Out, or help focus the energy by matching it. (in my experience) So this is where My Bloody Valentine, Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana comes in. (Some nirvana songs could be in the previous category as well) Lots of songs with heavy guitars, screaming and violent imagery. There's a reason that every chapter title in my fic is a Smashing Pumpkins lyric and it's because they fit him SO WELL. There's a lot of religious imagery that's used in pumpkins songs as well too and that also fits Eddie. Songs and Lyrics that I think fit Eddie: Quiet//Smashing Pumpkins: Quiet, I am sleeping, In here we need a little hope. Jesus, are you listening? Up there to anyone at all?

Tonight, Tonight// Smashing Pumpkins: We'll crucify the insincere tonight, we'll make things right, we'll feel it all tonight Zero// Smashing Pumpkins: Emptiness is loneliness, and loneliness is cleanliness, and cleanliness is godliness and God is empty, just like me. Mr. Grieves// Pixies: *sung sarcastically with laughter in it* Hope everything is all right, hope everything is alright! What's that floating in the water? Oh, Neptune's only daughter. <- this whole song is very eddie-core, there's a part where the singer keeps asking "do you have another opinion?" in a taunting sing-song manner as well Debaser// Pixies <- he is this song Something Against You// Pixies Break My Body// Pixies Bullet With Butterfly Wings// Smashing Pumpkins <- he is also this song Disarm// Smashing Pumpkins <-- and this one Only Shallow// my bloody valentine (lots of noise) basically every nirvana song

Alright now onto the third section, music he discovered in college/highschool. So: Every iteration of the Riddler has a SUPERIORITY COMPLEX. Every single one. I think that this would absolutely extend into music tastes and he would have Music Opinions. I think going off the music I addressed above, it would naturally lead him to bands like Modest Moue and Death Cab For Cutie for sure. He is a sad boy at heart. Modest Mouse makes music for people that are sad and nuerotic and I will die on this hill I think that he would also listen to Aphex Twin and more experimental music like that, stuff that itches your brain in a good way by listening to it. I could see him listening to Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada while dinking around on his laptop for SURE. He would say something like, "Yeah I listen to Radiohead but you should listen listen to Boards of Canada they inspired Radiohead." I also think that he would listen to japanese shoegaze/garage rock stuff as well and would dig through record stores and garage sales looking for obscure presses. OKAY AS FOR WHAT HE WOULD ACTUALLY SHOW Y/N in my fic, I think he would go with safe bets like Modest Mouse or Death Cab to talk to her about, and then go into the 90s rock stuff once he was more comfortable but I think he would keep the Elliot Smith stuff to himself because it's more deeply personal. albums he would own/listen to: in utero/nirvana, bleached/nirvana, surfer rosa/pixies, doolittle/pixies, something about airplanes/dcfc, the photo album/dcfc, siamese twin/smashing pumpkins, mellon collie and the infinite sadness/ smashing pumpkins, Westing (by musting and sextant)/pavement, Brighten the corners/pavement, roman candle/elliot smith (basically all the elliot smith albums) loveless/my bloody valentine, Goo/sonic youth Ummmmm ANYWAY Sorry that this is NOVEL I just loveeeeeeeeeeee talking about music omgggggg

#riddler headcanons #riddler playlist #riddler music headcanons #edward nashton headcanons #edward nashton hc #riddler hc #edward nashton music #edward nashton playlist #this is a novel #i am ANNOYING about music sorry

51 notes · View notes

someonestolemyshoes · 3 years

Note

Hi! Have u done any pregnant Hanji and overprotective daddy Levi already?? Yep i think im craving for more domestic levihan family, im sorry 😭

Im a bit new here in the community, and when i read ur works, i fell in love with it already, thank you for existing!!! 💖💖💖

Hello anon! Thank you so much, I’m so glad you enjoyed my other fics :3 Sorry for the very long wait for this one, I've been struggling to find the time/motivation to write lately, but I'm feeling a little better and I figured I'd get to work on some of my prompts. Starting here!!

It ended up a little less domestic and a touch more angsty than I had originally planned, but only for a moment--happy endings all round!

Warning: this does start off with non-graphic depictions of nausea/vomiting, I hope that doesn't bother you!

Hange had been feeling unwell for days.

It wasn't an uncommon occurrence—Hange tended to wake up feeling nauseous some days, most often when she'd neglected to eat a decent meal the evening before—but this was the fourth morning in a row now, that Hange found herself bent over the toilet bowl in the early hours of the morning, heaving up nothing but acid and empty air.

She retched until her stomach ached. There was nothing left to bring up, but her gut still rolled unpleasantly and there was a telling tremor under her tongue that warned her it might be best to stay in the bathroom a little while longer. She settled heavily against the wall to catch her breath.

It didn't make any sense. For most of the day, Hange felt fine. A little tired, maybe, but that was only to be expected after spending half the night every night on the bathroom floor. Tonight, no doubt, would follow the uncomfortably familiar routine: Hange would dry-heave a little longer, until the queasiness abated enough for Levi to convince her to come back to bed, and then she would toss and turn, too warm beneath the bed clothes, until she could fall into a restless sleep. She'd wake up feeling a little groggy, a little bleary, unreasonably hungry, but after a coffee and some breakfast she would feel well again. Perfectly normal.

Like clockwork, Levi appeared in the doorway just as Hange had flopped herself back over the toilet. She felt his palm, cool and soft, press against the back of her neck. Hange gathered her hair back from her face with both hands, braced her elbows on the toilet bowl, letting out a groan of discomfort as her stomach twisted, threatened to revolt again. Levi's thumb rubbed soothingly against her neck.

Sure enough, she brought up nothing more, but she gagged plenty, and found herself gasping for breath by the time she leaned back against Levi, aching and exhausted. His lips pressed into her damp hair.

Levi was as silent as always. His touch was pleasant, his presence welcome. Hange needed the hand he offered to pull her to her feet, needed his reassuring grip at her hips as she brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth out. Her quaking knees felt unstable beneath her.

He lay facing her after they got into bed. Hange was sprawled out atop the covers, shifting restlessly to find the coolest patches on the bed. Levi watched her for a moment, then said, "This isn't normal."

Hange only grumbled.

"You said you'd book an appointment with the doctor."

Hange grumbled again. Levi ticked his tongue and rolled to lie on his back, staring at the ceiling.

"Call tomorrow."

"If I didn't know better," Hange said sluggishly, "I'd say you were worried about me."

He scowled and rolled onto his other side, his back to her now.

"No, just sick of waking up at half four every morning to drag you back to bed."

Hange managed a small, wicked snicker, but shuffled across the space between them and pressed an apologetic kiss to the back of his neck.

"Must be dreadful," she said. Her voice sounded raw, hoarse. She buried her nose into his hair and took a long, deep breath. Levi grunted, but reached back and pulled her arm loosely over his hip. He knotted their fingers together loosely.

"Call them, Hange."

Hange gave his fingers a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

"I will."

Hange prided herself on being a reasonably intelligent person. She had two degrees, was working towards her doctorate, and already had her name on a small handful of peer-reviewed research papers. She spoke multiple languages, read dissertations for fun, kept a (in Levi’s words) disgustingly realistic human skeleton in a box under the bed for study purposes, and had spent the better part of the last 26 years of her life studying human biology and physiology.

How she had not predicted that she might be pregnant was almost unfathomable.

She left the doctors office in a daze with an appointment card and several pamphlets in hand. She had been referred hastily to a midwife and the hospital would soon be sending out a date for an ultrasound—“As soon as possible,” the doctor had said, “since you’re not sure how far along you are.”

The thing is, Hange had been on the same birth control pill for years now. Forgetful as she may be about many, many things (like eating, and bathing, and washing the dishes and taking out the garbage and and and), Hange was religious in taking that damn pill at the same time every single day. She had never missed it, not even once. Without a regular cycle, Hange had no way of predicting when they had conceived, and the doctor was eager to make sure no essential landmarks in her antenatal care were missed, if they could possibly help it.

The thought had never even crossed her mind. It seemed ridiculous now, in hindsight. The sickness was one thing, but now that she thought about it, there were a whole host of small oddities that Hange could easily attribute to pregnancy. Lethargy, and bloating, heartburn, and she had been peeing more than usual—Hange groaned, and scrubbed her hands over her face. She should have suspected, at least. Should have put the pieces together sooner.

But, stupid and naive as it may be, she hadn’t thought it possible. Why worry about it, when Hange had taken consistent precautions to avoid it?

She felt queasy the entire bus ride home.

It wasn’t that she was against the idea of having children. One day, maybe. When she had finished her doctorate, got herself a steady, well-paid job. When she and Levi had moved out of their tiny, cramped apartment into somewhere bigger, somewhere more suited for a family.

And god. Levi.

This was something they’d never really talked about. For his part, Levi never seemed all that interested. He was good with Hange’s nieces and nephews, and Erwin’s son adored him, and he hadn’t showed any express dislike for children, but—well, tolerating other peoples little brats and raising your own are two very different things.

What if Levi didn’t want the baby? What if he did? Hange wasn’t even sure herself what she wanted to do about the whole situation—what if she didn’t want it? What if, after some reflection, Hange decided now wasn’t a good time? Could they even afford a baby right now? Hange’s money was tied up in her education, while Levi was just making ends meet at the office. They got by well enough with just the two of them, but add in a baby? A whole other person, entirely dependant on them for support? Hange could barely feed and bathe herself, some days, never mind responsibly care for a child.

By the time the bus pulled up near the house, Hange felt more distressed than ever. Levi, at least, was at work until the evening, so she had a few more hours to herself to mull everything over, but the entire situation made her stomach clench and churn unpleasantly with every new thought.

The prospect of having a child was terrifying. The prospect of not having this child was nauseating.

Levi had left the flat in pristine condition when he had left for work, but Hange barely had the energy to feel even a little guilty as she shrugged off her coat and kicked off her shoes, leaving both strewn about the floor. She dumped her bag and made her way sluggishly through to the bedroom.

Levi had made the bed. The sheet was stretched flat over the mattress, the pillows perfectly fluffed and set against the headboard. Hange’s nightshirt, one of Levi’s old, baggy shirts, too stretched and threadbare for him to wear, had been folded neatly and left on her side of the bed, her slippers lined up smartly with the bed frame. For some reason—hormones, she told herself—her eyes watered, and a lump swelled in her throat. She sniffled pitifully as she stripped off her clothes and pulled on the shirt, clambering into the bed and tugging the sheets until the cocooned around her.

Hange passed the rest of the day tossing and turning in bed. She tried to nap, but her mind was too restless, occupied with thoughts of the baby, with the concept of having to tell Levi when he came home. She could try to lie, say the doctors had done some blood work, that she was waiting on the results of some test or other, but Levi knew her too well. She could never lie to him, and her despondent state would give her away before she had the chance to say anything.

The sun was beginning to set by the time she heard Levi’s keys in the door. She felt exhausted, head aching with all the thinking, considering, weighing up her options; with running over every possible outcome she could imagine. Keeping the baby, getting rid of the baby, Levi not wanting the baby, Levi leaving over the baby—every scenario she could imagine was worse than the last. There was only one idea that she had hardly dared entertain, in fear of disappointment if things didn’t work out.

She heard Levi call out for her, but gave no answer. She listened, curled up in a ball on her side, as he shuffled around, no doubt picking up her coat and shoes from where she had abandoned them. And then he made his way towards the bedroom, steps soft on the plush carpet. The bedroom door creaked open.

“Hange?”

She made a small, warbled noise under the bedclothes. Levi came to sit on the bed, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. His hand found the curve of Hange’s hip.

“How was it?”

Hange made another noncommittal sound. She wiped her nose and eyes on the sheets, but didn’t dare show her face just yet. She wasn’t ready. She had never prepared for this conversation, never even imagined it before today. It was too soon. Not enough time to rehearse.

Levi’s hand moved to her back, rubbing lightly up and down her spine, before dropping to the mattress behind her. He leaned over her, and she felt his lips press warm and gentle to the point of her shoulder. A fresh wave of tears poured over the bridge of her nose and down the side of her face.

She tried to be quiet, but something—the shake of her shoulder, perhaps, or the shudder of air as she tried to take a steadying breath in—gave way to her crying. Levi moved off the bed, but Hange felt his fingers prying lightly at the sheets, pulling them down until he could get a good look at her face. He was kneeling by the bed now, face level with her, and he looked at her with worry pinching deep creases between his brows.

“Oi, what’d they say?”

Hange bit the inside of her lip and rubbed her damp cheek on the pillow. If Levi was bothered by her using their bedding as a tissue, he didn’t show it. He simply looked at her, eyes darting over her face, searching. It occurred to Hange then how this must look to him. She had gone to the doctors due to unexplained, violent sickness, and now she is in bed, hours later, still crying about whatever news she had received.

“I’m fine,” she said. Levi’s tense shoulders relaxed a fraction, but his face remained pinched, frowning and concerned. Hange wanted to tell him quickly, simply, like ripping off a plaster, but the words would not come. She opened her mouth, but her throat constricted painfully.

Eventually, she said, “my bag. There’s some stuff in my bag. Have a look.”

Levi gave her a somewhat quizzical look, but stood, dropping a quick kiss to her temple before going to fetch the bag, and dipping his hand in to fish out the contents inside.

Hange watched with her breath held and her stomach clenched as Levi pulled out the handful of leaflets and turned them over, looking at each one in turn. His eyes widened fractionally as comprehension dawned on him. His lips pressed into a thin line. Leaden weight settled in Hange’s gut. She curled into a tighter ball, pressing the bedsheets over her mouth and nose, waiting for him to gather himself enough to say something.

After a moment, he spoke.

“That’s all?”

Huh? “Huh?!”

Hange disentangled her arms from the sheets and sat up, staring at him. Levi moved to sit on the edge of the bed again, a scowl back on his face, though there was an intriguing flush high on his cheeks as he whacked her lightly on the top of the head with the leaflets.

“Stupid four-eyes,” he said, exasperated. “Crying like that. I thought you were dying.”

“I’m pregnant.” Hange said the word slowly, carefully, in case Levi had somehow misunderstood. He had the audacity to look at her like she was stupid.

“I can see that.”

“And you have nothing more to say about it? That’s all?”

Levi shrugged a little at her. Aside from the small patches of colour in his cheeks, Levi seemed wholly unfazed by the revelation.

“It’s just a baby. We can handle a baby.”

“That doesn’t terrify you?”

Levi scrutinised her for a moment, before he said, “are you scared?”

“Yes? Yes! How are you so calm? We can’t afford a baby—we don’t have the time for a baby? Where will they going to sleep? We don’t have a spare room. Can we get time off work to take care of a baby? How will we pay for childcare when we can’t be around?”

“Hange,” Levi said, putting a stop to her rambling. He watched her with a pinched stare. “Do you not want it?”

Hange had spent the majority of the day mulling over this same question. Staring a family was a huge, life-changing commitment, something that required careful forethought and planning. They had not had that luxury. Hange was pregnant now. She had doubts and fears, more than she could ever express, but the idea of simply having a baby—of having this baby—wasn’t upsetting. In the small, brief moments she had allowed herself to imagine a future where she and Levi were parents, where they weren’t wanting for money or time, where things were well, she felt happy. Giddy. The prospect was almost exciting.

“It’s not that,” Hange said earnestly. “I do—I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I—I do want it. But I just—we had no time to prepare. We have no savings, we have no space, I’m a mess. How are we supposed to take care of a tiny person? Babies are hard work, Levi.”

“You’re already hard work.”

Hange laughed weakly, and wiped at her face again. Levi pressed a kiss to her raw cheek.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said.

Hange leaned into him, sighing quietly.

“Is this the kind of thing we can just figure out?”

Levi hummed, shrugging his shoulder. His fingers skimmed up beneath Hange’s shirt, splaying over the small of her back and pulling her closer.

“Why not? We’ve done a good job bullshitting our way through everything else.”

Hange laughed lightly and bumped the side of her head against Levi’s.

“This is different, Levi. This is a person. A tiny little person who is going to need me and you to do everything for them. What if we can’t do it? What if we mess up?”

“Hange.” Levi pulled back a little and his hands came up to grip either side of her face, forcing her to look at him. “Stop. I know all that. But if you want the brat, and I want the brat, we’ve got no choice but to get on with it.”

“I know, I know, but—wait, you want the baby?”

Levi maintained eye contact with her, but it seemed to take a concentrated effort to do so. The flush of his cheeks deepened a little and his lips quirked at the corners. No doubt to compensate for the show of emotion, he pulled his face into his customary frown.

“It’s fine,” he said. Hange fought the urge to roll her eyes and caught his hands as he lowered them from her face, pulling them into her lap.

“Are you saying that because it’s already too late, or do you want to keep it?”

Levi’s face took on a look of constipated strain. He curled his lip as though in distaste, then hooked a hand around the back of Hange’s neck and pulled her face to his abruptly, smacking a kiss to her lips. He let his forehead settle against hers and stroked his thumb over the hinge of her jaw.

He fought to keep his tone neutral, but Hange could hear the happy tremor in his voice as he said again, “It’s fine.”

For the first time since hearing the news that day, Hange allowed herself to feel excited. To accept the idea that she and Levi were about to start their own bizarre little family. That Levi was still with her felt incredible enough, but to know that he was pleased—it was more than she could ever have hoped for. Hange gave a wet laugh and kissed him again.

“Are you allergic to looking happy?” Hange asked as they broke apart. Levi clicked his tongue and pulled back to flick her square between the eyebrows. She laughed a little louder and leaned to wipe her runny nose on his shoulder. Levi muttered under his breath, but didn’t push her away.

“Okay,” Hange said, after a moment. She sat back and pushed her hair back from her face. “Okay. We’re having a baby, then.”

Levi’s rubbed the smile from his lips with the back of his hand, nodding. “We’re having a baby.”

Hange sunk down to flop back over the pillows. Levi looked down at her, head tilted, chewing the inside of his lip. Hange reached up to brush his fringe off his forehead, warmth spilling in her chest when he held her hand close and turned to kiss her palm.

She smiled a little playfully, and freed a leg from the sheets to dig her toes into his ribs.

“If I’d known you wanted kids I would have been significantly less stressed, you know.”

Levi quirked a brow at her.

“I’ve told you that before.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“I have. At your sisters wedding.”

Hange racked her brain, searching for the conversation. She remembered the occasion, and she remembered that she and Levi had somehow ended up babysitting Hange’s family brood. She remembered Levi, wrestling to keep her youngest nephew on his lap while the eldest, still only five or six at the time, was clambering up the back of his chair, sticky hands tugging at Levi’s collar. Hange fought hard to recall more of what was said, but could remember nothing at all of Levi announcing that he had wanted one of his own.

“You said these brats aren’t so bad,” Hange said slowly.

Levi nodded at her. Hange waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t, only looked at her like there was nothing more he needed to say.

“That’s it? That’s your idea of telling me you want kids?”

“The hell else could I have meant?”

Hange dug her toe at him again but Levi caught her foot this time, pushing it firmly down onto the mattress. Hange reached for him with both arms instead, curling them around the back of his neck and tugging him down quickly. He toppled over her with a quiet oof, and Hange rolled them quickly, straddling his waist and dropping her weight down onto him.

“That is the kind of thing you say clearly, Levi! These brats aren’t so bad—you’re ridiculous!”

Levi wrestled with her arms a little longer before giving up and bringing his hands instead to rest low on her hips. He watched her with a curious expression on his face, something open and soft, and then his eyes roved down to her abdomen and his thumbs brushed inwards, beneath the hem of her shirt, stroking over her lower belly.

This time, he didn’t fight his smile.

He reached up and pulled her down by the neck, and kissed her soundly. Hange melted against him, welcomed the press of his tongue between her lips, shuddered pleasantly when he nipped at her bottom lip. She went with him willingly as he rolled them both over, nudging a knee between her legs and settling his weight against her.

She was spreading her legs to make space for him, when he paused suddenly, and pulled back, leaning over the bed and scooping through the discarded back of leaflets. Hange, winded and dishevelled, watched him incredulously as he flicked through the contents of one, then tossed it aside and opened another.

“What are you doing?”

Without looking up, Levi replied, “Checking.”

“Checking what?”

“I wanna know if we can still—” he waved a hand between them, and went back to searching.

“We’ve been—” Hange mimicked his gesture, “—up until now anyway.”

Levi looked up at her, looking mildly horrified. He held up one his open leaflet and said, “You’ve been drinking alcohol, too. You’re not supposed to do that. And look, here—you’re not supposed to overwork. You’ll have to take on less hours at the university. And you’ll eat. Proper damn meals. Every day.”

Hange flopped back against the pillows, eyes rolling, watching as Levi picked up each new leaflet in turn, pointing out every little adjustment that Hange would have to make.

“This one says you should get eight to ten hours sleep per night. Every night. And not so much coffee, the caffeine’s bad for the baby.”

The baby. It sounded surreal. It sounded ridiculous. Levi shifted to sit against the headboard beside her after opening the chunky little What to Expect While Expecting volume Hange had been handed while leaving the doctors. He seemed thoroughly engrossed, and seemingly unaware when one of his hands reached out to pull Hange’s hair free of its ponytail and sink into her hair. She hummed happily as his nails scraped over her scalp.

Things were still scary, and Hange was still uncertain about how this whole adventure might turn out. But Levi was still with her, and Levi was happy, and that—

—Well, that was good enough.

#levihan #ask #my writing #this was fun!! thank you :D #hoping I can get around to the other prompts soon too!!

294 notes · View notes

srbachchan · 3 years

Text

DAY 4822

Jalsa, Mumbai May 11, 2021 Tue 11:09 PM

Birthday - EF - Deepa Krishna .. Iris - Israel .. birthday greetings and the wishes for happiness ever .. be safe and protected .. love from the Ef ❤️

So they said you have written too much in the last few daya and so there has to be a break ..

Hence ..

Amitabh Bachchan

..... but no the night is not inviting .. it sleeps for a while and wakes up .. and opens the mind and the eye to return .. return to the page of the connect for the four thousand two hundred and twenty second day .. propelling thoughts that awake get to testify information that has been questioned .. the search continues and references made be turned through several pages and pages of writing and the title is unfound ..

.. but .. and we seem to love this word ‘but’ .. but what attracts in the reading are the words of Babuji and his poems yes but descriptions and opinions on various topics and issues .. in his life in his philosophy in his belief .. and they are not put down able .. even at 4:10 of the AM of the next May day 12, it seems like an ordinary beginning ..

the absolute delight in the readings of Babuji’s experiences are so endearing that there is a sense of him sitting before me and narrating in his inimitable express of those personal moments .. vivid descriptions of events and happenings .. opinions that formed in those early years seem eternal in their content and longevity .. they prevail even now, his thoughts on contemporaries, colleagues, adversaries, public presents at kavi sammelans - poetic symposiums and the varied incidents - some humorous some distasteful some controversial , but ever ending in either the realisation of fact or misunderstanding of the people around and the organisers by them to him ..

.. they bring the India of the time right before you .. a vivid describe of time place thought habit and circumstance , in a most academic manner .. well almost ..

.. the vastness of his knowledge , his writing is a monolithic structure of encyclopaedic value .. and as I sit in the quiet of this 2.0 ‘awakened night’ , I am in the guilt of the lack of research that should and should have been done ..

.. i do keep getting various dissertations on the research done by individuals and the efforts they make .. but I feel they are in need of assistance to carry the baton so to say forward ..

.. my uncertainty in its progress is loaded with the immaturity of my administration of how something so vast can be designed in the manner that brings the true value of its vastness .. and I must admit it is most disturbing and frustrating to sit here surrounded by his works and write about it to no avail ..

.. the world and its life is moving at speeds that cannot be imagined .. and before long all that needed reserve and time and think, shall perhaps soon disappear .. disappear without knowing what has been lost and regretfully forgotten ..

.. generations change .. their likes and dislikes take on fresher and new horizons .. horizons that could have other eclectic thoughts ideas and paths, which could not be interested in the writings of the past ..

.. I see it happening in our own world where each generation identifies with the present .. the past is past .. irrelevant and perhaps uninteresting .. many of the greats and their works unrecognised and never given attention to .. the talk of them by some of those that have respect for those early times is heard with an unheard surprise .. and that is as long as it stays .. its back to the present and the stage immediate .. what is today , now this very instant , is the refrain ..

.. but it is generational .. we too were the past generation and thought of the present of the time .. today that is the past and does not have meaning and effect for the ‘now’ .. LIFE ..

.. but yes values and bearings shall prevail when the environ of the ‘being brought up’ draws their attention to certain givings that we surround ourselves in .. and the hope and prayer is that some of its elixir shall be retained, not just for the present but shall be noticed and passed on to the next .. a receipt of which , an invoice that shall have to be paid in full and final in order that the product is delivered and seen that it works to perfection .. and that AMC signed for its maintenance ..

I write far too much ..

And here is what justifies the above .. the extended versions of the Blog which many in the Ef perhaps do not desire .. not for any ulterior motive but length and speed and delivery of the today GEN is ‘say it , be brief, and leave ..’ .. most of the time do not even say it , for, we, they say, have our own version and opinion of it ...

.. done and over ..

SO .. many observe that the comments when it all started on DAY 1 for several DAYS were in the 500 to over a thousand at times and now rest at the very best to around a meagre 100 .. and the conclusion then that the interest in the Blog has wained away and there is need to stop or disappear .. or search for another ..

.. there is reason in the thinking ..

.. why remain .. its the same routine over and over again .. what is so endearing or of interest here which cannot be topped in the T the FB and the INsta .. and the values there are different and greatly more exciting ..

.. the religious aspects on the T and the FB get the numbers .. the young their escapades, clothing and opinions get the millions on the INsta ..

.. so what is this ‘grey’ doing here ..?

.. a good question for which I have no answer , except that the connect even with the ONE is the draw that I value .. because that is how it all began .. just the 1 (one) response , which then drew more ..

It is now past 5 am of the 12th of May and a few yawns appear .. which does not necessarily mean that the bed doth invite .. no .. the yawn is the human mechanism inviting the lack of O2 .. I think ..

.. and I am certain that the many scientific minded shall have a million adverse theories to it .. so let me hear them .. !!!

Alright just did another .. YAWN ..

I shall leave and perhaps seek the viewing in the recline of the incredible Formula 1 series , which I have to admit has been made with exceptional skill .. the shot takings the editing the sheer pace of the series and its visuals .. actually puts you inside those F1 vehicles of spectacular design and performance .. breathtaking !

be in peace .. be in safety .. be in precaution .. be not lax in discipline .. be in line of protocol and advice ..

.. and be in the love that I hold you in .. ❤️

Amitabh Bachchan ... 🙏🌹

130 notes · View notes