#i had this horrible metaphor in here about menstruation

[pyrriae]

It reminds me, horribly, of that nasty shit evangelicals try to pedal about the pain of childbirth, the ingrained shame and pain and fucking inconvenience of menstruation being "womankinds'* just desserts for Eve eating the apple."

Like that at all matters. Like that has any fucking relevance. Like some chucklefucks' religious beliefs should have ANY fucking sway over whether or not people have to suffer.

I have to wonder, though. A lot of the comparisons provided above — those have been researched to death and back, pardon my hyperbole. The people that will have those procedures, those are the ones that society protects. The people who experience that pain don't deserve it. The history of contraception is fraught, I realize. Even now. But there's a reason it isn't standard practice to numb for IUDs, why birth control hasn't been reformulated with fewer side effects and more effective.

At 19 I decided to get an IUD since I could never actually stay on track with birth control pills and periods bring me acute physical and mental distress. I'm sure you know where this is going.

Listen, I'm no stranger to pain. At that point in my life, I was already familiar with both the pain that dogs your every step like a shadow and the type that seems to grab you like a vice in an unending moment before it suddenly stops. I've gotten more familiar since. I'm very good at handling my pain, at compartmentalizing. I broke a toe once and ignored it till it healed.

The gynecologist said it wasn't likely to be that bad. The same pinch metaphors you read above. He said that I should probably take an ibuprofen beforehand and he'd give me a shot beforehand I wanted. I can't remember what it was, lidocaine maybe? Small and in the arm.

I was undaunted. Maybe even excited. I cracked a joke and got laughs. He got down to business, before saying something like, "okay, here's the pinch."

The pain was so awful I cannot even remember the exact moment the IUD was implanted. I don't know if I made a sound, I could hardly hear and certainly couldn't breathe. My brain, what wasn't desperately firing off signals like a gun salute, was busy going something is wrong, something has gone terribly wrong, make it stop this is the worst thing I have ever felt for what felt like hours but was probably 30 seconds. It felt like the pain started at a ten and then somehow managed to go up. I kept expecting my gynecologist to say what had went wrong, clearly something must have, surely that level of pain isn't normal, isn't common. Even then I was hoping no one else had ever felt like that. The societal ingrained pressure that pain isn't common and even if it is, you deserve it.

He said, "all right, all done." Or something to that effect, you can expect my memory was hazy. The world was hazy. I put my clothes back on and my mom drove me home, and during that ride I felt the worst cramps of my life.

And I've since called it one of the best decisions I've ever made, but that doesn't wash away the pain. A family member later told me that the removal process hurts worse and my blood ran cold.

I went back for a follow-up appointment the next year. The doctor said that the device that I have was actually approved for up to seven years. I was elated. For scads of reasons: longer to go before feeling vulnerable again, longer without periods, less money spent.

But it was knowing that I could run from that horrible pain longer that brought me the most relief.

That's fucked up, right?

I am so fucking glad there are people like emi--rose above that will save people from this. I am so beyond thankful that there are people joining this field that look out for people like us. I would do it again, take that pain if I had to. But I love knowing that I don't, actually.

*womankind here is the type of lingo that people who think like this tend to use. I understand that this issue effects everyone who so much as has the relevant parts, as I am in fact, trans. My doctor even misgendered me, so like, bonus pain.

so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?

[marshmallowgoop]

Being bad at stuff stinks, yeah, but what stinks way more is being bad at stuff you’re expected to be good at and what you’ve always wanted and tried so hard to be good at.

I mean. Basically as soon as I was literate, I got all this encouragement about my skills as a writer. A teacher in early elementary school liked my silly little writing assignment so much that it got published in the local newspaper, and come middle school, my 6th-grade English teacher couldn’t stop reading my essays and poems out loud to the class, time and time again. I was made out to be a “good writer,” and whenever I felt down about my abilities in this or that, I was told that one strength I had was my writing.

My family moved across the country when I was in 7th grade, but that didn’t change my growing big-headed attitude about my prose. I was made the first student of the month by my English teacher, and she showed off my writing to the honors classes that I’d take later---as well as my own class. She told us all that the honors students were very impressed with my work.

But then high school happened. They say you learn you’re not as smart as you thought you were in college? For me, it was 10th grade. Grades slipped, nobody considered me one of the “smart kids” anymore, and my writing---that one thing I’m supposed to be good at, right?!---stopped being used as the “good examples.” Easy As fell into Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs.

I still remember my 10th-grade English teacher using my work in a handout of what not to do.

Somehow, I still got to college, though. My confidence in my abilities had been bruised and beaten, but I still had that big-headed cockiness to me. I told myself that I just didn’t try in high school, because there’s nothing shameful about doing poorly when you don’t try, right?

So when my creative writing professor considered my work “publishable” quality one summer, and when my theatre professor told me that I should submit my play to a contest, there was definitely the feeling of, Oh yeah, this is what I’m good at!

I started blogging and writing more on the web around that time, and I was over the moon when my favorite fanfiction author liked my submitted writing sample enough to ask me to beta a chapter of the story I had been anticipating for years. When she asked me to beta for an entire new story later, I was even more over the moon.

But the feeling didn’t last long. The author didn’t appreciate my advice and suggestions. 

I haven’t been a beta reader since.

(Sometimes, I think about a self-depreciating joke: “If you ever feel bad about your writing, just remember that one of my favorite authors fired me from helping her on her story!”)

Right after, another creative writing professor of mine sat me down in her office and told me that I have so many ideas, but they don’t come through in my writing at all! 

I tried and tried to fix my work, ultimately scraping by with a B in the class--a feat I considered basically the biggest disappointment, embarrassment, and failure. Writing didn’t seem to be working out for me after all. It’s not my consolation for not being particularly good at anything else, because I’m not especially good at writing, either---or I was just growing progressively worse, because I had taken the class before, with another focus, and I had gotten one of those easy As that I’d received in middle school back then. 

But I went the distance. I got the silly degree, and when it came in the mail, weeks after graduation, I stuffed it in a drawer in my bed, thinking of it as nothing more than my useless-ass creative writing degree.

Still, my first real-deal, I-got-a-degree job was--is---writing, and I figure that I’m living every creative writing major’s dream. Even if the writing I get paid too much for isn’t exactly creative, I’m still pounding out thousands of words per day on the job. I constantly consider clarity and flow and readability and something I always tell people is, “Doing this has helped my writing so much!”

But when a prominent blogger on here finally, finally took note of my work, right as I was getting into the swing of my new career, she wasn’t singing words of praise. She told me she didn’t like my wording and clapped as someone else said it better. My work spread all around not for the merits of my writing, but rather because I had written so poorly.

And I kind of just thought about my useless-ass creative writing degree and all the writing I’d dedicated my life to and got paid for and wondered what the heck it’d all amounted to if I couldn’t even blog properly.

At first, anyway.

Then I thought about how I always act like my 11 years of NaNoWriMo is a bragging point and always act like all this writing I’ve published on the web is a bragging point and I realized that I must sound pretty silly for thinking my 200,000+ words of fic for one series is a big deal when other folks got over a million words of fic published on the web---when they’re not even aiming to write professionally!

Because, yeah, sure, between all my plays and screenplays and novels and short stories and essays and poetry I’ve probably written a million words, but most of it remains in classrooms or hidden away in abandoned files.

So then there’s the thought, Why do I deserve to be good at something I haven’t actually put that much effort into?

And I realized that it’s not that I’m a bad writer exactly that gets me down. It’s not that my writing about my writing (or my writing about my writing about my writing) is more loved than my actual writing that feels so terrible. It’s not that a brand-new story writer can craft more interesting stories than me despite my years and years of story writing that makes me want to never want to write again.

It’s that I’m bad at something that I grew up being told I was good at and was expected to be good at and that I tried so hard to be good at... except, not really. I don’t even know what it is to try all that hard---what have I accomplished, after all?---but I still feel like the world owes me something, anyway.

It’s not being bad that hurts. It’s being bad when you’ve felt like you’ve dedicated so much to meet those expectations placed on you... and yet you don’t even know how to dedicate yourself seriously to your work and try hard at all.

It’s being bad with no idea on how to get better.

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 5x22 The Gift

aka little miss muffet counting down from 7-3-0

Welcome to this dailyish (weekly? bi-weekly?) text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.

And in today’s episode Buffy faces her trolley problem and says no. Fuck you universe.

As is my recent tradition, I paired a specific drink I had at home with today’s season finale. In this case, it was a glass of some German apple liquor that was gathering dust in the cabinet, and it was excellent. Bittersweet and familiar. 5/5.

(In case you were wondering, the drink of choice for Restless was a small bottle of Belgian beer called Delirium Tremens. Naturally.)

(This is also your daily reminder kids, to always drink responsibly. Alcoholism is no joke, and chances are that you too are affected by it, maybe through someone you know. Please take care of yourselves and don’t let us or anyone make drinking seem cool.)

Anyway, by the length of this intro you can probably already tell the issue. This post will not be very focused.

And I already showed my cards here! Season 5 is probably my favorite season and The Gift my favorite season finale. Maybe even throughout TV.

This is an episode that was written as a series finale, and yet the show still went on for two additional seasons. I saw some discussion about whether or not the show would’ve worked better if it ended here, and while I personally agree that this is a stronger finale, I like that we have those other seasons. For all of its flaws and the complicated relationship I have with some of its parts, season 6 and 7 do and say something about the characters, the world and ourselves that makes us feel, think and grow in different ways.

Plus the show still ended with an excellent finale. But more on that when we get there.

Not to mention that season 5 already mapped out Buffy’s depression for us, so “death being her gift”, her moment of big sacrifice could easily fold into suicidal ideation. That’s why her quote to Dawn is so important.

“The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. So be brave. Live. For me.”

Buffy has found her way out that was still true to who she was at her core. She saved the world and her sister through a loophole that let her end her story on her own terms, and prove to herself that she’s still capable of love.

In her very last moments Buffy was defined by her love for her sister and not the evil that tried to take Dawn, and the innocence she represented away from her. She refused to let the next generation pay the price for all of our mistakes.

In short, Buffy should be the example that we, Millenials, follow. It might not seem like we have the power to affect any change in the world, but we have a responsibility to those that come after us to try. To take our own stance and act as shields and protectors for the next generation.

It’s easier said that done, I know, especially when we don’t feel like we have our own lives together. But sometimes just one thing, one small decision, one compromise we refuse to make can make all the difference.

I will not do this and I will not let it happen.

In this episode, Buffy draws the line. She won’t let Dawn die for the greater good. She refuses to save a world that would make her kill a teenage girl. Her own sister.

She points out that this is in stark contrast to how she handled a similar dilemma at the end of season 2. There, she was presented with a parallel choice: kill Angel or save the world.

She put a sword through him.

Despite the similarities, there are huge thematic differences between the two situations though. Angel represented a danger for Buffy to lose herself in him; so killing him meant that she chose her own identity over him.

It was of course horrible and traumatic still, but on a thematic level, it was about Buffy making a statement about who she is. And she’s making just as much of a statement with refusing to entertain the same solution with Dawn.

In many ways, Dawn represents Buffy herself. Her innocence, her childhood, her connection to humanity. Buffy’s been feeling detached this season, and felt emotionally unavailable after the whole Riley fiasco especially. But not with Dawn. Dawn’s been Buffy’s tether to those emotions, that immense, unconditional, unguarded love.

For Buffy, killing Dawn would’ve been severing that very link. She would rather die.

This is Buffy’s trolley problem. And she refuses to engage with it in its intended way. She is not going to let Dawn die to save 5 or hundreds or even millions of people.

Instead she offers up her own life. As the show will discuss later on, Buffy arguably has the power to decide who lives and dies, and here, she comes to the conclusion that she can only really make that choice for herself.

There are also just so many wonderful callbacks in this episode. The guy in the alley calling Buffy “just a girl”, and her remarking on how she keeps telling people that, referring to her early motivations of wanting to be a normal girl. (Something that Dawn too represents.) Willow and Tara holding hands to combine their powers to clear the way for Spike, reminding us of their very first spell together. Even Xander’s dumb comment about how smart ladies are hot and Willow’s retort gave me all the nostalgia.

We’ve been foreshadowing and building up to this moment for 5 years. Graduation Part 2 too was a big book finish, but The Gift is the end of a journey. And while some would argue that it would’ve been an even better finale for the entire show, knowing that there’s still so much to come after, only makes me appreciate it more.

What else is there to say? We could talk about Dawn echoing my own thoughts, wanting to deal with Glory’s honest evil over Ben’s quiet, ambiguous monstrosity. Giles putting on his glasses to kill Ben, as opposed to earlier instances of his “Ripper” aspect shining through, signifying how this is who he is. A “killer”, as Tara called him. Tara leading the Scoobies to Glory as opposed to earlier when her condition made her lead Glory to Dawn.

The whole ritual of bleeding / killing Dawn, and how it’s reminiscent of traditions of young girls “becoming women”. She’s given a more adult dress to wear as she leaves her old one behind. Even the “bleeding” thing can be read as a big old menstruation metaphor, so have fun with that.

BuffyBot briefly returns, Buffy is Lady Thor because comics...

Oh, and Xander proposes to Anya. That also happened.

10/10. This episode is still 10/10. Go and rewatch the show just so you can experience it in all of its Glory.

Let us all also raise a glass of water to Buffy Anne Summers. She saved the world. A lot.

And she wants you to stay hydrated. Do it for her.

[quranreadalong]

THE BAD QURAN, PT 1: SURAH 1+SURAH 2

And now, presenting... the horrible, violent, and intolerant ayat from suwar one and two, the first chapter of our Bad Quran.

There are, alas, more than twice as many bad ayat as good ones here. We’ve got 83 baddies out of 293 total ayat. Get ready--this one’s long.

Remember how, in our very first section, we began with a long-ass rant about the disbelievers? 2:6 and 2:7 tell Muslims that there is no point in trying to warn disbelievers about their impending trip to hell, as Allah has sealed their hearts. It is also our first mention of “the doom” awaiting non-Muslims. 2:8, 2:9, and 2:10 all call disbelievers liars, with the latter again dooming them for this. 2:11 and 2:12 call them mischief-makers. 2:13 and 2:14 say that they mock Muslims behind their backs (I’m doing it to their fronts!). But 2:15 reminds Muslims that Allah is the one who mocks them, and lets them “wander blindly”. 2:16, 2:17, and 2:18 all continue this thought, with 2:17 again saying that Allah “leaveth them in darkness, where they cannot see”, and 2:18 (and 2:171) calling them “deaf, dumb, and blind”. 2:19 and 2:20 continue the disbelievers-walk-in-darkness metaphors.

We then take a turn for hotter punishments, with 2:24 telling us disbelievers are going to “the Fire prepared for disbelievers, whose fuel is of men and stones”. 2:27 is a slightly kinder one, simply calling those who disobey Allah “losers”, as does 2:121.

2:39 is yet another condemnation of the disbelievers, which frankly is getting a bit old already: “they who disbelieve, and deny Our revelations, such are rightful Peoples of the Fire”. 2:48 and 2:123 further emphasize that no prayers or intercessions from others will save the disbelievers from Allah’s wrath.

Our first Biblical re-tread is the story of the Hebrews in Egypt in 2:49; Allah calls their suffering and genocide at the hands of the Pharaoh’s army “a trial from your Lord”. 2:54-56 is a bizarre and awful Exodus fanfic (not found in the actual Book of Exodus) about Moses telling his people to kill idolators, them continuing their disbelief, Allah killing them with a lightning strike, then reviving them and expecting them to be thankful. In 2:59 he punishes more Jews for... failing to say a prayer properly. 2:61 tells us that the Jews continued to disbelieve Allah’s prophets regardless and thus “humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them”.

Complaints about the Jews are common in this section. 2:65 has Allah turning Sabbath-breaking Jews into apes, which was meant to serve as an example to all following generations of Jews.

2:85-86 tells us that those who believe in only part of Allah’s revelations but disregard the rest (attn: “liberal Muslims”) are going to hell. That was in reference to the Jews again, who Allah repeatedly and confusedly chastises for doing things he told them to do, like kill each other (see two paragraphs above). 2:88 calls them “cursed” by Allah for being disbelievers, which is repeated again in 2:89. The “doom” that awaits them is mentioned for the millionth time in 2:90.

2:94-96 is pure, unvarnished antisemitism directed towards Jews in Mohammed’s time. He mocks their supposed belief in only Jews going to heaven (Muslims believe that only Muslims are going to heaven) and tells them to “long for death” if this is true. 2:95 says they never will and calls them evil-doers. 2:96 says the following of Jews: “thou wilt find them greediest of mankind for life and (greedier) than the idolaters”.

Anyway... we’ll be told more about how the Jews suck in later suwar. Let’s talk about how Allah hates disbelievers in general again (2:98) and how only “miscreants” refuse to believe Mohammed is a prophet (2:99); Mohammed must never be questioned (2:108). And just to remind you, disbelievers are going to hell (2:104).

2:118-120 is yet another boring rant against the disbelievers. 2:118 mocks people who just want Mohammed to demonstrate some sign of actually being a prophet; they are going to hell (2:119). 2:120 tells Muslims that Jews and Christians won’t leave them alone until they become fellow disbelievers (anyone who does this is, of course, going to hell). 2:126 tells us disbelievers are hellbound, etc. Zzzzz.

Remember the part where Mohammed changed what direction Muslims pray in randomly? People who questioned this change are fools (2:142), for they do not realize that the initial instruction to pray towards Jerusalem was merely a test to see who would unquestioningly obey Mohammed (2:143), who is Allah’s prophet. Jews know this is “the Truth”, but they refused to acknowledge it; Allah is aware of their wrongdoing (2:144). The real reason for the change was partly because Mohammed did not want his followers to share a qiblah with “others” (wonder who!); those who continue to pray in the direction that the “others” do are evil-doers just like the aforementioned Jewz (2:145).

Again we are told that some Jews conspire to conceal the “truth” about Mohammed being a prophet, which they know due to.... uh... something... in the Torah. Those who try to “hide” the “fact” that the Torah predicted Mohammed’s prophethood are going to hell (2:174-75). One might ask Mohammed “wanna clarify what, exactly, they’re supposedly hiding?” in response to this, but Muslims are told to never be among “those who waver” by questioning any of this (2:146-47).

Anyway, Allah mentions again in 2:155 that he subjects people to terrible tests like “fear and hunger”; same in 2:214. 2:159 again says disbelievers are cursed, and again in 2:161. They are also doomed to hell, as 2:162 reminds us again. Idolators are especially going to hell and cannot escape from it (2:165-67). 2:170 calls people’s disbelieving ancestors dumb. Allah will punish those who refuse to abide by the revelations they have been given (2:211).

2:178: “Retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the murdered; the freeman for the freeman, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female”. Revenge killing wards off evil (2:179).

Any group that tests/tries/persecutes (fitna) Muslims must be killed: “slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter” (2:191). The fighting cannot stop until the “fitna” ends and the disbelievers surrender and accept that “religion is for Allah” (2:193). “Warfare is ordained for you” and is good for Muslims (2:216). 2:217 again repeats that fitna “is worse than killing” and also sentences apostates to hell. We see later that Mohammed’s idea of “fitna” involves “people not being Muslims”.

2:221 forbids Muslim men from wedding “idolatresses” and says they are better off marrying Muslim slave girls. It repeats that idolators are hellbound, as are believers who marry them.

2:222 calls menstruation a “harm” and tells men to avoid physical contact with their menstruating wives. 2:223 tells men to otherwise plow their wives, as “women are a tilth for you (to cultivate)”. 2:228 says that men are above women. Legally speaking, one man equals two women (2:282).

2:243 has Allah killing and then reviving people again, and then again in 2:259, what’s his problem? 2:244 tells Muslims to “fight in the way of Allah”; those who refuse, like the Jews of old, are called evil-doers in 2:246. Speaking of Jews, 2:247 has them questioning their king’s legitimacy and Allah tells them to shut up and accept him.

Allah could have stopped warfare between religious groups but didn’t want to, says 2:253. Also the disbelievers are wrongdoers (2:254) and are going to hell (2:257) in case you forgot.

SPECIAL BONUS SECTION: HALL OF SHAME!

The following ayat were hits on our kuffar hell counter. They will be copied and pasted word for word. Enjoy... the doom.

As for the Disbelievers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not. Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom.

In their hearts is a disease, and Allah increaseth their disease. A painful doom is theirs because they lie.

And if ye are in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave (Muhammad), then produce a surah of the like thereof, and call your witness beside Allah if ye are truthful. And if ye do it not - and ye can never do it - then guard yourselves against the Fire prepared for disbelievers, whose fuel is of men and stones.

But they who disbelieve, and deny Our revelations, such are rightful Peoples of the Fire. They will abide therein.

Believe ye in part of the Scripture and disbelieve ye in part thereof? And what is the reward of those who do so save ignominy in the life of the world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be consigned to the most grievous doom. Evil is that for which they sell their souls: that they should disbelieve in that which Allah hath revealed, grudging that Allah should reveal of His bounty unto whom He will of His slaves. They have incurred anger upon anger. For disbelievers is a shameful doom.

For disbelievers is a painful doom.

As for him who disbelieveth, I shall leave him in contentment for a while, then I shall compel him to the doom of Fire - a hapless journey's end! Those who disbelieve, and die while they are disbelievers; on them is the curse of Allah and of angels and of men combined.

Yet of mankind are some who take unto themselves (objects of worship which they set as) rivals to Allah, loving them with a love like (that which is the due) of Allah (only) - those who believe are stauncher in their love for Allah - Oh, that those who do evil had but known, (on the day) when they behold the doom, that power belongeth wholly to Allah, and that Allah is severe in punishment!

And those who were but followers will say: If a return were possible for us, we would disown them even as they have disowned us. Thus will Allah show them their own deeds as anguish for them, and they will not emerge from the Fire.

Lo! those who hide aught of the Scripture which Allah hath revealed and purchase a small gain therewith, they eat into their bellies nothing else than fire. Allah will not speak to them on the Day of Resurrection, nor will He make them grow. Theirs will be a painful doom. Those are they who purchase error at the price of guidance, and torment at the price of pardon. How constant are they in their strife to reach the Fire! Ask of the Children of Israel how many a clear revelation We gave them! He who altereth the grace of Allah after it hath come unto him (for him), lo! Allah is severe in punishment.

And whoso becometh a renegade and dieth in his disbelief: such are they whose works have fallen both in the world and the Hereafter. Such are rightful owners of the Fire: they will abide therein. Wed not idolatresses till they believe; for lo! a believing bondwoman is better than an idolatress though she please you; and give not your daughters in marriage to idolaters till they believe, for lo! a believing slave is better than an idolater though he please you. These invite unto the Fire, and Allah inviteth unto the Garden, and unto forgiveness by His grace, and expoundeth His revelations to mankind that haply they may remember.

As for those who disbelieve, their patrons are false deities. They bring them out of light into darkness. Such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein.

And that’s really it. That’s the last time we’re ever talking about this dumb surah until the very end of the project. We’re free. We’re finally free, and for us is a painful doom.

Tomorrow is the start of surah 3, where we’ll talk about more mangled Biblical fanfics (this time New Testament ones!) and why Allah didn’t kill the disbelieving armies even though Mohammed said he would. Don’t miss it, fam.

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