#it’s actually been interpreted into my daily word bank

[spooky--spookster]

You know the hyperfixation is getting severe when you start saying the in-show slang irl…

I said ‘oh my grop’ around my cousin this weekend and she looked at me like I was crazy.

[bacosgrove]

Okay so the idea of Izuku talking back to Kastuki when he was a bully in middle school has been on my mind for a while and I had this crazy ass idea that I just needed to share with tumblr so here it is.

Izuku is really fed up.

He loves Kacchan, he truly does, but his bullying has been getting annoying lately. No new insults, no creativity. In general, Izuku thinks Kacchan can do better. But since the whole thing about him applying for UA came up all the blond's been on is that. So every time an insult flies Izuku's direction all he can hear is how he will never get in and how he'll never become an actual hero. No more hearing how his scarf looks like colorful toilet paper or that despite carrying all those books he's still such a twink or that his hair could be mistaken for a broccoli. Izuku decided he has to put an end to it, y'know, stop the repetitiveness. It was literally becoming quite boring.

So he made a plan.

Well, actually, he didn't. It was all improvisation when one day he gave Kacchan a new reason to bully him just to quickly take it away. Which, by the way, he personally thinks is a great reason to hand him an Oscar.

On some random Wednesday a villain decided that it's a great idea to rob a bank neighboring a middle school. Naturally, every kid ran out to check the ruckus and watch heroes beat said villain to pulp. When Izuku noticed who went against the bad guy he decided that it's his lucky day. Not only because you don't see the number three hero on daily basis but also because he could use this situation for his own selfish reasons.

So the next time Hawks dived down to punch the robber Izuku basically shouted "Damn, that's hot!" Needless to say, everybody turned his way. In an attempt to pretend embarrassment he scratched his neck awkwardly giving the others one of his sweet smiles. "Sorry, didn't mean to say that out loud!"

And, well, the next day proved just how predictable bullies are. From all around not only did he hear whispering about how he's gay and definitely in love with Hawks but also short shouts of "faggot"s and "ha! gayyyy"s. But all he's been waiting for that day was Kacchan's reaction (especially since he knew that his childhood friend also found the hero hot, don't ask him how he knows, he just does). As expected he got what he wanted.

At first it felt like he was getting avoided. I mean, he and Kacchan were in the same class yet they haven't talked till their last lesson. Cause after their last bell was when the blond finally gathered the balls to say something.

"Oi, nerd", the familiar voice immediately brought Izuku's attention upon itself. Which one of Kacchan's lackeys obviously had to point out. "Look guys, he was just waiting for Bakugou to talk to him. Bet he'd suck him off right here, right now if he could."

"Yeah, Deku. You looove dick, don't you?" Kacchan added and brought an idea on Izuku's mind. Oh, was the blond gonna regret his words...

Izuku, sitting at his desk, leaned against his arm. Then with all the calmness he could manage he started speaking slowly enough for everybody to comprehend. "You would know, wouldn't you, Kacchan?" He gave them a moment to interpret his words in their preferred way, then left his seat and walked up to Bakugou with a fake frown covering his features. "Also, for a fact, yes, I have been waiting for Kacchan to talk to me. Babe, you said we were gonna set the details for our date today? I'll be waiting behind the school!" With that he kissed Bakugou's (for some reason) red cheek and left the classroom desperately trying not to laugh at the bullies' baffled expressions. He heard explosions behind him and lots of screaming and proceeded to head for the school back door. He may have done it for a laugh but he was no liar (also there might've been a tiny spark of hope in him that Kacchan may actually like him back, but he's not gonna try and understand it).

It's been the entirety of fifteen minutes and still no sign of Kacchan. Izuku didn't know what the hell he was expecting honestly. I mean, it was Kacchan for fuck's sake, he may find Hawks hot but Izuku is not him. For some reason, though, he felt his heart ache a little as he decided it's time to retreat. He ignored the sound of door opening behind him.

"Oi, Deku!"

Izuku froze in his tracks. 'Kacchan- he came?!' - his mind supplied unhelpfully. Still frozen in place he heard the voice continue much more quietly than before. "You wanted a date, right?"

Izuku didn't know weather to laugh at his luck or cry of relief. So he did neither. Instead, he gather his composure again and turned back around to his soon-to-be boyfriend. He smirked, "Wasn't expecting you to actually come," then as smoothly as he could he added, "babe." And, to his satisfaction Kacchan's face lit up in red. Turns out the blond didn't regret that nasty comment after all.

Izuku came back home late that day. Inko didn't dare to ask but she could've easily assumed by the dreamy expression on her son's face that it had been a good day for him. And she would've been entirely right.

[xaviersystem]

7 Day Prayer Miracle Review Amanda Ross (2020)

7 Day Prayer Miracle by Amanda Ross

Does it Work?

Almost everyone is familiar with the word Prayer, as well as the concept of Prayer. So when we come across someone offering a 7 Day Prayer Miracle, it is possible to have some questions popping up in the minds of people. Does it work? Is it effective? Why it is so popular? So I thought of bringing this blog 7 Day Prayer Miracle Review — Does it work?

So before we proceed, here is a synopsis about the product:· 

Product: 7 Day Prayer Miracle Review· 

Author: Amanda Ross· 

Bonus: Yes· 

Official Website: 7dayprayermiracle

What Will You Get From 7 Day Prayer Miracle?

Here in 7 Day Prayer Miracle coaching, you get a shocking tragedy that manifests itself in a great blessing.

It contains a prayer composed of four sentences. This helps approximately many ordinary people to highlight the miracles of health, finances, and relationships.

This miracle program gets related to the secrets of Archangel Michael. Hence, you get a blazing stream of miracles.

You get heavenly wisdom to show the fairy tale. This helps to choose the best pair of dreams.

It helps to boost your life. And you can spread your wings and move on to the next level.

You experience good, irreversible changes in your life by this guidance. There is no place for negativity in your life.

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Manifesting Miracles by Using Prayer

When The Secret first came out, it renewed hope in millions of people for manifesting the things that would make their lives more livable. A few years on, most of those millions have lost hope, again. The “Law of Attraction” seemed to be missing something.

More than 2,500 years ago, the Prophet Daniel discovered a method of prayer that worked miracles and gave him prophetic visions of the future. Not only was he able to save his own life and that of all the wise men of Babylon, he told the king what he had dreamed and then told him what the dream meant.

We now know why the Law of Attraction works when it does. We also know why the prayers of most people don’t work. This knowledge is power — the power to manifest miracles at will. The 7 Day Prayer Miracle program contains distilled wisdom that details the differences between the two halves of reality so you can know where you stand in relationship to heaven.

Never before have we had such clarity in understanding about how prayer and miracles work. Yes, this is exciting stuff.

Imagine taking the guesswork out of your life. Imagine setting a path and having it appear right in front of your eyes. Prayer done the right way is the most powerful tool we could ever imagine.

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How the Course Can Help You

Well, the course has:

1. Verified Techniques:

The big problem we’ve had with programs like “positive thinking” or “law of attraction” is that they remained vague on how to get to the desired state of mind. There was too much “pie-in-the-sky,” feel-good stuff that didn’t have a sufficient connection to the real world.

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle requires that you develop and exercise the ability to achieve the proper feelings for delivering prayers that match your conscious thoughts. The course shows you exactly how to do this with several, step-by-step exercises. This has been the area of disconnect in so many other programs

The exercises in this course raise your critical awareness of your environment and your own internal feelings so you can know when you’re aiming your prayer correctly.

2. Establishes Within You the Proper Skills:

The reason why the 7 Day Prayer Miracle works and has so many enthusiastic testimonials is because of the deep, spiritual understanding behind it — an understanding grounded in science and critical thinking.

No matter what your starting point, you will find yourself moving further from “lack” all the way to “abundance” — not merely physical abundance, but spiritual abundance of unconditional love, utter humility, perfect responsibility and fearless confidence. The map has been laid out. All you have to do is to walk the path.

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle is not only about wealth, health and relationships. It repairs the basic issues in your thinking and attitudes that would otherwise prevent effective prayer and, all too often, result in self-sabotaging behavior that spoils any gains you may make. All of these pitfalls have been handled.

Needless to say, the spiritual half of reality has its own rules and quite often doesn’t work at all like the physical half. This program is the manual for understanding what’s different and how to use those differences to your own benefit.

Because we each have our own set of bad habits, the course book covers a broad range of exercises to strengthen your awareness of your own thoughts, attitudes, intentions and — most importantly — your subconscious “feeling” attention. The 7 Day Prayer Miracle does these things far better than any book or program we’ve seen before.

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3. Proper Preparation:

No amount of thinking will ever accomplish anything truly worthwhile. Thought is a useful tool, but it’s only the starting point. And you can’t fix a great dinner in a dirty kitchen.

Bad habits and bad attitudes can cloud your spiritual vision and prevent your message from reaching heaven.

It’s a bit like 50 very loud people shouting while you’re trying to talk to someone on your cell phone. Sometimes, you can’t even hear yourself think.

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle helps you clear out not only bad habits, but also the daily garbage of stuck attention on little crimes we all commit from time to time — like being late for work, not taking out the garbage, forgetting about a commitment we’ve made, and more.

Becoming more aware of our stuck attention points, we can actively clean them up and ensure that our prayers make a direct, clear connection to heaven.

4. Reliability and Dependability:

By having you acquaint yourself more thoroughly with your own mind, ego and spirit, you will find yourself capable of using every part of each prayer with precision skill and powerful, spiritual effect.

Like a ship finally allowed to leave sight of land, you will enter spiritual territory you never knew existed. You will come to think of your body as merely your current vessel. And the control switches of physical reality will seem as real and natural as any physical device you’ve ever mastered.

>>> Tap or Click Here to Discover the Magical 4 Sentence Prayer That Instantly Grants Your Heart’s Fiercest Desires <<<

The Course Contents of 7 Day Miracle

Learn how to Grabbing The Attention of Heaven ( The ebook that gives you a crash course on your relationship to the spiritual world, to God and to His angels, and how to exercise your ability to connect directly to heaven).

· A Prayer Journal (a PDF journal that includes 7 prayers for 7 days, designed to give you miracle results).·

  · Divine Hearing — How to Recognize Crucial Messages from Your Angels (The ebook that helps you recognize messages from your angels).

· Divine Numbers — How to Interpret Angelic Sequences and Unleash Their Blessings (ebook that helps you interpret sequences of numbers and individual numbers like 11:11, 555, etc).

· The Prayer of Daniel (a handy, 1-page reprint of the biblical prayer that Prophet Daniel was using to achieve his miraculous results. This is the template upon which all effective prayer is based).

· A Song of Shifts (MP3 file, angelic music, using the “miracle frequency.” If you like, this can be played while you are performing your own prayers to help enter the theta wave band of meditative thought — the prayerful state of mind)

· Chances are you would be quite amazed to have so much content included for such a reasonable price.

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Features of the 7 Day Prayer Miracle Course· 

When you have the power of prayer, you never have to be worried again.

· Once you learn how to pray, prosperity flows in to you from an infinite source

· The 7 Day Prayer Miracle shows you how to choose the right option

· You learn to cultivate the right feelings all the time. When you learn to have the right feeling, things seem to go very right.

· Life suddenly becomes perfect, almost all the time.

· With prayer you can invite better health and healing for your body

· Boost Your Love Life With Prayer

>>> Tap or Click Here to Discover the Magical 4 Sentence Prayer That Instantly Grants Your Heart’s Fiercest Desires <<<

7 Day Prayer Miracle Testimonials

From the website of 7 Day Prayer Miracle, here is a reproduction of the testimonials of some of the individuals:

“I was only 5 days away from being declared a bankrupt. Almost all my savings gone. I then stumbled on to Amanda’s teaching. Just 2 prayers later, the bank actually cancelled my debt. Holy smokes, this works!” — Leanne R.

“I had terrible, terrible fights with my husband and I was on the verge of leaving him… Then one day I stumbled on to Amanda’s writings. I consumed it, prayed the prayers and now not only has my marriage been restored — the relationship sizzles in a way not seen since the honeymoon.” — Jane A.

“I’d always wanted to connect to the divine and talk to angels, but I never could. After the 7 Day Prayer Miracle, it was almost a suffocating blanket was removed. I can even now feel the breath of God and delve into the secrets of the universe.” — May R.

“I was left destitute by my cheating husband. He left me with my 2 young kids and moved in with his mistress half his age. After going through the 7 Day Prosperity Miracle, cheques suddenly came in the mail. There was sudden mysterious deposits in my bank account. Now, I have more than enough for me and my children to live a good life.” — Miranda A.

>>>Get Instant Access to 7 Day Prayer Miracle <<<

Conclusion

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle is a complete system that’s more comprehensive than virtually every other book in this genre… Of course, the number of pieces alone is not enough. Each piece needs to be valuable and worth your time.

7 Day Prayer Miracle takes control of your life to improve. It has already helped approximately 100,000 women and men to fulfill the purpose of their lives.

You have a great opportunity to take the first step of a new movement. It comes with a 100 percent money back guarantee.

If for some reason, you are not satisfied with this program, the money will be refunded immediately. This is the claim of the seller organization. You have nothing to lose except for problems.

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7-day Prayer Miracle

SOURCE: https://youtu.be/iHEUgA_4eSA

[suitofvibraniumarmor]

Boston Boys [Part Two]

Summary: Chris and his crew hit a prominent Boston bank, but not everything goes to plan.   Pairing: Chris Evans x OFC, John Krasinski x OFC Word Count: 2215 Chapter Warnings: language, bank robbery, kidnapping, guns.  Square Filled: The entire series (bits and pieces of it) will fill my Crossover square for @marvelfluffbingo​​. A/N: This story contains a character who lost her hearing as she got older. I do work closely and regularly with the D/deaf community (I’m a sign language interpreter), but my own hearing problems do not involve significant hearing loss. It is not my intention to offend anyone, only to bring in a character with a quality I don’t see often in other fics. If you have questions about her, feel free to ask :)

Boston Boys Masterlist

Monday morning, bright and early, Chris walked the short distance from his apartment to the barber shop his father owned. He got out his key to unlock the door, but when he saw the door slightly ajar and the lights already on, he stuffed his key back into his pocket and reached for the gun at the back of his waistband instead.

Carefully surveying every inch of the place as he walked through the main lobby, with the chairs and mirrors and other supplies, Chris kept his gun trained in the direction of the back room. That light was on too, and he could hear someone fiddling around in the office.

Going through the doorway to the backroom, Chris immediately spotted a body, sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal. He groaned in frustration and hit the safety back on his gun before tucking it away again.

“Fuckin’ A, Scotty! You gotta tell me when you’re coming in early!” Chris admonished, slapping his brother upside the head. “I coulda killed ya!”

Scott only laughed. “You shoulda seen your face, big brother. That was priceless.”

Chris shook his head and got the coffee pot started. After that scare, he was going to need double his daily dosage. “The hell are you here so early for, anyway?”

“Late night, got home, didn’t have milk.”

“New boy toy?”

Scotty smirked as he walked his bowl to the sink to rinse it out. “Couple of ‘em.”

Chris rolled his eyes. Leave it to his brother to share more than what was necessary.

As the time moved on towards opening the shop for the day, the brothers worked to get everything set up and ready, then enjoyed a cup of coffee to themselves. Slowly but surely, the rest of the crew -- Scarlett, Seb, and Shanna -- came rolling in.

“Shan, you talked to Carly this morning?” Chris asked, fastening a cape around his first customer of the day.

“Yeah, she’ll be here in about thirty. Her typical Monday morning routine.”

Chris smirked. He and Scott shared a special connection, being the only brothers in the Evans family, but he was just as close with his sisters. When Aurelie had come along, Chris wasted no time in pulling her under his wing the same he had done with Shanna and Carly. He loved his siblings, and especially after their father had been put away, Chris had stepped up to make sure they were all taken care of. At any rate, knowing Carly was happy to live her life with little to no worries made Chris feel like he was doing his job.

The day wore on. Mondays were usually busy, seeing as how a lot of men liked to start their week with a fresh cut and/or shave. Between busy Mondays and Fridays, and the steady flow of customers on the in-between, the shop did all right for itself. Of course, the family side business didn’t hurt anything.

As they were wrapping up for the day, Robert Downey, Jr., Chris’s father’s best friend, came into the shop and sat down in Chris’s chair. He was well-known throughout town as a do-gooder, a philanthropist. The man was very private about where his money came from, and that boded well for all of them. Although, in this part of Boston, no one much cared where the man got his money, since so much of it was channeled back into the community. For that, everyone was willing to turn the other way at the potentially suspicious way the money came through.

“Went and saw your dad today,” Robert began, setting his glasses on the counter in front of Chris’s chair before taking a seat. “The old man’s not looking so bad. Staying out of trouble.”

“That’s new,” Chris snorted. “Did you get the money on his book?”

Robert nodded. “Of course. Just a touch up today, yeah?”

Chris nodded and got to work. He focused on what he was doing, half-listening to the sounds of the shop: Scarlett and Seb bantering back and forth, Carly’s nails tapping away at the keyboard, Shanna and Scott sighing as they watched and waited for closing time to approach.

“Hey, Shan, Scotty. Why don’t you get out early? You’ve got no more appointments, right?”

They both confirmed they were done for the day, so Chris gave them the go ahead. After finishing with her current customer, Scarlett scooted out as well. Carly was the next to go, until only Seb and Chris were left behind.

Robert paid with his credit card but left a cash tip; paper-clipped to the bill was a set of coordinates. Chris and Seb exchanged a glance. This would be their next job.

“Call me when you finish with that referral,” Robert instructed. “This is a big one, boys. Don’t screw it up.”

With that, the man was gone. Chris locked up behind him and turned the sign on the door to Closed. He turned back to Seb, who was already checking out the coordinates.

“Shit,” Seb muttered, “Boston Private? They’re no joke. The kind of cash flow that goes through there …”

Chris didn’t like the idea of a big hit, but he did like the idea of maybe being set up for a while. He was proud to take care of his siblings in his father’s absence, to live up to the responsibilities his father had raised him to, but he was also ready for a break. He was ready to settle down.

“We gotta give it at least a week for us to scout that one out,” Chris decided out loud. “Then we’ll get Scar and Scotty in on it. We don’t say a word to Shanna or Carly.”

“As usual,” Seb sighed. “How have they gone their whole life not knowing this was a thing?”

Chris shrugged. “My parents had Carly early on in life -- this didn’t start till after she was born. Me and Scotty were always expected to go in Pop’s place once we were old enough, and Shanna’s the baby. She gets protected.”

“And what about Aurelie?”

“Aurelie’s a different story. So listen, we good on that plan then?”

Seb pursed his lips. “Can’t we do this with a three-man team? Scar doesn’t need to be in on this.”

Chris smirked. “Still going after that tail, huh?”

Seb rolled his eyes. “She’s not just tail and you know it. Besides, she’s never been off your nuts long enough to notice anyone else.”

“Please,” Chris said, reaching for his keys and shutting the lights off. “Scarlett and I were a thing in high school, and it wasn’t even a serious thing. You gotta have more confidence in yourself -- and by the way, you’re not gettin’ anywhere with that girl by suggesting she doesn’t need to go on jobs. That’ll piss her right off.”

Seb agreed that was true. Once the shop was locked up, they hit the sidewalk, heading over to Stan’s Pub for a drink or few before heading home for the night.

After their last day casing the bank, Seb headed back for the barber shop to try and catch some afternoon appointments. Chris was headed in that direction, too, but first he stopped at the corner store for a pack of cigarettes and maybe a fountain drink.

Next to him at the drink counter, a familiar face was filling a to-go cup with coffee. Chris smirked at the timing of it.

“Johnny, haven’t seen you around this area in a while,” Chris commented, not even bothering to make eye contact with the other man.

“Chris, hey. It has been a while. Don’t worry, I won’t be sticking around for long. Came by to see a friend.”

Chris nodded. “I’m not worried about you, man.”

John snorted; Chris didn’t need to look at the other man to know that tensions were high. Oh, there weren’t exactly boundaries in this part of town, but they knew enough to stay away from each other. Chris put the lid on his drink and stuck a straw through the hole. John capped his coffee cup, then nodded to Chris.

“Hey man, you haven’t seen my sister recently, have you?”

John frowned. “Carly or Shanna?”

Chris studied John carefully. Had he really forgotten about Chris’s stepsister, or was he playing dumb? In the interest of not creating a scene so close to a job, Chris decided to give John the benefit of the doubt.

“Shanna.”

“No, I haven’t seen either of them recently, actually.”

“Hmm. Been to MassGen in the last couple of weeks?”

John shook his head. “Nah, man, I’m great. Listen, I’ve got to get going, but I’m sure we’ll cross paths again.”

“I’m sure we will.”

John paid for his coffee and left the shop. Chris got his cigarettes, paid for the pack and his drink, then walked down to the barber shop. Whatever reason Aurelie had asked about John, Chris had bigger things to worry about for the time being.

The morning of the job, the four of them -- Chris, Seb, Scott, and Scarlett -- donned their usual attire: hoodies, masks, gloves, dark jeans, steel-toed boots. They approached the bank in a van, parked in the alley to the south of the bank, and made their way to the front door.

Inevitably, screaming, running, and tears took over. It was chaos, but they all had to keep it managed if they were going to get their payoff. Seb had already overpowered the aging security guard, and Scarlett was in the tech room working on cutting off the cameras and frying the footage. Scott was backing Chris up. They knew that a different teller got the code to unlock the safe every morning, and by their calculations, it should have been the middle-aged man on the end who had the code.

“It’s not me!” he pleaded, hands in the air. “Elsa! Elsa has the code!”

Chris looked in the direction the man was pointing. A young, blonde woman, eyes wide and her whole body trembling, fought against his gaze. Chris marched down to her window and climbed over the counter.

“Are you Elsa?”

She closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes.”

He pointed with his gun towards the safe. “Open it, Elsa.”

Tears were running down her cheeks. Chris felt horrible; scaring people came with the territory of this sort of work, but this girl seemed especially terrified. Her fingers shook over the keypad, and she struggled to remember the numbers in the correct order under this kind of pressure.

“C’mon! Open it!” Scott yelled from behind her.

She jumped, and the tears rolled harder. Chris glared at his brother, then put a hand over Elsa’s.

“You know the code,” he told her quietly. “We aren’t gonna hurt you, okay? We’re here for the money, not for any of you. Take a deep breath, try it again.”

Elsa closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath through her nose, then let it out through her mouth. Chris was momentarily distracted by the minty scent that wafted his way with her exhale. By the time he was focused again, she had the safe open.

“Good girl,” he said, gently moving her aside. He and Scott went straight into the safe to collect their bounty. It was all done in less than two minutes. They returned to the main part of the bank to gather their colleagues and get the hell outta Dodge.

But Elsa wasn’t there when they went to leave, and neither was Scarlett. Chris and Scott exchanged a look of concern.

“She’s already out,” Seb informed them, pounding on the counter. “Five-oh is on the radar. Let’s go.”

The three men scrambled out of the bank and back to the van. Before they even made it all the way, they could hear pounding noises coming from the back. Scott took his place in the driver’s seat, Seb in the front, and Chris climbed into the back where Scarlett was giving Elsa a proper what-for.

“Hold up!” Chris said, pushing himself between the two women. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Scarlett pointed at Elsa. “She pushed the alarm! That’s why the cops were coming!”

“So you dragged her along for the ride?”

Scarlett groaned. “We need leverage if they catch up to us. Now can we please just get the fuck out of here!”

The van squealed down the alley. Reaching for a zip-tie, Chris secured Elsa’s hands behind her back. Scarlett used two bandanas -- too readily available -- to blindfold and gag her. It at least allowed them to shed the suffocating masks.

Once they were away from the police and on a quiet street completely north of where they lived, they let Elsa out of the van. Scarlett swore they knew her address and where her family was from, and there would be hell to pay if Elsa helped in any sort of investigation. Chris waited for Scarlett to be back in the van before instructing Elsa to sing her favorite song to herself before taking off her blindfold. He took one last look at her, trembling and crying quietly to herself there on the curb, before climbing in the back of the van and instructing Scott to get them the hell out of there.

AllOfTheThings: @captain-s-rogers​ @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan​ @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked​ @hurricanerin​ @horsesandbandsforlife​ @im-not-an-armrest-im-short​ @captain-rogers-beard​ @shynara51​ @sea040561​ @anxiouskore​ @pinknerdpanda​ @xtina2191​ @jackryanplz​ @beakami​ @heartsaved​ @fullprunerebelstatesman​ @blackwidowismyhomegirl​

Boston Boys: @atc74​ @the-murder-strut-murdered-me​ @becs-bunker​ @shield-agent78​ @patzammit​ @crazyandanonymous4u​ @ntlmundy​

[star-anise]

why would your social environment affect if you identify as a woman or nb?

I don’t know if you meant it to be, but this is a delightful question. I am going to be a complete nerd for 2k+ words at you.

“Gender” is distinct from “sex” because it’s not a body’s physical characteristics, it’s how society classifies and interprets that body. Sex is “That person has a vagina.” Gender is “This is a blend of society’s expectations about what bodies with vaginas are like, social expectations of how people with vaginas do or might or should act, behave, and feel, the actual lived experiences of people with vaginas, and a twist of lemon for zest.” Concepts of gender and what is “manly” and “womanly” can vary a lot. They’re social values, like “normal” or “legal” or “beautiful”, and they vary all the time. How well you fit your gender role depends a lot on how “gender” is defined.

800 years ago in Europe the general perception was that women were sinful, sensual, lustful people who required frequent sex and liked watching bloodsport. 200 years ago, the British aristocracy thought women were pure, innocent beings of moral purity with no sexual desire who fainted at the sight of blood. These days, we think differently in entirely new directions.

But this gets even more complicated, in part because human experience is really diverse and society’s narratives have to account for that. So 200 years ago, those beliefs about femininity being delicate and dainty and frail only really applied to women with aristocratic lineages, and “the lower classes” of women were believed to be vulgar, coarse, sexual, and earthy, which “explained” why they performed hard physical labor or worked as prostitutes.

Being trans or nonbinary isn’t just or even primarily about what characteristics you want your body to have. It’s about how you want to define yourself and be interpreted and interacted with by other people.

The writer Sylvia Plath lived 1932-1963, and she said:

“Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum; to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars–to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording–all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery.”

She was from upper-middle-class Massachusetts, the child of a university professor. A lot of those things she was “prohibited” from doing weren’t things each and every woman was prohibited from doing; they were things women of her class weren’t allowed to do. The daughters and sisters and wives of sailors and soldiers, women who worked in hotels and ran rooming houses, barmaids and sex workers, got to anonymously and invisibly observe those men, after all. They just couldn’t do it at the same time they tried to meet the standards educated Bostonians of the 1950s had for nice young women.

Failure to understand how diverse womanhood is has always been one of feminism’s biggest weaknesses. The Second Wave of feminism was started mostly by prosperous university-educated white women, since they were the people with the time and money and resources to write and read books and attend conferences about “women’s issues”. And they assumed that their issues were female issues. That they were the default of femaleness, and could assume every woman had roughly the same experience as them.

So, for example, middle-class white women in post-WWII USA were expected to stay home all the time and look after their children. Feminists concluded that this was isolating and oppressive, and they’d like the freedom to pursue lives, careers, and interests outside of the home. They vigorously pursued the right to be freed from their domestic and maternal duties.

But in their society, these experiences were not generally shared by Black and/or poor women, who, like their mothers, did not have the luxury of spending copious amounts of leisure time with their children; they had to work to earn enough money to survive on, which meant working on farms, in factories, or as cooks, maids, or nannies for rich white women who wanted the freedom to pursue lives outside the home. They tended to feel that they would like to have the option of staying home and playing with their babies all day. 

This is not to say none of the first group enjoyed domestic lives, or that none of the second group wanted non-domestic careers; it’s just that the first group formed the face and the basic assumptions of feminism, and the second group struggled to get a seat at the table.

There’s this phenomenon called “cultural feminism” that’s an attitude that crops up among feminists from time to time (or grows on them, like fungus) that holds that women have a “feminine essence”, a quasi-spiritual “nature” that is deeply distinct from the “masculine essence” of men. This is one of the concepts powering lesbian separatism: the idea that because women are so fundamentally different from men, a society of all women will be fundamentally different in nature from a society that includes men.

But, well, the problem cultural feminism generally has is with how it achieves its definition of “female nature”. The view tends to be that women are kinder, more moral, more collectivist, more community-minded, and less prone to violence. 

And cultural feminists tend to HATE people who believe in the social construction of gender, because we tend to cross our arms and go, “Nah, sis, that’s a frappe of misused statistics and The Angel In the House with some wishful thinking as a garnish. That’s how you feel about what womanhood is. It’s fair enough for you, but you’re trying to apply it to the entire human species. That’s got less intellectual rigor and sociological validity than my morning oatmeal.” Hence the radfem insistence that gender theorists like me SHUT UP and gender quite flatly DOESN’T EXIST. It’s a MADE-UP TERM, and people should STOP TALKING ABOUT IT. (And go back to taking about immutable, naturally-occuring phenomena, one supposes, like the banking system and Western literary canon.)

Because seriously, when you look at real actual women, you will see that some of us can be very selfish, while others are altruistic; some think being a woman means abhorring all violence forever, and others think being a woman means being willing to fight and die to protect the people you love. As groups men and women have different average levels of certain qualities, but it’s not like we don’t share a lot in common. The distribution of “male” and “female” traits doesn’t tend to mean two completely separate sets of characteristics; they tend to be more like two overlapping bell curves.

So, like I said, I grew up largely in rural, working-class Western Canadian society. My relatives tend to be tradesmen like carpenters, welders, or plumbers, or else ranchers and farmers. I was raised by a mother who came of age during the big push for Women’s Lib. So in the culture in which I was raised, it was very normal and in some ways rewarded (though in other ways punished) for women to have short hair, wear flannel and jeans, drive a big truck, play rough contact sports, use power tools, pitch in with farmwork, use guns, and drink beer. “Traditional femininity” was a fascinating foreign culture my grandmother aspired to, and I loved nonsense like polishing the silver (it’s a very satisfying pastime) but that was just another one of my weird hobbies, like sewing fairy clothes out of flower petals and collecting toy horses.

Within the standards of the society I was raised in, I am a decently feminine woman. I’m obviously not a “girly girl”, someone who wears makeup and dresses in ways that privilege beauty over practicality, but I have a long ponytail of hair and when I go to Mark’s Work Wearhouse, I shop in the women’s section. We know what “butch” is and I ain’t it.

But through my friendships and my career, I’ve gotten experiences among cultures you wouldn’t think would be too different–we’re all still white North Americans!–but which felt bizarre and alien, and ate away at the sense of self I’d grown up in. In the USA’s northeast, the people I met had the kind of access to communities with social clout, intellectual resources, and political power I hadn’t quite believed existed before I saw them. There really were people who knew politicians and potential employers socially before they ever had to apply to a job or ask for political assistance; there were people who really did propose projects to influential businessmen or academics at cocktail parties; they really did things like fundraise tens of thousands of dollars for a charity by asking fifty of their friends to donate, or start a business with a $2mil personal loan from a relative.

And in those societies, femininity was so different and so foreign. I’d grown up seeing femininity as a way of assigning tasks to get the work done; in these new circles, it was performative in a way that was entirely unique and astounding to me. A boss really would offer you a starting salary $10k higher than they might have if you wore high heels instead of flats. You really would be more likely to get a job if you wore makeup. And your ability to curate social connections in the halls of power really was influenced by how nice of a Christmas party you could throw. These women I met were being held, daily, to a standard of femininity higher than that performed by anyone in my 100 most immediate relatives.

So when girls from Seven Sisters schools talked about how for them, dressing how I dressed every day (jeans, boots, tee, button-up shirt, no makeup, no hair product) was “bucking gendered expectations” and “being unfeminine”, I began to feel totally unmoored. When I realized that I, who absolutely know only 5% as much about power tools and construction as my relatives in the trades, was more suited to take a hammer and wade in there than not just the “empowered” women but the self-professed “handy” men there, I didn’t know how to understand it. I felt like I was… a woman who knew how to do carpentry projects, not “totally butch” the way some people (approvingly) called me.

And, well, at home in Alberta I was generally seen as a sweet and gentle girl with an occasional stubborn streak or precocious moment, but apparently by the standards of Southern states like Georgia and Alabama I am like, 100x more blunt, assertive, and inconsiderate of men’s feelings than women typically feel they have to be.

And this is still all just US/Canadian white women.

And like I said, after years of this, I came home (from BC, where I encountered MORE OTHER weird and alien social constructs, though generally more around class and politics than gender) to Alberta, and I went to what is, for Alberta, a super hippy liberal church, and I helped prepare the after-service tea among women with unstyled hair and no makeup  who wore jeans and sensible shoes, and listened to them talk about their work in municipal water management and ICU nursing, and it felt like something inside my chest slid back into place, because I understood myself as a woman again, and not some alien thing floating outside the expectations of the society I was in with a chestful of opinions no one around me would understand, suddenly all made sense again.

I mean, that’s by no means an endorsement for aspirational middle class rural Alberta as the ideal gender utopia. (Alberta is the Texas of Canada.) I just felt comfortable inside because it’s the culture where I found a definition of myself and my gender I could live with, because its boundaries of what’s considered “female” were broad enough to hold all the parts of me I felt like I needed to express. I have a lot of friends who grew up here, or in families like mine, and don’t feel at all happy with its gender boundaries. And even as I’m comfortable being a woman here, I still want to push and transform it, to make it even more feminist and politically left and decolonized.

TERFs try to claim that trans and nonbinary people reinforce the gender identity, but in my experience, it’s feminists who claim male and female are immutable and incompatible do that. It’s trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer people who, simply by performing their genders in public, make people realize just how bullshit innate theories of gender are.. Society is going to want to gender them in certain ways and involve them in certain dynamics (”Hey ladies, those fellas, amirite?”) and they’re going, “Nope. Not me. Cut it out.” I’ve seen a lot of cis people who will quietly admit they do think men and women are different because that’s just reality, watch someone they know transition, and suddenly go, “Oh my god, I get it now.”

Like yes, this is me being coldly political and thinking about people as examples to make a political point. Everyone’s valid and can do what they want, but some things are just easier for potential converts to wrap their minds around.. “I’m sorting through toys to give to Shelly’s baby. He probably won’t want a princess crown, huh?” “I actually know several people who were considered boys when they were babies and never got one, and are making up for all their lost princess crown time now as adults. You never know what he’ll be into when he grows up.” “…Okay, point. I’ll throw it in there.” Trans and enby people disrupt gender in a really powerful back-of-the-brain way where people suddenly see how much leeway there is between gender and sex.

I honestly believe supporting trans and enby people and queering gender until it’s a macrame project instead of a spectrum are how we’ll get to a gender-free utopia. I think cultural feminism is just the same old shit, inverted. (Confession: in my head, I pronounce “cultural” with emphasis on the “cult” part.) 

I think feminism is like a lot of emergency response groups: Our job is to put ourselves out of a job. It’s not a good thing if gender discrimination is still prevalent and harmful 200 years from now! Obviously we’re not there yet and calls to pack it in and go home are overrated, but as the problem disappears into its solution, we have to accept that our old ways of looking at the world have to shift.

[wormtrain80]

60+ Tarot Card Analysis Ideas

On this celebration, they provide 3 mins absolutely free, regardless of the chosen solution. In other words, you can pick a tarot card reading for love, a psychic conversation, and even a fortune-telling session if thats what you want. Although they request for your bank card information, they just bill you after your session ends.

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This is since tarot cards can help you clear up the topic, not tell you what to do. Lots of people suggest the Rider-Waite deck for newbies, as the cards' significances are so typically instinctive-- as well as when they're not, plenty of interpretation guides exist in books and online. Several decks, including the Rider-Waite, included a little sheet of paper specifying each of the card's most typical analyses. Though tarot card cards have actually handled a mystical meaning in the cultural imagination, they were originally intended as even more of a party game. The cards have actually been used because at the very least the mid-15th century; the earliest taped decks came from numerous parts of Italy. I think I can assist you comprehend the covert significance of things. Our totally free tarot card readings should enable you to recognize your future better as well as comprehend what awaits you. Tarot card readings are a powerful form of prophecy that utilize an old deck of cards to aid you discover response to your crucial questions about love, connections, your career, financial resources and also more. Psychics as well as foreteller have actually made use of Tarot cards for centuries, and also Trusted Tarot card will certainly provide you an accurate analysis that's personalized based the cards you choose and also the order you select them. Every card has a various meaning relying on its placement, so you will get a one-of-a-kind as well as in-depth viewpoint on your current situation. To prepare for your reading, I suggest that you listen to this grounding excercise - then scroll down as well as select your cards. The tarot card deck includes 78 cards, each of which is associated with its very own particular imagery, meaning, as well as tale. Out of the 78 cards, there are 22 significant Arcana cards that stand for the karmic as well as spiritual lessons of a person's life. The 56 Minor Arcana cards represent the tribulations and also trials that we, as people, face in our day-to-days live. Among the Minor Arcana cards, there are 16 Tarot Court Cards which represent 16 various personality type that we reveal at various times.

[lullabieswrappedinlies]

Boston Boys [Part Two]

Summary: Chris and his crew hit a prominent Boston bank, but not everything goes to plan.   Pairing: Chris Evans x OFC, John Krasinski x OFC Word Count: 2215 Chapter Warnings: language, bank robbery, kidnapping, guns. Square Filled: The entire series (bits and pieces of it) will fill my Crossover square for @marvelfluffbingo​​. A/N: This story contains a character who lost her hearing as she got older. I do work closely and regularly with the D/deaf community (I’m a sign language interpreter), but my own hearing problems do not involve significant hearing loss. It is not my intention to offend anyone, only to bring in a character with a quality I don’t see often in other fics. If you have questions about her, feel free to ask :)

Boston Boys Masterlist

Monday morning, bright and early, Chris walked the short distance from his apartment to the barber shop his father owned. He got out his key to unlock the door, but when he saw the door slightly ajar and the lights already on, he stuffed his key back into his pocket and reached for the gun at the back of his waistband instead.

Carefully surveying every inch of the place as he walked through the main lobby, with the chairs and mirrors and other supplies, Chris kept his gun trained in the direction of the back room. That light was on too, and he could hear someone fiddling around in the office.

Going through the doorway to the backroom, Chris immediately spotted a body, sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal. He groaned in frustration and hit the safety back on his gun before tucking it away again.

“Fuckin’ A, Scotty! You gotta tell me when you’re coming in early!” Chris admonished, slapping his brother upside the head. “I coulda killed ya!”

Scott only laughed. “You shoulda seen your face, big brother. That was priceless.”

Chris shook his head and got the coffee pot started. After that scare, he was going to need double his daily dosage. “The hell are you here so early for, anyway?”

“Late night, got home, didn’t have milk.”

“New boy toy?”

Scotty smirked as he walked his bowl to the sink to rinse it out. “Couple of ‘em.”

Chris rolled his eyes. Leave it to his brother to share more than what was necessary.

As the time moved on towards opening the shop for the day, the brothers worked to get everything set up and ready, then enjoyed a cup of coffee to themselves. Slowly but surely, the rest of the crew -- Scarlett, Seb, and Shanna -- came rolling in.

“Shan, you talked to Carly this morning?” Chris asked, fastening a cape around his first customer of the day.

“Yeah, she’ll be here in about thirty. Her typical Monday morning routine.”

Chris smirked. He and Scott shared a special connection, being the only brothers in the Evans family, but he was just as close with his sisters. When Aurelie had come along, Chris wasted no time in pulling her under his wing the same he had done with Shanna and Carly. He loved his siblings, and especially after their father had been put away, Chris had stepped up to make sure they were all taken care of. At any rate, knowing Carly was happy to live her life with little to no worries made Chris feel like he was doing his job.

The day wore on. Mondays were usually busy, seeing as how a lot of men liked to start their week with a fresh cut and/or shave. Between busy Mondays and Fridays, and the steady flow of customers on the in-between, the shop did all right for itself. Of course, the family side business didn’t hurt anything.

As they were wrapping up for the day, Robert Downey, Jr., Chris’s father’s best friend, came into the shop and sat down in Chris’s chair. He was well-known throughout town as a do-gooder, a philanthropist. The man was very private about where his money came from, and that boded well for all of them. Although, in this part of Boston, no one much cared where the man got his money, since so much of it was channeled back into the community. For that, everyone was willing to turn the other way at the potentially suspicious way the money came through.

“Went and saw your dad today,” Robert began, setting his glasses on the counter in front of Chris’s chair before taking a seat. “The old man’s not looking so bad. Staying out of trouble.”

“That’s new,” Chris snorted. “Did you get the money on his book?”

Robert nodded. “Of course. Just a touch up today, yeah?”

Chris nodded and got to work. He focused on what he was doing, half-listening to the sounds of the shop: Scarlett and Seb bantering back and forth, Carly’s nails tapping away at the keyboard, Shanna and Scott sighing as they watched and waited for closing time to approach.

“Hey, Shan, Scotty. Why don’t you get out early? You’ve got no more appointments, right?”

They both confirmed they were done for the day, so Chris gave them the go ahead. After finishing with her current customer, Scarlett scooted out as well. Carly was the next to go, until only Seb and Chris were left behind.

Robert paid with his credit card but left a cash tip; paper-clipped to the bill was a set of coordinates. Chris and Seb exchanged a glance. This would be their next job.

“Call me when you finish with that referral,” Robert instructed. “This is a big one, boys. Don’t screw it up.”

With that, the man was gone. Chris locked up behind him and turned the sign on the door to Closed. He turned back to Seb, who was already checking out the coordinates.

“Shit,” Seb muttered, “Boston Private? They’re no joke. The kind of cash flow that goes through there …”

Chris didn’t like the idea of a big hit, but he did like the idea of maybe being set up for a while. He was proud to take care of his siblings in his father’s absence, to live up to the responsibilities his father had raised him to, but he was also ready for a break. He was ready to settle down.

“We gotta give it at least a week for us to scout that one out,” Chris decided out loud. “Then we’ll get Scar and Scotty in on it. We don’t say a word to Shanna or Carly.”

“As usual,” Seb sighed. “How have they gone their whole life not knowing this was a thing?”

Chris shrugged. “My parents had Carly early on in life -- this didn’t start till after she was born. Me and Scotty were always expected to go in Pop’s place once we were old enough, and Shanna’s the baby. She gets protected.”

“And what about Aurelie?”

“Aurelie’s a different story. So listen, we good on that plan then?”

Seb pursed his lips. “Can’t we do this with a three-man team? Scar doesn’t need to be in on this.”

Chris smirked. “Still going after that tail, huh?”

Seb rolled his eyes. “She’s not just tail and you know it. Besides, she’s never been off your nuts long enough to notice anyone else.”

“Please,” Chris said, reaching for his keys and shutting the lights off. “Scarlett and I were a thing in high school, and it wasn’t even a serious thing. You gotta have more confidence in yourself -- and by the way, you’re not gettin’ anywhere with that girl by suggesting she doesn’t need to go on jobs. That’ll piss her right off.”

Seb agreed that was true. Once the shop was locked up, they hit the sidewalk, heading over to Stan’s Pub for a drink or few before heading home for the night.

After their last day casing the bank, Seb headed back for the barber shop to try and catch some afternoon appointments. Chris was headed in that direction, too, but first he stopped at the corner store for a pack of cigarettes and maybe a fountain drink.

Next to him at the drink counter, a familiar face was filling a to-go cup with coffee. Chris smirked at the timing of it.

“Johnny, haven’t seen you around this area in a while,” Chris commented, not even bothering to make eye contact with the other man.

“Chris, hey. It has been a while. Don’t worry, I won’t be sticking around for long. Came by to see a friend.”

Chris nodded. “I’m not worried about you, man.”

John snorted; Chris didn’t need to look at the other man to know that tensions were high. Oh, there weren’t exactly boundaries in this part of town, but they knew enough to stay away from each other. Chris put the lid on his drink and stuck a straw through the hole. John capped his coffee cup, then nodded to Chris.

“Hey man, you haven’t seen my sister recently, have you?”

John frowned. “Carly or Shanna?”

Chris studied John carefully. Had he really forgotten about Chris’s stepsister, or was he playing dumb? In the interest of not creating a scene so close to a job, Chris decided to give John the benefit of the doubt.

“Shanna.”

“No, I haven’t seen either of them recently, actually.”

“Hmm. Been to MassGen in the last couple of weeks?”

John shook his head. “Nah, man, I’m great. Listen, I’ve got to get going, but I’m sure we’ll cross paths again.”

“I’m sure we will.”

John paid for his coffee and left the shop. Chris got his cigarettes, paid for the pack and his drink, then walked down to the barber shop. Whatever reason Aurelie had asked about John, Chris had bigger things to worry about for the time being.

The morning of the job, the four of them -- Chris, Seb, Scott, and Scarlett -- donned their usual attire: hoodies, masks, gloves, dark jeans, steel-toed boots. They approached the bank in a van, parked in the alley to the south of the bank, and made their way to the front door.

Inevitably, screaming, running, and tears took over. It was chaos, but they all had to keep it managed if they were going to get their payoff. Seb had already overpowered the aging security guard, and Scarlett was in the tech room working on cutting off the cameras and frying the footage. Scott was backing Chris up. They knew that a different teller got the code to unlock the safe every morning, and by their calculations, it should have been the middle-aged man on the end who had the code.

“It’s not me!” he pleaded, hands in the air. “Elsa! Elsa has the code!”

Chris looked in the direction the man was pointing. A young, blonde woman, eyes wide and her whole body trembling, fought against his gaze. Chris marched down to her window and climbed over the counter.

“Are you Elsa?”

She closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes.”

He pointed with his gun towards the safe. “Open it, Elsa.”

Tears were running down her cheeks. Chris felt horrible; scaring people came with the territory of this sort of work, but this girl seemed especially terrified. Her fingers shook over the keypad, and she struggled to remember the numbers in the correct order under this kind of pressure.

“C’mon! Open it!” Scott yelled from behind her.

She jumped, and the tears rolled harder. Chris glared at his brother, then put a hand over Elsa’s.

“You know the code,” he told her quietly. “We aren’t gonna hurt you, okay? We’re here for the money, not for any of you. Take a deep breath, try it again.”

Elsa closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath through her nose, then let it out through her mouth. Chris was momentarily distracted by the minty scent that wafted his way with her exhale. By the time he was focused again, she had the safe open.

“Good girl,” he said, gently moving her aside. He and Scott went straight into the safe to collect their bounty. It was all done in less than two minutes. They returned to the main part of the bank to gather their colleagues and get the hell outta Dodge.

But Elsa wasn’t there when they went to leave, and neither was Scarlett. Chris and Scott exchanged a look of concern.

“She’s already out,” Seb informed them, pounding on the counter. “Five-oh is on the radar. Let’s go.”

The three men scrambled out of the bank and back to the van. Before they even made it all the way, they could hear pounding noises coming from the back. Scott took his place in the driver’s seat, Seb in the front, and Chris climbed into the back where Scarlett was giving Elsa a proper what-for.

“Hold up!” Chris said, pushing himself between the two women. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Scarlett pointed at Elsa. “She pushed the alarm! That’s why the cops were coming!”

“So you dragged her along for the ride?”

Scarlett groaned. “We need leverage if they catch up to us. Now can we please just get the fuck out of here!”

The van squealed down the alley. Reaching for a zip-tie, Chris secured Elsa’s hands behind her back. Scarlett used two bandanas -- too readily available -- to blindfold and gag her. It at least allowed them to shed the suffocating masks.

Once they were away from the police and on a quiet street completely north of where they lived, they let Elsa out of the van. Scarlett swore they knew her address and where her family was from, and there would be hell to pay if Elsa helped in any sort of investigation. Chris waited for Scarlett to be back in the van before instructing Elsa to sing her favorite song to herself before taking off her blindfold. He took one last look at her, trembling and crying quietly to herself there on the curb, before climbing in the back of the van and instructing Scott to get them the hell out of there.

Tags: @themtbmbgirl​​ @keithseabrook27​​ @ulovemelightsout​​ @rosie2801​​ @professorkrasinski​

[yoyoblogss]

personal experiences

Hi guys, it’s me again Yoanna, coming back to overshare my personal life experiences on the internet. In this blog, we’re going to be speaking about the sexualization of POC, specifically POC women, as well as stereotypes we beautiful people face daily and how they correlate with one another. I’ll be mentioning a few articles and a video to talk about these topics. Using these sources, I’ll be answering a question I came across a few days ago, which four of the many voices we encountered in this class speaks to you? How and Why? Let's start with sexualization, sexualization is making someone feel like a sexual object making something sexual. Every day we are being sexualized by the media and capitalized off of it. It’s how the world works, it’s how the media is always money hungry and will sexualize anyone to increase their dollars in their bank account and will shapeshift how people view one another. One day, we love skinny girls, and one day we love big girls specifically with a tiny chub. One day we like men with a dad bod and one day we like men with hard rock abs. Every day, the media makes it hard for us to love ourselves. So let me start with the JLO video, it's one of her many popular songs called Waiting for Tonight. During an assignment I had to do for class, we talked about exoticness, fetishization, and how sexualized this video was. The director himself put jungles in the background to show how exotic JLO is and the women of color in this video. He stuck to the stereotypes of POC women and said yes! Put a jungle in the background and women from different countries with unique features to show how exotic they are! This music video is confined to the day to day stereotypes of POC by including beautiful women from different backgrounds and showing that they’re comfortable in their skin but some might not understand, the way I interpreted the music video, especially the ending was the sexualization of JLO in the water dancing. The director knew that if he showed this part of the video, it would attract more audience because it’s a beautiful Latina in the water even though it was just JLO simply dancing to her music, the outside world would interpret it as the director did. Every time a woman steps out in her clothes or posts a bikini photo confident within herself, others would always degrade them or oversexualize them for no reason. When a woman shows a bit of skin, she’s immediately called the worst names and looked upon differently which SHOULDN'T even be a thing. In our day in age with the upcoming app Tiktok, when anyone posts a video themselves showing a bit of skin, the comments flood with “I’m looking respectfully” which is an odd saying to me because what is the point of saying that? Some people even dare to say “I’m looking disrespectfully”, which is so weird to me and odd because it’s a form of degradation and basically initiating that it’s okay and normal to sexualize them, if I'm looking “respectfully” or “disrespectfully”. Trust me, whenever I post a TikTok with some sort of revealing clothes, people run to the comments and say the same thing to me. I don’t like it, I don't like how normalized it is to do this, it makes me very uncomfortable and I want to hide forever from the internet. In Aparicio, Maria Conchita Alonso described how confined she was to the stereotypes that were made because of her “exotic background”. She talks about how she’s always seen as an object and “half out of her mind”, which in other words, crazy, which is exactly what these stereotypes describe her as. The second you search up “exotic women”, on google and look through their images, all you see is POC women with the caption, “beautiful sexy exotic women” basically listing them as objects for people to stare at and imagine the unimaginable. POC women always struggle with these stereotypes and being seen as “foreign” objects. I feel like what Alonso was saying completely describes how I feel. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been oversexualized and experienced what it’s like to feel like an object. In middle school, I developed earlier than the kids in my grade, guys would make comments about my ass and boobs, slap my ass and boob, and I didn’t understand what everything meant until I started growing older and more knowledgeable. It was wrong but I was too naive. As I started getting older and appreciating the body I was given, full of self-love, I would wear clothes that would accentuate my body and it felt good. I felt beautiful and sexy for myself, no one else. In high school, guys would also make comments about me, calling me sexy, saying sexual things to me at all times, and would talk about having intercourse with me behind my back and to my face. One time a guy looked at me in the face and said, “Suck me.” I was in shock that someone I saw as a friend, nothing more, would say that to me in a public setting, literally in the middle of my English class. It made me feel like an object and sexualized. When I used to be on dating apps, men's sadly first pickup line was, “I’ve never seen anyone so exotic”. Getting called exotic made me feel like I was a special drink they made at resorts that are far out of my budget. It was a weird feeling and something I hope to never feel again. Whenever I would speak Arabic in public, I would have everyone's jaw especially the whites to the ground and them continuously asking me to say something else, teach them a word, or talk about how different it is. During my course, we also stumbled upon identity and how it talks about how they're restricted to these stereotypes placed upon them. In “A Conversation with Latinos on Race”, talks about how they had to change their traditions and who they are to become more accepted in America. Gregory, one of the people in the video talking about his experience, spoke about how he was automatically labeled as an African American because of his skin and voice, which he isn’t. This spoke to me because coming from an immigrant family as a first-generation, it was hard learning American traditions and becoming more socially accepted so I as well felt like I needed to change. My family predominantly speaks Arabic in the house, so it was already a struggle to learn how to speak English. I dressed differently, ate differently, and acted differently in school. I barely ate any traditional food at home anymore when I was a kid because I forced my mom to make American food. No one ever identified me as an Egyptian. Some would assume I was Latina and would automatically speak to me in Spanish which led to me awkwardly cutting them off and saying “I don’t speak Spanish” and walk away. Some would assume I was Indian, but never where I’m actually from until they hear me speak Arabic. In “Light in the Dark”, by Gloria Anzaldua, she mentions how there are always certain expectations on people's race and we can’t control how people perceive us in America. Coming from an Egyptian who’s from Queens, Astoria, predominantly full of people who speak Arabic or different dialects of Arabic, there are many assumptions about them. The assumptions would be that specifically, your father was a cab driver, owns a hookah lounge, has a halal cart, or a deli worker. In school, I would hear kids making fun of Arab kids in my class about how their dad is a cab driver and barely makes money. For some time, I didn’t like admitting that my dad was a cab driver or worked in a deli. Listening to kids being made fun of for their parent's occupations made me scared to be in that same situation. It would take me a really long time to admit that my dad was a cab driver, it felt like my mouth just couldn’t even open and utter the words. I should’ve never felt embarrassed to admit that he was a cab driver or a deli worker because my dad is a very hard worker and did what he can for us to survive but that’s what assumptions do to people. You can’t control how people perceive you. All of these articles plus the video touched me and made me rethink my past experiences. I hope you guys enjoyed this analysis of my experiences and hope it made people with similar experiences like mine feel less alone in this cruel world. Remember, self-love is the best love.

[dailyaudiobible]

01/29/2020 DAB Transcript

Exodus 8:1-9:35, Matthew 19:13-30, Psalms 24:1-10, Proverbs 6:1-5

Today is the 29th day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I’m Brian like every day, and it's great to be here with you on this day as we take the next step forward in the Scriptures. And we’re kind of settling into this new territory that we’ve begun in the book of Exodus, the story of Moses and the children of Israel. And right now, the children of Israel have been enslaved in Egypt, and God is demanding their release through Moses and Aaron and things have not gone so well so far. And, so, we pick up the story today. We’re reading from the Evangelical Heritage Version this week. Exodus chapter 8 and 9 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we have things going on in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, which is the story of the Bible. That's kind of the story of our every day. But we are definitely seeing the plagues descend upon Egypt and the Bible’s saying God’s hardening Pharaoh's heart. So, let’s like explore this for minute. What does that mean? Because that would seem kinda unfair right? Like God’s hardened Pharaoh's heart in advance so that he’s gonna take blow after blow after blow as Egypt is sort of disintegrating but God hardened his heart, so nothing can be done about it. That’s not what’s going on here. Think of yourself from a position of power. Like, you know what you're doing and you have all the bills paid and you have a little bit in the bank…like you have a little sort of place of security and somebody comes along and tells you what you are going to do. Whether you want to or not, you must submit, and humble yourself and obey. That's probably gonna harden your heart. And that’s what’s happening to Pharaoh. He is the king of Egypt. He is the Pharaoh, but he also believes he is the son of the gods, he is a deity himself, he is a god himself. So, “no God is coming into my land and telling me what to do. Who is this God of the Hebrews”, right? So, you can see his posture here. And, so, what's happening is God is systematically certainly showing His authority and power but is also demonstrating to Pharaoh and all of Egypt that the God who has chosen the Hebrew people to be His chosen ones in the world, these are His people that He is doing a new thing through and all of these lesser lower spiritual beings that are being worshiped, all of these false gods that nations and people are following will not stand in the face of the most-high God or the people of the most-high God. Pharaoh hasn't quite learned that lesson, but he is learning it and we will continue that story tomorrow.

And then we get into the book of Matthew. Really, really interesting conversation happens between a…a really good person who has obeyed the Mosaic law and he’s come to the rabbi teacher Jesus asking, “you know, what else do I need to do? Like what…what act, what posture, what do I need to do to have eternal life?” And Jesus said, “you need to obey the commandments.” And the guys like, “well, which commandments?” And Jesus is like, “you don't murder, and you don't commit adultery, and you don't steal, and you shouldn't lie, you shouldn't give false testimony. Honor your father and mother and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Now that idea is certainly in the book of Leviticus. I believe it's also in the book we’re reading, Exodus. I believe it's also in the book of Deuteronomy. It’s definitely in the New Testament, it’s definitely from the lips of Jesus. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Actually, at a later point Jesus will summarize the entire law of God, the Mosaic law that we will read through by saying, “it…it can all be encapsulated, love the Lord your God with all your soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” So, in other words, if you’re doing those things, you are walking the right path, you are in obedience to God. Love your neighbor as yourself. Generally, we interpret that or understand what's being said here as…as the Golden rule, treat others as you would like to be treated. Treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated. And that's right. And that's good and that's true, but it's even deeper than that. We have talked plenty about separation from God as we've experienced it in the Bible. We've also watched Jesus come on the scene, announcing and revealing a kingdom that exists and is happening and is in and among us. What we’re watching in Jesus is the declaration that the separation that existed between God and man can be bridged and is gone, therefore the separation that we feel from one another is also gone. It's not about separation anymore, it's about union. And we…we've already mentioned this. In Jesus high priestly prayer, “make them one as we are one.” Paul's unpacking of all of that describing us as a body with every part irreplaceable and necessary, whether seen or unseen. So, our trajectory is to become aware of this inter connection, this body that we are a part of, that we aren't acting as individuals but as believers in Jesus. We are Christ on earth in this world as the body of Christ because Christ indwells us. And, so wherever we are there also is Christ and we are all over the world. So, this deepens, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” It's deeper than just trying to do for others what you would like to be done for you. It's loving them as yourself. Loving them like they were a part of the you. It's pretty hard to be selfish if you're loving your neighbor as if they were a part of you because than anything you are being selfish about what have to include all of yourself. But it goes deeper than that. If everyone in the body of Christ loved their neighbor as themselves the construct that our culture has created for us, the culture of the lack the one that's telling us constantly that something's missing and we need to find that something and buy that something kinda goes away because there is no lack, it's an illusion. We have what we need, we’re not alone, we’re in this together. We are bound together as one body on this earth that is animated by the very Spirit of God. And I'm not making any of that up and I'm not taking any of that out of context. If anything, I mean context is a huge deal for me, that's what the Bible says. We’ll see that all for ourselves. So, Jesus says, “love your neighbor as you love yourself”, and then the young man says to him, “I have kept all these. What am I still lacking?” Alright, so, there’s this sense that somethings missing. And Jesus told him like, “if you want to be perfect then go sell everything you have and give to the poor and you’ll have treasure in heaven. And then come, follow me.” So, like He's inviting this guy to become a disciple. “Come follow me.” That's what He says to all the people that he follow…that He calls. But Jesus has found the one thing and the man leaves saddened because he had a lot of stuff. This was that particular person's thing, like Jesus found that thing. The guy came to Jesus and was like, “I think…I think I'm doing everything right. I believe that I have earned righteousness before God but I'm just checking with you and Jesus finds the thing that is his hang up and He will find ours too if we’ll let him and then we’ll have to decide if are going to walk away sad or if we’re gonna embrace Him. But we can say some things about this kingdom that Jesus is revealing. We can say that it is a kingdom of forgiveness and that forgiveness is irreplaceable as we talked about yesterday. We can say that this kingdom is in and among everything, it's sown in among all things. So, among all the evil of the world goodness is everywhere among it. So, that as Jesus says, “no one will be able to say, look over there, there’s the kingdom or here, over here, here it is.” Because it's within us. It’s among us. we could say that the kingdom of God is a very interconnected one, one in which we understand our interdependence on one another, one in which we understand that the animating life force, the source is God, and it is the Spirit of God that indwells us. Or we could also say that the kingdom of heaven is…is not a kingdom of lack, it's a kingdom of abundance, but normally we are only measuring that with our five physical senses. We are only measuring abundance by what we can experience with our physicality, with our bodies, ignoring the richness of a sound mind and the beauty of a whole heart. So, if we began to look through the eyes of this kingdom that we’re beginning to discover through the lips of Jesus, we could clearly say that it is in this world and happening right now and we can experience it fully, but we will have to disengage from the kind of cultural traps that we continually find ourselves in - in the world but not of the world. And if we realize that what we’re ultimately after is wholeness here, where our minds and our Spirits and our bodies are in collaboration with the Spirit of the living God within us, then we wouldn't be able to help, but seeing God everywhere and we wouldn't have a sense of abandonment or lack. We would understand we have all we need and there is no lack, there is a never ending supply. This entire world and everything in it, no matter how much we think we have our private property and our own couches that are paid for and like these are our things, everything in this world belongs to God. He is the creator of it, and he has no lack. So, we are beginning to see this kingdom and see that we can be in it. We just need eyes to see and ears to hear.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit again, that's what we ask for, eyes to see and ears to hear. We open ourselves to You. We invite You fully. we declare nothing is off-limits to You after the same fashion that You found the thing that was gonna hold back this rich Young ruler in the book of Matthew, we ask You might reveal those things to us. What are the things that are gonna keep us from seeing Your kingdom? What are the things that are gonna keep us from operating in Your kingdom? A vast wide-open peaceful place where the world can swirl all around us with its chaos, but we are with You and everything is Yours. Come Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the web site, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here. So, be sure to stay tuned and stay connected in any way that you can or anyway that you want to.

The Prayer Wall is there. All kinds of links to different places on social media to interact is there. The Daily Audio Bible Shop is there.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible…if…if what's happening, if this has become a rhythm and it's…it's mattering, if it's bringing life to you then thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174

And is always if you have a prayer request or comment you can hit the Hotline button in the app, the little red button at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that is all for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good afternoon DABbers this is Norm from Massachusetts I have a desperate request. I spent two hours on the phone with my wife who I’m not able to be with right now. She no longer has the will for our marriage and more importantly she no longer has a will to live. So, I’ve sat with her now for a couple hours in Shiva, quietly just praying over her so that she wouldn’t be alone. I need prayer. We need prayer. Pray for our marriage. Pray for her life. Pray with me. Oh God if I have to give up my marriage I will gladly do it but save her life this day. Thank you DABbers. I know there’s no distance or time between prayer and this will all come back and I’ll look forward to a praise report. Amen. Norm from Massachusetts.

Hello, I’m in a bar right now with my husband and I have been a sister with you for four or five years now. I’ve had way too many beers and I __ by this __ I wish you were here with me right now and just pull me out of this. I just need your prayers to get over this right now. Love you. I love you all so very much and I can’t wait to be in heaven if God would have me to be with you all around the Global Campfire. I love you all. I don’t know what else to say. But please I need your prayers and deliverance in Jesus’ name. I love you all. I love you Brian I love you Jill. I will persevere through this all. I know I will. I know I’ll get over this. I know I will by the grace of God by His mercy His endurance and His strength but I need your prayers.

Greetings DAB family today is Tuesday, 21 January 2020. This is Daddy’s Dreamer from Tampa or DDFT for short. James 5:16 says, “therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its affect.” So, this morning on our way to school I pretty much lost my cool on my kids. I had lit several small infractions amount to a huge mountain and my response was embarrassing. I was yelling. My kids were yelling. It ended in tears and angry goodbyes for the day. After I calmed down, I was able to see my faults and where…and we’ve all apologized since and resumed normal interactions, but it still should never have occurred. I’m calling to confess my sins before you and the Lord and ask for, dare I, patience in dealing with my kids. I’m also calling respond to Yvonne in California. Sister, I heard you and I’m praying for you and for God’s guidance and protection over your grown babies. DABbers I love you. Brian, Jill, and team I love you. New DABbers keep pressing play. This is DDFT, stay positive and always let His light shine through you.

Good evening family I’m Anonymous calling from London and I just couldn’t go to sleep today without just appreciating the message that was given today on the 21st of January and the whole…I’ve never seen the story of Joseph in that way that is whole family…everything that he knew and loved was turned…like turned against him and he had every right to feel depressed, he had every right to be angry yet he…he still did things, like he was still working, he was still doing his part and that easily allowed God to bless him. And because…I’ve been feeling really low and as I was listening today and having my own like private Bible study in the morning I had the image of like me in like a pit and then like a torchlight and it was like God reminding me that even though I felt like I was in the darkness He was searching for me, He’s been looking for me and there’s hope. And the whole idea of hope like something to look forward to and then the verse Jeremiah 29 verse 11 is what I’ve been meditating on lately. So, I just want to thank you. It’s my first time…first year listening in and so far I have been blessed every single day. So, God bless you all and yeah just keep…

Good morning DAB family this is Healing Heart from Gaithersburg Maryland. Well this morning Brian you had been in tears. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard the story of Joseph through entirety. I am sitting here crying and weeping as you tell that story and then your recap because I am going through a similar situation where I keep questioning why me, why me, why me, why me and then for you to tell the story and then recap the way you did explaining how, hey life is a struggle you’re gonna go through some things but keep your faith, hold on, God is with you and in the end you will come out a survivor, something good will come out of it, there will be sunshine amongst all these dark clouds. And I thank you Brian for this beautiful heart wrenching tear dropping…whew…story this morning. I am so glad to be a part of the DAB family. I’ve been here since January 1st and I am so pleased. Every day I can’t wait to get up in the morning to get started. I thank you and I love you all and I pray for you all.

Hello, my DAB family Terry the Trucker here, Wednesday morning. We’ve got our load shifted back after the near close call accident yesterday. We’re headed towards Texas, but I call with some awesome great news, a blessing. I mean it’s just a great big halleluiah. I am so excited to say that I have been cleared and got the position at the new job. I’m going to have weekends off. I will be able to work on our bus ministry on Saturdays and be in church on Sundays and I just…I can’t wipe the smile off my face. Thank you all for the prayers. I can’t thank you enough. It’s…wow…I mean that’s…that’s how I feel. I mean I‘ve got that __ finger going on. Alright as I drive down these roads, I just want you to know I continue to pray for each and every one of you. And just…hmmm…I’m so…I’m so happy. I’m probably gonna clean this truck out when I get back. I’ll unload Thursday and probably go ahead and clean this one out. Check engine lights back on its third week of running. It’s due to break down anyway. Check engine lights are coming on, ABS lights, traction control, sensor lights. So, yeah, it’s due to go back in the shop. So I’m not going get back in a sub truck. Guy says he’ll have me a truck at the end of the week. So, good Lord willing I’ll be…I’ll be in a truk at the new job next month. I hope this gets played by then. Y’all have a blessed day. Terry the Trucker loves each and every one of you and like I said I’m praying for y’all.

I am so thankful for the new people, the new listeners calling in to let us know that you’re a new listener. This is Anne Charlotte North Carolina and that uplifts and encourages me a lot. I’m in my 12th year now and Daily Audio Bible is part of my routine, it’s a way of life for me and I am so thankful, so thankful for Daily Audio Bible. And I’m so thankful to hear from new listeners because it just says God is at work in a world, He is reaching people and that is very encouraging. And I love Brian, what you shared today about when Peter walked on the water. And I’ve always tended to think of God not being happy with me and the way you said it I’ve never thought of that even though I’ve been to seminary, I’ve been a Christian a very long time, that Jesus might’ve been saying you did it, why did you start doubting because you could have kept on, you could have kept on walking toward me in the water. That just hit me so much that brought me to tears that whatever we’re called to do in our work and our life that Jesus would say you’re doing it. I am giving you what you need, and you can keep going. I do pro-life mission work and it’s really hard and often want to quit because it’s so…such a hard mission work to do but that encouraged me so much. Thank you, Brian. God bless you.

[teacher-lavin]

Shawn’s Story*

Shawn’s fable unfolds along the banks of the rivers that authors, Langston Hughes and James Joyce traveled. Also, here to be found is the River Delaware as it flows through Philadelphia and environs. Among other themes, this is a tale of incarceration and deportation. Waiting at the story’s edges, readers will notice that we also meet with a lot of homework,  –and a very discerning librarian.

(Above) Image Taken from Salmon Ireland’s web site (Salmonireland.com), is a landscape photograph of the River Foyle.

The Letter

Hi Pops, thanks for your letter. Too bad, the prison blocked a lotta words out. What I got was that you’re getting to go out with work crews to pick up trash on the highways. It must be weird being chained together like that and having guards with shotguns and such watch over you guys  while you’re just basically cleaning the roadside. I really like the part where you said that you all go up to the highway right next to the river and that you always take a minute from sweepin or whatever  to look out over the riverwaves and see the sun reflect on the swelling banks and feel the breeze. So, that was a really good idea where you said if after work some day I walk to the far end of the Wal-Mart parking lot on Delaware Avenue where it comes up on the river that I’ll be looking out over the same Delaware River as you seen earlier, and I’ll be seeing the same waves, and the same currents, and the same mists and breezes playing off the wave- tops, hearin the same sounds and tasting that little bit of sea salt that the river has from its trip out to the ocean. Imma do it. I miss you, Pops. If I go down that parking lot where it looks across to  Camden on the opposite bank on the same day maybe when y’all been out on the highway cleanup crew in your orange prison suits, I’ll be able to catch up with your spirit, at least. And, I’ll say all the stuff you used to listen to me carrying on about. How muad I get at everything and how sad and sorry I feel about other stuff. Remember? I ain’t seen Mom or Dad at all for a long time. But Aunt Helen came down from the convent last week and helped me clean the place. So, we scoured the joint from “stem to stern” just like you always used to say. “FROM STEM TO STERN.” I kept repeating that and then Aunt Helen and me was laughing about the way you used to say it and about how you talk and your Irish accent, “From Stem To Stern,” like a pirate or something. Haha. Don’t get mad. I miss you. Pops. Love You. Shawn.

Saturday Morning: The Library

Shawn:  Did you see a piece of paper with writing on it? … like a letter?

Librarian: (Curtly, not looking up from her desk.) No.

Shawn: I was in here after work last night trynna do my homework, and wrote the letter, and now I can’t find it.

Librarian:  (Still not looking up.) Why don’t you check around the table where you always work.

Shawn:  Where’s the maps of Ireland. They say my grandfather might have to go back there even though he doesn’t want to.

Librarian: (Still looking down. Staccato.) Geography. Under Great Britain.

Shawn: (With an angry edge.) It’s not in Britain.

Librarian: (Looking up.) Yes, It is. Aisle 4, Shelves 10 through 17. Clearly labeled Great Britain including Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Shawn: (Pointing to the green tattoo on his forearm) Just remember, 26 Plus 6 equals ONE.

Librarian: (Loudly, Pointing Finger at Shawn.) Quiet.

Shawn: (Louder.) No!

Franklinville High School

I had already found the letter on the floor in the back of the classroom while grading papers and cleaning the room on Friday evening. That’s when I read the letter and realized that Shawn must have dropped it that day during class. Shawn was new in our school. His body language was terse. He seemed beaten and bent inward. He refused to make eye contact. He never talked in class. When I asked him why he slept on his desk everyday, he said that he worked most nights and that he was exhausted all day. That’s all I knew about Shawn. But then, I looked at the address on his file and recognized that the neighborhood where Shawn lived was near the  block where my grandfather owned a bar many decades ago. Jimmy’s Pub opened at 7 in the morning for guys coming off the night shift at the Stetson factory and for other graveyard workers. And some 7 a.m. drinkers were guys on their way out to jobs they hated in center city offices and, then, there were the guys who had been out all night drinking and wanted one last shot before they did their daily perish. Cousins right off the boat from Ireland lived above the bar. I worked there while I was going to college. It was a hole of a place where I learned the codes of the Belfast streets thousands of miles away, streets that I’d never actually seen. I could imagine Shawn’s grandfather, his aunt and the way that prison must have  shaken them up and spit them out emotional wrecks fractured by fear, frustration and anger, fractured people living fractured lives.

Over the weekend, I read the letter over and over and wondered how Shawn would feel about my seeing his message to his grandfather. I put it in an envelope and wrote a simple note, “Found on Floor of Classroom” and, then, I noticed that I had planned for our class had to read Modern writers like Langston Hughes and James Joyce. So, I decided to begin on Monday with with a meditation. I planned for us to read the Langston Hughes poem that begins, “I’ve Known Rivers.”

Before class, when I gave the envelope to Shawn, he tore it open and sat down immediately in one of the desks at the front, disclosing the letter’s folds and smoothing out the page while he read it, running his fingers along each line as he read. Class started and he looked at me and I smiled at him hoping to silently say, “yes,” with the smile, yes, I read the letter. Shawn hesitated, looked down, then looked up again and smiled back, nodding. Then, I handed out a worksheet asking the entire class to meditate on the lines that Langston Hughes wrote as a young poet, traveling along the Mississippi River in a train headed South:

“I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

I played the music that the jazz musician, Gary Bartz composed to accompany the Hughes poem. I asked just one question beneath the poem’s lines.

“As you read, how do you connect the poet’s rivers to his soul?”

After class:

Shawn:  Mister, thanks for finding the letter.

Me:  I felt lucky to read it, Shawn.

Shawn: I’m not sending it cuz I just learned that my granda is going to the prison’s hospice which means that he’s very sick.

Me: (Pausing, lump in throat.) He must be very proud of you. I think you should send it to him or give it to him when you visit.

Shawn: I ain’t got the time or the money.

Me: Still, he must be proud of you.

Shawn: I don’t know if they’re gonna send him back to Ireland or keep him here cuz he’s so sick. My aunt told me about this hospice thing on Friday night when she visited from the convent in Allentown where she works.

Me: The worst part must be not knowing what’s gong to happen, right?

Shawn: (Crying, as he looked away as if he were seeing the far shore of a river through his tears, and quoting the poem.) And My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Me: It’s quite a poem, Shawn.

Shawn: I’ll think about it at work. It’s really good.

Me: Don’t forget your homework. (Smiling, ironically).

Shawn: I never forget my homework.  (Smiling back, ironically).

Homework

Translate the following passage from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake into your own words. Remember that this excerpt is taken from the end of Anna Livia Plurabelle’s section of Joyce’s novel. Hint: The River Liffey is the scene of this passage, all of which occurs not during the day but at night deep in the language of a very long dream about all rivers.

Monday Evening: The Library

Shawn: Do you wanna hear my homework?

Librarian: I’m busy. Don’t you work today?

Shawn: I skipped work to do my homework first then walk up to the Wal-Mart parking lot to be on the river for a minute.

Librarian: (Smiling). Aren’t you very organized, Shawn?

Shawn: This guy from Dublin’s book is all rivers. You wanna hear my translation of his story about rivers?

Librarian: Yes. But quietly.

Shawn: I’ll whisper it. It’s even better that way.

Librarian: You are a very strange young man. Have you been told this?

Shawn:   (whispering)

I can barely hear you with the waters of the river.

The waters chitter. The bats flitter.

Are you not going home alone?

Think of the waters of the River Liffey in Dublin?

Think of the waters of Lough Neagh near Belfast?

I feel as old as that Elm Tree over there.

This is Shawn’s story. This is Seamus’s story.

Good Night, Grand farther, the farther away you go.

Shawn means John.

Seamus means James.

Who were John and James sons or daughters of?

Goodnight, Pops.

Tell me another story about plants and rocks.

Please tell me.

Beside the waters, there hither like the Delaware River.

There thither like the Liffey, the Shannon, the River Erne,

The River Boyne, The River Foyle.

Now, I’m with you beside the rivering waters

The hitherandthithering waters of

Goodnight ……..

Librarian: (Looking up, mouth open in astonishment.) And you wrote that based on the passage in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake?

Shawn: (Nodding. Smiling. Agitated). And now I have to get over to the Wal-Mart parking lot to listen to see the river and tell it what I can hear and telepath it all to my granda who’s up north waiting for the words to echo their way up and back to him.

Librarian: You seem relieved.

Shawn: Of course, it’s sad but I have to say good bye.

(Above) Clinton Cahill’s exhibition “Illuminating the Wake,” which are Cahill’s interpretive drawings on the text of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, synthesizing his encounters with the novel’s dreamscapes. Taken from the web site of the James Joyce Centre in Dublin (https://jamesjoyce.ie/illuminating-the-wake-no-31/).

(Above) Image from web site of Monica and Tyler Aiello’s gallery exhibition titled, “I’ve known Rivers,” which are images based upon the poetry of Langston Hughes (http://www.studioaiello.net/).

*All persons mentioned in this story are fictional (and bear no connectin to actual, historical persons) with the exception of Langston Hughes and James Joyce. All places, also, with the exception of the Wal-Mart parking lot overlooking the Delaware River also are fictional.  

(Below) Youtube Musical Composition by Gary Bartz, based upon Langston Hughes’ poetic lines, “I’ve Known Rivers.”

[cainromainelettuce]

( non-binary ) haven’t seen CAIN ROMANOV around in a while. the BILL SKARSGARD lookalike has been known to be (+) RIGHTEOUS & (+) AMBITIOUS, but HE/THEY can also be (-) EVASIVE & (-) UNTRUSTING. The 24 year old is a SENIOR majoring in BUSINESS. I believe they’re living in EMERITUS, but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( snot goblin. 20. EST. she/they. )

surprise !! i am the snot goblin ! (aka james aka saige aka amos aka aleta) !! i very much apologize for this intro being late !! and also for possibly being pretty long.

EDIT: i forgot to mention but 1. like this if u’d like to plot w/ him !! obv !! and then 2. if discord is easier for any of u, my thing is emo stan #3644 uwu

TW: CULT LIFE, HEROIN USAGE / ADDICTION, DRUG ADDICTION / USE / ABUSE, EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION, ABUSE, MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES ( PTSD, ANXIETY ). if i forgot anything PLEASE tell me !!

a e s t h e t i c s

dangling limbs from tree branches, yellowed book pages, opened bottles of vintage wine, oversized sweaters and deep under eyes, bleached denim, worn leather gloves, cat hair against black cloth, fields of wheat, broken windows, descending staircases, tight-lipped smiles during public appearances, golden skies, light spilling from windows, stumbling over one's own words, wire-framed beds, linens, wool scarves, making the wrong decisions; running, from others and yourself.

general information !!

full name: cain alexei romanov

nickname(s): cock and ball torture, N/A

b.o.d. - feb 19th, fuckin pisces

label(s): the fallen, the phoenix, the crestfallen, etc. etc.

height: 6′4″ jfc

hometown: rochester, ny babey !!

sexuality: bi...? bi. yes. bi.

pinterest

stats

biography !!

cain, like all of my other children, was born into a life of privilege. his father’s a senator of new york and his mother’s a philanthropist; both pretty prominent figures. cain is the eldest of five.

he was raised in mind of keeping a good public reputation, taught to be the perfect citizen. essentially, he was a golden child who could really do no wrong. as a child, he’d always aim to please his parents in any way he could.

this included joining several clubs during school, such as model UN, debate, DECA, etc. etc. as well as a few sports (soccer, track, basketball, lacrosse -- all throughout the years, not at once). pretty sure he’s been a class president once or twice, and has been in the lead for valedictorian.

his whole thing was that he was supposed to be perfect. volunteered on the weekends at homeless shelters and food banks and like...he just did The Most. the absolute most

this pleased his parents, and he never had a problem with them. life was good. they attended church on sundays, sometimes wednesdays, always did things as a Family. like, we’re talking family dinners and christmas photoshoots and new year eve parties.

probably lived in a gated community tbh

he went into college strong, started off as a double major in political science and business, lookin’ to take after both his parents. he’d Always been fairly close to tatiana, being around the same age as her. nothing freaky ever happened among them, and i wouldn’t have really called them...friends, if that makes sense? they were confidantes, they vented to each other for whatever reasons at the time.

however this whole ~do no wrong~ bearing was a charade. in the community and his families’ eye, cain was just this precious, hardworking citizen who gave back when possible.

those who actually, genuinely knew him knew he was just a dick lmfao

arrogant, harrowing, and an outright bully who tore down others when he felt like it -- often unprovoked. he was the senator’s son and a rich one at that, and ever since middle school he was just...mean !

because of his father and his family’s general position in the community, tattlers were the ones getting in trouble rather than cain, who’d often go without punishment for his attitude.

like...was That Bitch who’d actually, genuinely look down at somebody if they had less than him. just an absolute narcissistic dickhead who only cared about like, maybe two or three people outside of his family.

his only redeeming quality was probably his protectiveness over his siblings tbh -- even if he wasn’t ... the best person, nobody was rly allowed to fuck w/ his family.

this carried into college, he probably joined one of the frats too, y’know. known for keeping his composition even when others resorted to violence, ‘cos he never liked to get physical. it would’ve been bad for press, y’know ??

sometime during college, two important things happened.

the first one is that he became a sort of...middleman? broker? he wasn’t the one creating/growing what he was selling, but he wasn’t the one dealing them. y’know, he was the middleman. took drugs and sold them to dealers to sell, for profit, for funsies. very hush-hush for the obvious reasons.

the second is that he met earl and may meyers. they were fellow volunteers at a thanksgiving food drive, and the older couple were immediately drawn to cain -- and him to them, essentially. to this day he can’t tell you what about them had been so appealing. just, the air around them was something else entirely. some would probably call it unhinged. they were kind folks, very down to earth, very religious and warmhearted. they liked his name being cain a whole lot; told him that he reminded him of their late son.

i’d say the beginning of this was late junior year for cain. the couple volunteered more and more at the same places as cain, as often as he did -- which, in retrospect was odd -- but cain hadn’t really known better. being the Good Samaritan he acted as, he kept talking to them. it became a genuine friendship. a few months into it, they had started talking about like...the sin of wealth and what it does to your soul, god choosing only a select few to be saved when he eventually cleanses the earth, etc. etc. they claimed that cain was special, one of those to be selected, they could see it in his aura, etc. etc.

it was...oddly appealing to him? like hmm..maybe i am being constrained by capitalism and disappointing god!

but like...this was mostly because of a lot of emotional manipulation for a duration of months -- and he had never once suspected anything like that to be happening. cain had always been so sure of himself, that he’d never imagined one day being manipulated, even if he was manipulative himself.

earl and may told him that they were going to leave rochester, that there were so many more who had the same ideals as them -- it was time to join them, to be saved. cain held off from this, as a senior in college by now.

after all, he had his perfect lil family and a good side-business going on, and he had a long term girlfriend who put up with his shenanigans. cain was still an absolute asshole to others but he had at least found his crowd to all be collectively awful and full of themselves, y’know?

over winter break, however, cain had a change of heart pretty suddenly. 

for the third important thing had happened.

it had started off as a pretty average, normal day. christmas had gone and passed -- it was one of the days between christmas and new years eve, y’know? a period of days where time nor place is real. like walmart at midnight, or an empty 7/11 parking lot. during a seemingly normal conversation about his ancestry with his mother, she had suddenly broken down in sobs.

it was during this discussion that she revealed, to cain only -- that he was not his father’s son.

the beginning of vaughn and adelaide’s marriage had a pretty...rocky start, to say the least, and in a night of petty anger, adelaide had cheated on vaughn. this resulted in the pregnancy that wound up with cain.

the news rocked cain’s world in a very bad way, the sort of way that breaks a person. his entire life he looked up to his parents, did everything they ever asked of him, molded himself into perfection for the hope of being a sliver of a man his father was. and to learn that his father was not, actually, his father?

within the week he’d gotten into several altercations, both sober and drunk, and had landed in county jail overnight. nobody knows where cain went on new years eve, but he hadn’t skipped town until the third -- according to tatiana, who had received one last gift from him on the 2nd (her birthday).

then, he was gone. it wasn’t a missings person ordeal -- cain had made it very known that he was leaving rochester and that he had skipped town. hadn’t even broken up with his girlfriend before doing so. hell -- hadn’t even told the people he worked for. 

BEGINNING OF CULT / DRUG / MOST OF THE TRIGGER WARNINGS

only earl and may knew where cain went. because he went with them to the place they had told him so much about. this was the fourth most important thing to happen to him, because it changed his life.

cain didn’t know what a cult looked like, but it felt pretty accurate to hollywood’s interpretations. they lived separate from society in rural new york -- not nearly as far away as cain would’ve liked, but thank god in the long run for that. the people wore white, linens and cotton. there was no technology, just prayer and daily chores. money meant nothing, there.

i want to keep this part relatively short, so i’ll try my hardest. cain was only in the cult for three-ish months before he escaped. the beginning was grand -- it was peaceful, it was mind-clearing. he was treated as something special, his name being some sort of ... message, a sign that he’d been a gift for the group. that he’d be, ultimately, an eventual leader for them. however -- the longer he stayed with them, the more apparent it became that he wasn’t the messager they had long waited for.

he began slipping up. they became displeased with him. punishments occurred. sometimes once a week, sometimes multiple. he remembers hundreds of hands, pulling and tugging and gripping and begging -- asking him to repent, please, repent, and submergence on more than one occasion. these were not the worst.

 they were convinced that he couldn’t truly be cleansed of his sins unless he forgot his past life.

fun fact: heroin in small doses, daily, can lead to memory loss.

though it’d only been around three months of this -- it really felt longer to cain. time wasn’t a concept. there was only the ground they walked on, and god, and that was that.

drugged and weakened but still kickin’, he had gotten into a particularly violent, brutal fight with earl. this was the last straw. cain had attempted to murder his ‘brother’. this led to his next punishment.

in a particularly twisted reenactment / retelling, cain had been branded with the cult’s interpretation of the mark of cain (they were going to be accurate and place it upon his forehead, but after a lot of resistance [he bit somebody] it was, begrudgingly, placed atop his heart instead) and left for dead in the middle of nowhere.

by all means, he probably should’ve died. by miracle, though cain was no longer a believer -- he was found by a farmer.

END OF CULT / DRUG / MOST OF THE TRIGGER WARNINGS. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. STILL MENTIONS OF TRAUMA / MENTAL HEALTH / RECOVERY BEYOND THIS POINT.

by early april he’d been reunited with his family. things went very fast, suddenly, for him. recovering from his forced addiction, and the trauma he’d been put in within only a small amount of months -- and his father’s reputation -- his mother’s inability to look him in the eye -- cain took matters into his own hands and, rather than return to lockwood, put in his transfer to hendrix.

because he’s a grown man who, while recovering from being in a cult, can still make his own decisions even if they’re irrational. he should’ve taken a year off, really, and recover. but he couldn’t imagine staying in his house, either, and generally ?? his mind was just a very messy place.

he went to hendrix a s a p, before his term in the summer even began. he wound up at hendrix a few weeks (like...three?) before the lockwood kids and was very dismayed to find out that oh, coincidence, there’s an abroad semester attending !!

so that’s sort of where he’s at rn.

personality !!

okay so...douchebag cain is No More. they’re retired.

to the hendrix students they’ve familiarized themself with, they’re a pretty quiet person. well-meaning, kind enough if not a little sarcastic. sort of distant, not much for parties. smokes weed and like, drinks occasionally, but not much else. definitely doesn’t do anything harder. 

they’ve got four cats. that’s their entire personality. four cats. they got them all after transferring to hendrix and like ... no regrets ?

i imagine their parents still pay for their schooling ‘cos it’s not like their father Knows that cain’s not his child. if anything, vaughn just thinks that cain suffered a mental breakdown and needed a break.

anyways. they love their cats a lot. like, probably has photos of them in their wallet.

as mentioned above, their memory is pretty...fucked up right now. they don’t forget anything major, but there are days where it takes them a while to remember faces or names and sometimes they wake up and won’t know where they are.

not that they really...sleep a lot? they have night terrors, which fuck with their sleep schedule. they sleep only for a few hours each night because the nightmares are too bad.

cain suffers from severe touch aversion. skin-to-skin contact of any sort is enough to send them into a pretty bad panic attack. they wear leather gloves more often than not, because it helps without hindering them too much. they’re not the biggest fan of body contact in general, even with clothes, but it won’t send them into a panic like bare skin will. they make sure their few friends know that they don’t really like physical contact at all.

they’re dealing with PTSD, attends therapy every week. keeps an entire journal where they write b/c it helps them cope. it’s like, everything to them.

they’re...sort of like...blunt? they won’t go out of their way to be like ‘hey i joined a cult and it fucked me up pretty badly’ but they won’t lie about it either if the topic somehow comes to that. they don’t like delusions, but they don’t like drawing unnecessary attention to them either.

lockwood students being at hendrix makes them pretty anxious, just because they were looking to sort of ... rebuild themself into a better person, and like pretty much most students at lockwood knows how much of a massive tool they used to be. not to mention like, their plugs and customers they screwed over by leaving, and their ex girlfriend who they’re still probably in love with ?? but it’s just complicated now.

smokes weed to soothe them rather than just get high. is probably stoned often.

doesn’t really like cars! or swimming! or crowds. doesn’t like to feel trapped.

whenever they’re overwhelmed and needs to be away from everything, they’ve developed a habit of climbing into trees. they won’t suddenly go jump in a tree during a conversation, but more so at night or when they need to think.

probably trying to redeem themself in some sort of way. because while they want to avoid the lockwood students as much as possible, that’s not right. they want to fix the shit they’ve done and be a better person, because the whole...situation they’ve been in has opened their eyes.

uuuhh...there are days where they forget that tatiana’s dead. so that’s sad.

i wouldn’t be surprised if people from lockwood were suspicious of cain, considering they left rochester only a week or so before tatiana went missing, and just so happened to come to hendrix around the same time eva went missing ??

oh !! cain developed a stutter, and their voice is a little damaged from...screaming. a lot. in general they look a little gaunt, a little unhealthy. 

they can still definitely hold a conversation, and like i said they’re pretty...lowkey. soft, sort of. generally a quiet person and while they’re not the most social, they won’t be a direct asshole or anything. likes people! just...has low energy.

goes by he/they, doesn’t really care which one as he alternates pretty frequently.

dropped the political science part of his major and like...unfortunately is very much unhappy with being a business major atm. he might just go through another four years of college in a diff major or fuck off all together.

EDIT: i forgot to mention that he’s sort of really into the investigation of the cult he was part of b/c they’re still like...out there. also fascinated by the watershed app and shit, ‘cos they fucking...hate this shit with a passion. probably willing to stick their nose into places they shouldn’t

wanted connections !!

so first and foremost, cain would’ve been known around lockwood. connections relating to that would be v much appreciated !!

mostly enemies or people they’ve wronged, tbh, ‘cos he was a massive dick.

exes they’ve dumped, hook ups, ex-friends, people he’s gotten into arguments or fights with.

his ex gf would be gr8 . if anybody would like some angst.

uuhhh i’d imagine he’d know a few of the other prominent families from rochester, especially. not to say that they would’ve all gotten along.

hendrix pals !! give me some solid friendships based on mutual respect.

people cain used to receive drugs from and people he used to send those drugs to.

ex-party pals ??

people suspicious of them b/c cain was/is a very suspicious person. people still angry at them.

let them RECONNECT and FIX FRIENDSHIPS

people he’d bully or fuck with or whatever.

wholesome shit. angst shit. slowburns, anyone ?!? enemies to friends. friends to enemies. enemies to bigger enemies.

i’m not taking hook-ups for....obvious reasons.

but sexual tension is welcomed. maybe a sexting thing ??

ppl they DON’T even know that well but hATE his dAD because FUCK POLITICIANS y’know ?!?

old pals from lockwood, if i didnt mention that.

i imagine a lot of conversations w/ lockwood kids begin like ‘this is where u fucked off to, huh?’ b/c like....they told everybody they were ditching rochester. it wasn’t a secret or a shock. but it’s still like huh. u bastard.

people who are soft for them ??

people who are hard on him ??

make his life difficult but also uuuhh uwu him

[broadhurstblog-blog]

A rough draft/timeline...

Once upon a time, I was a quiet child, who excelled in sports and could string together good sentences every now and again.

I received a certificate at the end of my first year in a boy’s secondary school in East Hertfordshire, by my departing English teacher called Ms Prole. It was certified that I was  ‘Most Daydreaming Pupil.’

I was a child who lived inside his imagination, thought deeply about things. I had a fair amount of friends, most of them being at least two years older than me.

We would break into old bomb shelters, explore hard, found a small woods that contained concrete bunkers, and convinced ourselves we had discovered a secret, disused American airbases. I would go on long bike rides, often finding great secluded bodies of water that contained hard to catch fish. I played for a local bottom of the league football team, on often flooded fields that used to be paddocks.

Then something changed.My granddad died when I was twelve.Losing a wonderfully wise man whose wisdom I took for granted, well, it hit me really hard.My thoughts seemed to constantly focus on death.Over the course of the next year or so, my behaviour changed drastically, I became extremely undisciplined, argumentative, I got suspended from school on several occasions.With the help of an Educational Officer – psychiatrists and psychologists took an interest in me.After a few sessions with various medical professionals, my parents were informed with confidence that I had a condition called manic depression and that it was caused by a  chemical imbalance/ deficiency of a salt in my brain.After being sure that my heart, kidney or liver was free from defects, I was prescribed Lithium Carbonate.

I took the medication most days between the ages of 14 and 18.

At first, my behaviour did not improve, and it was decided that I should spend time in an adolescent unit of the psychiatric wing of a hospital near St. Albans.

It was a very strange place, most of the resident children there were unwanted orphans I seem to remember.

A lot of the nurses were very heavy-handed in their restraint techniques, and doctors loved nothing more than to sedate those of us not willing to take part in various group activities.

The heavy-handed ways, the use of an exclusion room and the sedation syrup, for even the smallest of infractions – it makes me question the ethics and morals of some of the staff, but nothing I was privy to was against the law as far as I can tell. (There has been stories in the news recently about the police investigating historic abuse allegations, I can’t testify to being abused, but it certainly wasn’t the holiday camp that the staff tried to portray to my parents. Maybe the memories of that place would have been a lot worse without a father and mother looking out for me).  

After a couple of months I was back to school.

I was the shadow of my former daydreaming self, but I no longer displayed as much unruly behaviour.

I had lost virtually all my friends, I was increasingly paranoid, socially withdrawn.

I was behind in my school work, and I wasn’t able to catch up.

By the time I was 15 I had the choice of resitting the year or joining another school out of the area 18 miles away, to be in the fourth form where nobody knew me.

So I opted to leave a pretty decent boys-only comp with a Christian ethos, to go to a mixed comp that used to be a grammar school, but which had become a third-rate egalitarian mess.

It is safe to say that I did not respond well to the lowering of educational standards. By the final term of my second attempt at being a fourth form pupil, I was ‘asked to leave’.

I left the school at the age of 16, without any experience of the fifth form. I went to the regional college for two years and completed a couple of NVQ modules in I.T.  

I spent most of my college time in the library or playing basketball in the gym.

The point here is that I am not convinced I was mentally ill.

Maybe I was, but I do not think that medication/psychiatric treatment helped me.

The major thing that helped me become a less self-destructive force was *time*.

The death of a close family member really haunted my mind, and I did not know how to deal with it.

My childish poetry turned dark and very cryptic, unfortunately, the caring adults in my life who were interpreting my private words without my permission, they were totally off the mark in concluding that my prose was a sign of me being suicidal. I was certainly crying out for help, but my words were actually full of fear about death, not a single syllable expressed a desire to die.

I wasn’t sleeping much, and prolonged lack of sleep can affect behaviour a lot,

I stopped playing football,

I stooped going on adventures,

I stopped daydreaming.

Lack of exercise can cause serious problems, especially in a child who was once very active.

Add puberty to the mix. . .

I do not think Lithium was the answer to whatever was happening. And how did the medication affect the development of my fragile brain?

I guess that question is impossible for me to ever answer.

I was lucky to have a good family GP who was close to retirement, a doctor from an older generation who was in agreement with me that I would be better off without medication.

As soon as I was eighteen he helped me gradually decrease my doses until I was on the medication no more.

I lacked a lot of confidence, but had no problem finding work with the occasional kick up the backside from my father.

After running into a few dead ends, I eventually became a cellarman/barman in an unusually well run small family pub that was slightly off the beaten track.

In my mid-twenties I moved to Manchester with my licensee certificate in hand, but instead of running a pub, I ended up working in a mind-numbing call centre on behalf of a royal Scottish bank.

By the age of 30, I was a homeowner.

On paper, things seemed good. I heard from a reliable source that my parents were proud of me.

I was unhappy. The relationship with my supposed future wife was on the rocks. I was tired of being a battery chicken trying to get people into debt. I was drinking too much. I had put on a lot of weight. I think I might have been slightly depressed.

Then one evening there was a TV show on, presented by Stephen Fry, it was about living with Bipolar Disorder (The new name for manic depression.)

I think it was on at about the same time that the disability discrimination act came into force.

I was struggling with timekeeping and discipline at work.

Home life was not happy. I was a little drunk and somehow became convinced it was a good idea to talk about my ‘mental health history’ with my partner, and to my manager at work the next day.

Things went downhill very quickly from there.

I went to a doctor, got referred to a psychiatrist.

After a 30 minute consultation, it was decided that I had a mild version of ‘Bipolar II’ And Lithium Carbonate was being prescribed to me. It didn’t agree with me, and I abruptly stopped taking it. Bad idea.

I was a mess. After about 2 years I had split with my partner, mindlessly took my name off the mortgage agreement. I struggled to stay in regular work because of my erratic self-destructive behaviour. I was on benefits for a couple of years.

Eventually, I got a job as an assistant manager, in a betting shop of all places. It was an interesting few years, but working for a morally challenged employer can eventually take its toll on one’s spirit.

This is when I ‘gave up’. I would get a sick note from my local medical centre once a month, claiming I was depressed, etc.I started claiming Employment Support Allowance and Housing Benefit because of my supposed ‘disability.’.The money was more than enough to exist on as part of a house share in a diverse student area in south-central Manchester. At some point a cannabis smoker moved into the house I was barely existing in.It didn’t become long before an occasional toke turned into a regular habit. It took a year or so, but I eventually became undoubtedly mentally ill. I was not self medicating, I smoked weed because I enjoyed smoking it, I loved getting ‘high.’  

My behavior gradually started changing for the worse over the course of about half a year. I went to doctors complaining of anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia etc. I told them about my cannabis habit too. The young funky doctor referred me to a young hip psychiatrist, who after 5 minutes of questions, decided that   Quetiapine may be the answer to my woes. I wasn’t getting any better, and I gradually stopped taking the medication. I started smoking cannabis again.    

I was under the influence of what I’ll call acute mania not long after reading ‘The Cameron Delusion.’ I am fortunate that was the last book I read before I became undeniably mentally ill.

At the height of my illness, it was like I was inside a vivid daydream like I was fast asleep and wide awake at the same time. It is hard to explain. I was aware I was ill though, I sought help. It was eventually decided I should be sectioned, and I disagreed, so a bunch of health workers accompanied by police officers came to my front door. One policeman with impeccable customer service skills informed me I would have to be restrained with cuffs for my own safety, and I was escorted into the back of a police van. The police chauffeured me to the hospital, where I became a reluctant resident/client in a locked ward for about 6 or 7 weeks.

I was forced to take a cocktail of 4 mind-altering drugs on a daily basis. A psychiatrist would see me for about five minutes, once a week. I was told after the sixth or seventh short consultation that I could be released under the condition that I carried on taking the drugs. A social worker visited me on two occasions in the two months after my release from the hospital. Assured I was taking the medication, the visits stopped. I didn’t mention to the social worker that I was gradually lowering the doses I was taking. Within days of the last visit, I had eventually weened myself of the medication completely. It took several months, but eventually, I got a job.

And I have been well, in full-time employment for about a year now, without any problems.

I don’t use cannabis anymore either of course.

And I haven’t knowingly talked to a doctor since my time in the hospital.Mind-altering drugs just do not agree with me.

[elegantshapeshifter]

Distinguish Real Visions from Imagination

“Everybody daydreams and imagines things which have no basis in reality, undressing people with our eyes, savoring a kiss that has yet to be had, basking in the Tahitian sun although we are stuck in a high-rise office. Are these visions of the future, or even of future possibilities, or are they simply images that have been evoked in the mind to provide temporary relief from boredom or unfulfilled desire?  Is the same boredom with reality and lust for something more the originating force behind visions? In trying to analyze and interpret an Inner Vision, my first task is to ensure the reality of the thing, being certain that if there is any reasonable doubt as to its concrete and objective reality, that the whole thing is dismissed before I become lost in the splendor of a falsity. True visions possess exact attributes which are not shared by any sort of emotional, mental, psychological, or imaginary process.  In my own experiences with visions, I have collected and catalogued these attributes, and have used them to verify each subsequent experience to aide me in making this distinction.

The first attribute of a true Inner Vision is its spontaneity. The vision will appear without the Seer having to “conjure” it up, and without building an imagined scenario in the mind until it takes on a life of its own.  The vision will simply appear, presenting itself like a stranger at the door.  This is usually rather startling. Even if the intention of the Operation was to receive such a vision, when it appears its sudden force and magnitude will often buckle the Seer’s composition.  I have received such visions while going about my daily life, while washing dishes, folding laundry, while at work, and most often, while taking a recreational walk. The vision will move upon me with such speed that I have little time to prepare for it, and I will be overtaken so forcefully by it that taking a seat becomes an instant necessity.  This has proven to be a rather awkward situation when in public, as I stumble through a crowd with my eyes flashing, trying to find a chair, a bench, or even a stretch of grass where I can sit and receive that which is being delivered.  

The second test of the reality of the Inner Vision is in its originality.  Daydreams are drawn from memory of a thing, rather than from some sort of clairvoyant prediction of what it might be like.  If you look closely enough at your daydreams, the beach in Tahiti may appear very similar to a beach seen on a televised beer commercial, while the real beach might be covered in much finer sand with a more bleached appearance, and the ocean might be more green than  blue.  Your mind has drawn from your memory of that one commercial an entire view of Tahiti, filling in the unknown spots with the most likely images.  This often results in disappointment when the place is actually visited, giving the tourist a feeling of frustration for having made a preemptive assumption as to the appearance of the place, even though reality may be much more fulfilling than the fantasy. That which is seen and experienced in a vision is entirely original, having a birthplace not within the mind and the memory but in something that is outside of our awareness altogether.  If you tried right now to imagine what an angel might look like, your mind would begin searching your memory for an image to recall, resulting in pictures of chubby cherubs, thin, blond girls with halos, or Michael Landon. The spontaneity of the vision does not allow time or opportunity to search your memory banks and produce the image that you are seeing.  The product is a completely unique image of a personage which you have never before seen. The same principle is applied to every type of vision that is experienced.  If a voice is heard, rather than being the thunderous booming of God above, it may very well may be a soft, nasal tone, or will come instead as a musical concert of chimes which form words, or countless other possible sounds, completely unanticipated until such has been experienced.  Places that are viewed in a vision might have never been seen by you before, yet they appear in perfect detail as they should be.  Some Seers, myself included, have even tried to intellectually debate with the vision, reasoning that if I really were seeing Tahiti, wouldn’t the sand look just a bit more course, or wouldn’t the water be more blue, trying to change the image into that which I know it should be. The vision does not change from its original form, however, and all of these things which we try to alter are later verified to be true.  

The third attribute of an authentic vision is the clarity of the manifestation itself.  If you try to imagine once more what an angel might look like, without digging into your memory to find a suitable representation, you will end up with an image that is almost cartoonish.  Without having a reference memory of a real angel to build upon, your mind will throw together whatever it can and will call it good!  On the other hand, when such an entity is beheld, it will seem very real, as if an angel were actually standing before you!  The details of the face, every wrinkle and crease in perfect place, the brilliance of the light emanating from within the being, the individual strands of hair, and the unquestionable threedimensions of the vision would consume so much time and conscious work to create that the authenticity of the whole thing would instantly be exposed as a fraud.

The fourth test is in the verifiability of the images, or of the message itself. The account of the vision which I shared with my former occult partner, while I was in the discipline of a Christian mystical order, was of visitations by beings that would often be classified as angels, although I later learned that they exist outside of any religious paradigm whatsoever.  One of these beings visited me with the message that I needed to receive the highest initiation offered by the order outside of direct leadership, and that I needed to progress through specific grade rituals before I could leave the order. At the time of this visitation I was content to remain in the order indefinitely, and my fiancé and I had planned to be married by their priesthood in a rather extravagant ritual of union that they offered.  I asked about this and the angel informed me that the marriage would not take place, and that I would be forced from the order altogether once I had completed that which he had instructed me to complete.  This saddened me for quite some time, and although I was unable to question to reality of the vision or to rationalize it as some creation of my mind, due to its intensity and its verifiability, I tried with all of my will to believe that perhaps the messenger was wrong, perhaps once I had received this knowledge I could alter the destined course.  I even tried to tell myself that perhaps this was a test, and that I was to not only endure, but to rise up in the order and to remain there forever, despite the warnings of the angel. Within days after having completed the grade ritual necessary to receive the final initiation, my fiancé informed me of her desire to look elsewhere for love, and we parted.  Days later, the ritual of initiation was performed, the powers of that position were conferred upon me, and I was excommunicated from the order within two weeks for various reasons.  And I remembered the words of the messenger and his prophecy that I had tried so hard to dismiss. When a vision is manifested, the information received from it must be verified if at all possible.  When I have seen in my mind a location relating to the issue for which I am requesting guidance, when the place is visited I have never been disappointed by the difference between that which I beheld and that which is real.  In fact, I usually find myself startled and in a state of momentary psychological shock by the exactness of it. This is one of the great divides between the prophet and the schizophrenic: the reality of that which is seen, heard, and understood. Sitting by and waiting for the verification of the information received in a vision, or even chasing after it to see if you were right, is not only undesirable, but is often unnecessary. The truth of the thing will make its own self manifest.

These tests can be applied to every type of vision, whether divine or diabolical, of the deceased or the unborn, beheld internally or externally, each vision should be measured against these standards.  This will seem a waste of time for the person who has experienced visions with his physical senses, but all things must be measured and recorded, all things must be proven rather than taken on faith blindly.”

- “Questing After Visions: Making Conscious Contact”, by E.A. Koetting

[ruminativerabbi]

Defending Dr. King’s Legacy

It’s hard to imagine anyone arguing with the notion that freedom of the press will always be among the most basic features of life in any democratic state. And, indeed, ever since December 15, 1791, when the first ten amendments to the Constitution were formally adopted, this has been true with respect to our American republic not merely philosophically but legally as well. That, surely, is as it should be. But, just as freedom of the press exists specifically to permit the publication of even the least popular ideas, so do citizens have the parallel right—perhaps even the obligation—to respond vigorously to published essays rooted in ignorance, fantasy, and a prejudicial worldview. And it is with that thought in mind that I wish to respond to a truly outrageous op-end piece about Israel—and, more precisely, American support for Israel—published in the New York Times last Sunday in which the author appears to have no understanding of ancient or modern history, no sympathy for any of Israel’s security needs, no ability critically to evaluate even the most baseless Palestinian claims about the history of the land, and no interest even in getting the facts straight.  

The author, Michelle Alexander, is formally employed as an opinion columnist at the Times. And her essay, published on Martin Luther King weekend, presented itself as the result of the author’s brave decision finally “to break the silence” regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It’s hard to imagine what silence the author imagines she has boldly broken by daring to criticize Israel viciously and in print—just lately the number of opinion pieces hostile to Israel published by her own newspaper gives lie to that notion easily. Nor was there anything at all new or groundbreaking in her essay, which mostly just parroted the same propagandistic claptrap the enemies of Israel cite regularly to justify their anti-Israel stance. But most outrageous of all was the suggestion that she was somehow keeping faith with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy by finding the courage to speak out against Israel. That last point, then, is the first I will address.

I am personally too young to have been present in 1968 when, just a week before his horrific death, Dr. King came to the annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly, my own professional organization, and spoke these words:

Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity and the right to use whatever sea lanes it needs. I see Israel, and never mind saying it, as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality.

Those were his final remarks about Israel, never revised or updated. How could he have? He was dead a week later! And, with his horrific end, his unqualified support for the right of Israel to defend itself against its enemies entered history as part of his formidable legacy, a legacy that touched on many areas of American domestic and foreign policy and not solely on the questions related to civil rights, non-violent protest, and race relations for which he is justifiably the most famous.

In her essay, Alexander broke no new ground. She seemed ignorant about Israel—about its history, its foreign policy, its long history of one-sided overtures to the Palestinians, its withdrawal from Gaza, and the restrained way it has responded not to dozens or hundreds but thousands of separate acts of terror aimed specifically at the civilian population over these last years alone—and neither did she seem to know, or care, how it was that Israel came to control the West Bank in the first place. But when boiled down to its basics, she seemed unable to move past her sense that the Jews who founded the State of Israel were colonialist interlopers from Europe who were intent on doing to the indigenous Arab population what the Belgians in that same era were attempting to do to the Congolese, the British to the Indians, and the French to the Algerians: seize other people’s land and then ignore the presence of those people other than when it came to subduing them and forcing them to serve their new masters. As I read it, that was the core of her argument.

The fact that the Palestinians have refused offer after offer to negotiate a fair, just peace seems to be unknown to her. Perhaps more to the point, the fact that there is nothing at all preventing the Palestinian leadership from doing what they should have done in 1947 and finally declaring a Palestinian State, then negotiating its borders with the neighbors and getting down to the business of nation building—this too seems not to have occurred to Alexander, who finds it courageous to support the notion of boycotting Israel (and who is paradoxically appalled by the publication of the names of individuals who support the BDS movement, although you would think she would be proud for their names—and her own name—to be known widely in that context). And she certainly has no interest in responding thoughtfully (or at all) to the inconvenient fact that the Arabs, hardly the indigenes, came to the Land of Israel in a series of invasions in the seventh century CE in the course of which they successfully wrested control of the land from its then Byzantine masters. (Nor was the Land of Israel the sole target of the Caliph Umar and his hordes back in the day: the Arab armies, true colonialists precisely in the style of the age of imperialism, also overran modern-day Turkey, Cyprus, Armenia, and most of Northern Africa.) On the other hand, there is every imaginable kind of evidence—literary, archeological, genetic, epigraphical, and numismatic—to support the argument that the ancestors of today’s Jewish people were present in the land in hoariest antiquity and have remained present, one way or the other, ever since. But of that truth, Alexander has nothing at all to say.

It’s true that there have been Arabs living in the Land of Israel for many centuries. But the detail Alexander passes quickly by is precisely that there is nothing at all preventing the outcome she clearly dreams to see: the establishment of a Palestinian state in the Middle East. If they will it to happen, then it will surely be no dream! (I’ve lost track of how many nations already recognize the non-existent State of Palestine as though it were an actual political entity.) Yet all the misery of the Palestinians, so Michelle Alexander, is exclusively the fault of Israel. The Jordanians, who ruled over the West Bank for nineteen years and kept the Palestinians interned in refugee camps, are not mentioned. The extraordinary acts of violence directed against Israel—the tens of thousands of missiles fired at civilian towns and villages within Israel from Gaza, for example—these too are left unreferenced. Perhaps the author considers each of those missiles to constitute a valid expression of political rage. But I would only begrudgingly respect her right such an opinion if she were to write similarly about the people who brought down the Twin Towers on 9/11—that they weren’t terrorists or violent miscreants, just brave martyrs making a searing political statement.  

Alexander makes much of the fact that Martin Luther King apparently cancelled plans to travel to Israel after the Six Day War in 1967. She cites a phone call—but without saying to whom it was made or where recorded—according to which King based his decision on the fear that the Arab world would surely interpret his visit as an indication that he supported everything Israel did to win the war. That King had misgivings about this or that aspect of Israeli military or foreign policy is hardly a strong point—I myself  harbor grave misgivings about many Israeli policies, including both domestic and non-domestic ones—but infinitely more worth citing are Reverend King’s remarks the following fall at Harvard. Some of the students with whom he was dining began to criticize Zionism itself as a political philosophy, to which criticism King responded by asserting that to repudiate the value or validity of Zionism as a valid political movement is, almost by definition, to embrace anti-Semitism: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!” And King’s final statement about Israel, cited above, certainly reads clearly enough for me!

To take advantage of the freedom of the press guaranteed by the Constitution implies a certain level of responsibility to the facts. To be unaware that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 is possibly merely to be uninformed and lazy in one’s research. To write about the West Bank as though it were the site of a formerly independent Palestinian state now occupied by Israeli aggressors is either to be willfully biased or abysmally ill informed. But to write about Israeli checkpoints designed to keep terrorists from entering Israel without as much as nodding to the reason Israelis might reasonably and fully rationally fear a resurgence of violence directed specifically against the civilian population—that crosses the line from ignorance and poor preparation into the terrain of anti-Semitic rhetoric that finds the notion of Jewish people doing what it takes to defend themselves against their would-be murderers repulsive…or, at the very least, morally suspect.

I have been a subscriber to the New York Times forever. My parents were also subscribers. In my boyhood home, the phrase “the paper” invariably referenced The Times. (If my father meant The Daily Mirror or The Post, he said so. But “the” paper without further qualification was The Times.) Much of what I grew up knowing about the world and thinking about the world came directly from its editorial and, eventually, its op-ed pages; that the writing in “the” paper was presumed unbiased, informed, and honest went without saying. That, however, was then. And this is now. I haven’t cancelled my subscription. Not yet, at any rate. And I really do believe that people should be free to express even the least popular views in print without fear of reprisal. But when someone crosses the line from harsh criticism of Israel to propose that there is something reprehensible about Israel defending itself vigorously against its enemies—that is where I stop reading and try to calm down by looking at the obituaries or the crossword puzzle instead.

[suitofvibraniumarmor]

Boston Boys [Part Three]

Summary: After returning home from visiting family, Elsa becomes the victim of a bank robbery and kidnapping.   Pairing: Chris Evans x OFC, John Krasinski x OFC Word Count: 2420 Chapter Warnings: language, bank robbery, kidnapping, guns. Square Filled: The entire series (bits and pieces of it) will fill my Crossover square for @marvelfluffbingo​​​. A/N: This story contains a character who lost her hearing as she got older. I do work closely and regularly with the D/deaf community (I’m a sign language interpreter), but my own hearing problems do not involve significant hearing loss. It is not my intention to offend anyone, only to bring in a character with a quality I don’t see often in other fics. If you have questions about her, feel free to ask :)

Boston Boys Masterlist

The front door of the Manhattan penthouse opened; Elsa groaned and put a rush on finishing her makeup. Though it was her first night home in a while, she had hoped that she could avoid seeing her mother until breakfast the next day at the earliest. The staccato beat of heels clicking against the wood floor of the common parts of the place told Elsa she wasn’t going to be so lucky.

“I thought you weren’t coming in until tomorrow,” Margaret commented, inviting herself into Elsa’s room and kissing her daughter on the cheek.

Elsa scowled and wiped away the lipstick on her face. She touched up the foundation and powder there, then went back to choosing a lip color.

“I wasn’t expecting to,” Elsa lied, “but Brie and Ben are having a dinner get-together, so I thought I’d come into the city early. I’ll probably catch up with Brie afterwards.”

Margaret sighed as she inspected her newly-manicured nails. “Maybe she can talk you into coming home for good.”

Elsa dropped a lip gloss into her clutch and stood from the makeup table. “Let it go, Mother. I like Boston. I like the university, I like working at the bank. Why is it so horrible that in my mid-twenties --”

“Late twenties,” Margaret interrupted.

“Why is it so horrible that no matter my age, I want something different than what you thought my life was going to be? I appreciate every single thing that you and Dad have done for me. I appreciate every penny that you have poured and do pour into my education. Do I think it’s fair that you let Alexis and Daniel do whatever they wanted after undergrad and paid for it because they stayed in the city, but because I wanted out, I have to pay my own way outside of school? Absolutely not.” She sighed. “I’m not getting anywhere. My point is, Mother, that I’m happy. I like figuring life out for myself. Yeah, it’s rough sometimes, but I’m getting there. And I like it.”

Margaret shook her head. “You’ve had so many opportunities afforded to you, Elsa. I only wish you could see the potential in yourself that your father and I see in you.”

As her mother walked away, Elsa said nothing. This wasn’t the first time Margaret had deemed her daughter a disappointment, and Elsa was certain it wouldn’t be the last. Deciding not to dwell on it for the moment, she finished what she needed to do to be ready to meet her friends.

The dinner party was pleasant enough. Elsa was able to catch up with several friends she hadn’t seen in several months. She always enjoyed the time with the people she had grown up with, but the longer she was away, the more distant she felt from most of them. Only Ben and Brie seemed grounded enough from the posh New York lifestyle they had all grown up with to make Elsa feel like she was still part of the circle.

She was deep in thought over this while she helped Brie clean up. She was loading the dishwasher, but had been rinsing the same plate for a few minutes now.

Ben shooed her away. “You’re not really thinking about dishes, Els. You and Brie get a glass of wine and go talk. I’ve got this.”

Elsa gave him a grateful smile. She poured two glasses of wine, then went to find Brie putting the dining room back into its normal arrangement.

“Your husband said he’s got the rest, that we should talk.”

Brie smiled and accepted the glass of wine, then followed Elsa out to the balcony. Brie handed her a cigarette, put one between her own lips, then lit both of them. Smoke rolled from Elsa’s lips, followed by a sip of wine. She followed that pattern for a couple of minutes; smoke out, wine in.

“So, how’s Beantown? Really, I mean,” Brie asked. “Nevermind everything you told everyone else. Be real with me.”

“I’m always real with you,” Elsa chuckled. “Boston really is great. I love it there. The university is amazing. I actually like my job at the bank. I mean -- it’s not makeup and YouTube, but it gets me by.”

Brie laughed. “Shut up. I love what I do.”

“I know you do. You have a real passion for it. The thing is, I love what I’m doing. My passion is history and film, and I’m putting those together. The bank is getting me by, and I do like working there. I just … Margaret can’t keep her thoughts to herself, and it gets me thinking.”

“Oh, please,” Brie sighed, rolling her eyes, “please tell me your mother isn’t on her ‘you’re not living up to your potential’ bullshit again. Do you know how many people we just had dinner with who would kill to be in your position? To be out from under their parents, to be living their own lives? But they’re too scared to be without the money. They don’t have that potential, Elsa. You do.”

Elsa smiled at her friend. “Thanks, Brie. That helps.”

“Good. Now, let’s get down to the really important information.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“Are you getting laid?”

Elsa laughed so hard, her wine spilled over onto her pants. She ran inside for some paper towels to mop it up, then was back out on the balcony, motioning for Brie to give her another cigarette. Once it was lit and she was back to her smoke and wine pattern, she sat back in the chair and shook her head.

“Not getting laid. Honestly, I don’t think about it that much. I’m focusing on school and work, you know? That keeps me busy enough.”

Brie shook her head. “All those beautiful Boston boys, and you’re not even taking advantage. I bet there’s a long line of them who would show up if they knew where you really came from.”

Elsa only shook her head. She had gone on dates with some guys from school, but nothing ever came from those outings -- and she was okay with that. She had other things to concentrate on.

After a bottle and a half of wine gone between the two of them, Elsa decided it was better to crash in the guest bedroom when they were ready to wind down. She’d hear it from her mother in the morning, but knowing her father would be there, laughing behind his daily Wall Street Journal print-outs made it all worth it.

The morning of the bank robbery, Elsa woke up before her alarm. She had slept better than she had in a while, being back in her own place in Boston. It used to be the reverse; she slept better in New York than anywhere else. Somewhere along the way, she guessed, Boston had become home.

She took the extra time to have breakfast, a cup of coffee, and take her time getting ready. She had been away from the bank for a week, and she wondered if the day would drag or go quickly back in her normal routine. She didn’t mind either way, she decided, since she was back to classes in the late afternoon as well.

When the masked, hooded group came into the bank, Elsa’s calm came to a screeching halt. There was yelling and screaming and crying -- so much was happening at once, but Elsa was stuck in her spot. All she could think about were the guns in their hands and the fact that it was her day with the code for the safe.

“Elsa! Elsa has the code!”

The words brought her back to the present as one of the men came towards her. He climbed over the counter; Elsa backed away from him, out of instinct.

“Are you Elsa?”

Fearing the words would be her last, she closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes.”

The man gestured towards the safe with his gun. “Open it, Elsa.”

Before she could think to stop her emotions, tears were flowing from her eyes. She kept the rest of her demeanor as calm as possible, and her brain raced to remember the code that had been in her email that morning. The numbers jumbled in her head and her fingers shook as she tried to make the keypad complete its intended function.

“C’mon! Open it!”

Another man in the group yelled from behind her, causing her to startle. Her tears rolled thicker and faster down her cheeks; the man standing with her put his hand over hers.

“You know the code,” he encouraged quietly. “We aren’t gonna hurt you, okay? We’re here for the money, not for any of you. Take a deep breath, try it again.”

Elsa closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath through her nose, then let it out through her mouth. She took her time, but didn’t linger. Finally, the numbers made sense and her fingers worked. The safe beeped three times, and the heavy door unlocked.

“Good girl,” the man commented before moving her aside. Elsa retreated to sit where the other tellers were huddled together as two of the men raced into the safe.

Maybe she would make it out of this alive. They were getting what they wanted, she had cooperated like they asked. They could take what they wanted and leave, and Elsa could forget this ever happened.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

A feminine voice cursed from the back room, and a fourth member of the group came racing towards the front. That person looked at the man who had overpowered the guard, gave a hand gesture, then turned to the group of tellers on the floor. Elsa locked eyes with the woman, and fear gripped her all over again. The woman gripped Elsa’s arm and tugged her up from the floor.

“You’re coming with us.”

Elsa struggled, but that only got her thrown in the back of a van and hit about the face. She could feel blood coming from near her hairline, but still all she could do was stay quiet and try not to show too much emotion.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Suddenly, the man who had told her to open the safe was between the two of them. The woman was accusing her of activating an alarm. The argument continued, but Elsa’s ears were ringing and she felt as though she might pass out.

The van sped away, bringing Elsa back again. Her hands were secured behind her back, and she was blindfolded and gagged. Elsa was aware of someone sitting next to her, but she was too afraid to move or ask questions.

She figured it was roughly twenty minutes before they stopped and someone helped her out of the van. The woman warned that they knew where her family lived, where she lived, and that if she talked to the police, there would be hell to pay.

Someone sat her down on the curb, and the now familiar voice of the man who had been at the safe with her directed her to sing her favorite song to herself before removing the blindfold. Elsa sang it twice before being sure they were gone. She nudged the bandanas away from her eyes and mouth with her shoulders before getting up from the curb and screaming for help.

The hospital was buzzing anyway, but being surrounded by police and medics only made Elsa more anxious. Too many people were coming and going, making it difficult for her to keep track of all of everyone. In her mind, if she didn’t know who was who, it was simply too easy for one of the robbers to come into the room and finish her off.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I know there’s a lot going on here, but Ms. Chapman needs some quiet, and I need the same to examine her. If you’ll excuse us, please.”

Elsa’s eyes met those of the young doctor waiting at the curtain for the room to clear. A nurse stayed behind, but Elsa already felt less tense with the three of them left in the room alone.

“Thank you for that,” she commented quietly.

“You’re welcome,” the doctor smiled, pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves. “I’m Dr. Juneau, this is my nurse, Elizabeth. Besides your head, can you tell me if you have any other injuries, Ms. Chapman?”

“Please, call me Elsa,” she began, “and no, I don’t think I’m hurt anywhere else.”

Dr. Juneau nodded. “To be on the safe side, if it’s all right with you, Elizabeth and I will help you into a gown, and we’ll do a full work up. Is that okay?”

Elsa agreed to change out of her clothes. Elizabeth put them in a bag, but Elsa had a feeling as soon as she got home, she’d strip out of those clothes and throw them away. Surely, she’d never wear that outfit again.

“All right, we’ve got this cut near your hairline -- should be easy to stitch up. We’ll get a plastics guy in here, make sure there’s little to no visible scarring. What’s your pain level?”

The exam was thorough, and went on for the next fifteen or twenty minutes, at least. Elsa was taken to imaging for x-rays and a CT scan, and when she returned to her room, Dr. Juneau was there with another doctor.

“This is Dr. Mackey,” she introduced. “He’ll take care of that cut on your head. You’ve got a concussion, as well, so I want you to take the rest of the week to rest. Really try to be as relaxed as you can. I know that won’t be easy, considering.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

Elsa expected that Dr. Juneau would leave Dr. Mackey to it, but instead, she stayed at Elsa’s bedside, ready to hold her hand or talk her through the process, whatever Elsa needed.

“Dr. Juneau --”

“You can call me Aurelie.”

“Really, you don’t have to stay. I appreciate it and all, but I’m sure you’ve got other patients.”

Aurelie cleared her throat. “That’s true, but they’re all fine, for the moment. You told us you have no one in the area we can call, and since you won’t let us call your family …”

Tears welled in her eyes, certainly not for the first time that day. This time though, Elsa cried happily for the return of some semblance of the calm feeling she had when she had woken before her alarm that morning.

AllOfTheThings: @captain-s-rogers​​ @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan​​ @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked​​ @hurricanerin​​ @horsesandbandsforlife​​ @im-not-an-armrest-im-short​​ @captain-rogers-beard​​ @shynara51​​ @sea040561​​ @softrogers​ @pinknerdpanda​​ @xtina2191​​ @jackryanplz​​ @beakami​​ @heartsaved​​ @fullprunerebelstatesman​​ @blackwidowismyhomegirl​​

Boston Boys: @atc74​​ @the-murder-strut-murdered-me​​ @becs-bunker​​ @shield-agent78​​ @patzammit​​ @crazyandanonymous4u​​ @ntlmundy​​

[scottstiles]

in the spirit of losing followers for no reason, and because the new year is almost upon us, and because i haven’t done so in awhile, here is a post about the weekly parsha (torah reading):

this week we read nitzavim, 4 parashot away from the end of the book. it’s a short chunk, but one that contains a fair amount of pretty well known phrases. so while i was studying last night/early this morning, with nobody to talk to about this (as usual, because who else the fuk is awake at that hour), i had some thoughts. (under the cut for sermon length ramblings)

one of the famous phrases in nitzavim is this one:

“i have set before you life and good, death and evil. (later on) i have given you life and death, the blessing and the curse. and you will choose life, so that you and your descendants may live.”

as i was reading it i was a bit struck by the fact that my memory bank knew this translation as “i have set before you life and death, good and evil, so you may choose life.” but in all my years of reading the hebrew i never realized just how wrong that translation is? because order is important. every word and its place in the torah has its own meaning and reason. why does the text say “life and good” and then “death and evil”? is life more important than being good? certainly one may think that death is preferable to being evil, but is it more important to be alive or to be good? that made me think of one of the most important commandments in the entire torah- choose life. also right here in the same paragraph. tradition tells us that there are only a few commandments that we are not actually required to violate, if it means saving a life. shabbat? not as important as life. keeping kosher? not important. fasting on yom kippur? definitely not as important. if someone’s life (or our own) is in danger we are obligated to break any commandment to save it. except three: idolatry (i.e. forced conversion), murder (for example someone holding a gun to your head telling you to kill someone else or they’ll kill you), and sexual immorality- incest/rape/bestiality/etc (all things directly connected to the ancient primitive polytheistic worship practices of the time). in those cases, death is preferable. so the order is clear- stay alive at all costs, except if the cost is the essence of your good humanity. and always, always, choose death over evil. life-->goodness-->death-->evil. traditionally we’re taught that the commandment to choose life is a direct result of all the other commandments- if you do these things you will live. because the things you’re commanded to do are for good, and blessings are the manifestation of your good actions in the world. and if you choose to do the opposite, the result is death/evil/curses. rejecting the goodness of this way of life is a slippery slope to the opposite end. now, if you’ve read this far, you might think (if you’re thinking hard)- this doesn’t sound like a very ‘religious’ thing? because it’s not. i think this concept is pretty universal and relates closely to the idea of karma (as i know it, which is to say not in great detail). do you think this makes sense? i’d love to hear your thoughts.

another great line in this parsha is this one:

“when someone hears the words of this oath (the law from god) and blesses themselves, saying “i will have peace if i follow the vision of my heart, so that the dry may be made moist.” what does the concept of dry/wet have to do with the temptations of the heart?

here are the rabbis interpretations of this incredibly difficult to translate verse:

'to fulfill the desires of my freethinking' (Ralbag); 'to add desire even when he is satisfied' (Rambam; Chizzkuni); 'to let his desires satisfy his craving' (Sforno)

this verse jumped out to me thanks to the ridiculous way my vocabulary has been enhanced by this website- how many of you “thirst” after celebrities? how many of us feel and ache/hole/hunger in the chest when we can’t satisfy our base urges and desires/habits? when we slake this kind of thirst, we allow the body to take over the mind. again, something i’m all too familiar with- the slippery slope of addiction. how can we avoid getting to the point where we believe that satisfying our desires are more important that being good people or following “the law”/morality? and can we come back from it? the following sentence tells us no. god will “blot out” such a person “from under the heavens.” BUT, elsewhere in the torah, and especially on the high holy days, we read over and over again that if we return- god is waiting to welcome us back. mixed messages. 

because of its placement in the parsha, the previous description of the person “thirsting” after the desires of their heart is referring to a person who abandons god’s law to worship other deities instead, which is clarified then by this sentence:

“and they served foreign gods, and bowed down to them, gods they didn’t know, that were not their portion (given to them).” 

these two words “chalak lahem” “their portion” is so huge. it’s not the only place in the torah where we read about the righteousness of other nations. what this phrase is saying is that god is our (the jewish people’s) portion, and that other people have their portion (i.e. other gods to worship- this doesn’t mean that god concedes to polytheism- rather it refers to their practices and beliefs, which they are absolutely allowed to have). the rabbis emphasize that non-jews are not required to follow the commandments of the torah (other than the 7 noahide laws) and therefore there is nothing wrong with that.. if you are not jewish. “abominable” practices and such as they are referred to in the torah are specifically referring to the ancient canaanite and other religions which practiced things like child sacrifice, and not to the later polytheistic religions such as in ancient greece and rome. according to judaism, all the righteous of every nation have a place in the world to come- not just jews. so here’s my question for any christian followers (or ppl who know anything about this)- why is it such a “thing” for christianity to say that if you don’t accept jesus you’re going to hell? because that sure as shit didn’t come from the bible i know...anyways, maybe that’s too controversial a question for this rant. point is- acceptance. people are different from you and it’s totally fine. you (jews) are the ones with a choice- and if you choose wrong, you’re at fault and have to accept the consequences of your choices.

another famous sentence from today’s parsha is this one:

“these commandments are not too difficult or too remote from you. it is not in the heavens. it is not over the seas. it is in your mouth and in your heart, that you may keep it.”

the phrase “lo bashamayim hi”- “it is not in heaven” has been used for ages by rabbinic leadership to justify the flexibility of jewish law (and i use justify in the most non-negative way possible, because that’s pretty much all rabbinic judaism is- a bunch of lawyers sitting around a huge table arguing). the law is not something disconnected from you. it is not esoteric and mysterious and incomprehensible. it is a daily job. it is woven thru every aspect of your being and in every moment of your life. why? because it is a way of life- it is the only way of life we should strive for. because it leads to all those good things. the word tzedakah is usually translated as charity, and as little kids in jewish day school we internalize this assumption because the concept of helping the less fortunate is pretty much the basis for most of our religious education (the tzedakah box from the jewish national fund sits on every teacher’s desk).  but tzedakah doesn’t actually mean charity- the direct translation is “righteousness”. as in, doing the right thing. taking care of others is ipso facto doing the right thing, and so this word has taken on multiple meanings. but doing tzedakah isn’t just caring for others. it means keeping the commandments (of which there are hundreds about caring for others). by keeping all of the commandments we ensure that every person can live their best life. or that’s the goal, anyway.  the law is not in the heavens. it’s for us to understand, and to do, and to manage and to deal with every single day. it’s not for god. it’s for us. for our benefit, not just god’s.

and then the torah goes and says this little gem:

“the hidden things are for god, and the revealed, are for us and our children (until) forever, to do all the things that this torah tells us.”

so there are hidden things now? this is not a surprise. but there’s a reason some things are hidden. the things we know, the things we learn, discover, realize, are meant for us to. this sentence makes me think of “all things in good time,” but also “there are things that we’re just never meant to know.” as someone whose “thirst” has always been oriented towards knowledge, this kind of annoys me. so you’re saying i CAN’T know everything? excuse me. “hidden things” can also be translated as “secret things.” so now god is keeping secrets? yes. what is life in this world without a little mystery? i like to think of science as the thing god keeps revealing to us little by little. every time we discover something new about the world, good things erupt from within it. every time new things are revealed, there are special people who can take it to a level that benefits humanity. so what are the “secret things” that are only for god? we don’t have a clear answer in this parsha, however the words “the hidden things are for god, and the revealed for us and our children until-” all have dots scattered along the top of the letters- something found only a few times in the torah. it’s not clear why, but supposedly this indicates a particularly troublesome or difficult sentence to understand. i would agree. it’s interesting to me that the dots stop at “until” and are not on top of the word “forever.” does this mean that there will one day come a time when the hidden things are also for us? who knows. the only connection i could make from this phrase is to certain practices that we’re commanded not to partake in, specifically witchcraft and necromancy, trying to connect to the dead, etc. it was always easy for me to see the connection between those practices and things that are “meant only for god” (not that i have a problem with other people doing it, but it’s still a struggle for me that the torah says it’s necessarily wrong or bad to do, since it’s something that has always interested me). the other story that comes to mind is that of the high priest Aaron’s sons, who brought a “strange fire” into the tabernacle, and went up in flames for it. it’s one of the most mysterious stories in the torah, and there’s still no reasonable explanation for what actually happened to them. bottom line, i guess? don’t do things where you have no idea what the outcome might be- if the outcome could potentially be really really really bad. i guess that’s enough to keep certain mysteries a mystery. and maybe i’m ok with that.

if you made it to the end of my sermon i applaud you. thanks for taking the time to slog through this former teacher’s quagmire of a mind, and feel free to share your thoughts. i’d love someone to talk to about jewishy stuff.