#its clarified that situations are different and have nuance. we are reminded to look at things with nuance.

[good-beans]

I know most of our focus goes (rightfully) to the trial songs, but I genuinely believe Baptism of Fire is equally a masterpiece of meaningful writing and intense vocal acting

Incoming tag rant because I need to yell about this, feel free to yell back

[bluewinnerangel]

I don't even know if this makes sense or is even possible with the timelines. It's just something I thought of a little while back. I don't feel comfortable not asking this anon bc I feel bad, and after reading your esny analysis, I think you'll understand in some way what I mean. Only read/share if you feel comfortable with it.

I never thought Harry's sott explanation about the mother in childbirth was wrong like it makes sense even if it's more about human rights and or Harry/Louis and or closeting/in general. Of course, idk for sure, these are just guesses, but it could be multiple things. I believe it's too vague not to hold at least several meanings or povs.

If the story is true to its word: The way I see it, I notice some people readily look over the childbirth story, saying 'it makes no sense,' but the mother could be thinking about all these things how life will treat her child. It can easily coincide with fundamentals, "Equal rights for everyone, all races, sexes, everything."

Now, if the story isn't true, that also works. The mother and the situation doesn't have to be derived from something exact for the song meaning to have the same value. It could be yet another emotional way to creatively explain what the song is about or how it feels.

The point I'm trying to reach is that I thought about something but didn't add it to my analysis because I wanted to focus on the song more at the time.

That something scenario is a ( far far far ) reach: What if Harry visiting Louis in the hospital to see Louis' mother and support him through that dark time pushed this song on the path it went. (not that it's not already such an emotional song with the other meanings, and it's important to note it has five other writers on it)

If that is somehow even remotely, then here are two ways I see it that can go together or separate.

- L&H have that motherly reminder from her in some way

- In general, being in a hospital (at any point) makes people think about life and how life is fragile. In one part of the hospital, people are broken-hearted and will never be the same, and in another part are overjoyed with new life.

Hope you don't mind me linking your analysis since you mentioned it. We write in quite different ways so it took me a while to answer this, but I like that you're nuanced with these things.

Sign of the Times reminds me of (dare I say might be one of the inspirations behind the song even) Champagne Supernova by Oasis (and that's thanks to Louis barging in with this insanity <3), where Noel (who wrote it by himself) has said the lyrics take on different meanings to him depending on his mood. Which is what I think Sign of the Times was meant to do from the start for Harry himself as well, that it's written to have these lines in there he can take in / sing that can give him comfort, that it's purposefully broad, his grand debut, that would forever resonate with him for many reasons.

That said, the "written from the POV of a mother having 5 minutes to tell their child to go forth and conquer" just feels like an afterthought to me. And it's a well thought out one of course, he's not and never will say total nonsense because if he's gonna clarify something it shouldn't bring up more questions right? So it does have some sense to it -> "stop your crying" works as a mother sushing a baby, then the "on your way to the sky" feel like someone who is passing away at that moment, followed by "you look pretty good down here, but you ain't really good" are looking at ~someone~ for the last time with some motherly wisdom. I'm not saying it "makes no sense", but it pretty much ends there. The rest of the lyrics feel like a reach trying to read it like that. It also feels like he was crafting up a bit of a storyline there for his album, with "I'm having your baby, it's none of your business" being another pregnant lady.

And even if it's not an afterthought, I still feel he had a main issue in mind writing this song and it wasn't that. There's a very personal pain in here "why are we always fucking running from the bullets", for a mother dying, from a someone dying or a mothers POV it's a lot of "we" as a unit with a lot of future perspective of said unit, hoping to get out of a current situation together.

What I take away from SOTT is him being stuck in lies, in this endless loop of pretending to be something he's not. Stuck, in his closet. Because of lines like:

"welcome to the final show, I hope you're wearing your best clothes" - both him putting on a show and clothes go in a CuPbOarD bro

"we gotta get away from here" - wants to escape his current situation, and has hope there is an away for "we", you know? (I'm aware "we" as a society works, and I do think he wrote it in such a way that holds up as well)

"it'll be alright, they told me that the end is near" - so there's this mortality sprinkle to it right, and it works and it's soothing and all, but, the context it's in is that it will be alright because the end is near, like the current situation is fucked up but we'll be alright when we'll escape it. We gotta get away, we gotta see this shit end.

"We don't talk enough, We should open up, Before it's all too much Will we ever learn? We've been here before, It's just what we know" - I can hear you, howlin' 'til your lungs hurt, So let this be your comfort You're not the only one, no, In a strange way, all in this together, Been this way forever, you're not the only one, Nothing is original, there's nothing left to say, You won't be the first or be the last to bleed, it's a copy of a copy of a copy (Sorry but to me Louis really said "you guys aren't getting it" with COAC. It's not that I want to relate everything one does to the other, it's just that Louis comes in shaking everyones shoulders yelling it all into our faces. There comes a time when his man takes your hand and says, "Can't you see?" asdjkashdkajs). This to me is literal. They don't talk to the public, they're not open, it's getting too much, they don't know any better because they've always been stuck in this shit. He wants to get out. He wants to be open actually open come out all that. He's just fed up with all the lies and putting on a show. Which really really fking hurts seeing this song is 4 years old by now. The "we" isn't necessarily our dear bropals tho, I think it's bigger than that (pointing.meme @ COAC) it can be all the people like him in the same situation, whether that's limited to all of 1D, those he's encountered in the same situation, a general being queer in garbage society and/or musicians in garbage music industry, or, you know, "we" is only himself [thinking of "She"])

(repeating myself) It's obviously open to interpretation, and it's meant like that, with most songs it's meant to be like that, that's the whole beauty of music, it's meant to soothe whoever needs it and for this song specifically that's including himself, including in the context of grief and it's endlessly relevant to everything. Just like them other Sign O' the Times'. But when I say I think he was lying his ass off with it being about the mother thing I mean I don't think he wrote it with that as the main perspective, that it's not the main spark that brought this work into existence. But I agree it's possible the path it ended up taking, the theme of mortality it's clearly got going on and all, might be a reflection of the uncertainties regarding Louis' mom at the time.

And in terms of timeline since you said you didn't know if it made sense: Louis got the bad news in May 2016 and she passed away in December 2016. Harry wrote most of his HS1 in Jamaica in September 2016 (we know of at least MMITH and Kiwi being worked out somewhere before May 2016 already (because of ~LHH and the whiteboard~)), and the album being pretty much finished in February 2017. Hope that clears some stuff up.

[ask-jumblr]

You guys never published my question! What’s wrong with wanting to have a space for people who were born Jews? I’m not saying we shouldn’t be welcoming of converts, they just never experienced the anti-semitism growing up or the experiences of growing up Jewish.

Mod (singular) here. Yes, I didn’t post your original ask because it wasn’t consistent with this blog’s standards, although I did make a post recognizing that it was (1) sent in, and (2) didn’t meet content standards. It might be time to clarify or expand the current guidelines; anyone who thinks that’s the case is welcome to reach out. Back to your ask...I know that having a not-posted ask can sting, and I’m sorry you’ve gotten this far through life without your community providing you with the knowledge for you to understand why your proposal is inappropriate and dangerous.

I’m going to remind everyone blog is welcoming of converts. From this blog’s stance, except when there are halachic nuances followed by certain communities, converts should not be treated any differently than born Jews.

Converts don’t need to be treated any differently than born Jews (excluding those halachic nuances relevant for certain communities), because those differences you’re thinking of, anon, they’re not true for all converts. There are very few experiences that couldn’t be shared by a born Jew and a convert. Your generalizations about converts are causing fallacies in your logic. I’m including some stories below the cut that I hope will give you a more complex understanding of the breadth of experiences among people who have converted to Judaism. The stories I’m sharing are all made up, but most of the nuances, the catches that it’s easy to forget are lived experiences. Many are borrowed from friends, friends of friends, or famous Jewish figures.

You mentioned experiencing antisemitism growing up; I suspect that you’re hurting, but you will find converts who hurt for the same reasons; please don’t shut them out.

However, even besides the issue of treating converts differently (1) generally breaking custom/halacha, and (2) being pretty pointless because many will share experiences of born Jews, creating spaces that exclude converts is also dangerous. Converts, like some other groups in Jewish spaces (e.g. JoC, Jews with disabilities) already experience hostility, exclusion, and isolation in Jewish spaces. Building spaces that intentionally exclude them for some reason perpetuates the problems we need to fix in our communities.

Folks are welcome to add to or correct this response. However, I hope that my own response and the standards I’m setting about respecting converts as fellow members of the broad Jewish community will eliminate the need for me to moderate any anti-convert sentiments on this post. Another ask that I’m linkng here might be a better place to discuss the situations where converts are differentiated and/or any Jewish communities that do not recognize converts. If it’s getting another round of activity, I’m happy to reblog it again.

Jessie’s parents converted in a Modern Orthodox community when she was 3. She and her siblings, age 5 and 8, were converted along with their parents. A year later, her baby sister was born Jewish.

Brad’s father raised him celebrating Jewish holidays at home. Brad’s mom stopped being Christian long before they met, although they sometimes visited her parents and exchanged Christmas gifts under their tree. At school, Brad was bullied for being Jewish. When his mom was offered a job in a local city, Brad’s family decided it was long overdue to move to a community where they felt more welcome. In the city, Brad was able to attend a Pluralistic Jewish High School. In college, Brad’s experience with Chabad led him towards an Orthodox Jewish community, and he converted so that he would be halachically recognized as Jewish.

Melanie was adopted by a Jewish couple as an infant and was converted shortly after. For as long as she can remember, her personality has consistently clashed with her birth mother and they had a tenuous relationship. They cut ties when Melanie turned 20. Melanie doesn’t remember a time before she was Jewish. When it came time for her Bat Mitzvah at her adoptive family’s Open-Orthodox synagogue, her decision was easy to reaffirm her Judaism as a Jewish adult. When she started looking for someone to marry, her friends were surprised when they tried to set her up with a Kohen, and despite their sparks she didn’t want to go out on a second date. Until then, they hadn’t known that Melanie had converted, growing up they’d assumed her birth mother was Jewish.

Sam’s mom is Episcopalian and their dad is Jewish. They were raised with both sets of holidays, attending both a church and a Reform synagogue. However, in high school, Sam started going to youth group at a Conservative synagogue with some of their friends. They really loved the Conservative Jewish community they found at the youth group and its associated synaogue. With their parents’ support, Sam decided to convert so they would be able to count in a minyan and have aliyot at the Conservative synagogue.

Maya’s family is Jewish. While knowledge of their Jewish status was passed down, clear documentation of ketubot/gravestones/etc. was lost when they were fleeing persecution. When she wanted to get married, her fiancé’s parents wanted to ensure their grandchildren would be recognized as Jewish. Even though her fiancé was against it, they encouraged her to complete a conversion to dot i’s and cross t’s. Maya decided it was easier to complete a conversion than deal with her in-laws’ pressure. She also didn’t want her children to have to deal with the consequences of a murky Jewish status. A rabbi connected to the family quietly arranged for a conversion so the Jewishness of Maya and any children she should have would be documented and undeniable.

Josh’s dad is Jewish, but his mom isn’t. His dad didn’t raise him as Jewish and he didn’t even know he was Jewish until his mother told him when he was 15. His mother explained that his dad was a child survivor of the Holocaust, and he didn’t want his new family in the U.S. to be burdened by his Jewish identity. However, Josh didn’t feel burdened. Now, he finally understood whyn his father had suffered from nightmares and depression. During high school, Josh taught himself about Judaism behind his father’s back; he didn’t want to upset his father further. After graduating high school, Josh moved out from his parents’ house to attend nursing school. Josh joined a local Reform synagogue, where the rabbi encouraged him to complete a ‘reclamation’ conversion and helped him fill in the gaps in his Jewish education.

When she was in kindergarten, Sarah’s mom remarried, forming a blended family with a Jewish man and his two kids. Sarah’s father isn’t in her life, so she only lived with her mother and new step-father for most of her childhood. A few years after their marriage, Sarah’s mother converted through their local Reconstructionist Synagogue. However, Sarah’s mom wanted to make sure Sarah had the freedom to make her own decision. While Sarah wasn’t converted, she did celebrate Jewish holidays with her family. Shabbat was Sarah’s favorite day of the week; sometimes her family would go to synagogue, but even if they didn’t, they would make time to spend together as a family. When Sarah turned 13, she wanted to have a Bar Mitzvah like her older step-brothers. Her parents and the local rabbi encouraged her to think through her decision, and her parents offered to throw her a big 13th birthday party without her reading Torah. However, Sarah really wanted to be fully recognized as a Jewish adult in her community. A few months after she turned 13, she completed her conversion and read Torah at their synagogue for the first time.

Complicated stories like these happen all the time.

[uozlulu]

Not sure how long Viz had this offer up but I’ve got until tomorrow to read all of this for free so here we go~

BnHA/MHA chapters 122 – 162 reaction and spoilers. I also eluded to some Black Clover manga spoilers but I tried to be vague about it. I also mentioned One Piece once but nothing actually spoilers I don't think

I sorted everything by chapter under the read more cut

Chapter 122

This chapter appears to pick up towards the end of season three. Present Mic being hyped to teach the kids still gives me life

If Hound Dog loves soccer does he play it like a guy or like a dog or does it like all depend on his mood?

Chapter 123

Must be awkward knowing you’ve seen your senpai naked on national TV

lol “His [Mirio’s] face is a good one. Easy to draw.”

Chapter 125

I like that Overhaul is kind of a look at what Crazy Diamond could be if it was wielded by a proper villain and not just some chaotic teenager

Chapter 126

Yagi’s got some solid reasons for not being on board with this whole let’s send the sixteen-year-olds to war idea, but it also cracks me up we’re getting peanut gallery commentary from the other teachers in the teachers’ office in the background of the panels.

lol “Three, it’d be awkward for me” but also another solid reason

”..you’ve got to make him smile” “He’s got a lot of respect for humor” something something King Kai

Tickle Hell. Why WHY are you like this, Horokoshi?

Of course Sir Nighteye’s a Capricorn. Of course he is.

Chapter 131

Let’s be perfectly honest here, with Yagi’s body the way it is, an early death is inevitable. The gruesome part though makes me curious how an upcoming event in the manga is going to pass and if maybe that will be when Sir Nighteye’s foresight will come to pass. It would also make sense since the manga feels currently (in the 240’s) like it’s about to shift and evolve as a story, like a potential half way point is looming

Also, this chapter lends insight into why Midoriya is telling us this story as a narrator. Given whatever’s about to happen it makes sense that he would want to lay everything out to the next successor of One for All. It only strengthens my theory that the end of the manga is Midoriya looking at the reader and offering us a chance to become his successor in some manner.

Chapter 132

Tamaki’s quirk is basically you are what you eat. I’m screaming. lol

Chisaki’s plan kind of reminds me how in a way Black Clover and BnHA are tackling some similar questions and themes. There’s a hierarchy that’s existed for generations and there are people who want to upend it. However a key difference is Asta is a driving force for changing the system, which he begins to understand more and more as he goes along, which is I think why we’re starting to see a shift in narrative with the story’s current arc. Meanwhile, Midoriya is trying to preserve the current hierarchy, which while being questioned by the villains, is not really questioned by the heroes (at least not yet). It’s interesting to watch the similarities and differences in Tabata and Horokoshi’s approaches to questioning and challenging concepts like tradition, system, structure, and inequality.

I already know what Eri’s power does and how she’s basically the X-Men mutation cure plot point, so that actually kind of helps here I think. Thank goodness Kirishima’s quirk is basically a defense against needles (that must have been a pain at the doctor’s office for all adults involved as a kid)

Chapter 135

I love Tamaki ngl

Chapter 136

Even though they’re being more blatant in this chapter, I do like that once it’s revealed that Sir Nighteye saw how Yagi will die, it’s part of the motivation for why he does some of what he does like being on the fence at first with Midoriya in terms of acceptance, calling Midoriya’s desire to want to do more for Eri when he met her arrogance, trying to play things as safe as possible, etc…etc… and now he’s reluctant to use his quirk and it all comes back to foreseeing his good friend/mentor/hero’s death even if it’s been six years since

I like that Aizawa is taking the track of basically he knows Midoriya is a hero of a Jump manga so they might as well work together on this because he already knows Midoriya will just run off and try to solve this problem since it’s personal for him. I also kind of hope letting Aizawa help is part of the track the narrative takes because I think actually Midoriya could learn a lot from observing Aisawa up close in a non-school setting about patience, strategy, and timing as well. It might even help Midoriya with his quirk problems.

Chapter 137

Actually enlisting Kirishima, Uraraka, Asui, and Midoriya to help retrieve Eri is probably a good idea considering what the kids were able to do when it was time to rescue Bakugou a while back. While it isn’t ideal asking sixteen-year-olds to take on responsibilities of adults, this is a task this group of kids has shown they are well suited to. Even Asui who was not a direct participant in the rescue but could size up the situation for what it was and make sure the adults knew what was about it happen. Knowing when to go for help is as important as being a helper. The group can benefit from her maturity.

I like that Nejire is using her hair as a scarf

Chapter 138

Gung Ho! Pretty Yure 10! Sure sounds like a play on Futari wa Pretty Cure

Chapter 139

I wonder if Mirio had to get in contact with someone whose quirk increased hair growth so they could get enough hair to make that fabric.

Chapter 141

I can’t wait to see Tamaki’s quirk animated. I want to see this kraken thing in all its glory

I like how in the story about why the underlings joined Hassaikai it continues the theme of how there’s so much wrong with the structure of the world. Like these guys, just like a few others from season three, found themselves sliding down the hierarchy until they were on the streets and at the bottom. Then comes Chisaki who gives them what the hero and common world won’t provide. Of course they will be loyal to him. It also illustrates why Tamaki can’t understand it. It’s not brain washing, Chisaki saved them from the streets in a society that doesn’t care once you hit rock bottom. It reminds me of that guy who could copy himself last season who didn’t realize he was damaging himself mentally in the process until he created an irreversible mental illness. The heroes would want nothing to do with that and so he had no logical place to go but villainy. The way the villains are going about fixing the situation is of course villainous, but I like that the narrative keeps showing us that the villains do have appoint, that their society is indeed broken and in need of some kind of repair. It’ll be interesting to see if the story gets to a point in which the heroes in turn begin to realize this. Or perhaps they won’t be able to realize it until the tables turn since they’re on the top of the hierarchy and don’t really analyze what’s in the shadows. It’s like I was saying a few chapters ago. While Midoriya, like Asta in Black Clover starts out as an outsider who wishes he could be on the inside, Midoriya as he becomes an insider, loses some of that outside perspective while Asta retains it. Even after meeting Endeavor and learning of his hidden villany, Midoriya doesn’t really question if other Endeavors exist in the hero world and the narrative doesn’t really go there either whereas in Black Clover there’s a constant theme of the nobility having a lot of problems and while some are starting to come around, there’s always another asshole to uncover, to challenge. One Piece does this too. There’s the Celestial Dragons and the Marines and once one problematic person gets their just deserts five more show up, but One Piece always tries to kill the evil dream rather than the bad guy for the most part and try to have them learn something if possible, and show that growth and change in society is a multi-level, multi-person effort. Anyway, it’s interesting how these manga all kind of tackle similar things in different ways and this is getting to be too big of a bullet point, but I should expand on this thought sometime properly.

Chapter 142

I think it’s interesting when we run into linguistic nuance in this series. Like for example the yakuza guys from the previous boss’ era clarifying that there are villains that have come into their yakuza group since Chisaki took over and started using the name Overhaul. Even though yakuza do bad things, there’s a distinction, at least to them, between themselves and villains.

Chapter 151

Honestly I would be the threat of STDs and STIs would put Chisaki off sex entirely come to think of it

Chapter 158

The thing is even if you destroy the quirk factor humans will still find yet another hierarchy to create. It’s what we do.

Chapter 159

Then again now that we’ve proven that Sir Nighteye’s quirk can be wrong (which honestly makes sense since the future should be fluid like time) then maybe I was wrong earlier in thinking that Yagi might just die coming up here sooner than later. Though I do know he will eventually die. Because he’s the mentor and because he’s probably like 50 years old anyway so by the time Midoriya gets to a point in which he’s passing on One for All, it’s probably unlikely that Yagi’s still living. Unless I’m wrong about that too and the manga isn’t ending on Midoriya telling his successor enough information to make an informed decision of course.

Chapter 160

Oh good. Spinner learned how to drive from video games.

Honestly surprised Chisaki didn’t consider the fact that when he talked about getting rid of all quirks he was basically threatening the League of Villains with possibly the biggest possible threat out there so of course Tomura was going to neutralize him instead of make him some kind of weirdo martyr.

Chapter 161

I love how Rock Lock’s baby has such a Rock Lock expression their face

Chapter 162

Mirio mentions being the “final hero” and it makes me wonder since Yagi gave Midoriya his quirk instead of Mirio if perhaps that shifted things so Midoriya will be this final hero. Or perhaps Final Hero is idek Mirio’s eventually vigilante name or something. Lots of options

[idolizerp]

Hello Idols!

We come to you today with a post in four parts. Rest easy, there are no changes to the operations of the site, just a few observations and reminders. First is a little list of the things we’d like to address today. We’ll put content below the cut.

Scope of the Roleplay

Brand & Development

The Point Shop

Skills and Development

On the subject of the scope and focus of the roleplay, we want to reiterate once and for all that it is and always has been a (somewhat) realistic portrayal (or attempt at) of the lives, hardships, and tribulations of idols. We don’t just say that as a fun tag for our ads or something. We really mean it. What we want more than anything is to explore fundamentally flawed and nuanced muses operating under extreme pressure, trapped together with others in a similarly miserable situation, in a sort of microcosm of suffering and stress. Our goal is not to explore what it would feel like to be hugely popular or to create muses that can list resumes full of all the things we wish we could do or be as idols. We want to encourage everyone to think thoughtfully, creatively, and carefully about their muse and their trajectory over time.

On the point of development, there is one hugely important point we want to make:

there is no single trajectory towards the top.

Not sure what we mean? Basically, not all idols are aiming for the same spot. There is not one singular format for the perfect idol, the end goal. Each muse should be aiming towards their own personal best. The path to success is very different depending on each idol. When you choose your starting position for your idol, you inherently choose their innate skills, the talents they were born with and worked for. This isn’t to say they can’t develop other skills within reason, but you are, by choosing that initial role, signaling their strongest points. This does, by necessity, somewhat limit them in terms of what is feasible and what is believable to claim in the future (if an Atlas rapper tried to claim a successful vocal performance on a music show, we’d turn it down, sorry guys). But that isn’t a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that they can’t develop their abilities. But those abilities don’t exist in a vacuum. 

If a girl walks into Midas and she has the potential to be a vocalist on the level of Taeyeon or Ailee. She’s not polished yet but she has potential, because that level of talent involved comes, to a certain extent, from basic biology. Either you have the potential to sound like that, or you just don’t. And Midas (or any company’s) vocal trainers will know how to spot that. They wouldn’t then look at that girl and go “Actually, lets train her up in dance or rap instead, maybe one day she can release a solo.”  Similarly, demonstrating the skills of your idol doesn’t mean you need to aim for the highest possible position (like a rapper trying to take on a major vocal claim). Rather, find something that demonstrates their ability believably and go from there. Taemin is an amazing performer and has had huge praise for improving his vocal skills. However, is he an exceptionally strong vocalist? No, not really. But he knows his strengths and operates within them. Similarly Chungha has found great success, not because she is a formidable vocal talent, but because she knows how to use her voice to the best of its ability, which is in and of itself commendable. 

Similarly, on the point of branding; that first paragraph or two  we have you write (and often ask you to re-write, or edit slightly, or clarify, or tweak) for your interview? It’s one of the most important things you’ve done on this site. That’s why we’re always, always going on and on about it when we bring in applications. That image is what will govern your idol and guide them, whether they like it or not (and many of them hate it, isn’t being an idol fun?). A girl in Jawbreaker with a chic image is never going to snag Nation’s Little Sister. Just as scandals can affect your character and group, they can affect your image too. Say an idol picks up a title like Nation’s Little Brother, and then has a Seungri style sex scandal - you can bet there’s a big “Former” stamped in front of that title now. A muse from a newer generation will have a different experience, trajectory, and set of opportunities than one from an older and more established group. Some things may come easier to the established - like a solo debut, but other’s they’ll struggle with, like viral notoriety. A national title might get picked up more easily by someone who’s been around long enough to build up that reputation, but could still be obtained with thoughtful planning and development by newer group members - it just takes more effort in character, since we doubt you want to wait around out of character for them to “catch up” to the level of exposure longer term idols might have had.

The way you construct that initial image, alongside the position you choose, govern the course of your idols future. Pair that with a carefully chosen secondary skill and you’ve got yourself the path to success- if you keep that in sight.

That brings us to our final point. The point shop. It’s fun, we know. It’s exciting to earn points and buy up neat things. But buying up things for the sake of it isn’t what we want to encourage. We realize perhaps our limited choices at the moment are to blame, and intend to add more and varied items in the coming week or two to differentiate things. The point shop is a way to demonstrate your muse marching down their path. An It Girl like Seolhyun might pick up a few big brand endorsements, some variety, a low tier drama, a bunch of commercials. A Nation’s Little Sister will want to cultivate that cute and sweet image with something approachable, with roles that suggest sweetness and bubbliness and aegyo, maybe some viral aegyo moments or a few variety guestings, and so on. Someone aiming for recognition on the level Kyungsoo has for acting would, conversely, swing their attention into working their way up steadily in serious and carefully curated acting roles -  if he’d taken on something like Dream High, people wouldn’t have been taking him quite so seriously. The point shop should be demonstrating the way your idol is progressing towards a goal, not just exist for the sake of picking up fun trophies.

On the topic of skills and development; this is the most important thing. We tied the points to the development prompts because we want to encourage development. We WANT you to delve into your muses deeply and we want to encourage that development through interaction, so we tied it to various prompt settings. That doesn’t mean a music show prompt should be about performing on stage only, necessarily. It can take on backstage aspects, psychological aspects, reminiscences on past performances. This is also why we require you to finish all of them first and then offer the chance to repeat them. One’s greatest strength or setback likely don’t change all too quickly, after all. The skill points don’t exist just to be racked up into nothing. They exist to show the progress of your muse. They shouldn’t be directly compared to one another, but should be considered as a metric by which you can demonstrate how your muse has grown since their debut, so to speak. It doesn’t mean that everyone with 80 points in vocals is amazing. It means that a muse that started with 10 points and got to 80 points in vocals has made impressive and important strides in their own skills. Thus, the skill points are truly invaluable, even if you aren’t able to “buy” anything with them.

We’ve become a little concerned by the desire to buy up things just for the sake of perceived popularity or success tied to that. We want to stress that the focus of this roleplay is not on popularity but on development, on hardship, and on constructing a muse carefully and creatively. We love all of our members dearly and never want anyone to feel discouraged. We know we have a tough application process. Many (most? possibly all?) of you were asked to tweak at least one little thing here or there, because we know how important those elements will be going forward in the roleplay, and how important their brand, vision, and skill set will be. We’re always, always happy to answer questions or give suggestions as time permits. That doesn’t mean we’ll always let anyone buy anything, or that buying something will come without consequences - we’ve had muses drop scandals with full knowledge beforehand that it would have them removed from group promotions upcoming, and so on, and we love that! Because that’s the kind of thing we want to explore. 

Not what it feels like to be the top of the heap and well beloved. While that can be fun to explore, that isn’t our vision for this site. We hope that you guys can understand, and that you look forward to some additions to the point shop in upcoming days. Hopefully these more varied options will encourage some more diversity in our muses and hopefully this little note will help put the importance planning your muse’s future based on their brand, image, and skill set into perspective. We’re a little worried that perhaps having the point shop has given the wrong impression of where we place importance and focus in this roleplay, and are considering potentially just removing that element. However, we hope laying out our vision to an extent here will help postpone that possibility and swing focus back where it belongs: muse and development. Please like this to show to us that you’ve read it. Thanks so much!

[stretchjournalemerson]

Girlhood: The Forgotten Céline Sciamma Film We All Should Have Seen

By Ivy Miller

It is not a hot take to question the usefulness of queer films that seem to insist on being white, old and reminiscent of each other. In fact, when Potrait of a Lady on Fire came out, and I told my gay friends about it, they practically rolled their eyes. Many of my friends who happen to be young, queer, and women of color, were understandably not going to scramble to applaud another white woman for making another film about white women—even if these ones were in love.

What may have surprised my friends however, as it certainly surprised me, was to learn that the director behind Potrait of a Lady on Fire had made very different films prior to her lesbian period piece. In fact, Céline Sciamma made three coming of age queer films all before Potrait of a Lady on Fire, and the last one in particular stands far apart; Sciamma’s Girlhood is everything that Potrait of a Lady on Fire could never be. Girlhood (2014) is about a young black adult named Marieme growing up in the suburbs of France. We follow Marieme as she confronts issues with race, gender, poverty and sexuality alike, all while finding joyous moments with her friends that strike just as genuine a chord.

Girlhood starts with a montage of people playing American football who we can’t tell are girls until they victoriously take off their helmets in a group huddle, and we see their proud wide grins as they shout to each other. While some of the girls are revealed to be wearing eyeshadow and lipstick, and sporting long hair under their helmets, others are shown to wear black streaks as their only make up and display nearly shaved heads. This small detail becomes increasingly relevant throughout the film; it's as if the masculine football armor—with room for a plethora of identities underneath it—foreshadows the fact that our lead Mariame will continuously change her clothes and hair as she tries to discover where both her power and comfort lies. At one point Mariame exactly mirrors the friend group she makes, and wears a stolen tight dress and shimmery makeup after all the girls have dressed up altogether in a modest hotel room. This scene is arguably the most fun we see Mariame and her friends have on screen—which is only fair considering Sciamma makes the conscious choice to cut the playful montage to the entirety of Rihanna’s “Shine Bright Like a Diamond.” At the start of the song the girls have gotten to know each other a bit, but by the end of the song we are convinced of the magic of a girls night in to cement a group of girls together as true friends.

Mariame makes friends and she makes mistakes. For instance, it is hard not to wince when we hear Mariame’s younger sister accuse Mariame of becoming just like their older, and abusive, brother. Furthermore, when Mariame seems to be leaving one dangerous situation only to “escape” to another, we root for her friends when they try to attempt to forbid her from doing so. However, only moments after the harsh exchange takes place, Mariame says simply to her friends: “make me laugh.” In response, her friend Adiotuo looks briefly right into the camera —and thus intimately into our eyes—right before she tells us and Mariame that the charismatic leader of the group, Lady, is actually named Sophie. This exchange is exemplary of what Girlhood does so well: it lets its characters be vulnerable, and even miserable, but it is never too long before they are funny, caring and defiant once again.

Before allowing Adiotou to say her “real” name, Lady says a very important line: “my name’s Lady, it’ll be on my grave.” In this sense Lady will not be defined by her birth given name, instead the only name that matters is the one she chooses to die with. As the captive audience, we know Lady’s real name is Lady because we have watched her friends and her world use that name, just as we will stand with and recognize Mariame when she starts to look a bit different. Towards the end of the film, we see Mariame wearing a binder and with very short hair. It is unclear if this outfit is for her physical protection against the seemingly violent men she works with, or is reflective of what Mariame feels her true form may be. When we then watch Mariame slow dance with a girl we are reminded of the deep loyalty and fondness that she once had for her old friend Lady, and we wonder if the friendship we had witnessed earlier carried a different kind of love than just platonic.

These are questions that Girlhood doesn’t answer. Admittedly, this can be frustrating, as sometimes as a witness to Mariame’s life we want her to answer our questions. Especially by the end of the film one may find themselves expecting Mariame to define herself to us—and more importantly to those around her. As I watched Girlhood, I waited for a dramatic monologue: a moment in the film devoted to Mariame telling her world who she is and who she isn’t. It is not a spoiler to say that this moment does not come. Mariame does not tell us—or her friends, or the men she works with, or her first boyfriend, or her family— who she is, but perhaps this is simply because Mariame does not know yet. Meaning, Girlhood’s nuance in its exploration of gender and sexuality seems to lend to a larger truth. The truth being that Mariame is still growing up, she’s still finding out who she is, and the film won’t announce or clarify an answer that Mariame hasn’t discovered for herself.

There is beauty in this nuance, and for many queer individuals alike, there is also a universal truth in addition to Mariame’s personal one. Just as Mariame does not have the words, or space, to verbalize her being yet, many queer youth may take comfort in watching Mariame and knowing they are not alone in not being able to define themselves. I watched Girlhood on a couch next to my dad and his girlfriend, both of whom know I am a lesbian. What they may not know however, is that sometimes this label feels inadequate in explaining how I feel about my sexuality and particularly how I relate to my gender. What a personal relief it was then, to watch a film called Girlhood that had no interest in prescribing to a definition or experience of womanhood that I—and so many others—have become increasingly severed from.

However, Girlhood tells the intricate story of a Mariame, a black woman, growing up in a community that is deeply affected by the product of France’s racism. Mariame and her friends all live in public housing and, through the lens of the film, it appears as though there are no white people who live in these apartment buildings. Furthermore, Mariame, although certainly not defined by her world’s limitations, undoubtedly has to deal with the intersection of racism and sexism throughout her daily life. In this crucial way most of Mariame’s experience of “girlhood” is nothing like mine— but that shouldn’t make this film any less meaningful to me. Often I hear people like me who are white and queer equate how much they like a film to how much they relate to it; but how can we push for diversity and at the same time only desire to watch films that tell the stories of people who look like us. Of course there were still moments and scenes in Girlhood where I “saw myself” in the characters, but I ask again: why is seeing yourself in a film more meaningful than being able to see someone else?

After I watched Girlhood I called my friends and told them they had to watch it. I did not promise them that they would love it, but I was able to promise them that it wasn’t another film about white gay women for white gay women. I was also able to promise them that the film wasn’t a period piece. I told them what I will, in a sense, tell you: while Girlhood and its beautifully portrayed Mariame may have not made it to the big screens in 2014 like its younger and estranged sister, Portrait of a Lady on Fire did in 2020, the film and Mariame deserve a place on your screen at home and, if given, they will likely find a place to stay in your mind long after.

Where to Watch: Hulu (with premium subscription), Amazon Prime ($2.99 to Rent), Youtube ($2.99 to Rent), Itunes ($4.99 to Rent), Apple TV ($4.99 to Rent).

Acknowledgements

Before writing this piece I had never written a film review. Of course I had watched films, analyzed films, texted my friends and family to demand they watch a film, but writing a review is a different story. To write a review of a film is in a sense to quantify its value, and to be honest I never felt I was worthy of doing this. Who was I, as a nineteen year old, to think my opinions on a film should matter to anyone? However, as we entered the “Literary Review” Unit of Research Writing I realized that this would be my opportunity to write a review for a film that I felt had been looked over by mainstream audiences and critics alike. I may not have felt worthy of writing a review of Girlhood, but I knew the film was worthy of a better review than I had been able to find scouring on the internet. I would like to thank my professor Livia Meneghin for encouraging me each step of the way, and for helping me to create a review that I think reflects the beauty and importance of Girlhood.

[sidhelives]

Oh Good, You're Here

Fluffcember 2020

Prompt: Gifts

Full text under Read More

Anders found that he liked the relative quiet of Skyhold. It reminded him of places that, for a time, he had been happy like Vigil's Keep and Aria's Estate. Not absolute silence, the eerie vacuum that was the Deep Roads, nor the cacophonous rabble of Kirkwall, but something in between. It was a lived-in quiet, and like those happy places, was permeated with a feeling of safety. 

At Vigil's Keep he had been, for the first time his life, free from the Circle and protected from the threat of Templars.

Aria and her home in High Town had been safe havens from the chaos of Kirkwall and the looming possibility of either a forced return to the Wardens or Tranquility.

Skyhold was a different, more pervasive safety. Divine Victoria, the mysterious Sister Nightingale, had abolished the Circles of Magi. The Grey Wardens of Fereldan were independent of Weisshaupt and rebuilding on their own, with no interest in tracking down their strays. And the Inquisitor…

He didn't know what Desdemona was. The idea that she was his enemy had withered and died at some point in the months since his arrival, but did that make her his friend? His lover? Certainly by definition. They had never discussed what they were to each other, if what they had was more than two broken souls fumbling for any touch which might chase away the painful memories of heartbreak. Anders wasn’t sure he wanted to have that conversation; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

"Ser Anders."

The voice caught him off guard, as did the honorific. Anders had been staring at but not seeing one of the fine stained glass windows in the library, an open book in his lap forgotten as he had become lost in thought. The red-headed elf who had spoken his name was familiar, she lurked in the rookery: receiving reports from scouts scurrying up and down through the library and sending ravens to the Grand Cathedral. "Just Anders, please. What do you need?"

"Anders." The elf nodded. Her name was Charter, Anders remembered. "The Inquisitor would like to speak with you."

Speaking of demons, Anders thought. He set the book aside and stretched as he stood.

"Any chance you know where I would find Her Worship?"

"She is in her chambers."

"Alright. Thank you for the message."

Charter saluted him, another irregularity that made his stomach wobble, then curtly turned and headed up the stairs to the rookery. Anders took the stairs down, passing through the brilliantly painted rotunda. He tried not to look at the walls as he walked between them, their clean lines and bright colors reverberating with Desdemona's grief. She had never spoken to him about the room and, to his knowledge, she had stepped foot there only once since his arrival at the fortress: he been above in the library and she hadn't noticed his observation, too busy angrily upturning a table and muffling furious, anguished screams between her teeth. He had spoken to others in the keep, however, about the paintings, the strange distant elf who had created them, and his sudden departure from the Inquisitor's side.

He told himself that it was none of his business, but something inside him curled with revulsion at the sight of the frescos. Something that had a name, and on occasion, a voice.

The stairs up to the Inquisitor's chambers were arduous, and gave Anders time to focus on the question of why she had summoned him; a change in contemplation which quieted Justice's ire. Desdemona had never been shy about tracking him down when she wanted to see him: appearing out of nowhere to share a letter from Varric or discuss magical theory or, occasionally, to shuffle him into a broom closet for hasty half-dressed sex. 

He suspected these irregular visits had more to do with loneliness than her desire to speak with him specifically. Most of her companions had drifted away from Skyhold after the Breach had been closed. Some, like the Qunari, The Iron Bull, was often present, but others, like the infamous Lady of Iron, had been gone before Anders even arrived. Those that remained had started making their departures once it was clear Anders was no longer a threat. Hundreds of soldiers and mages had also evacuated the keep, returning to their families or joining with the newly formed College of Enchanters. At the middle of it all was Desdemona, the unrelenting Inquisitor, continuing the thankless job of doing right in a world that was no longer sure it needed her.

Desdemona was social, and bold, and fed on the interaction with the people around her. When she desired company she sought it out. So why would she send another in her place to request his presence?

"Oh good, you're here." Desdemona spotted him the moment his blond hair cleared the landing. She looked gorgeous and stately as usual, but Anders noticed a nervous energy in the way she tossed her hair behind one shoulder and gripped her elbows as she crossed her arms.

"I'm here. What did you want to talk to me about?"

She gestured for him to come closer. "I have something for you— well not you exactly."

With a quizzical expression, Anders crossed to her, noting the uncharacteristically humble tone of her voice. He reflected that he had never before the Inquisitor sound unsure about anything. When Desdemona spoke her words became truth: she could announce that the sky was purple and he would take it as fact. "For me but not for me. What does that mean?" One corner of his lips quirked up.

Desdemona glowered at his grin. "It's for Justice."

Anders's curious amusement vanished, replaced by slack-jawed shock. He stared at her, waiting for a "gotcha" or some other walk-back of the statement, but she appeared completely serious. He felt the spirit's attention stir: like a coiled snake raising its sinuous head at movement in its vicinity.

"You have something for… Justice?"

"Yes." Desdemona shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "A gift."

Justice seemed to cock its head in interest at that. "Oh?" Anders asked, sharing the spirit's curiosity.

"It was The Well's idea." Desdemona crossed her arms defensively. 

A shiver slid down Anders's spine. The Well, like Justice had, seemed to respond to mention of it. Through his connection to the spirit, Anders could feel the awareness of the entity: not a spirit but not entirely unlike one, a consciousness based in the essence of justice, but more nuanced and terrifyingly human in its motivations than the simplistic spirit which rode along with Anders.

Desdemona's statement clarified nothing about the situation, so Anders continued to stare gormlessly at her, awaiting an actual explanation. She was grinding her teeth, body language spelling out exasperation with his confusion. Mouth half open, presumably to call him an idiot, she stalled. Her eyes fluttered closed and her head tilted to one side, as if listening to voices from an adjoining room. The voices, Anders knew, were inside her: the vir'abelasan, millennia of knowledge from the ancient elves hitched into the back of her mind. Desdemona took a deep breath and her eyes opened again, the aggression in them having melted away.

"Justice is a part of you, just as The Well is a part of me." She sounded surer, more confident, more like herself. "If we are going to continue carrying on as we have, it is included in that. Call it a peace offering." She held out her hand, but Anders couldn't see what she held, his attention caught on her steady expression.

He felt adrift, emotions erratic and unable to settle on any one feeling. Desdemona's words crept between his ribs, reaching and clutching at his core. It was a queer sensation: part awe, part apprehension, and underneath his own reaction was the ballooning approval of the spirit. Justice had already liked Desdemona, or perhaps it was her invisible passenger that it liked, but this offer of amity seemed to solidify its approval.

Anders, for his part, found himself concerned with the implication of her overture.

"Do you intend for us to continue carrying on?" He asked, all levity set aside from his tone.

"I do." Neither her hand nor tone wavered. "If your intentions are the same."

Anders studied her face: the tousled golden curls spilling from her crown like the crest of a mighty waterfall, her ivory pale skin, the sharp acid green of her eyes, her full but petite carmine lips, the imperfect bend of her narrow nose. Nothing remotely like Aria's tanned, dark, regal features. Aria had looked like an exotic goddess of battle; Desdemona resembled a porcelain doll, but for the fire behind her eyes.

He slowly looked down at what she held. It seemed to be a perfect sphere of air with a glowing, pulsing blue heart at its center. He realized it must have been glass or some perfectly clear crystal, cast around the core as it had no seams to speak of, with a loop at one end which a leather cord had been fed through to make it a pendant. Anders felt Justice rise more noticeably to the surface of his consciousness. 

Lyrium.

The word vibrated through Anders's skull. Pure, poisonous lyrium. Knowing what it was he could feel the slight power it emanated, insulated somehow in its crystalline casing.

He looked back at Desdemona's face, a slight smile creasing the skin around her eyes. "I believe it possessed something similar many years ago, lost when it abandoned a former host." She said softly. "This one, however, poses no danger to your body."

Justice affirmed this, showing Anders flashes of a pure lyrium ring gifted to him by the Warden Commander, the touch of which would have eaten away at living flesh. Desdemona's knowledge of this was a mystery to the spirit, as even Anders only vaguely remembered the band of blue sunk deep into the rotting flesh of what had once been Kristoff. The Well, he remembered. It must have somehow shown her the ring and Justice's regret over its loss. The spirit confirmed that this was the only explanation.

Anders began to raise his arm to take the pendant, lips slightly parted, a thank you ready on his tongue, then froze, petrified by sudden indecision.

If your intentions are the same. 

Were they?

He felt himself slipping into her eyes, their hue so like the Breach which had split the sky, a portal to another world. His chest felt tight, heart stirring with a gentle, familiar warmth. It had been there a while, he realized belatedly, slowly building as they discussed societal reform and shared their similar stories from growing up in the Circle. Anders had ignored it, his subconscious deciding that the feeling had no place in what it had worked hard to convince him was a purely sexual relationship. Of course, looking back, it had never been purely sexual, that was merely easier to navigate.

Desdemona's gift forced him to acknowledge that the situation was not so simple.

"You feel affection for this creature."

Justice's voice was low, a vibration in Anders's skull rather than a sound, and made the hair on Anders's arms stand up. He bit his lip, a tactile reminder not to speak out loud before responding. "I do."

"Why do you feel guilt over this fact?"

Anders didn't need to consciously respond, images of Aria flooded the strange byway of their communication: Aria in battle, splattered with blood and eyes sparkling with manic violence. Aria drenched in sweat, lips parted in ecstasy, her hips rolling against his. Aria curled into his side in front of a roaring fire, warm mug in one hand and his clasped tight in the other.

"She is gone."

He felt himself wince. A year gone. Eleven months and five days to be exact, the date etched into his bones. It seemed such a short time to mourn, he should be mourning.

"This creature is not your Hawke. Feeling affection for her does not replace the part of you which the Hawke's passing has rent."

Anders's brow knit. Justice had hit upon the crux, the unacknowledged fear that had made him reject even the passing notion that he might have feelings for the Inquisitor. Aria had been his and he had been hers. He would have faced anything with her by his side. Without her, his vengeance was all that remained: anger and hate for a world that had stolen her from him, but Desdemona had doused the embers and left him with nothing. 

And wasn't that what he deserved? To remain a shrine to the undeserved love given to him by a great woman? To even dream of love or happiness without her was heretical, he was not worthy of such things.

"You are wrong. You do an injustice to yourself, and to the Hawke as well."

Anders felt his skull rattle with the intensity of the spirit's declaration.

"The Hawke affected you profoundly. Nothing will alter that fact. To imply otherwise does a disservice to her memory. I am inclined to believe that the Hawke would wish you happiness."

"Anders?" Desdemona had one eyebrow raised.

With a start, he refocused on her. He reflected that the interaction with Justice had probably occurred over seconds, but the expectant expression she wore made him feel sheepish. She had clearly not anticipated any delay in his response.

"Sorry, I—" Anders cleared his throat. He raised his arm, the movement feeling heavy, and lay his hand over the trinket she held, the edges of his fingers brushing her palm. He could feel the magic dancing within it, almost hear the time which conducted it. 

"Thank you." He managed the words, voice lower and softer than he intended. "Justice, and I, appreciate the gesture." He left unspoken the gravity of what she offered him, and the counterbalance of his conflict with it. The way her smile bloomed and shoulders relaxed at his words suggested explanations were unnecessary, and hinted at a parallel struggle as invisible as his own.

"I hoped you would." She snatched her hand and the pendant from below his. "Let me help." Before he could respond, Desdemona had draped the cord around his neck, the orb of lyrium hanging just over his heart. With a smirk, she readjusted the bauble so it slid under his tunic. "Against skin is better."

"Speaking of," Anders's wry smile slipped into place as quickly as his thoughts turned to lighter matters, grateful for something other than his turmoil to focus on. His hands came to rest in a featherlight touch on her hips. "Do I get a gift?"

Her eyes lit like a gas-fed stove, igniting with a heat that made Anders feel much too warm in his light garments. "I don't have anything prepared, but I could throw something together for you." Her hands slid down his chest to the waistband of his trousers. "Although I expect emphatic thanks." She raised one shapely eyebrow again, her fingers losing the catch on his belt as they drifted lower.

The edges of Anders's vision wavered as he felt her touch through sturdy cotton. "I'm indebted to you, now on Justice's behalf as well as my own. Expressing my gratitude could very well take hours."

Desdemona chuckled, a sound that made Anders's spine turn to jelly, even before she carefully lowered herself to her knees, eyes burning like two miniature stars. "I suppose we should get started then."

[massistocchifontana]

Your woman reflects your deepest integrity 

Your woman reflects your deepest integrity 

 A night out anywhere in the world holds with it a marvel of interesting sights and experiences. These experiences allow one the opportunity to observe with ease whether a man has a great degree of integrity or not. 

 The definition of integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. A beautiful phrase to hold in mind is "a gentleman of complete integrity". Although this is a simple enough definition the words honest and moral are two words which need to have a conscious and purposeful striving towards before we can get remotely close to its true essence. 

 I feel all human beings need a polarity of experience before they can truly understand and identify with their integrity. Much of this development stems from our upbringing and the values and beliefs that are transferred from our parents onto us. It is through these experiences in life that beliefs and values are either refuted or accepted and when accepted then they become solidified. 

 Observing a very wealthy older man with a 20 something girl in his company and his attention being on everyone else rather than being mesmerised and completely present in the moment with her, is a fascinating experience to observe. His attention is keenly focused on who is observing his "accomplishment" of getting such a young girl to be with him. Like most experiences in life, people’s actions and responses to life hold a myriad of different nuances and meanings. 

 As a starting point there is absolutely nothing wrong with dating a younger woman or younger man, however there is something very wrong when we apply the integrity principle to the experience. 

 We all have mirror neurons in our bodies, which are the human body's ability to mirror the behaviours, manners, and cellular function of another person neurologically speaking. This completely unconscious process applies greatly to the people we choose to have around us, and applies especially to the individual we decide to be our partner. 

 If there is this unconscious mirroring process occurring at all times with the world and people around us, we are completely oblivious to what is being shared. We can use our emotions as a means of identifying the impact and effect that these interactions have however we need to learn to sit more consciously with ourselves to become fully aware of this bodily change before we can make the very relevant changes necessary. 

 Unless the young woman chosen by the older man sees herself in high esteem in relation to the man, meaning… does she see herself as his equal on a financial, emotional, spiritual, physical and sexual level? If she cannot answer yes to being his equal in her own interpretation of the five areas then she will naturally subordinate herself against him. This means that she will lower herself and make herself feel lesser than him creating an unhealthy dependency on him until she has understood a way of seeing her own worth in the five areas to balance out the relationship. 

 We always look towards the other person in our life for qualities in which we lack within ourselves. We use this as a learning experience, however because this is done on an unconscious level, we often find ourselves in a situation where we disable our ability to grow. Instead we become dependant on what the other person offers us and we become fearful of loosing them. 

 This describes the occurrences that happen within personal relationships, which can be read more about at (www.massimo.love)

 The reflection that occurs from a woman to man reminds me of the story of narcissus. I would suggest in reading the story in greater depth as it allows us the opportunity to reflect on our own narcissism. In short, narcissus falls in love with his own reflection when he drinks from the river Tiburon. Instead of questioning the reflection and using it as a sounding board to grow and develop, he creates the first condition of narcissism where he feeds into the ego and dissolves any potential of any other person having a valuable space in his life. The key theme to the story is what our internal world displays to the outside world. In the same way, the internal world of a woman reflects the internal world of the man on many levels. The primary level that is in focus here is integrity. 

 I hold issue with the woman in the above-mentioned example. The reason I say this is that if I compare men and women, women are the ones who have shown real growth since the beginning of feminism whereas men seem to be stagnating unsure of where they stand and how they should act. Thankfully this is a process that is being corrected within the male community and this redefinition will take some time.

 This young woman, although acutely aware of the principle of leverage and manipulation has resorted to consciously subordinating herself to become a "kept woman", instead of realising her full potential and being focused on her own growth. This action occurs daily in many circumstances, and the most frustrating part of this equation is that men will use this to their advantage rather than being challenged to grow and become "good men" by their woman.

 This maintains a very basic level of relating, which keeps the man focused on his ego and never being able to transcend this ego driven state into a place where he learns how to understand his masculinity or contain his woman. I am very sure that somewhere in your life you have heard of someone or come across a situation where a man is in a relationship and he changes because of one woman. The manner in which he relates to others is a change so pivotal and drastically apparent that he is perceived differently immediately. We often make the judgement that this woman has "changed him", whereas she has led him to a place where he is now ready for the change away from the ego driven masculine. 

 Men all know the perfect type of woman for them. The one who they feel would be most suited on every level. The problem here is that these relationships do not necessarily work out for the best because men cannot tolerate the higher degree of integrity that a woman holds in comparison to his. 

 This leaves him feeling inadequate and at times ashamed at himself for not being as great or equal to the integrity being shown. Women will often hear, "I'm not ready for a relationship", "I need to focus on me", "I have a goal I want to achieve", "I can't give myself entirely in a relationship" etc. These are all statements linked with feelings of inadequacy and a very distinct realisation that the woman in front of them is too developed on a level of integrity and they feel they cannot match up to this. 

 So what is the solution?

 Men really need to understand the meaning of the word surrender. Being resistant to change brings with it a great deal of emotional turmoil, one of the things that all men dislike. There really is not an easy solution for this because it fundamentally comes down to the willingness of a man to want to change and grow so that he can transcend his ego. If a man places more value on their success in life this will be a difficult process, however by surrendering to one's masculinity does allow for a rare opportunity to embrace every experience that life has to offer eventually leading to a different type of success.  

 Men need to make a conscious choice as to whether they feel they need many women in their life, or whether they want one woman in their life. This decision in itself clarifies much for the mans' mind. However needs to be reflected on when in a lesser Ego driven state. A great analogy would be like going grocery shopping when you are full in comparison to when your tummy is empty--there is a vast difference between the two experiences. The same can be said with a more conscious state in comparison to the Ego driven state, but fundamentally the decision is yours.  

Via Con Dios

[jimdroberts]

Britain, Brexit, and Zugzwang

There’s a saying in chess that describes a position whereby the player whose turn it is

Zugzwang should be Batman’s nemesis.

can’t make a move that won’t lose him the game, such a position is called, zugzwang. In British politics similar situations are called Brexit.

How did we get here?

Google images with a search for, “Brexit Timeline.” It results in an array of graphical representations and psychedelic colours of confusion illustrating just how the UK will  negotiate their way through the eight levels of hell. Each timeline is different and every timeline is about as accurate as a bumblebee with a machine gun, leaving me to deduce that nobody has the faintest idea what is going on.

Just look at the timelines, it’s madness I tell you!

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The Brexit Timeline – How Did We Get Here?

2010, Conservatives win a general election without a clear majority. The Conservatives form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

2015, In an attempt to win an outright majority, David Cameron pledges a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU), despite the fact that he was pro-Europe. The Conservatives win an outright majority.

June 2016, Britain holds a referendum to decide whether it’s to remain a part of the (EU). Despite all media predictions, a majority of 51.9% of people vote to leave the EU. Within 24 hours David Cameron resigns as prime minister and like a leader of a banana republic, goes into exile on the French Riviera, where he settles down to write his memoir, also known as his excuse, the memoir fails to mention performing any sexual acts on the severed heads of pigs.

  “David Cameron announced he is stepping down in the wake of a vote, which should make me happy, but it doesn’t. It’s like catching an ice cream cone out of the air, because a child has been hit by a car. I’ll eat it! But it’s tainted somehow.” – John Oliver

June 2017, riding Following the departure of David Cameron, Theresa May mistakes a wave of national euphoria for what is actually a burgeoning sense of scorn, ridicule and contempt towards her. Failing to recognise this

Ever wondered what a person looks like having just been given £1 billion?

she calls a general election, not an easy thing to do given  the Fixed Term Parliament Act requiring five years between elections. Conservatives win the election, but take control of a hung parliament. To have a majority they form a coalition government with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a sort of stone-age sect of religous  zealots whom Theresa May gives £1 billion. Some called it a bribe, while others wanted to know where the magic money tree’s hidden. Despite the £1 billion pay off, the DUP consistently fail to support the prime minister on most Brexit votes. Still, whats £1 billion to a government preaching austerity?

March 2019, the Conservative Party tire of Theresa’s inability to make progress on brexit.

July 2019, members of the Conservative Party elect Boris Johnson as their leader and next prime minister.

Despite promising  the nation that, he’d rather die in a ditch than fail to leave the EU on

Brexit’s been one disappointment after another.

October 31st, 2019, Boris Johnson delivers on neither  Brexit, nor corpse in a ditch materialise. I wasn’t fussy, I’d have settled for a drain, trench, even a gutter. But no, the fat, flatulent, shaggy haired mop head lives on, and after what must have taken minutes of thought, decided to throw the decision back to the public in the form of a general election. Appealing to the same electorate, who in recent times has shown a proclivity to vote for the most chaotic scenario possible. I ask myself, why’s that trend going to stop? Leadership isn’t delegating the problem to everyone else, that’s scapegoating.

Boris hopes the ball lands on, erection.

Following the roulette disappointment, Boris disposes of his blond wig and thinks really hard about holding his erection.what to o next. fear of overheating his brain, Boris takes of his blond wig and decides whether or not to call an election.

Clowns to the Left of me, Jokers to the Right

So, come December 12th, who do you vote for. American cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead famously said:

If you went to a restaurant, and the only choice you had was between a turd sandwiches or Jellied moose tongue, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for you to go looking for somewhere else to eat. Elections in the UK are like this, they offer no choice that you can enthusiastically endorse, just a choice of the lesser evil.

Apathy is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people.  A system that is apathetic, in fact, to the needs of the people it was designed to serve. …’

Russell Brand – Guardian

It’s at this stage that people can get angry with the abstaining from voting argument, they remind you of how lucky we are to have a democracy. They’re quick to inform us that voting is the only time the poor have as much say as the wealthy. And if they’ve still failed to convince they’re likely to trundle out, the very old and very tired, it’s a civic duty; which it’s not. Jury service is the only the only civic responsibility in the U.K. No, democracy isn’t being asked to choose between two groups of equally incompetent people who will inevitably balls things up, just in slightly different ways.

Perhaps journalist, Heydon Prowse most accurately explains the trend in the results of recent elections and referenda in the west”

…vote, revolt, “turn voting into a protest too”

Heydon Prowse

We live in a system where only one of two political choices ends up running the country, but people now understand that neither does anything to make their lives any better. The underprivileged will remain underprivileged, the under paid won’t become better off, in fact relatively wages have stagnated for twenty years, and the uneducated, and unemployed will continue to seek solace by watching reality television.

In reality there’s only two choices:

Don’t vote, because none of the candidates are capable of doing the job; or

Go all in with Margaret Mead and choose the lesser of two evils in the hope that the one you pick might be capable screwing things up marginally less than the other choice.

The exhilaration what western democracies promise us.

So Who is the lesser of Two Evils?

It’s an interesting question, it comes down to choosing between an egotistical, nefarious, dishonest, man who can’t keep track of how many children he might have fathered, and a man who looks like he’s just crawled out from beneath your compost heap at the

Jeremy Corbyn whispers Karl Marx, and promises his turnips that the means of production will be shared between all the vegetables.

bottom of your garden, and then preaches anachronistic left wing dogma to your vegetable patch. For years I’ve given Corbyn the benefit of the doubt, thinking that he can’t possibly prescribe to the tenets of Marxism the media claim he does, but he’s never clarified just how far his socialist beliefs go. Might he turn into an English Pol Pot, force everyone to work in allotments as he engineers his agrarian utopia? It sounds stupid, but then again, nearly everything that’s come out of Westminster for the past five years has been stupid. But the peculiarities of the Labour party don’t stop with Corbyn, in fact it’s only the beginning. Corbyn’s shadow home secretary is Diane Abbott, a woman so spectacularly incompetent that she takes a calculator to bed so she can count the sheep. To appreciate how dimwitted Diane Abbot is, the video below shows the most spectacularly embarrassing interview by a senior politician that I’ve ever witnessed:

  So with Boris Johnson’s only opponent, resembling a cross between Lenin and Worzel Gummidge, and seemingly focused on winning the allotment vote of the UK, and with his sidekick displaying the mental faculties of sub-optimal kindergarten student, you would think that all Boris needs to do to win this election is stay alive until the morning of December 13th. If only it were that simple.

  Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson

Yes, that really is his name, dePfeffel. If it’s not right to judge a book by its cover, then it must be an even greater superficial objectification to judge a person by their name, but what the hell is a de Pfeffel? Sounds like a catastrophe in a patisserie in which the pretzel dough and the waffle  batter got mixed together and spawned the Antichrist of pastries, a de Pfeffel. No, it’s actually something far more sinister. The von Pfeffel family, after narrowly missing out on starring in, The Sound of Music, is a German, Bavarian, family of considerable  historical wealth and influence. Finding out any more about them is difficult, but doubtlessly you have a neurotic, conspiracy theorist friend who’ll soon get you up to speed.

If only Boris’ problems stopped at de Pfeffel.  He’s a renowned Islamaphobe, homophobe, adulterer, racist, and outright liar. In fact, he is quintessentially the British Donald Trump. The more ridiculous he behaves, the more support he gets. Johnson appeals to a disenfranchised electorate, as he appears to them to be a break from the norm. Let’s look at some of the most infamous dePfeffel moments.

In August 2018, Boris remarked that Muslim women who wear burkas resemble letter boxes. Note, that at the time he was Britain’s Foreign Secretary, a role requiring awareness of cultural nuances. Look I’m all for a joke, but… What kind of mind could consider that an appropriate thing to say?

Whilst in his position of Foreign Secretary, Boris intervened in the delicate situation of British-Iranian woman, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was being held captive on charges of espionage. Boris stated that she wasn’t a spy, but  teaching journalism, something which she also wasn’t doing. During Boris’ time as Foreign Secretary, the conditions of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe worsened, with her no longer being allowed to make telephone calls to her husband, and there now being great concern for her mental well-being.

In his column for the Daily Telegraph in 2002, Johnson described people from African Commonwealth countries in the following way, “It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies,” later he added to this mentioning, African people as having “watermelon smiles.” As I said, I like a joke, but racial slurs, well they’re just not funny.

Homophobia, in the past Johnson referred to gay marriage as being akin to humans marrying dogs. And infamously referred to gay men as tank-topped bumboys.

Boris Johnson is a survivor, he’ll say whatever it takes to climb the greasy pole, irregardless of what he says being true or not. You can’t get a more blatant example of his lies than the time he wrote one on the side of a bus. He was right in saying that the UK pays the EU 350 million pounds a week, but it takes into no account how much money the EU sends the UK per week, and how much money the UK saves with free trade with the EU.

.

Vote for Me – Righting the Wrongs

It’s a face of honesty, trust, sound judgment and leadership.

My manifesto is somewhat limited but at its core is righting wrongs through revenge. Essentially I would achieve this by displaying David Cameron’s head on a spike after it had been inserted into his own bottom. Whilst I freely admit that this does little to resolve the Brexit issue, I do believe it would give the country a much needed boost to morale.

The End Is Not Nigh

As an expat who’s lived outside the UK for almost twenty years, personally, I don’t care who wins the election and goes on to form a Rabelaisian government of idiots; I learnt the word Rabelaisian recently and I’m rather fond of it. I just hope that there’s something positive in this for everyone, which of course is impossible.  I still firmly believe what I thought the morning after the referendum; that Britain will never leave the EU. If the powers that be wanted to leave, then Britain would have left by now. Whomever wins this election is unlikely to win a majority, leaving the UK with a fragile coalition goverment once again. One thing I’m certain of, we can’t keep standing in the middle of the road, because when you do that you get hit by traffic from both directions, or worse, you could fall off your horse and cart.

In conclusion, this election will conclude nothing.

Explaining Brexit in five seconds, be like…

                                            Come December: Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right Here I am, stuck in a polling booth Without a clue what to do. Britain, Brexit, and Zugzwang There's a saying in chess that describes a position whereby the player whose turn it is…

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Why I aborted 2 very wanted pregnancies

April held several anniversaries for me. The anniversary of an unrealized due date, the anniversary of an ended pregnancy, the anniversary of my birth40 years ago this year. All three of these dates gave me pause to reflect on the choices Ive made.

Choice. The word feels big and comes up often lately. When faced with my strong-willed 3-and-a-half-year-old son, Ive learned to give him only two choices or else Id lose my mind. On a larger scale, Im considering leaving a career Ive pursued for over two decades and whether or not to add to our family. Such choices are par for the course as we grow and enter new phases in our lives.

But more significantly, Ive been thinking about the right to choose in the debate over abortion, which is not only threatened under the Trump administration, but also often misunderstood. The nuances that can go into making a choice to end a pregnancy are often unseen, unspoken, and never casual.

Unfortunately, my husband and I were faced with this choice. Twice. We terminated two very wanted pregnancies. To put it bluntly, Ive had two abortions.

And as our government tries to strip us of our reproductive rights, I am reminded how lucky I am to have the financial means and to live in a state where laws didnt prevent me from the choices I made. My abortions left me heartbroken, changed, and grief-strickenthat is indisputable. But everyone should be granted those choices. Those are choices Id still make today.

. . .

Itd be easy to peg me as your typical pro-choice advocate. I grew up in a liberal household. Feminism was at the core of my progressive private Los Angeles high school education. I went to a super hippie-dippy college where grades were for eggs, not people. But while I was taught to think critically about various perspectives, I was primarily surrounded by politically and socially like-minded individuals. To be honest, I never questioned whether I was pro-choice. I just was.

Photo via World Cant Wait/Flickr (CC-BY)

And then I visited a Body Worlds exhibit. This particular show featured skeletal muscles, nervous systems, and healthy and diseased organs to demonstrate the complexity of the human body. It also included a wall of 42 embryo and fetuses preserved in a glass case.

These embryos and fetuses were humanized by Body Worlds. I saw their form and I saw their potential. I saw them as life. (Not so dissimilarly as I saw the meat that I no longer ate when I became a vegetarian 10 years prior.) I remember very clearly, standing over a nine-week embryo in a glass case thinking that I believed in choice, but couldnt imagine making such a choice.

Fast forward 10 years.

I became pregnant in the summer of 2011. In September, I went in for the routine 13-week NT scan, the ultrasound that assesses your babys risk of having chromosomal abnormalities. That day, we found out that our babys nuchal fold thickness was outside of the normal range.

We sat with the genetic counselor as we gave our histories (nothing outside of the ordinary) and was given a primer on statistics and chromosomes and karyotypes and various horrifying conditions. At that point, we still didnt know exactly what it all meant for our child.

As we drove home, my husband, through his stifled tears, said to me, We cant think of it as a baby. I remember feeling aggressively defensive at my husbands reality. I had stared at the doctors screen and saw a body. I had stared at my belly and saw it swollen. Of course, it was a baby. That was never a question for me.

Test results confirmed that our baby had a significant chance of having some kind of severe abnormality that could be fatal or would likely cause him to suffer. We consulted doctors, got second opinions, and endured more testing. We were candidly, though not casually, advised by doctors to terminate and try again. And at 14 weeks, thats what we did. We made our choice.

I grieved, I processed, I sat on the couch in therapy and tried to find meaning in my experience. I planted a letter in an olive tree that I had written to our son, explaining to him why we made our decision, and that it was ultimately a decision made out of love.

I became pregnant again, at the beginning of 2012. This babys due date was exactly one year after we terminated the previous pregnancy. I found solace in that kind of synchronicity.

But of course, when I went to my routine 13-week NT scan, I was still anxious.

As I lay on the exam bed, facing a flatscreen monitor with just my name and my estimated due date, the technician asked me, Would you like me to turn the monitor off after you confirm the information is correct?

She was asking if I wanted to see my baby. Without hesitation, I told her to leave it on. I did not take my eyes off him. Here was my baby alive and living inside of me.

Soon, though, my husband and I would be faced with the same godawful, painful decision that we had made just months before.

This time around, my babys NT scan showed that his nuchal fold thickness measured twice the normal size, putting his life at even more risk than our first. My husband and I searched for a medical explanation or any scientific data that could give us an understanding as to why this happened to us not once, but twice. I scoured medical journal articles and reached what felt like the end of the internet looking for affirmations that I could carry my baby to term and not feel like I was putting my child at a significantly abnormal great risk by bringing him into the world.

We sat with the facts, the data, the expert opinions as well as second and third and fourth opinions. I had a CVS, a microarray, a full counsel on recessive testing. We had ultrasounds with specialists at both Cedars-Sinai and UCLA. We reached out to various genetic and prenatal and neonatal specialists. We made it our job to find an answer.

Despite the extensive research on my pregnancies and all of the testing, every doctor we saw was at a loss to explain why this developed with our babies twice and couldnt come up with anything beyond compassionately telling us it was two strokes of bad luck.

We made our choice. Again.

. . .

I think about what our story would have looked like under different circumstances. In another state. With abortion restrictions. With fewer means. Fewer resources. What that trajectory could have looked like in a parallel universe. And it makes me realize that while others might not agree with our choiceand I certainly can understand why some do notit was our choice to make, not our governments. It was philosophical, it was personal, and it was ours.

The Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a billin March that would ban all abortions based on genetic abnormalities. In other words, Oklahoma legislators believe that the agonizing choice that my husband and I made as a couple, both times, should have been theirs to make. Theyd get to make this choice for us even though they would do nothing to support the aftermath of that decision: setting aside funding for his medical care, holding our hands while he underwent a lifetime of treatments, alleviating our pain if he died not long after birth.

In Kentucky, there is only one abortion clinic left in the state. One in 40,400 square miles, and the governor just tried to close it. In that scenario, I think about the big-picture trajectory again: If my husband and I lived in Kentucky and we didnt have a car or have the funds to get to the closest clinic and subsequently had a child with severe and costly life threatening medical issuesa child whom may or may not have been even able to survive after being bornwhere would we all be now?

But in what could be the most damaging legislation given my situation, the Texas Senate just passed two obscenely restrictive bills: One outlawing dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedures, the safest and most effective abortion procedure for women in their second trimester and what doctors used to terminate my second pregnancy; and another called the wrongful birth bill that would make it legally OK for doctors to lie to their patients about fetal abnormalities so they dont get an abortion. Yes, doctors could make the choice to withhold my babys health issues from my husband and me, while we went on in ignorance, unable to have a choice in the future of our family.

The list of laws and states and circumstances that hinder choice goes on and on.

Photo via Shutterstock

While it may seem like what the Republican Party wants to do first and foremost with such restrictive legislation is prevent women from getting abortions, that motive is only secondary. Many studies have shown that women arent going to stop choosing to have abortions under strict lawstheyll find other, unsafe means to terminate their pregnancies that could put their own lives in danger. At its core, these laws are about controlling women and perpetuating feelings of shame and guilt for making choices over their own bodies.

Women have long lived with the burdens of shame; nevertheless, we have persisted. We do not shut down after making the choice to have an abortion. We do not go through with the procedureand never feel again. I have never felt so much pain, anger, sadness, grief, and confusion as I did after choosing to end my pregnancies.

Worse than the pain I felt in their absence, though, would have been not getting to make that choice at all. And to clarify: I understand why others would not make the same choice. But being forced into a life based on a doctors whim or a legislators personal ideology, being robbed of making the best personal choice for my family, would have been a pain I could not endure.

. . .

After that 13-week appointment, I decided to make the most of each day with my son while he was still in my body. We went to the beach. I showed him the ocean and the sand. We ate Indian food, Italian food, Mexican food, Mediterranean food. I read to him. I talked to him. I sang to him. I wrote him letters daily. We listened to a lot of Florence and the Machine. I explained everything that was happening to us as best as I could, as we went into each ultrasound appointment.

After considering and reconsidering all of the information we had collected over five weeks, we made the decision to go in for a D&E the day before my 35th birthday. He was 18 weeks. I woke up on my birthday longing for him and missing him terribly.

While my husband and I grieved together, I felt oddly alone in my experience. Simply put, there was a literal voidinside of me. Unlike my husband, I had pregnancy weight gain and pain and cramping and bleeding and hormonal mood swings that were constant visceral reminders of my baby whose life we chose to end. And so I took the pain pills prescribed with wine every night as I watched countless episodes of TLCsWhat Not to Wear to escape all the pain that was too hard to feel.

Because he was a baby, my baby, we had him cremated. Until we came up with the right spot to place his ashes, I carried him around with me. Some might think it weird or dark or sick, but I couldnt fathom leaving him home alone, and so he came with me in my purse to my appointments, my errands, and my work. We eventually found his spot.

My husband and I eventually tried again seven months later. I quickly became pregnant and gave birth to our son in August 2013.

I would be lying if I said I did not often see his two brothers when I look at him. All three are part of my fabricour son is here because of them. And one day, I plan on telling him about his brothers and our journey. A journey and a family we wouldnt have without choice.

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Britain, Brexit, and Zugzwang

There’s a saying in chess that describes a position whereby the player whose turn it is

Zugzwang should be Batman’s nemesis.

can’t make a move that won’t lose him the game, such a position is called, zugzwang. In British politics similar situations are called Brexit.

How did we get here?

Google images with a search for, “Brexit Timeline.” It results in an array of graphical representations and psychedelic colours of confusion illustrating just how the UK will  negotiate their way through the eight levels of hell. Each timeline is different and every timeline is about as accurate as a bumblebee with a machine gun, leaving me to deduce that nobody has the faintest idea what is going on.

Just look at the timelines, it’s madness I tell you!

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The Brexit Timeline – How Did We Get Here?

2010, Conservatives win a general election without a clear majority. The Conservatives form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

2015, In an attempt to win an outright majority, David Cameron pledges a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU), despite the fact that he was pro-Europe. The Conservatives win an outright majority.

June 2016, Britain holds a referendum to decide whether it’s to remain a part of the (EU). Despite all media predictions, a majority of 51.9% of people vote to leave the EU. Within 24 hours David Cameron resigns as prime minister and like a leader of a banana republic, goes into exile on the French Riviera, where he settles down to write his memoir, also known as his excuse, the memoir fails to mention performing any sexual acts on the severed heads of pigs.

  “David Cameron announced he is stepping down in the wake of a vote, which should make me happy, but it doesn’t. It’s like catching an ice cream cone out of the air, because a child has been hit by a car. I’ll eat it! But it’s tainted somehow.” – John Oliver

June 2017, riding Following the departure of David Cameron, Theresa May mistakes a wave of national euphoria for what is actually a burgeoning sense of scorn, ridicule and contempt towards her. Failing to recognise this

Ever wondered what a person looks like having just been given £1 billion?

she calls a general election, not an easy thing to do given  the Fixed Term Parliament Act requiring five years between elections. Conservatives win the election, but take control of a hung parliament. To have a majority they form a coalition government with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a sort of stone-age sect of religous  zealots whom Theresa May gives £1 billion. Some called it a bribe, while others wanted to know where the magic money tree’s hidden. Despite the £1 billion pay off, the DUP consistently fail to support the prime minister on most Brexit votes. Still, whats £1 billion to a government preaching austerity?

March 2019, the Conservative Party tire of Theresa’s inability to make progress on brexit.

July 2019, members of the Conservative Party elect Boris Johnson as their leader and next prime minister.

Despite promising  the nation that, he’d rather die in a ditch than fail to leave the EU on

Brexit’s been one disappointment after another.

October 31st, 2019, Boris Johnson delivers on neither  Brexit, nor corpse in a ditch materialise. I wasn’t fussy, I’d have settled for a drain, trench, even a gutter. But no, the fat, flatulent, shaggy haired mop head lives on, and after what must have taken minutes of thought, decided to throw the decision back to the public in the form of a general election. Appealing to the same electorate, who in recent times has shown a proclivity to vote for the most chaotic scenario possible. I ask myself, why’s that trend going to stop? Leadership isn’t delegating the problem to everyone else, that’s scapegoating.

Boris hopes the ball lands on, erection.

Following the roulette disappointment, Boris disposes of his blond wig and thinks really hard about holding his erection.what to o next. fear of overheating his brain, Boris takes of his blond wig and decides whether or not to call an election.

Clowns to the Left of me, Jokers to the Right

So, come December 12th, who do you vote for. American cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead famously said:

If you went to a restaurant, and the only choice you had was between a turd sandwiches or Jellied moose tongue, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for you to go looking for somewhere else to eat. Elections in the UK are like this, they offer no choice that you can enthusiastically endorse, just a choice of the lesser evil.

Apathy is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people.  A system that is apathetic, in fact, to the needs of the people it was designed to serve. …’

Russell Brand – Guardian

It’s at this stage that people can get angry with the abstaining from voting argument, they remind you of how lucky we are to have a democracy. They’re quick to inform us that voting is the only time the poor have as much say as the wealthy. And if they’ve still failed to convince they’re likely to trundle out, the very old and very tired, it’s a civic duty; which it’s not. Jury service is the only the only civic responsibility in the U.K. No, democracy isn’t being asked to choose between two groups of equally incompetent people who will inevitably balls things up, just in slightly different ways.

Perhaps journalist, Heydon Prowse most accurately explains the trend in the results of recent elections and referenda in the west”

…vote, revolt, “turn voting into a protest too”

Heydon Prowse

We live in a system where only one of two political choices ends up running the country, but people now understand that neither does anything to make their lives any better. The underprivileged will remain underprivileged, the under paid won’t become better off, in fact relatively wages have stagnated for twenty years, and the uneducated, and unemployed will continue to seek solace by watching reality television.

In reality there’s only two choices:

Don’t vote, because none of the candidates are capable of doing the job; or

Go all in with Margaret Mead and choose the lesser of two evils in the hope that the one you pick might be capable screwing things up marginally less than the other choice.

The exhilaration what western democracies promise us.

So Who is the lesser of Two Evils?

It’s an interesting question, it comes down to choosing between an egotistical, nefarious, dishonest, man who can’t keep track of how many children he might have fathered, and a man who looks like he’s just crawled out from beneath your compost heap at the

Jeremy Corbyn whispers Karl Marx, and promises his turnips that the means of production will be shared between all the vegetables.

bottom of your garden, and then preaches anachronistic left wing dogma to your vegetable patch. For years I’ve given Corbyn the benefit of the doubt, thinking that he can’t possibly prescribe to the tenets of Marxism the media claim he does, but he’s never clarified just how far his socialist beliefs go. Might he turn into an English Pol Pot, force everyone to work in allotments as he engineers his agrarian utopia? It sounds stupid, but then again, nearly everything that’s come out of Westminster for the past five years has been stupid. But the peculiarities of the Labour party don’t stop with Corbyn, in fact it’s only the beginning. Corbyn’s shadow home secretary is Diane Abbott, a woman so spectacularly incompetent that she takes a calculator to bed so she can count the sheep. To appreciate how dimwitted Diane Abbot is, the video below shows the most spectacularly embarrassing interview by a senior politician that I’ve ever witnessed:

  So with Boris Johnson’s only opponent, resembling a cross between Lenin and Worzel Gummidge, and seemingly focused on winning the allotment vote of the UK, and with his sidekick displaying the mental faculties of sub-optimal kindergarten student, you would think that all Boris needs to do to win this election is stay alive until the morning of December 13th. If only it were that simple.

  Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson

Yes, that really is his name, dePfeffel. If it’s not right to judge a book by its cover, then it must be an even greater superficial objectification to judge a person by their name, but what the hell is a de Pfeffel? Sounds like a catastrophe in a patisserie in which the pretzel dough and the waffle  batter got mixed together and spawned the Antichrist of pastries, a de Pfeffel. No, it’s actually something far more sinister. The von Pfeffel family, after narrowly missing out on starring in, The Sound of Music, is a German, Bavarian, family of considerable  historical wealth and influence. Finding out any more about them is difficult, but doubtlessly you have a neurotic, conspiracy theorist friend who’ll soon get you up to speed.

If only Boris’ problems stopped at de Pfeffel.  He’s a renowned Islamaphobe, homophobe, adulterer, racist, and outright liar. In fact, he is quintessentially the British Donald Trump. The more ridiculous he behaves, the more support he gets. Johnson appeals to a disenfranchised electorate, as he appears to them to be a break from the norm. Let’s look at some of the most infamous dePfeffel moments.

In August 2018, Boris remarked that Muslim women who wear burkas resemble letter boxes. Note, that at the time he was Britain’s Foreign Secretary, a role requiring awareness of cultural nuances. Look I’m all for a joke, but… What kind of mind could consider that an appropriate thing to say?

Whilst in his position of Foreign Secretary, Boris intervened in the delicate situation of British-Iranian woman, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was being held captive on charges of espionage. Boris stated that she wasn’t a spy, but  teaching journalism, something which she also wasn’t doing. During Boris’ time as Foreign Secretary, the conditions of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe worsened, with her no longer being allowed to make telephone calls to her husband, and there now being great concern for her mental well-being.

In his column for the Daily Telegraph in 2002, Johnson described people from African Commonwealth countries in the following way, “It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies,” later he added to this mentioning, African people as having “watermelon smiles.” As I said, I like a joke, but racial slurs, well they’re just not funny.

Homophobia, in the past Johnson referred to gay marriage as being akin to humans marrying dogs. And infamously referred to gay men as tank-topped bumboys.

Boris Johnson is a survivor, he’ll say whatever it takes to climb the greasy pole, irregardless of what he says being true or not. You can’t get a more blatant example of his lies than the time he wrote one on the side of a bus. He was right in saying that the UK pays the EU 350 million pounds a week, but it takes into no account how much money the EU sends the UK per week, and how much money the UK saves with free trade with the EU.

.

Vote for Me – Righting the Wrongs

It’s a face of honesty, trust, sound judgment and leadership.

My manifesto is somewhat limited but at its core is righting wrongs through revenge. Essentially I would achieve this by displaying David Cameron’s head on a spike after it had been inserted into his own bottom. Whilst I freely admit that this does little to resolve the Brexit issue, I do believe it would give the country a much needed boost to morale.

The End Is Not Nigh

As an expat who’s lived outside the UK for almost twenty years, personally, I don’t care who wins the election and goes on to form a Rabelaisian government of idiots; I learnt the word Rabelaisian recently and I’m rather fond of it. I just hope that there’s something positive in this for everyone, which of course is impossible.  I still firmly believe what I thought the morning after the referendum; that Britain will never leave the EU. If the powers that be wanted to leave, then Britain would have left by now. Whomever wins this election is unlikely to win a majority, leaving the UK with a fragile coalition goverment once again. One thing I’m certain of, we can’t keep standing in the middle of the road, because when you do that you get hit by traffic from both directions, or worse, you could fall off your horse and cart.

In conclusion, this election will conclude nothing.

Explaining Brexit in five seconds, be like…

                                            A Country in Chaos – Fueling the Flames with Democratic Disaster Britain, Brexit, and Zugzwang There's a saying in chess that describes a position whereby the player whose turn it is…