#respect sex workers or perish

[narcissusbrokenmirror]

Talking to a gay man about prostitution, and his rhetoric was based in "i don't support immorality."

first of all babe, that's a lie, this same week you told me about having cunnilingus sex all cooked up while your guy was snorting off blow.

And even if you hadn't. ur gay. The world u lived in already deemed you as immoral before you could even do anything. Don't think for a second that calling others "immoral" would make you less of one in the eyes of those you're trying to please.

second, I don't care. Immorality and perversion from sex workers do not have to do with the exploitation of poor women, poc women and trans women, as well as queer folk and queer poc. It has way more to do with dehumanization and discrimination that stripes them out of their rights than how perverted they are, i swear to you.

third, everybody in the working class is selling off their body and their time and their force of work, for money. Everyone is putting their safety and their health and their dignity on the table, for survival. You're not more special or worthy than sexual workers.

And at last, you are wasting your time thinking of "your reputation" or "your life legacy". This is shallow and utterly superficial.

[fanfreakinfiction]

My Gods Are Not Kind to Lonely Mothers

Chapter 2: Trying to Understand

Ch. 1 | Masterlist 🖤

4.3K words // Din Djarin x pregnantf!reader

Pairing: Din Djarin x pregnantf!reader (Reader is younger but not weirdly young) Reader was a sex worker. Reader’s first language is one I made up she speaks pretty good basic but struggles finding certain words. Reader is pregnant!

Summary: How can Din understand and respect your plans without being apart of them? He tries to help, but your stubbornness rivals that of a Mandalorian.

Tags: SLOW BURN, Some fluff, made up Star Wars culture & religion, split POV, slight language barrier, mention of death, mention of child death, dark!, lots of relationship building in this.

Warnings: mention of child loss and grief.

A/n: Alright so let me explain Illa-ishi real quick because I never want to get the wrong idea across. Illa-ishi are mainly single mothers who birth at the lower pool of the Mountain of Mothers. The reason why Illa-ishi give birth at the lower pool and pass away, isn’t the gods punishing them for being single mothers. The journey up to the lower pool when a mother is in the throws of birth is so rigorous and difficult without the help of their partner that many perish from exhaustion. By the time they make it up the cliff to the lower pool some do not even have energy to give birth which is why there are skeletons in the bed rolls. Please comment or ask me questions if anything is ever unclear! Also I know this is a shorter chapter than Ch. 1, I initially wanted this to be a two part series but I found I have more to write than I thought. Anyways, enjoy this soft chapter! I will update this series every Friday.

Standing in the pool, you felt his hand on the right side of your waist. He'd carried you from the spot near the cliff into the shallow end of the hot spring and set you down into the water as if you were sacred. Paralyzed by the sudden display of kindness after the last months spent alone, you felt the cold metal of his helmet lean heavily on the back of your head.

A slow fear crept up from somewhere deep inside the traumatized confines of your heart, the fear immobilizing you to his actions just as they'd done the night he paid for your company. Frozen in place, thoughts of him pushing you into the spring and drowning you flooded your mind. Then you felt his left hand rest on the small of your back, leading you to think he'd take you again as he'd done in the expensive room back on Tatooine. You'd worked in that brothel for years and saw the desperation of men in need, the aftermath of what they'd done to women they had no emotional attachment for.

Just as you started to form a plan of action against him, you heard the softest noise from behind. It took maybe thirty seconds for the sound to register within your mind – he was crying. The strangled sound of a sob left the static of the modulator on his helmet, which was then followed by the most sincere "I'm sorry" you'd heard since the day your father had sold you.

For a moment, you just looked ahead at the milky waters of the spring and the steam swirling around you. The small green baby that the Mandalorian had brought with him sat nearby the shallow end of the pool, gazing into the water below, his small hand chasing the steaming swirls that rose into the air. You felt the life within you stir, your contractions coming inconsistently now, almost as if your body was confused. The warmth of the leather-clad hand on your right side tightened slightly as you heard one more sob break over the roar of the waterfall.

In a show of cosmic irony, you couldn’t help the small but sad smile that graced your lips as you trailed your bandaged right hand up to lace your fingers over the back of his hand, and you spoke, “Don’t cry.”

His sobs seemed to quiet, as if he hadn't expected your touch, your reassurance. The tension in his grip lessened. After a moment of his head resting on the back of yours, you assumed he regained his composure as he slowly pulled away. Shyly, you looked over your shoulder and offered a small tearful smile to his visor before turning your attention back to the spring. Taking careful steps forward, you found a place to lower yourself back once more into the murky depths. You moved to sit where your back was resting on the jagged rock wall.

Out of your peripheral vision, you saw him standing in the same spot. His hands were frozen in the air where they’d rested on your body, until he slowly clenched his fists and lowered them back to his sides.

He stood like a statue just looking at you, his weight shifted to his left, the grey of the flightsuit around his knees now a dark grey from the spring's water. The edge of his grey cape touched the surface of the spring, wetting the frayed and somewhat burned seams.

You felt an awkward discomfort as his helmet seemed locked in your direction. It really made you uneasy that you couldn’t tell where his gaze was or what emotion was on his face. Was he happy? He had cried… you had done the same when you found out.

“You-”

“What’s-”

You both spoke over one another in unison, causing a blush to creep up your neck as you looked away. As if some unseen force felt the tension in the air, the small green child, enamored with the steam of the spring, fell face first into the warm water.

“Grogu!” The Mandalorian’s voice bordered on panicked as he moved from his stiff position to where the child had fallen in. In a swift movement, the Mandalorian had grabbed the child by the tan robe he wore, pulling it to the surface within seconds of the splash. The child blinked his large eyes frantically as he let out some displeased grunts. Holding the child above the water now, the Mandalorian looked the child over and then moved to hold him in his arms. “We’ve talked about this…” The Mandalorian sighed as he looked at the child. You couldn't help the smile that graced your face.

"Does it get into problems?" You spoke carefully as you tried to remember the words in basic.

Being on your homeworld was the happiest you’d felt in years, and slipping back into Kith, your native language, was like putting on your favorite dress. But coming out of Kith back into basic was proving challenging; maybe the Mandalorian spoke Huttese, which you knew almost as well as basic.

“Yeah…he does,” the words fell in a resigned huff from the man clad in silver as he held the now dripping child.

“Oh…Is he…your child?” You asked slowly as you gauged the man’s reaction. Your eyes flicked from his helmet to the water covering your belly where your hands fidgeted under the water. Anxiety filled your thoughts as you waited for his response.

After a painfully long silence, the Mandalorian sighed and shifted to set the green child on the ledge of the spring nearby and sat next to the child, leaving his covered feet in the spring. Adjusting his cape as he sat, he turned to run a gloved hand over the child’s tan robe before speaking in your direction.

“It won’t look like him…if that’s what you’re asking,” he said dryly, and your head snapped in his direction, studying him for a moment before you thought he might be trying to joke. A smile graced your lips as you moved in the water to slowly approach him. Your right hand held onto the spring’s rocky wall as you moved towards him and the child who fidgeted with a metal object around his neck. Within a foot of the child, you looked the soaking baby over with a cocked eyebrow and critical eye before turning to face the Mandalorian.

“He is…” you paused, trying to find the word in basic as you felt a rush to do so, “…c-ute,” you sounded out the word slowly and looked up at the man sheepishly as the child made a surprised “eh!” sound and smiled toothily at you.

“Basic isn’t your first language?” It was almost not a question from the Mandalorian, and you couldn’t help but feel a hot embarrassment from his tone.

“No,” you said as you turned away again, caressing your belly under the water, “I am Kith.”

“I am Mandalorian,” he said, and you thought he might be patronizing you.

“I see and know,” you retorted back as you shot a soft glare his way.

A sound emanated from his helmet, and you thought it might be a sigh. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he started to say as he reached into his bandolier for something. “I am Mandalorian, but I am different from other Mandalorians. I am bound by a creed.” He pulled out a piece of paper as he spoke, and you recognized the paper immediately. “The Mountain of Mothers…” he spoke again as he unfolded the pamphlet. “You’re here because you believe in this?” He asked as he looked over the paper.

You eyed the pamphlet that Don Mai must have so generously forced into the bounty hunter’s hand. Your eyes trailed from the pamphlet back to his helmet, and you nodded your head yes.

“I understand,” he says as he looks over the pamphlet, the child next to him suddenly taking interest as well. “The creed I believe in… it is my responsibility to take care of foundlings.” His helmeted gaze shifts slightly from the pamphlet to the child next to him.

“Found-i-ling?” you repeat the word back to him slowly in confusion.

His head turns to look at you, and he hands the pamphlet to the child who plays with the paper.

“Foundling,” he confirms with a small nod. “Children who are adopted by my people, warriors of Mandalore… This is the Way.”

Your gaze moves from his to the child next to him, and you nod.

“He is found-i-ling,” you say in confirmation as you nod your head toward the green child.

The Mandalorian nods in confirmation, and you see his hands clench the edge of the rock.

“And you…” he starts, “you are also my responsibility...”

You hated that word. Responsibility. Such a long word that was so often thrown in your face as a guilt tactic. The foreman who your father had sold you to made sure you always had responsibilities.

You were no more than eight when your father had sold you to the greasy man on Tatooine, and your life had been work ever since. The foreman wasn’t completely cruel; there were masters on Tatooine that were far worse. You had a bed, food, and even a bath. The foreman protected you from disgusting prying eyes of patrons who thought you were merchandise and not just a helping hand. But he also worked you to the bone, washing pillows, washing gowns, sewing gowns, steaming tapestry, cleaning the rooms, making meals, fixing the building, making errand runs – your responsibilities.

“No,” the word fell from your lips as if it were law. The Mandalorian’s head tilted towards you as if he didn’t hear you.

“Yes. You are my responsibility,” he repeats. “This is the Way.”

“No.” The word was slightly more harsh coming out as you turned to face him now. The sun had finally fallen behind the sky, and you were almost surrounded in darkness as you stared him down.

You could sense his hesitation, the momentary lapse in response, but the Mandalorian was resolute. “It is the Way. We take care of our own. The Creed guides me, and I cannot abandon my responsibilities.”

The weight of those words hung in the air, the silence stretching between you. The cold grip of your past life clawed at your heart, and you couldn't bear the thought of being bound by another's expectations. You had yearned for freedom, for a chance to shape your own destiny, and here, in the darkening solitude of the hot spring, those dreams seemed to be slipping away.

—

Your face was starting to turn pink from the heat of the spring as the word left your mouth. Din sat there staring, or truthfully, he was glaring at you from under his helmet. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say your stubbornness made you more a Mandalorian than it did a Kith. He battled with himself; this was not a place he wanted to be.

Din had always been careful when it came to his intimate business. When he and Xi’an would mess around, he would always pull out even though he knew she had an implant. He’d never actually finished inside anyone before, not until he’d taken you. To ease his guilt, he had told himself it was because of his inebriated state, but he knew by the time he’d slowly stripped you in that warmly lit room, the Corellian Whiskey had worn off. Maybe it had been because you were the first virgin he’d ever taken, the tightness of your heat on his fingers like a Dathomirian witch's call. Maybe you were a witch, which is what he was trying to understand, trying to learn more about you.

His eyes had scanned the pamphlet now being crumpled by Grogu’s hands. He realized the Mountain of Mothers was a sacred place, much like the living waters on Mandalore. The stubborn part of him wanted to scoop you from the spring and carry you back to his ship to take you to Mandalore, but he couldn’t do that. You were too close to birth and he really had no place to interrupt your plans… plans he hadn’t been a part of. The dark parts of his mind reminded him.

"What is your plan?" He found himself asking you. He watched as you looked up at him from your spot beneath the comforting spring waters, your brow furrowing. You had placed your right arm on the surface ridge of the pool and had laid your head down to watch Grogu.

"I will rest here," your voice sounding tired, your hair damp from the steam as you offered a sad smile.

"For how long?" He asked next, watching your face carefully to gauge your emotions.

You shrugged and looked down at your belly. "Until Noona arrives.”

Please. Kriff. Please don’t let Noona be the name for this child, his child. He cringed internally.

"Noo-na?" He repeated back, trying to hold down the unhappy tone of his voice. You nodded your head as if he was an idiot.

"Noona," you said with a nod. "Or… Baby."

He breathed a sigh of relief, just Kith for baby.

"Then what?" He asked as Grogu stirred next to him, clambering up into the Mandalorian's lap, leaving a trail of water and the now soggy pamphlet behind as he climbed.

"We rest," you said sadly.

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was getting frustrated with this beat around the bantha approach.

"After you rest?" His voice sounded a bit more terse than he intended. He watched as your head snapped up at him in annoyance, feeling confusion at your sharp reaction.

"We rest," you replied back, matching his terseness.

"For how long?" He gritted his teeth.

You splashed the water as you threw your hands up slightly and glared at him. "Forever!" You shouted back at him, and confusion laced his face.

"I don’t understand," he replied, as Grogu pulled at his bandolier from his lap, a sign he was getting hungry.

A moment of silence lapsed as your gaze slowly traveled to the skeletons surrounding the pool, now shrouded in darkness. You sighed as you looked at the remains mournfully and then slowly back to your belly.

"Illa-ishi come here to rest, forever," you said.

The skeletons and bone fragments all made sense in his mind now, and it made him sick.

"What?" His voice was laced with confusion and a hint of anger.

Before he could register the emotions swirling in his chest, he was already standing up in the water. Grogu, sensing the shift, looked up warily at his father. The Mandalorian glanced over at the pack leaning against the black jagged rock next to your bedroll, and he moved towards it out of the water.

—

Your heart raced as you watched the Mandalorian abruptly leave the spring and walk towards your pack and bedroll. You watched with bated breath as he set down the green child next to your pack on the ground and knelt down to your bedroll.

"NO!" You shouted as you watched him start to roll the bedroll back up. You quickly moved from your position in the water, walking carefully towards the edge. In an instant, he was moving in front of you, leaving the small child behind. It frightened you to see the speed at which he moved, the menacing aura he gave off as he moved to bend down, eye level with you.

He rested one hand on his right knee and the other hand on the ground next to him as he spoke.

"I am trying to understand your culture, but I will not allow you both to die here," his voice was menacing and sharp, bringing tears to your eyes.

"We are meant to die here," your words came out laced in pain and fear as you tried to stare him down. His hands balled into fists as he stared back at you.

"Why," he asked, and you could tell he was angry, and it wasn't fair.

Why was he angry when he had played no part in the last months?

You instantly felt remorse at that thought.

Throughout your whole pregnancy, you wouldn't allow yourself to think ill thoughts of him, afraid they might pass into Noona. Really, it wasn't his fault. You had no way of contacting him.

After your night with him, you'd taken your cut from the foreman and bought transport off of Tatooine. You spent weeks hopping planets and seeing different worlds, grateful for the credits you'd saved over the years, but even more so thankful for the six thousand credits that bought your freedom.

When you found out you were pregnant, you'd been staying on the mining world of Gorse, visiting the moon Cynda known for its illustrious thorillide crystal mines. You felt as if your freedom was snatched from you once again.

You knew this meant you were destined to be Illa-ishi and knew you'd be birthing a dead baby at the lower pool. It hurt, and you felt it wasn't fair, to you or the life inside you. A life that wouldn't exist outside of your own body, which is why you hadn't even bothered seeking out the Mandalorian.

Besides, all you had to go off of was the sigil on his pauldron, and since the Empire decimated Mandalore, it was impossible that you could find him again. Most Mandalorians had gone into hiding, and being already two months pregnant, there wasn't enough time to try and figure it out. You had accepted that you would be alone, that you were Illa-ishi, and that you could only enjoy the months ahead while Noona grew inside you.

You had traveled back to Kith in your fifth month of pregnancy and taken up work alongside Don Mai, the self-appointed mayor who graciously offered you a job in the fuel station. But soon your time was up, and you'd started your journey three days ago with the accepted belief that you'd never leave the Mountain of Mothers.

Still, the rational part of your mind sympathized with the man staring you down. You honestly believed you wouldn't see him again, and yet here he was. You knew that Kith was a planet along the outer rim, and nobody cared to understand your culture. Your people were not warriors like Mandalorians, nor powerful witches like Dathomirians. Your people were peaceful and slow.

Don Mai had a point about one thing, "People need to see the wealth of culture we have here. Kith would want the galaxy to know of the sacrifices he made for his wife."

—

Your eyes searched his visor, and he watched as you struggled internally. For a moment, he felt shame at his tone because it elicited a glassy look in your eyes, but he was angry. Not angry at you but more angry with himself. He sat eye level with you, waiting for your explanation when he heard a sigh leave your lips.

“Illa-ishi do not make it to the upper pool to give birth,” Your words offered little to soothe his confused anger. He opened his mouth to speak, but you continued, “Illa-ishi die at this pool with our babes, as a price for our solitude.”

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. You truly believed you would die here, along with the life he helped create. He rose from the crouched position as he looked down at you in the now looming darkness.

He studied your face for a moment before his eyes drifted lower to your full breasts and belly. A twinge of pride at the sight of you was quickly extinguished by the look on your face. You looked sad, like you didn't want to believe what you did, like some part of you wanted to make it to the upper pool. Slowly he extended his right hand down to you before he spoke, “You are not alone, not anymore.”

—

Helping you from the pool carefully, he watched the steaming water rush off your body, leaving droplets all around you. A shiver quickly rushed through you, and he cursed himself for not being more prepared when he left his ship. He didn't even bring Grogu a snack. He stood in front of you, unconsciously zoned out as he tried to think of his next steps.

He didn't realize how uncomfortable you'd become by his gaze until you moved your hands to cover yourself in shame. Your face was flushed pink, and he realized you assumed he'd been standing there staring at you like some teenage boy. He felt a rush of embarrassment; he normally never spared a thought for anyone, never cared what they thought, but for some reason, he really didn't want you to think ill of him.

"Get back in the water," his voice was low, and it almost startled you.

He saw the look of confusion on your face, and he sighed audibly. "Just… you'll be warmer in the water until I can make a fire," he said reluctantly, and he watched your eyebrows shoot up.

"A fire?" You almost sounded excited.

He nodded as he moved to help you situate yourself back into the water.

The green child cooed from his spot, now sitting on your bedroll as he watched. After situating you back into the water, Din looked back to Grogu; he could tell he was getting hungry and tired.

"I need to go collect wood. Would you… just make sure he doesn't get into trouble?" The Mandalorian hesitated to ask you for anything, but he knew Grogu would just inhibit what could be a quick task. He watched your face as you glanced up at him from in the pool and behind him to the child.

"Yes," you said, almost so quietly that he strained to hear it.

"I won't be long," he told you as he stood and immediately walked over to the edge of the cliff to make his way back down toward the forested area.

Left alone with Grogu, you couldn't help but feel a mixture of emotions. The Mandalorian had been harsh, distant, and mysterious, yet he had also shown moments of compassion and care. You watched the child as he cooed and played with his small, metal pendant, seemingly unfazed by the ordeal.

—

The thought of a fire excited you after three days of eating cold food and sleeping on the cold ground. Maybe if Noona was tired and not ready to come, you could actually enjoy your last night of sleep. Surely Noona would be here tomorrow?

"Rissi, Noona?" (Right, Noona?) You spoke to your oddly calm belly. You thought back... when had your last contraction been? After the Mandalorian had shown up, but that had now been almost two hours ago.

You felt unease rise up into your throat.

You only felt this afraid once during your pregnancy, and it was when you hadn't heard Noona's heartbeat at the small makeshift medical office in the fuel station. It wasn't until you and Don Mai had realized the medical droid's radar equipment had malfunctioned that you found peace.

But now you could feel the panic and no peace. A part of your mind was whispering that Noona was already gone. You could feel the tears welling up in your eyes as you started moving frantically towards the shallow part of the pool. You rested your left hand on the soaked fabric of your dress as you clambered towards the edge of the pool.

"Pessi Noona... Pessi!" (Please baby, please.) you whispered frantically as you tried to feel anything. The rock floor of the pool felt harsh under your bare feet, and you slipped a little at one point, causing you to stumble.

From your right, you could hear the small green child make a grunting noise. Pushing yourself up in the water, you felt your breath quickening with panic as you moved out of the water. Tears were coming hard, and you couldn't stop the sobs that came from your mouth.

"Pessi a Noona! Pessi! Pessi!" You cried as you made it from the pool to the harsh gravel-covered surface of the rock surrounding the pool. Looking down at your belly, you pressed your hands rather harshly to feel. You could make out two lumps at the top, maybe knees? You couldn't be sure.

You felt a tugging on your dress, and as you tried to look down past your belly, you caught a glimpse of a green ear. The small green child tugged fervently on your dripping gown.

"Noona a nissa movissi" (baby is not moving), you tried to explain to the small green child who you could hardly see. You sobbed and tried to move toward the bedroll. Through your tears, you heard the small child behind you as his feet pattered softly on the rock behind you. You moved to sit on a rock nearby, lowering yourself to the ground, you planted your feet and caressed your belly.

"Pessi Noona, gividas sotissi" (Please baby give me something), you cried as you continued pressing frantically, trying to get Noona to move or kick, anything.

You felt the lightest touch on your arm as you sat and hyperventilated. Looking to the left, you saw the small green child look at you curiously. His large brown eyes were full of so much emotion, something you couldn't place. Before you could make another sound, you felt the edges of your vision begin to fade.

Maybe this was it... the last moment with you and Noona... would the Mandalorian come back and disturb you? You didn't want to leave the Mountain of Mothers, you wanted to die here with Noona, stay here with Noona, forever…

The last thoughts flashed in your mind before you felt yourself succumb.

"Rest," a small voice whispered through your mind.

[cyberpr0xy]

Intro/About Me

Definitely didn’t forget to do this

Name: Beck or Cyber

Age: 24

Nationality: Irish

Pronouns: They/He (respect or perish)

Sexuality: Demisexual (Also Demiromantic)

Hobbies: Cosplay, gaming, music, anime and Manga

Boundaries: I am in a relationship so please do not flirt with me, do not sexualise me when I post selfies or cosplay photos and respect my pronouns.

Do not interact if you’re any of the following: Transphobic, Homophobic, against polyamory, Zionist, Anti-semitic, Racist, Pro-Israel, Trump Supporter, Ableist, Fake Claimer of DID systems, Against Age Regression or Pet Regression, Zoophile, M.A.P or a Pedophile because you will not be safe here.

THIS IS AN ACCOUNT THAT SUPPORTS: Gay Marriage, Gender Affirming Care for all (cis or trans), ACAB, Anti-Facist, Anti-Racist, BLM, Freedom of Palestine, Abortion, Birth Control, Sex Workers and Furries.

[not-delicious-milk]

why is every arc set in yoshiwara so fire (pun... sort of intended)

[bibbykins]

bunny: can i cum? yoongi: no💜 (but yes). i love the new installment!!! the genuine care that each of the boys have for bunny is so adorable and special in their own way! also we love to see the fangirling over everyone’s fav cam girl and the overall respect that everyone has for her (respect those in sex work or perish🔪). the vibes are soft hornee this morning AND I AM HERE FOR IT!!!!-💕anon (this might have sent twice idk but i got a “bad request/ask” thing from tumblr so sorry if it did)

LMAO Yoongi rlly said “aha, you thought!” and took his sweet time like they’re not at his literal job but thank you!!! I’m really enjoying building the relationships between all of them! This is my first ot7 fic and I’m having a wonderful time writing it! And yes!! RESPECT OR PERISH!! Sex work is valid work and sex workers are valid people and waaay too many people neglect that fact and it’s ridiculous!! I could go on for days but you get the just! ]

And yes soft horny vibes are the absolute vibes and we love to see it!! (Also dw it didn’t send twice you’re good!) Thank you for this ask, all of the ones I’ve been getting have really brought a smile to my face!

[cee-of-thoughts]

Respect sex workers or perish

[bbclesmis]

NY Times: A New Version of ‘Les Misérables’ Has Less Singing, More Misery

Vilvoorde, Belgium — Lily Collins, dressed in a mud-colored linen shift, tried to hide the small piece of jewelry she had crafted, as a hatchet-faced factory supervisor approached.

The camera moved in for a close-up of her pale, anxious face. “Sorry, Lily, just one more time,” said Tom Shankland, the director of the new adaptation of “Les Misérables,” a coproduction with BBC and PBS’s Masterpiece. “Listen, my deathbed scene was on Day 2,” said Ms. Collins, who was playing the ill-fated Fantine. “It’s all uphill at this point.”

There is not much that’s looking up for any character in Victor Hugo’s epic 1862 novel “Les Misérables,” which has provided the subject matter for dozens of theater, television and film adaptations, most famously the blockbuster musical that zillions of fans affectionately call “Les Miz.”

But this six-part television adaptation, which first aired in Britain from December to February and arrives on Masterpiece on Sunday, might come as a surprise to those who only know the musical. This version hews much more closely to Hugo’s book, a five-volume, 365-chapter novel that over the course of its complex plot explores history, law, politics, religion and ideas about justice, guilt and redemption. Set in a grimly realist France, its abundant starving poor and oppressed are entirely disconnected from the wealthy classes. (The aptly dreary set here, in a dilapidated, gloomy former prison, might as well have sported a sign saying “Likely to Perish Within.”)

Unsurprisingly, the musical, which got a lavish Hollywood adaptation in 2012, focuses mainly on the central characters and plot lines. “I thought the musical a very feeble representation of the book,” said Andrew Davies (“Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “War and Peace”), who wrote the screenplay for the new series. “It very much reinforced my idea that we needed a proper, old-fashioned long-form television adaptation.”

The story (skip ahead if you are one of the millions who have seen a previous incarnation) begins with Jean Valjean (played here by Dominic West), a peasant who has almost finished his sentence of 19 years hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving relatives. Brutalized by his jail time, he is transformed through an act of kindness, and becomes a wealthy and respected citizen, with a new identity. When he discovers that one of his former factory workers, Fantine, has become destitute after being fired, he adopts her daughter, Cosette, who is living with the evil Thenardiers (Olivia Colman and Adeel Akhtar in the series).

Editors’ Picks

Pursued over the years by his former jailer Javert (David Oyelowo), a police officer obsessed with bringing the former criminal to justice, Valjean raises Cosette (Ellie Bamber) who eventually falls in love with Marius (Josh O’Connor), a student taking part in the revolution against the monarchy in the June Rebellion of 1832.

Let’s just say that very few characters get a happy ending.

“I think we managed to include everything that was really important,” Davies said, adding that he had streamlined some of the narrative’s twists and turns, notably Valjean’s repeated returns to and escapes from prison, and Javert’s uncanny reappearances wherever Valjean is to be found. “I think this has made it feel less improbable and more believable in modern terms,” he said.

In a series of conversations, Davies, Shankland and a few of the principle actors talked about three important aspects of the mini-series that set it apart from the musical. Here are edited excerpts.

Valjean vs. Javert

DOMINIC WEST The first question is obviously, what is Javert’s problem? Why is he so obsessed with Valjean? You do wonder what’s going on there, and we sort of hinted at it in one glance where I am naked in front of him when [Valjean] is released from the prison hulks. It always helps to bring things down to love and sex, and I think there is a homoerotic thing going on, perhaps the love of the jailer for his prisoner. It’s a modern, reductionist view to bring it down to that, and we didn’t emphasize it. But it’s there.

That they are alter egos, in a way, was the biggest clue to why Valjean felt so guilty, so unworthy. I realized that anyone who is brutalized and treated like an animal eventually becomes that. Valjean’s belief that he doesn’t deserve anyone’s love in the real world is central to his sense of self, and that is an important political point. Javert believes criminals are born that way, and Valjean is evidence that criminals are products of their environments.

DAVID OYELOWO My first interaction with “Les Mis” was with the musical, and when I read Andrew Davies’s script, it seemed very apparent that I could bring real layering and complexity to this character, who in the musical is a much more one-dimensional villain. I suddenly understood this man, born to criminal parents in a prison and filled with loathing for that world. It became apparent to me that he had transposed a side of himself onto Jean Valjean, and needed to destroy that part of himself he saw there. You need six hours of television to explore that complex idea!

Oppression and Politics

TOM SHANKLAND I am one of the few people in the universe who wasn’t really aware of the musical and the story, beyond the posters. When I read the script and novel, I really got a sense that this was a story of revolution, of social injustice, about people who felt disenfranchised. I wanted to find a way to interpret the story in a way that felt respectful to Hugo, but also politically relevant. It has wonderfully big moral questions: What does it mean to be good in a cruel world? What is meaningful action?

Drawings from the period — etchings of that revolution and others, images of urban warfare — were important in creating visual imagery, but I also drew from my memory of the 2011 London riots, and from the gilet jaunes in Paris. I didn’t want it to be just big images of the barricades, and I didn’t want it to be stiff and costume drama-y. There is nothing romantic or picturesque about those experiences; they are frightening and chaotic.

OYELOWO Hugo shows the fragility of the class system so well. Fantine starts off just above the underclass and falls catastrophically. Javert is the reverse, rising to prison officer and policeman, forcing his way up through the social hierarchy, but always feeling precarious. This idea of the fragility of many people’s social and economic positions feels very relevant today. In our society, the gaps between the haves and the have-nots is widening and people’s lives can be stripped away, just as they are in this story.

The Dark Side

LILY COLLINS There are parts of each character’s story line in “Les Misérables” that doesn’t get into film versions or the musical, because there just isn’t time. A song lyric can try to tell the story in one line, but here we show Fantine’s early life, how she falls in love, is deceived and has a baby. That makes her fate all the harder because we have discovered that side of her life, her trusting and joyous personality.

We shot my death scene first. I did a lot of research about what France would have been like for women at that time. What were the diseases, the symptoms of the disease she might have died from, what that would look like for filming. It was pretty grim, especially the scene when her teeth are pulled out because she is selling them for money for her child. It really made me push myself and find out what I could withstand physically and emotionally.

WEST I hadn’t seen Valjean played as initially completely unredeemable in other versions of the novel. I wanted to really show that brutal, callous side that Hugo depicts, and we wanted to make his leap from that to romantic hero as big as possible. That really gets your pulse going as an actor. In a way, I went back to my childhood. I wasn’t a street urchin, but I was a fairly coarse Yorkshire kid, and I tapped into that. In the same way, the Thenardiers are usually treated in a more comic vein, but they are really evil. It’s interesting and remarkable that the novel hasn’t been treated in this kind of depth for a very long time.

DAVIES The series ends with an image of two little boys, who we have seen begging earlier, and who Gavroche, a street urchin, takes under his wing. Gavroche is killed, and the little boys are still begging at the end, as a reminder to the audience that although the story ends happily for some, the suffering and brutality goes on.

x

[feministlikeme]

1. Before explaining something to a woman, ask yourself if she might already understand. She may know more about it than you do.

2. Related: Never, ever try to explain feminism to a woman.

3. Trans women are women. Repeat that until you perish.

4. RESPECT PEOPLE’S PRONOUNS. It’s not hard.

5. Remember that fat women exist and aren’t all trying to get thin. Treat them with respect.

6. In fact, just never comment on a woman's body.

7. Be kind to women in customer service positions. Tip them extra. (But not in a creepy way.)

8. Trust women. When they teach you something, don't feel the need to go and check for yourself. And especially do not Google it in front of them.

9. Don’t maintain a double standard for… anything, ever.

10. CLOSE YOUR LEGS ON PUBLIC TRANSIT, OH MY GOD.

11. Trying to describe a woman positively? Say she's “talented,” “clever,” or “funny.” Not “gorgeous,” “sweet,” or “cute.”

12. Examine your language when talking about women. Get rid of “irrational,” “dramatic,” “bossy,” and “badgering” immediately.

13. Don't think to yourself, I describe men like that too. A) You probably don't. B) If you do, it's to criticize them for acting like a woman.

14. Do you love “fiery” Latina women? “Strong” Black women? “Mysterious” Asian women? Stop. Pick up a book on decolonial feminism. Read.

15. Stop calling women “feisty.” We don't need a special lady word for “has an opinion."

16. Recognize women's credibility when you introduce them. “Donna is lovely” is much less useful than “Donna knows shitloads about architecture.”

17. Think about how you describe the young women in your family. Celebrate them for being funny and smart, not for being pretty and compliant.

18. Examine the way you talk about women you’re attracted to. Fat women, old women, queer, trans, and powerful women are not your “guilty crush.”

19. Learn to praise a woman without demonizing other women. “You're not like other girls” is not a compliment. I want to be like other girls. Other girls are awesome.

20. Share writing by women. Don't paraphrase their work in your own Facebook post to show us all how smart or woke you are. I guarantee the woman said it better in the first place.

21. Buy sanitary pads and tampons and donate them to a homeless shelter. Just do it.

22. How much of what you are watching/reading/listening to was made by women? Gender balance your bookcase.

23. Feeling proud of your balanced bookcase? Are there women of color there? Trans, queer, and disabled women? Poor women? Always make sure you’re being intersectional.

24. Don't buy media that demeans women’s experiences, valorizes violence against women, or excludes them entirely from a cast. It's not enough to oppose those things. You have to actively make them unmarketable.

25. Pay attention to stories with nuanced female characters. It will be interesting, I promise.

26. If you read stories to a child, swap the genders.

27. Watch women's sport. And just call it “sports.”

28. Withdraw your support from sports clubs, institutions, and companies that protect and employ rapists and abusers.

29. Stop raving about Woody Allen. I don't care if he shits gold. Find a non-accused-abuser to fanboy over.

30. It's General Leia, not princess. The Doctor has a companion, not an assistant. It's Doctor Bartlett, not Mrs Madame First Lady.

31. Cast women in parts written for men. We know how to rule kingdoms, go to war, be, not be, and wait for Godot.

32. Pay for porn.

33. Recognize that sex work is work. Be an advocate for and ally to sex workers without speaking for them.

34. Share political hot takes from women as well as men. They might not be as widely accessible, so look for them.

35. Understand that it was never “about ethics in journalism.”

36. Speak less in meetings today to make space for your women colleagues to share their thoughts. If you're leading the meeting, make sure women are being heard as much as men.

37. If a woman makes a good point, say, “That was a good point.” Don't repeat her point and take credit for it.

38. Promote women. Their leadership styles may be different than yours. That's probably a good thing.

39. Recruit women on the same salary as men. Even if they don't ask for it.

40. Open doors for women with caring responsibilities by offering flexible employment contracts.

41. If you meet a man and a woman at work, do not assume the man is the superior for literally no reason.

42. If you're wrongly assumed to be more experienced than a woman colleague, correct that person and pass the platform to the woman who knows more.

43. Make a round of tea for the office.

44. Wash it up.

45. If you find you're only interviewing men for a role, rewrite the job listing so that it’s more welcoming to women.

46. Make sure you have women on your interview panel.

47. Tell female colleagues what your salary is.

48. Make sure there's childcare at your events.

49. Don't schedule breakfast meetings during the school run.

50. If you manage a team, make sure that your employees know that you recognize period pain and cystitis as legitimate reasons for a sick day.

51. If you have a strict boss (or mom or teacher) who is a woman, she is not a “bitch.” Grow up.

52. Expect a woman to do the stuff that's in her job description. Not the other miscellaneous shit you don't know how to do yourself.

53. Refuse to speak on an all-male panel.

54. In a Q&A session, only put your hand up if you have A QUESTION. Others didn’t attend to listen to you.

55. If you have friends or family members who use slurs or discriminate against trans or non-binary people, sit them down and explain why they must stop. (This goes for cis women, too.)

56. If you have friends or family members who use slurs or discriminate against women of other races, sit them down and explain why they must stop. (This goes for white women, too.)

57. If you see women with their hands up, put yours down. This can be taken as a metaphor for a lot of things. Think about it.

58. Raising a feminist daughter means she's going to disagree with you. And probably be right. Feel proud, not threatened.

59. Teach your sons to listen to girls, give them space, believe them, and elevate them.

60. Dads, buy your daughter tampons, make her hot water bottles, wash her bras. Show her that her body isn't something to be ashamed of.

61. But dads, do not try to iron her bras. This is a mistake you will only make once.

62. Examine how domestic labor is divided in your home. Who does the cleaning, the childcare, the organizing, the meal budgeting? Sons, this goes for you, too.

63. Learn how to do domestic tasks to a high standard. “I'd only do it wrong” is a bullshit excuse.

64. Never again comment on how long it takes a woman to get ready. WE ARE TRYING TO MEET THE RIDICULOUS STANDARDS OF A SYSTEM YOU BENEFIT FROM.

65. Challenge the patriarchs in your religious group when they enable the oppression of women.

66. Challenge the patriarchs in your secular movement when they enable the oppression of women.

67. Trust women's religious choices. Don't pretend to liberate them just so you can criticise their beliefs.

68. Examine who books your trips, arranges outings, organizes Christmas, buys birthday cards. Is it a woman? IS IT?

69. And if it is actually you, a man, don't even dare get in touch with me looking for your medal.

70. Take stock of the emotional labor you expect from women. Do you turn to the women around you for emotional support and give nothing in return?

71. Remember that loving your mom/sister/girlfriend is not the same as giving up your own privilege to progress equality for women. And that gender inequality extends beyond the women in your direct social group.

72. Don’t assume that all women are attracted to men.

73. Don’t assume that a woman in public wants to talk to you just because she’s in public.

74. If a woman tells you she was raped, assaulted, or abused, don't ask her for proof. Ask how you can support her.

75. If you see a friend or colleague being inappropriate to a woman, call him out. You will survive the awkwardness, I promise.

76. Repeat after me: Always. Hold. Men. Accountable. For. Their. Actions.

77. Do not walk too close to a woman late at night. That shit can be scary.

78. If you see a woman being followed or otherwise bothered by a stranger, stick around to make sure she’s safe.

79. This should go without saying: Do not yell unsolicited “compliments” at women on the street. Or anywhere.

80. If you are a queer man, recognize that your sexuality doesn’t exclude you from potential misogyny.

81. If you are a queer man, recognize that your queer women or non-binary friends may not feel comfortable in a male-dominated space, even if it’s dominated by queer men.

82. Be happy to have women friends without needing them to want to sleep with you. The “friend zone” is not a thing. We do not owe you sex.

83. Remember that you can lack consent in situations not involving sex—such as when pursuing uninterested women or forcing a hug on a colleague.

84. Champion sex positive women but don't expect them to have sex with you.

85. Trust a woman to know her own body. If she says she won't enjoy part of your sexual repertoire, do not try to convince her otherwise.

86. Be sensitive to nonverbal cues from women, especially around sex. We’re not just being awkward for no reason. (You read “Cat Person,” didn’t you?)

87. It is not cute to try to persuade a woman to have sex with you. EVER. AT ALL. Go home.

88. Same goes for pressuring women to have sex without a condom. Go. Home. And masturbate.

89. Accidentally impregnated a women who doesn't want a kid? Abortions cost money. Pay for half of it.

90. Accidentally came inside a woman without protection? Plan B is expensive. Pay for all of it.

91. Get STD tested. Regularly. Without having to be asked.

92. Examine your opinion on abortion. Then put it in a box. Because, honestly, it's completely irrelevant.

93. Understand that disabled women are whole, sexual human beings. Listen to and respect them.

94. Understand that not all women have periods or vaginas.

95. Believe women's pain. Periods hurt. Endometriosis is real. Polycystic ovaries, vaginal pain, cystitis. These things are real. Hysteria isn’t.

96. If a woman accidentally bleeds on you, try your absolute best to just keep your shit together.

97. Lobby your elected officials to implement high quality sex education in schools.

98. Uplift young Black and Indigenous girls at every possible opportunity. No excuses.

99. Do not ever assume you know what it’s like.

100. Mainly, just listen to women. Listen to us and believe us. It’s the only place to start if you actually want all women to have a “Happy International Women’s Day.”

[peaky-yamyam]

Twenty-One: Part Twenty-One

Part One | Part Twenty | Part Twenty-One | Part Twenty-Two | 

I spend the week at the club. I’m not entirely sure what I’m hoping for, perhaps that Alfie will call, maybe that he’ll turn up, anything that’ll silence the persistent voice at the back of my head that keeps telling me Alfie’s dropped me despite everything he’s said. I know I could call him again but I can’t bring myself to do it without an excuse.

Luckily one appears on Thursday when one of the decorators asks me which door handles we want for the toilets. But again the phone rings out too many times before Ollie answers.

“Hello?” Although in my heart I expected it, I can’t help but be disappointed.

“Ollie, it’s Emilia. Can I speak to Alfie please?”

“He isn’t here. What do you need?”

I take a breath to keep my voice steady. “The decorators need him to make a choice on the door handles-” There’s a mumbling in the background, a muffled voice, but one that I’m sure is Alfie’s.

“You choose,” Ollie says and I suppress a frustrated scream.

“Ollie, if Alfie’s there I-”

“He’s not. Emilia it’s just door handles, make a decision.”

The line clicks off. I bash the receiver back against the hook, slamming it a few more times in frustration and disappointment. If Alfie is trying to avoid me then I’ll be damned if I’m going to hang around and wait for him. Although I can’t stop the bitter tears that run down my cheeks as I storm home.

I awake the next morning still exhausted from an evening of crying, to the realisation that in my hurry to get home I never made a decision for the decorators and as such - although I want nothing more than to stay in bed all day - I have to head back into work. It takes me longer than usual to walk there, my feet reluctant to carry me any quicker, and when I arrive the decorators have already started.

“Oh thank god you’re here,” one of them calls to me as soon as I walk through the doors, “the phone in your office has been ringing of the bleeding hook all morning.”

“Did you answer it?”

“You bloody joking? We know better than to touch anything of Alfie Solomons’ we ain’t explicitly been told we can touch.”

I nod and hurry towards my office as the phone begins to ring again.

“Oh, go with the handles with the flowers on them!” I shout down the stairs, pausing in front of the phone to regain my composure before answering it. “Hello?”

“Emilia love, I know I mostly likely ain’t in your good books but don’t hang up.” It’s Alfie, although his voice is strained. “I need you to come to the bakery, as soon as you can. I’ll explain everything I promise.”

“Why have you been ignoring me? I heard you yesterday when I called,” I ask, my voice cracking despite the anger I’m trying to fuel it with.

“I’ve not been ignoring you, right. Listen to me Emilia, I ain’t. What I need you to do, is to come to the bakery yeah? Everything will make sense then.”

“Just explain now.”

“I could… I could, yeah. But it’d be a lot fucking easier if you just did what I was asking.” I hear him take a deep breath and I imagine he’s rubbing an exasperated hand across his beard. But his voice is softer when he speaks again. “Love, I imagine you've been getting yourself into a right state fretting about why I ain't spoke to you. I'm right yeah? Well I promise I've not been ignoring you on purpose, something happened-” He pauses at my dramatic inhale, I know that means something gangster related and I know it probably means Alfie is hurt. “-But it's not changed anything between us. Cross my heart. Just, please come down. I need to show something to you.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Good.... Good. I'll send a car.”

The car picks me up and races me to the bakery, my stomach churning as it speeds round the corners. But when Ollie greets me at the wooden doors, I suspect my nausea isn't entirely the fault of the car journey.

“Sorry about the phone calls,” Ollie says, leading me through the distillery and past the workers. It's a little strange being here in the day, the workstations I’m so used to being empty, all bustling with life. “I didn't know what to tell you and then he wanted to tell you himself. Just, well, you'll see when we get in there…”

I nod and carry on following him until we reach Alfie's office where he gestures for me to enter first. Alfie is sat at his desk but he’s not alone; another man sits in front of him dressed in a sharp suit, fiddling with the clasps on an expensive looking briefcase. They both go quiet as I enter and I get the distinct feeling that they've been talking about me. Alfie leans forward to greet me and I notice that his right arm is supported by a sling and the top of a bandage peeks from beneath his shirt.

“Emilia, come and sit down,” he prompts, stifling a groan when he moves.

“What happened?”

“Not right now-”

“Is this why you haven't spoken to me all week?”

“I'll explain everything later, I promise. Now please sit.” He gestures to the seat next to the other man and Ollie skulks out the door. I remove my hat and coat and drape them over the back of the chair. “This is Mr Jameson, my lawyer,” Alfie introduces once I'm sat down, and Mr Jameson holds out his hand for me to shake.

“A lawyer?”

“Yes a lawyer, why are you so shocked? Sometimes I need advice and I ain’t so stubborn that I can’t admit that,” Alfie answers indignantly.

Mr Jameson tries to stifle his smile, but he’s not quick enough that I don’t catch the corners of his mouth twitch upwards. Although Alfie calls him a lawyer and he presents himself well, I doubt very much that he has any shred of respectability in his field, but the fact that he’s sat here so smug and self-assured in front of Alfie, means he’s someone very useful to have around.

“What’s happening Alfie?” I ask.

“Well, after my little brush with death the other day-” he catches my widened eyes and waves his unjuried hand as if it’s nothing, “-it got me thinking of what would come of this place were I to perish unexpectedly. So, I’ve had a little something drawn up. Here, take a gander at this.”

Alfie swivels some papers towards me and leans over the desk, jabbing his finger half way down the page.

“You nearly died?” I challenge, completely ignoring the paper in front of me which Alfie just taps again in response. “No Alfie! Tell me what’s been going on. Where have you been? Who did that to you? Are you in danger?”

Mr Jameson shuffles in his seat, reclining a little further, his smile stretching a little wider at my questioning, but he at least has the common decency to keep out of it and turns his attention to his clasped firmly in his lap.

Alfie lowers himself carefully back into his seat and scrunches his face up, his hand rubbing roughly across it as he tries to catch his anger before it spirals. “Right, Emilia, just look at this bit of paper and I will explain what has happened once we’ve dealt with this. Mr Jameson is a busy man and he needs to get going, alright? So…” He gestures again to the paper in front of me, but I keep my eyes firmly away from it, Mr Jameson’s busy schedule is no concern of mine. All I care about is getting answers to my questions.

“You can’t expect me to ignore all this Alfie! I haven’t heard anything from you since…” I trail off, suddenly very aware of Mr Jameson’s presence. “Since, you know…”

“Since we had sex?” Alfie finishes for me and as soon as the word leaves his mouth my cheeks flair scarlet.

I can feel the heat radiating from them almost instantly and chance a sly glance at Mr Jameson for his reaction. He seems utterly uninterested though, he expression and demeanour no different than before. Although I relax a little, Alfie’s interruption has knocked the wind from my sails and I’m suddenly struggling to conjure back the anger I was feeling.

“I know it looks bad,” Alfie continues, “and I know you’ve probably been tormenting yourself something fierce. But listen to me, yeah, I will answer your questions, I’ll answer any fucking question you can think of, but right now I need you to look at this.” He punctuates his last words with jabs to the paper and I finally turn my eyes down to look at it.

“It’s a will…” I mumble, scanning the entire page.

“It’s my will ain’t it, but this is all you need to worry about.” He stabs his finger more violently at the middle paragraph and I read it.

Alfie is leaving the business to me; the ‘bakery’, the club, his investments, all of it.

I glare at him. “Alfie, I understand leaving me the club, but I havn’t got the faintest idea what to do with this place! ”

“You just keep the books in check, make good investments and partnerships.”

“Oh right, just make good investments, good partnerships, that’s all there is to it, is there?” I spit back sarcastically. The whole situation is so ridiculous that it feels as if I’m being set up for something, that it couldn’t possibly be something Alfie is seriously considering. “What about the… the other side of things?”

“You can talk frankly here love, Mr Jameson knows everything.”

“Right, okay. What about your gang and all the gangster stuff huh?”

The bemused look on Alfie’s face suggests he isn’t grasping the severity of the situation.

“Look, Emilia, in reality you are not going to have to deal with any of that. If something were to happen to me, all I need is for someone to be ready to take over keeping things running, someone who gets the books and gets the numbers, you understand?”

“No, not even a little bit Alfie. This is insane.”

He ignores me. “I thought you might be a bit more appreciative than this if I’m being honest with you love. This place is worth a fortune.” He shares a smile with his lawyer but the joke is lost on me.

“Did you get a knock to the head as well when you got beat up? Why on earth would I appreciate being put in charge of this whole operation?”

“Right, listen. All this is just because I need everything official to be left to someone, the deeds, the contracts, the leases, yeah. All those scratty bits of paper that mean everything.” I can tell he’s trying to gesticulate to enforce his point, his good arm over compensating for the other that’s trapped close to his chest. It’s almost comical. “So when shit hits the fan, there’s nothing official that anyone can do, because all this-” He waves one arm around the room before settling a pointed finger towards me, “-will be yours…” He trails off and eyes me while he waits for a response. A response I can’t seem to put into words. “You can sit there looking like a slapped arse all you want, you ain’t really got a choice. This was just a courtesy so you’d know to expect a visit from my lovely lawyer.”

“What if I give it all away?”

“You won’t.”

“I might.”

“Well, I trust you not to.” And that's all he has to say. “Right! I think you can leave now,” he adds, nodding to Mr Jameson who gathers his things, bows his head, and leaves without a word.

As the door closes we’re left in an awkward silence, our eyes locked on one another.

“I… I don’t really understand what just happened…” I mumble, unable to bear the silence any longer.

“Knew I should have kept it quiet, would have been a nice surprise for you when I carked it ey?” he chuckles.

“That’s not funny. You said you’d explain everything.”

“Right, yeah, I did. Something went a little bit wrong din’t it? Got caught in the middle of something I'd had no intention of being involved in. It's all sorted now though, just a little misunderstanding, but I was incapacitated for a few days.” His tone is so calm and matter of fact, but I’m not satisfied.

“Did you get jumped?”

He nods. “More people there than I thought.”

“What did they do to you?”

“Just a bog standard beating, real lack of imagination. Mostly bruises really, apart from the stab wound.”

“They stabbed you?” I almost whisper, my voice lost as I try to imagine the scenario.

“Tried.”

“Who was it?”

“They don’t matter no more. Won’t be bothering us again. How's the club looking?” he asks, reclining back in his chair as much as he can.

I don’t fight the change of subject. I know what it means when Alfie says with such certainty that he won’t be bothered by someone again.

“Good.”

“Did you choose the door handles?”

“Yeah.”

“Birds?”

“Flowers.”

He nods slowly, his fingers toying with the longer part of his beard while we sit in silence. Although it isn't awkward, there's a tension that hangs between us and I suspect, in part, it's due to what happened Saturday night not being addressed.

“Come home with me,” Alfie blurts suddenly.

“Excuse me?”

“Look, love, I'm hurting, I want a comfortable seat in my own home, but I can't seem to sway myself to the idea of letting you go back to the club, or back home, or wherever it is you were planning on going after this. So come with me,” he says, already out of his seat and heading towards his coat hung by the door.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Course you fucking do. I'm in no fit state to try and bundle you into a car against your will,” he jokes, but it falls flat to the grunt he makes as he tries to wrap his coat around his shoulders.

I grab my coat and hat from the back of my chair and help Alfie drape his over him, before opening the office door.

“Are you accepting my invite then?”

“I am.”

[imstunning]

Rising for a Global Feminist Future with the Movement to Elect Bernie Sanders.

We are a coalition of feminists contending with both our differences and our commonality in age, race, class, religion, labor, and sexual orientation. We meet at the intersection of our fluid identities. Though our experiences are different, we share a vision of a feminist future.

We urgently call in our friends, families, and comrades to unite with us in the broad passionate movement supporting Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign, and to work to heal the relationships necessary to create a new era for our communities, this country, and the world. We support the volunteers, door knockers, and movement to elect Senator Sanders because his proposed policies are ideas whose time has come. All of our lives we have been creating movements and art organized around the critical basic human dignity of all people. We support the movement to elect Senator Sanders because engaging electoral politics is a part of the larger strategic democratic movement for solidarity and a feminist future to take hold. We believe an end to patriarchy demands an end to class and racial oppression.

All across this country and globe, women and children have been working toward a shift in collective consciousness. A feminist future requires political change by men, women, and gender non-binary people not just in the structures and laws but in our collective values and behaviors. It requires an end to violence against women, girls, and all femme people. A feminist future demands the spirit of cooperation. We are inspired and motivated by the grassroots movements brewing across the globe and here in the United States of America for decency, dignity, and respect. We amplify poor, unemployed, and working people behind this political moment aching with passion and anxiety toward the uncertainty of tomorrow. We must strategically rally and rise together.

Time is not on our side.

We are explicitly naming the ecological disaster we are facing and we must vote for a future where our environment and our planet are treated with the utmost respect and protection. A world where our rainforests are protected, where clean drinking water is not a privatized commodity, and the earth is finally free of fracking and extraction. We are voting for a future to end poverty and rebuild the corrupt dehumanizing state of our world and the fragmentation of ourselves. We choose a politics of collectivity. We choose a future that honors social responsibility and connection.

We stand with the abolitionists, healers, and storytellers who pursue a world where we are brave enough to consider one another and fight for each other. We envision a world where discrimination, war, and white terrorism are laughed out of the room and become a thing of our past. Where we honor the dignity, respect, and self-determination of the Palestinian people. Where the people of Puerto Rico are free of colonial debt and domination. Where our government commits to the transformational power of an authentic apology and restorative process with millions of people displaced and torn apart by corporate interests masked as foreign policy.

We envision a formal acknowledgment and apology to the First Nations of this land and accountability for the millions of African-Americans oppressed by this country’s denial of the generational repercussions of slavery and Jim Crow. We envision a world that boldly confronts its past so that we can begin the corrective process of atonement, repair, and healing.

We vote for a future free of state inflicted, sponsored, and sanctioned violence. In the not so far and brilliant feminist future, we look forward to communities free of dominance, aggression, isolation, and separation. Where no child is caged. Where schools and communities are free from police and prisons. We envision a world without violence.

We envision a country and world that prioritizes mental health and therapy as universally accessible. We look forward to a future where comprehensive high-quality childcare and education are free. We believe in a future where nobody gets evicted or has to choose between medicine or food. Where we each have the access and ability to vote and be counted.

We look forward to the day of true sexual autonomy and personal reproductive freedom. Where access to safe abortions, contraception, and quality health care is a human right. Where all forms of violence against all women, cis-gender, transgender and non-binary are a distant memory.

We write this statement alongside the broken-hearted people of this country and we welcome the courageous risk a feminist future requires. Our “we” is bigger than any one campaign, person, or agenda. We know that Senator Elizabeth Warren has inspired so many women who care about justice and freedom. Because of their values, and because they are women and non-binary supporters, they have faced skepticism and misogyny. Many of us, including Senator Sanders, have condemned these attacks and continue to do so. We invite Warren supporters to continue to fight for a future that she believes in with us- Medicare for All, a bold Green New Deal, student debt cancellation, and a world where people are not attacked on the basis of their gender, sexuality, race, class, immigrant status, disability, or criminal legal status.

We also know that people may consider Joe Biden because he seems safe or a return to normal but through Biden many people who are sick will continue to die because he opposes universal healthcare. The planet will perish because his climate plans are weak. Immigrants looking to rebuild a home will be deported and Black people will continue to be murdered by police. We deserve more. We are all we got. Senator Sanders cannot guarantee a feminist future, it is up to us. But between him and Biden, Sanders is the clear choice. Biden represents the worldview that brought us enormous income inequality and injustice.

For the nurses, teachers, cooks, domestic workers, bus drivers, farmers, librarians, organizers, caretakers, writers, sex workers, shamans, and waitresses: there’s another America waiting for us and we are ready to greet her. We need you to participate, to cooperate, to be a part of shaping our future on this planet together. Join us.

Read this statement aloud with your friends. Share it in your communities. Post it on your platforms. Let’s organize for a #FeministFuture #IWD2020 #Bernie2020.

In struggle and with love,

Melina Abdullah, Thandiwe Abdullah, Zaina Alsous, Taina Asili, May Boeve, Cori Bush, Rosa Clemente, Patrisse Cullors, Molly Crabapple, Jonel Edwards, Jodie Evans, Eve Ensler, Zillah Eisenstien, Barbara Ehrenreich, Laura Flanders, Rachel Gilmer, Kim Gordan, Sandra Guzman, Alexandra Halaby, Leah Hunt-Hendrix, Mahdis Keshavarz, Naomi Klein, DJ Kuttin Kandi, Rachel Kushner, Winona LaDuke, Sarah Leonard, Annie Leonard, Aya De Leon, Thenjiwe McHarris, Jane McAlevey, Anuradha Mittal, Aja Monet, Helen Peña, Carmen Perez, Derecka Purnell, Varshini Prakash, Barbara Ransby, Shana L. Redmond, Linda Sarsour, Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith, Sarah Schulman, Sandra Steingraber, Susan Stryker, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Astra Taylor, Sunaura Taylor, Opal Tometi, Amy Vilela, Kenidra Woods

If you’d like to add your name please sign on here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScS8tZ1JG_n5Oo3p01n0ixWyqNGg8cVIhXUNSEO6KFVhCOU5A/viewform?usp=sf_link

[ageofwrathrpg]

Name: Thaddeus ‘Faddey’ Karinevche Pashkov Age: 36 Ability: Pyrokinesis Faction: LESYAS as an ESCORT/SPY Faceclaim: Cillian Murphy Availability: TAKEN

THE STORY || CW: Death, Violence

When Thaddeus Pashkov was born to two perfectly human parents, they didn’t expect their darling child to light the drapes on fire at the age of eight, nor did they expect them to accidentally leave their mother with second-degree burns after a tantrum at age thirteen. Considered an early bloomer by Vila standards—and an abomination by their parents—there wasn’t anywhere for them to go save for the dark alleyways of Moscow where they were unceremoniously dumped by their parents. For the next three years, Faddey, as they came to be known, lived on the streets and stole to get by. Fights broke out often and young Thaddeus was never exempt from these squabbles with other strays, even initiating them on occasion.

During a particularly nasty fray, Faddey was cornered by Rostek youths looking for trouble. They had tried to restrain themself from using their fire, but this time, Faddey had had enough. With a heavy flourish of their grimy hands, smoke rose above Moscow rooftops as fire consumed their attackers. Wide eyes watched as the Rosteks burned to death, the scent of searing flesh filling the frigid air. It was a Lesya bystander that took Faddey by the hand and led them to the Lesya manor that day, whereafter they quickly became a part of the family and was trained as a spy by the same recruit that had saved them.

As Faddey grew, their desire for more grew within them. Their involvement with the Lesyas waned as they took on a secondary profession – prostitution – and began hoarding money, hoping to get out of Moscow. After one of their clients, an undercover Rostek, attempted to attack them, Faddey was forced to kill. Soon afterward, they were visited a fellow Lesya whose nemesis Faddey had burned alive. She approached Faddey with the idea of returning to their primary occupation as a spy, this time undercover while still maintaining their job as a sex worker.

THE CHARACTER

At first glance, Thaddeus is a reserved, thoughtful soul with eyes that say everything that they themself declines to. Within the Lesyas, however, it is a well-known fact that Faddey is focused on self-preservation. Their ambition to gain freedom of self drives them to do their work efficiently and painlessly. Though their words sound sincere, Faddey is distrustful of others and a compulsive liar, mostly for their own sake. While jaded and at times stubborn, there is a deep passion in them that burns brightly no matter the circumstance. Faddey’s work is never half-hearted, no matter what it is.

CONNECTIONS

Alina Yurievna Koblenko - Alina is Faddey’s employer, but she might as well own them. They get along well – too well, perhaps, as she seems to have a bias for them – but she is the boss of everything that goes on in their life (save for their Lesya obligations). While attempting to fly under the radar, Faddey and Alina will pose as husband and wife, but as soon as the coast is clear, it’s quite certain who rules the ‘household.’ While bonding isn’t exactly on the agenda, it isn’t unusual for the two of them to share a few moments over vodka and terrible judgment.

Fyodor Grigorovich Kadinsky - Without a doubt, Fyodor is Faddey’s favorite frequent client. Not only does he pay well, but he’s creative, respectful, sexually curious, and an incredible writer to boot. What more could you want in a man? Fyodor seems to be one of the few people willing to listen to them, so Faddey genuinely enjoys his company and indulges in feeding him interesting stories about brothel going-ons, even if they’re sometimes mediocre. 

Andrei Janekovich Yolkov - Andrei is a fellow escort from the Lesya line, as well as one of the few male non-patrons there. While it is possible for the two to get along, Andrei tends to pick fights with Faddey over petty things and accuses them of pocketing money from either his or Alina’s funds. Once, Andrei tried to out Faddey to the police while they were both outside the brothel and Faddey nearly killed him for it. Whenever they see the old burns on Andrei’s back, they can’t help but smile.

Yuri Lazlovich Repin - It’s no secret that Faddey is fascinated by Yuri, as they approach the bodyguard every chance they get. Truthfully, Faddey is more than a bit jealous of her ability, but is of course reluctant to admit it even to themself. While they’ve never spoken to Yuri, they constantly speak of her, usually in an angry, envious way, going on about how ‘easy’ it must be for them and how ‘nice’ it must be and blah, blah, blah. Almost everybody that Faddey works with tends to drown them out when they’re whining about the Rostek bodyguard.

Raisa Mikhailovna Nazarowicz - A long time ago, Raisa took pity on Thaddeus. She sat with them and gave them the softest bread they had ever laid eyes on and stayed with them as they wolfed it down. She spoke with them and was the first to see them as something other than a street rat;  Faddey will forever be indebted to her for her five words of advice: Ты сильнее чем вы думаете. You’re stronger than you think. Presently, Faddey has no idea where she is or if she’s even still alive, but they hope so. She was too lovely to perish so soon.

[[ More Connections ]]

ETC

Faddey will never decline a smoke if offered, but rarely smokes on their own. They often approach potential customers by asking to bum a cigarette or a light.

They are absolutely terrified of dogs of any size.

They frequently lick and bite their lips habitually. 

Due to them having spent their childhood on dirty Moscow streets with very little of their own, Faddey has become a kleptomaniac and a bit of a hoarder. Their thievery began out of necessity as a youth and turned into a habit even after being taken in by the Lesyas. They frequently take money and jewelry, but clothes are not uncommon either. 

Faddey identifies as genderqueer but only has a vague idea of what that means. They refer to themself with any pronoun at any given time, but their pronouns usually depend on how they’re presenting. If they feel they come across more as female, then they’ll call themself ‘she’, and so on.

[manjushriwisdom]

H@rd3r

Choose your path, and there's your truth, follow Carve an inch, and here comes the sorrow Everything you do never goes away Take a chance, and they will erase it Fight all you can, and they are complacent Nothing you do can make it all go away

They are in my head now Exposed, they tear my joy out Their shadow starts to cast out Inside I start to lash out

Tell me who I am I've done all I can Tell me why my life keeps getting Harder and harder and harder Tell me what to feel This shit can't be real Tell me why my life keeps getting Harder and harder and harder

Korn

You keep going. That is the bodhisattva’s way. As long as it benefits even one being you have to, without any sense of discouragement, go on.

16th Karmapa

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.  If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts,  suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

Mind precedes all mental states.  Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.  If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts,  happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.  Dhammapada verse 1 and 2

It is intention [or volition; instead of just an action], monks, that I call kamma [karma], for having willed, one performs an action through body, speech and mind.

I am the owner of my karma . I inherit my karma. I am born of my karma. I am related to my karma. I live supported by my karma. Whatever karma I create, whether good or evil, that I shall inherit. Anguttara Nikaya v.57 - Upajjhatthana Sutta

Whatever we believe or not in karma we still see effect of it everyday. Can be that so call chance in trilion that we win something in lottery or that so call chance in thousands that car take our life.

What is karma according to the buddha is our intentions, according to dzogchen teachings is our taught that never end . Our Negative taught lead to negative speach and negative actions. Our positive taught lead to positive taugh and positive action. We always worker by the three doors body, speech and mind.

Saying that we got good karma or bad karma just because x y even in our life is blindly try to answer a question.

Classification of Karma (A) With respect to different functions, Karma is classified into four kinds: 1. REPRODUCTIVE KARMA

Every birth is conditioned by a past good or bad karma, which predominated at the moment of death. Karma that conditions the future birth is called Reproductive Karma. The death of a person is merely ‘a temporary end of a temporary phenomenon’. Though the present form perishes, another form which is neither the same nor absolutely different takes its place, according to the potential thought-vibration generated at the death moment, because the Karmic force which propels the life-flux still survives. It is this last thought, which is technically called Reproductive (janaka) Karma, that determines the state of a person in his subsequent birth. This may be either a good or bad Karma. According to the Commentary, Reproductive Karma is that which produces mental aggregates and material aggregates at the moment of conception. The initial consciousness, which is termed the patisandhi rebirth consciousness, is conditioned by this Reproductive (janaka) Karma. Simultaneous with the arising of the rebirth-consciousness, there arise the ‘body-decad’, ‘sex-decad’ and ‘base-decad’ (kaya-bhavavatthu dasakas). (decad = 10 factors).

(a) The body-decad is composed of:

The element of extension (pathavi).The element of cohesion (apo).The element of heat (tajo).The element of motion (vayo).

(b) The four derivatives (upadana rupa):

Colour (vanna).Odour (gandha).Taste (rasa).Nutritive Essence (oja)These eight (mahabhuta 4 + upadana 4 = 8) are collectively called Avinibhoga Rupa (indivisable form or indivisable matter). (c) Vitality (jivitindriya) and Body (kaya) These (avinibhoga 8 + jivitindriya 1 + Kaya 1 = 10) ten are collectively called "Body-decad" = (Kaya dasaka). Sex-decad and Base-decad also consist of the first nine, sex (bhava) and seat of consciousness (vathu) respectively (i.e. eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body). From this, it is evident that the sex of a person is determined at the very conception of a being. It is conditioned by Karma and is not a fortuitous combination of sperm and ovum cells. The Pain and Happiness one experiences in the course of one’s lifetime are the inevitable consequence of Reproductive Kamma.

2. SUPPORTIVE KARMA

That which comes near the Reproductive (janaka) Kamma and supports it. It is neither good nor bad and it assists or maintains the action of the Reproductive (janaka) Karma in the course of one’s lifetime. Immediately after conception till the death moment this Karma steps forward to support the Reproductive Karma. A moral supportive (kusala upathambhaka) Karma assists in giving health, wealth, happiness etc. to the being born with a moral Reproductive Karma. An immoral supportive Karma, on the other hand, assists in giving pain, sorrow, etc. to the being born with an immoral reproductive (akusala janaka) Karma, as for instance to a beast of burden.

3. OBSTRUCTIVE KARMA OR COUNTERACTIVE KARMA

Which, unlike the former, tends to weaken, interrupt and retard the fruition of the Reproductive Karma. For instance, a person born with a good Reproductive Karma may be subject to various ailments etc., thus preventing him from enjoying the blissful results of his good actions. An animal, on the other hand, who is born with a bad Reproductive Karma may lead a comfortable life by getting good food, lodging, etc., as a result of his good counteractive or obstructive (upabidaka) Karma preventing the fruition of the evil Reproductive Karma.

4. DESTRUCTIVE (UPAGHATAKA) KARMA

According to the law of Karma the potential energy of the Reproductive Karma could be nullified by a mere powerful opposing Karma of the past, which, seeking an opportunity, may quite unexpectedly operate, just as a powerful counteractive force can obstruct the path of a flying arrow and bring it down to the ground. Such an action is called Destructive (upaghataka) Karma, which is more effective than the previous two in that it is not only obstructive but also destroys the whole force. This Destructive Karma also may be either good or bad. As an instance of operation of all the four, the case of Devadatta, who attempted to kill the Buddha and who caused a schism in the Sangha (disciples of the Buddha) may be cited. His good Reproductive Karma brought him birth in a royal family. His continued comfort and prosperity were due to the action of the Supportive Karma. The Counteractive or Obstructive Karma came into operation when he was subject to much humiliation as a result of his being excommunicated from the Sangha. Finally the Destructive Karma brought his life to a miserable end.

(B) There is another classification of Karma, according to the priority of effect:

WEIGHTY (GARUKA) KARMA.

This is either weighty or serious – may be either good or bad. It produces its results in this life or in the next for certain. If good, it is purely mental as in the case of Jhana (ecstasy or absorption). Otherwise it is verbal or bodily. On the Immoral side, there are five immediate effective heinous crimes (pancanantariya karma): Matricide, Patricide, and the murder of an Arahant, the wounding of a Buddha and the creation of a schism in the Sangha. Permanent Scepticism (Niyata Micchaditthi) is also termed one of the Weighty (garuka) Karmas. If, for instance, any person were to develop the jhana (ecstasy or absorption) and later were to commit one of these heinous crimes, his good Karma would be obliterated by the powerful evil Karma. His subsequent birth would be conditioned by the evil Karma in spite of his having gained the jhana earlier. Devadatta lost his psychic power and was born in an evil state, because he wounded the Buddha and caused a schism in the Sangha. King Ajatasattu would have attained the first stage of Sainthood (Sotapanna) if he had not committed patricide. In this case the powerful evil Karma acted as an obstacle to his gaining Sainthood.

PROXIMATE (ASANNA) KARMA OR DEATH-PROXIMATE KARMA

This is that which one does or remembers immediately before the moment of dying. Owing to the great part it plays in determining the future birth, much importance is attained to this deathbed (asanna) Karma in almost all Buddhist countries. The customs of reminding the dying man of good deeds and making him do good acts on his deathbed still prevails in Buddhist countries. Sometimes a bad person may die happily and receive a good birth if he remembers or does a good act at the last moment. A story runs that a certain executioner who casually happened to give some alms to the Venerable Sariputta remembered this good act at the dying moment and was born in a state of bliss. This does not mean that although he enjoys a good birth he will be exempt from the effects of the evil deeds which he accumulated during his lifetime. They will have there due effect as occasions arise. At times a good person may die unhappy by suddenly remembering an evil act of his or by harbouring some unpleasant thought, perchance compelled by unfavourable circumstances. In the scriptures, Queen Mallika, the consort of King Kosala, remembering a lie she had uttered, suffered for about seven days in a state of misery when she lied to her husband to cover some misbehaviour. These are exceptional cases. Such reverse changes of birth account for the birth of virtuous children to vicious parents and of vicious children to virtuous parents. As a result of the last thought moment being conditioned by the general conduct of the person.

HABITUAL (ACCINA) KARMA

It is that which on habitually performs and recollects and for which one has a great liking. Habits whether good or bad becomes ones second nature, tending to form the character of a person. At unguarded moments one often lapses into one’s habitual mental mindset. In the same way, at the death-moment, unless influenced by other circumstances, one usually recalls to mind one’s habitual deeds. Cunda, a butcher, who was living in the vicinity of the Buddha’s monastery, died yelling like an animal because he was earning his living by slaughtering pigs. King Dutthagamini of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was in the habit of giving alms to the Bhikkhus (monks) before he took his own meals. It was his habitual Karma that gladdened him at the dying moment and gave him birth in the Tusita heaven.

RESERVE OR CUMULATIVE (KATATTA) KARMA This literally means ‘because done’. All actions that are not included in the aforementioned and those actions soon forgotten belong to this category. This is, as it were the reserve fund of a particular being.

(C) There is another classification of Karma according to the time in which effects are worked out:

Immediately Effective (ditthadhammavedaniya) Karma.Subsequently Effective (uppapajjavedaniya) Karma.Indefinitely Effective (aparapariyavedaniya) Karma.Defunct or Ineffective (ahosi) Karma.Immediately Effective Karma is that which is experienced in this present life. According to the Abhidhamma one does both good and evil during the javana process (thought-impulsion), which usually lasts for seven thought-moments. The effect of the first thought-moment, being the weakest, one may reap in this life itself. This is called the Immediately Effective Karma. If it does not operate in this life, it is called ‘Defunct or Ineffective’ Karma. The next weakest is the seventh thought-moment. Its effect one may reap in the subsequence birth. This is called ‘Subsequently Effective’ Karma. This, too, is called Defunct or Ineffective Karma if it does not operate in the second birth. The effect of the intermediate thought-moments may take place at any time until one attains Nibbana. This type of Karma is known as ‘Indefinitely Effective’ Karma. No one, not even the Buddhas and Arahantas, is exempt from this class of Karma which one may experience in the course of one’s wandering in Samsara. There is no special class of Karma known as Defunct or Ineffective, but when such actions that should produce their effects in this life or in a subsequent life do not operate, they are termed Defunct or Ineffective Karma.

(D) The last classification of Karma is according to the plane in which the effect takes place, namely:

Evil Actions (akusala kamma) which may ripen in the sentient planes (kammaloka). (Six celestial planes plus one human plane plus four woeful planes = eleven kamaloka planes.) Here are only four woeful kamalokas.

Good Actions (kusala kamma) which may ripen in the sentient planes except for the four woeful planes.

Good Actions (kusala kamma) which may ripen in the Realm of Form (rupa brahamalokas). There are four Arupa Brahma Lokas.

We never know our karma we are able to study it but hard moment in our life, come and go we need carry on not losing the direction we aim for.

[ngakpakonchokdorjetsondonmystic]

H@rd3r

Choose your path, and there's your truth, follow Carve an inch, and here comes the sorrow Everything you do never goes away Take a chance, and they will erase it Fight all you can, and they are complacent Nothing you do can make it all go away

They are in my head now Exposed, they tear my joy out Their shadow starts to cast out Inside I start to lash out

Tell me who I am I've done all I can Tell me why my life keeps getting Harder and harder and harder Tell me what to feel This shit can't be real Tell me why my life keeps getting Harder and harder and harder

Korn

You keep going. That is the bodhisattva’s way. As long as it benefits even one being you have to, without any sense of discouragement, go on.

16th Karmapa

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.  If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts,  suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

Mind precedes all mental states.  Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.  If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts,  happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.  Dhammapada verse 1 and 2

It is intention [or volition; instead of just an action], monks, that I call kamma [karma], for having willed, one performs an action through body, speech and mind.

I am the owner of my karma . I inherit my karma. I am born of my karma. I am related to my karma. I live supported by my karma. Whatever karma I create, whether good or evil, that I shall inherit. Anguttara Nikaya v.57 - Upajjhatthana Sutta

Whatever we believe or not in karma we still see effect of it everyday. Can be that so call chance in trilion that we win something in lottery or that so call chance in thousands that car take our life.

What is karma according to the buddha is our intentions, according to dzogchen teachings is our taught that never end . Our Negative taught lead to negative speach and negative actions. Our positive taught lead to positive taugh and positive action. We always worker by the three doors body, speech and mind.

Saying that we got good karma or bad karma just because x y even in our life is blindly try to answer a question.

Classification of Karma (A) With respect to different functions, Karma is classified into four kinds: 1. REPRODUCTIVE KARMA

Every birth is conditioned by a past good or bad karma, which predominated at the moment of death. Karma that conditions the future birth is called Reproductive Karma. The death of a person is merely ‘a temporary end of a temporary phenomenon’. Though the present form perishes, another form which is neither the same nor absolutely different takes its place, according to the potential thought-vibration generated at the death moment, because the Karmic force which propels the life-flux still survives. It is this last thought, which is technically called Reproductive (janaka) Karma, that determines the state of a person in his subsequent birth. This may be either a good or bad Karma. According to the Commentary, Reproductive Karma is that which produces mental aggregates and material aggregates at the moment of conception. The initial consciousness, which is termed the patisandhi rebirth consciousness, is conditioned by this Reproductive (janaka) Karma. Simultaneous with the arising of the rebirth-consciousness, there arise the ‘body-decad’, ‘sex-decad’ and ‘base-decad’ (kaya-bhavavatthu dasakas). (decad = 10 factors).

(a) The body-decad is composed of:

The element of extension (pathavi).The element of cohesion (apo).The element of heat (tajo).The element of motion (vayo).

(b) The four derivatives (upadana rupa):

Colour (vanna).Odour (gandha).Taste (rasa).Nutritive Essence (oja)These eight (mahabhuta 4 + upadana 4 = 8) are collectively called Avinibhoga Rupa (indivisable form or indivisable matter). (c) Vitality (jivitindriya) and Body (kaya) These (avinibhoga 8 + jivitindriya 1 + Kaya 1 = 10) ten are collectively called "Body-decad" = (Kaya dasaka). Sex-decad and Base-decad also consist of the first nine, sex (bhava) and seat of consciousness (vathu) respectively (i.e. eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body). From this, it is evident that the sex of a person is determined at the very conception of a being. It is conditioned by Karma and is not a fortuitous combination of sperm and ovum cells. The Pain and Happiness one experiences in the course of one’s lifetime are the inevitable consequence of Reproductive Kamma.

2. SUPPORTIVE KARMA

That which comes near the Reproductive (janaka) Kamma and supports it. It is neither good nor bad and it assists or maintains the action of the Reproductive (janaka) Karma in the course of one’s lifetime. Immediately after conception till the death moment this Karma steps forward to support the Reproductive Karma. A moral supportive (kusala upathambhaka) Karma assists in giving health, wealth, happiness etc. to the being born with a moral Reproductive Karma. An immoral supportive Karma, on the other hand, assists in giving pain, sorrow, etc. to the being born with an immoral reproductive (akusala janaka) Karma, as for instance to a beast of burden.

3. OBSTRUCTIVE KARMA OR COUNTERACTIVE KARMA

Which, unlike the former, tends to weaken, interrupt and retard the fruition of the Reproductive Karma. For instance, a person born with a good Reproductive Karma may be subject to various ailments etc., thus preventing him from enjoying the blissful results of his good actions. An animal, on the other hand, who is born with a bad Reproductive Karma may lead a comfortable life by getting good food, lodging, etc., as a result of his good counteractive or obstructive (upabidaka) Karma preventing the fruition of the evil Reproductive Karma.

4. DESTRUCTIVE (UPAGHATAKA) KARMA

According to the law of Karma the potential energy of the Reproductive Karma could be nullified by a mere powerful opposing Karma of the past, which, seeking an opportunity, may quite unexpectedly operate, just as a powerful counteractive force can obstruct the path of a flying arrow and bring it down to the ground. Such an action is called Destructive (upaghataka) Karma, which is more effective than the previous two in that it is not only obstructive but also destroys the whole force. This Destructive Karma also may be either good or bad. As an instance of operation of all the four, the case of Devadatta, who attempted to kill the Buddha and who caused a schism in the Sangha (disciples of the Buddha) may be cited. His good Reproductive Karma brought him birth in a royal family. His continued comfort and prosperity were due to the action of the Supportive Karma. The Counteractive or Obstructive Karma came into operation when he was subject to much humiliation as a result of his being excommunicated from the Sangha. Finally the Destructive Karma brought his life to a miserable end.

(B) There is another classification of Karma, according to the priority of effect:

WEIGHTY (GARUKA) KARMA.

This is either weighty or serious – may be either good or bad. It produces its results in this life or in the next for certain. If good, it is purely mental as in the case of Jhana (ecstasy or absorption). Otherwise it is verbal or bodily. On the Immoral side, there are five immediate effective heinous crimes (pancanantariya karma): Matricide, Patricide, and the murder of an Arahant, the wounding of a Buddha and the creation of a schism in the Sangha. Permanent Scepticism (Niyata Micchaditthi) is also termed one of the Weighty (garuka) Karmas. If, for instance, any person were to develop the jhana (ecstasy or absorption) and later were to commit one of these heinous crimes, his good Karma would be obliterated by the powerful evil Karma. His subsequent birth would be conditioned by the evil Karma in spite of his having gained the jhana earlier. Devadatta lost his psychic power and was born in an evil state, because he wounded the Buddha and caused a schism in the Sangha. King Ajatasattu would have attained the first stage of Sainthood (Sotapanna) if he had not committed patricide. In this case the powerful evil Karma acted as an obstacle to his gaining Sainthood.

PROXIMATE (ASANNA) KARMA OR DEATH-PROXIMATE KARMA

This is that which one does or remembers immediately before the moment of dying. Owing to the great part it plays in determining the future birth, much importance is attained to this deathbed (asanna) Karma in almost all Buddhist countries. The customs of reminding the dying man of good deeds and making him do good acts on his deathbed still prevails in Buddhist countries. Sometimes a bad person may die happily and receive a good birth if he remembers or does a good act at the last moment. A story runs that a certain executioner who casually happened to give some alms to the Venerable Sariputta remembered this good act at the dying moment and was born in a state of bliss. This does not mean that although he enjoys a good birth he will be exempt from the effects of the evil deeds which he accumulated during his lifetime. They will have there due effect as occasions arise. At times a good person may die unhappy by suddenly remembering an evil act of his or by harbouring some unpleasant thought, perchance compelled by unfavourable circumstances. In the scriptures, Queen Mallika, the consort of King Kosala, remembering a lie she had uttered, suffered for about seven days in a state of misery when she lied to her husband to cover some misbehaviour. These are exceptional cases. Such reverse changes of birth account for the birth of virtuous children to vicious parents and of vicious children to virtuous parents. As a result of the last thought moment being conditioned by the general conduct of the person.

HABITUAL (ACCINA) KARMA

It is that which on habitually performs and recollects and for which one has a great liking. Habits whether good or bad becomes ones second nature, tending to form the character of a person. At unguarded moments one often lapses into one’s habitual mental mindset. In the same way, at the death-moment, unless influenced by other circumstances, one usually recalls to mind one’s habitual deeds. Cunda, a butcher, who was living in the vicinity of the Buddha’s monastery, died yelling like an animal because he was earning his living by slaughtering pigs. King Dutthagamini of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was in the habit of giving alms to the Bhikkhus (monks) before he took his own meals. It was his habitual Karma that gladdened him at the dying moment and gave him birth in the Tusita heaven.

RESERVE OR CUMULATIVE (KATATTA) KARMA This literally means ‘because done’. All actions that are not included in the aforementioned and those actions soon forgotten belong to this category. This is, as it were the reserve fund of a particular being.

(C) There is another classification of Karma according to the time in which effects are worked out:

Immediately Effective (ditthadhammavedaniya) Karma.Subsequently Effective (uppapajjavedaniya) Karma.Indefinitely Effective (aparapariyavedaniya) Karma.Defunct or Ineffective (ahosi) Karma.Immediately Effective Karma is that which is experienced in this present life. According to the Abhidhamma one does both good and evil during the javana process (thought-impulsion), which usually lasts for seven thought-moments. The effect of the first thought-moment, being the weakest, one may reap in this life itself. This is called the Immediately Effective Karma. If it does not operate in this life, it is called ‘Defunct or Ineffective’ Karma. The next weakest is the seventh thought-moment. Its effect one may reap in the subsequence birth. This is called ‘Subsequently Effective’ Karma. This, too, is called Defunct or Ineffective Karma if it does not operate in the second birth. The effect of the intermediate thought-moments may take place at any time until one attains Nibbana. This type of Karma is known as ‘Indefinitely Effective’ Karma. No one, not even the Buddhas and Arahantas, is exempt from this class of Karma which one may experience in the course of one’s wandering in Samsara. There is no special class of Karma known as Defunct or Ineffective, but when such actions that should produce their effects in this life or in a subsequent life do not operate, they are termed Defunct or Ineffective Karma.

(D) The last classification of Karma is according to the plane in which the effect takes place, namely:

Evil Actions (akusala kamma) which may ripen in the sentient planes (kammaloka). (Six celestial planes plus one human plane plus four woeful planes = eleven kamaloka planes.) Here are only four woeful kamalokas.

Good Actions (kusala kamma) which may ripen in the sentient planes except for the four woeful planes.

Good Actions (kusala kamma) which may ripen in the Realm of Form (rupa brahamalokas). There are four Arupa Brahma Lokas.

We never know our karma we are able to study it but hard moment in our life, come and go we need carry on not losing the direction we aim for.

[fem-mem-mine]

Every year, I wake up on March 8 to a flurry of tweets from men wishing me a “Happy International Women’s Day!”

And every year, I find myself thinking: Well, thanks, but is that it? Is that all the support for gender equality that you can muster? For the entire year? It’s a nice sentiment, but at a time when the gender pay gap means that women in the UK work for free for 67 days each year, Black women in the US are three to four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, and trans women in the US are four times more likely to be murdered than cis women, it doesn’t quite do it for me.

So, to ensure that men aren’t missing direction, a few years ago I started compiling a list of easy actions that men can take to meaningfully support gender equality. Every year, I would post it on social media. Slowly, other women started contributing suggestions. So the list grew. And grew. It will likely never stop growing.

The suggestions cover many realms of life—from home, to work, to the ways we interact with strangers, to the language we use—but it is in no way comprehensive. Below, I’ve included a mere 100 entries out of the several hundred I’ve crowdsourced and personally compiled.

To the men reading: You may already do some of these things, and others you may not be in the position to do. But a good place to start is by, at the very least, reading the list through—in its entirety. And remember: These apply all year, not just during the annual 24 hours dedicated to half of the planet’s population.

1. Before explaining something to a woman, ask yourself if she might already understand. She may know more about it than you do.

2. Related: Never, ever try to explain feminism to a woman.

3. Trans women are women. Repeat that until you perish.

4. RESPECT PEOPLE’S PRONOUNS. It’s not hard.

5. Remember that fat women exist and aren’t all trying to get thin. Treat them with respect.

6. In fact, just never comment on a woman's body.

7. Be kind to women in customer service positions. Tip them extra. (But not in a creepy way.)

8. Trust women. When they teach you something, don't feel the need to go and check for yourself. And especially do not Google it in front of them.

9. Don’t maintain a double standard for… anything, ever.

10. CLOSE YOUR LEGS ON PUBLIC TRANSIT, OH MY GOD.

11. Trying to describe a woman positively? Say she's “talented,” “clever,” or “funny.” Not “gorgeous,” “sweet,” or “cute.”

12. Examine your language when talking about women. Get rid of “irrational,” “dramatic,” “bossy,” and “badgering” immediately.

13. Don't think to yourself, I describe men like that too. A) You probably don't. B) If you do, it's to criticize them for acting like a woman.

14. Do you love “fiery” Latina women? “Strong” Black women? “Mysterious” Asian women? Stop. Pick up a book on decolonial feminism. Read.

15. Stop calling women “feisty.” We don't need a special lady word for “has an opinion."

16. Recognize women's credibility when you introduce them. “Donna is lovely” is much less useful than “Donna knows shitloads about architecture.”

17. Think about how you describe the young women in your family. Celebrate them for being funny and smart, not for being pretty and compliant.

18. Examine the way you talk about women you’re attracted to. Fat women, old women, queer, trans, and powerful women are not your “guilty crush.”

19. Learn to praise a woman without demonizing other women. “You're not like other girls” is not a compliment. I want to be like other girls. Other girls are awesome.

20. Share writing by women. Don't paraphrase their work in your own Facebook post to show us all how smart or woke you are. I guarantee the woman said it better in the first place.

21. Buy sanitary pads and tampons and donate them to a homeless shelter. Just do it.

22. How much of what you are watching/reading/listening to was made by women? Gender balance your bookcase.

23. Feeling proud of your balanced bookcase? Are there women of color there? Trans, queer, and disabled women? Poor women? Always make sure you’re being intersectional.

24. Don't buy media that demeans women’s experiences, valorizes violence against women, or excludes them entirely from a cast. It's not enough to oppose those things. You have to actively make them unmarketable.

25. Pay attention to stories with nuanced female characters. It will be interesting, I promise.

26. If you read stories to a child, swap the genders.

27. Watch women's sport. And just call it “sports.”

28. Withdraw your support from sports clubs, institutions, and companies that protect and employ rapists and abusers.

29. Stop raving about Woody Allen. I don't care if he shits gold. Find a non-accused-abuser to fanboy over.

30. It's General Leia, not princess. The Doctor has a companion, not an assistant. It's Doctor Bartlett, not Mrs Madame First Lady.

31. Cast women in parts written for men. We know how to rule kingdoms, go to war, be, not be, and wait for Godot.

32. Pay for porn.

33. Recognize that sex work is work. Be an advocate for and ally to sex workers without speaking for them.

34. Share political hot takes from women as well as men. They might not be as widely accessible, so look for them.

35. Understand that it was never “about ethics in journalism.”

36. Speak less in meetings today to make space for your women colleagues to share their thoughts. If you're leading the meeting, make sure women are being heard as much as men.

37. If a woman makes a good point, say, “That was a good point.” Don't repeat her point and take credit for it.

38. Promote women. Their leadership styles may be different than yours. That's probably a good thing.

39. Recruit women on the same salary as men. Even if they don't ask for it.

40. Open doors for women with caring responsibilities by offering flexible employment contracts.

41. If you meet a man and a woman at work, do not assume the man is the superior for literally no reason.

42. If you're wrongly assumed to be more experienced than a woman colleague, correct that person and pass the platform to the woman who knows more.

43. Make a round of tea for the office.

44. Wash it up.

45. If you find you're only interviewing men for a role, rewrite the job listing so that it’s more welcoming to women.

46. Make sure you have women on your interview panel.

47. Tell female colleagues what your salary is.

48. Make sure there's childcare at your events.

49. Don't schedule breakfast meetings during the school run.

50. If you manage a team, make sure that your employees know that you recognize period pain and cystitis as legitimate reasons for a sick day.

51. If you have a strict boss (or mom or teacher) who is a woman, she is not a “bitch.” Grow up.

52. Expect a woman to do the stuff that's in her job description. Not the other miscellaneous shit you don't know how to do yourself.

53. Refuse to speak on an all-male panel.

54. In a Q&A session, only put your hand up if you have A QUESTION. Others didn’t attend to listen to you.

55. If you have friends or family members who use slurs or discriminate against trans or non-binary people, sit them down and explain why they must stop. (This goes for cis women, too.)

56. If you have friends or family members who use slurs or discriminate against women of other races, sit them down and explain why they must stop. (This goes for white women, too.)

57. If you see women with their hands up, put yours down. This can be taken as a metaphor for a lot of things. Think about it.

58. Raising a feminist daughter means she's going to disagree with you. And probably be right. Feel proud, not threatened.

59. Teach your sons to listen to girls, give them space, believe them, and elevate them.

60. Dads, buy your daughter tampons, make her hot water bottles, wash her bras. Show her that her body isn't something to be ashamed of.

61. But dads, do not try to iron her bras. This is a mistake you will only make once.

62. Examine how domestic labor is divided in your home. Who does the cleaning, the childcare, the organizing, the meal budgeting? Sons, this goes for you, too.

63. Learn how to do domestic tasks to a high standard. “I'd only do it wrong” is a bullshit excuse.

64. Never again comment on how long it takes a woman to get ready. WE ARE TRYING TO MEET THE RIDICULOUS STANDARDS OF A SYSTEM YOU BENEFIT FROM.

65. Challenge the patriarchs in your religious group when they enable the oppression of women.

66. Challenge the patriarchs in your secular movement when they enable the oppression of women.

67. Trust women's religious choices. Don't pretend to liberate them just so you can criticise their beliefs.

68. Examine who books your trips, arranges outings, organizes Christmas, buys birthday cards. Is it a woman? IS IT?

69. And if it is actually you, a man, don't even dare get in touch with me looking for your medal.

70. Take stock of the emotional labor you expect from women. Do you turn to the women around you for emotional support and give nothing in return?

71. Remember that loving your mom/sister/girlfriend is not the same as giving up your own privilege to progress equality for women. And that gender inequality extends beyond the women in your direct social group.

72. Don’t assume that all women are attracted to men.

73. Don’t assume that a woman in public wants to talk to you just because she’s in public.

74. If a woman tells you she was raped, assaulted, or abused, don't ask her for proof. Ask how you can support her.

75. If you see a friend or colleague being inappropriate to a woman, call him out. You will survive the awkwardness, I promise.

76. Repeat after me: Always. Hold. Men. Accountable. For. Their. Actions.

77. Do not walk too close to a woman late at night. That shit can be scary.

78. If you see a woman being followed or otherwise bothered by a stranger, stick around to make sure she’s safe.

79. This should go without saying: Do not yell unsolicited “compliments” at women on the street. Or anywhere.

80. If you are a queer man, recognize that your sexuality doesn’t exclude you from potential misogyny.

81. If you are a queer man, recognize that your queer women or non-binary friends may not feel comfortable in a male-dominated space, even if it’s dominated by queer men.

82. Be happy to have women friends without needing them to want to sleep with you. The “friend zone” is not a thing. We do not owe you sex.

83. Remember that you can lack consent in situations not involving sex—such as when pursuing uninterested women or forcing a hug on a colleague.

84. Champion sex positive women but don't expect them to have sex with you.

85. Trust a woman to know her own body. If she says she won't enjoy part of your sexual repertoire, do not try to convince her otherwise.

86. Be sensitive to nonverbal cues from women, especially around sex. We’re not just being awkward for no reason. (You read “Cat Person,” didn’t you?)

87. It is not cute to try to persuade a woman to have sex with you. EVER. AT ALL. Go home.

88. Same goes for pressuring women to have sex without a condom. Go. Home. And masturbate.

89. Accidentally impregnated a women who doesn't want a kid? Abortions cost money. Pay for half of it.

90. Accidentally came inside a woman without protection? Plan B is expensive. Pay for all of it.

91. Get STD tested. Regularly. Without having to be asked.

92. Examine your opinion on abortion. Then put it in a box. Because, honestly, it's completely irrelevant.

93. Understand that disabled women are whole, sexual human beings. Listen to and respect them.

94. Understand that not all women have periods or vaginas.

95. Believe women's pain. Periods hurt. Endometriosis is real. Polycystic ovaries, vaginal pain, cystitis. These things are real. Hysteria isn’t.

96. If a woman accidentally bleeds on you, try your absolute best to just keep your shit together.

97. Lobby your elected officials to implement high quality sex education in schools.

98. Uplift young Black and Indigenous girls at every possible opportunity. No excuses.

99. Do not ever assume you know what it’s like.

100. Mainly, just listen to women. Listen to us and believe us. It’s the only place to start if you actually want all women to have a “Happy International Women’s Day.”

[marcos008-blog]

Memories of Fifties Britain

EVERYBODY who grew up in Fifties Britain will have his or her own indelible memories of their childhood, from the first taste of welfare orange juice to the birth of rock’ n’ roll. The nation was recovering from the ravages of the Second World War and the camaraderie of wartime was still evident throughout the country.

Children waking up on Christmas morning in 1952 had experienced rationing of food and clothes all of their lives. It was quite normal to go without the sweets, biscuits, crisps and fizzy drinks that would be taken for granted by future -generations . Before sweet rationing ended in February 1953 the most prized thing in your Christmas stocking would have been a small, two-ounce bar of chocolate.

You probably didn’t get your first black and white television set until the late-Fifties. After all, only three million British households had one by 1954, with numbers increasing to almost 13 million by 1964.

But it didn’t matter if you had no television because you could play in the streets without the fear of traffic or the obstruction of parked cars. Buses and bicycles were the most popular modes of transport. In 1950 there were just under two million cars in Britain, with only 14 per cent of households owning one. The most-popular models in the Fifties included the Ford Prefect 100E and the Austin A35 saloon.

Many of us who grew up then have memories of houses that were draughty in winter with curtains hung behind the street door to reduce the flow of cold air and frost that formed overnight on the inside of bedroom windows.

Outside, the larger urban areas suffered with dense, yellowish smogs – known as pea-soupers – caused by fog combining with coalfire emissions. In 1952 a particularly thick smog shrouded London and caused the deaths of an estimated 12,000 people.

However, life was certainly not all doom and gloom. You grew up in a much safer environment than we can ever imagine these days. Children were able to enjoy the freedom of outdoor life. They played lots of rough-and-tumble games, got dirty and fell out of trees. The purple stains of iodine were always evident on the grazed knees of boys in short trousers.

We would also dress up like cowboys and Indians, wear holsters with cap guns and point and shoot at each other.

There was no such thing as health and safety or children’s rights. We were taught discipline at home and at school and corporal punishment was freely administered for bad behaviour.

There was no mugging of old ladies and people felt that it was safe to walk the streets. There was very little vandalism and no graffiti. Telephone boxes were fully glazed and each contained a set of local telephone directories and a pay-box full of pennies.

Youngsters respected and feared people in authority such as policemen, teachers, and park keepers, knowing that they would get a clip around the ear if they were caught misbehaving.

Home life was much different from today. Everyone seemed to have a gramophone, an upright piano and a valve radio in their front room and there were ticking clocks all around the house.

The kitchen was filled with products such as Omo washing powder and Robin starch and a whistle kettle was a permanent fixture on the kitchen stove.

Most adults smoked and there were ashtrays in every room, even in the bedrooms. Most homes didn’t have a bathroom so people would either wash in a tin bath by the fireside or take a weekly trip to the local municipal baths where they could pay to have a hot bath in a little more comfort. Toilets were usually outside.

We still managed to eat lots of wholesome food, which was always freshly cooked, and mums seemed always to be baking and though many of us didn’t have a fridge and went shopping for-groceries every day. Perishable foods were bought in small amounts just enough to last a day. It was quite usual to buy a single item of fruit.

On Sundays everyone had a roast dinner and leftovers were made into stews and pies to eat later in the week. In 1950, 55 per cent of young children drank tea with their meals. Bread and beef dripping was standard fare but we cringed at the sight of a curled-up Spam sandwich.

That was even worse than the daily spoonful of cod liver oil many of us had to consume.

Boys and girls played street games together, such as run outs, hopscotch and British bulldog. In the playground schoolgirls practised handstands and cartwheels with their skirts tucked up under the elastic of their navy blue knickers, while the boys played conkers.

We travelled in third-class compartments on train journeys to the seaside. In 1956 they were renamed second class. The change didn’t move you any higher up the social ladder but it made you feel there was a bit less of a social gap. At the seaside you wore a knitted bathing costume on the beach.

Do you remember Pathé News at the cinema? Going to the pictures was everyone’s favourite outing, with all those wonderful stiff-upper-lip British film stars such as John Mills, Jack Hawkins, Kenneth More and Dirk Bogarde and great war films such as The Dam Busters, epics such as Ben-Hur and comedies such as The Belles Of St Trinian’s. When the film ended everyone stood for the National Anthem and stayed until it finished playing.

For children the Saturday morning pictures provided the best fun. Every week, 200 to 300 unruly children would descend on a cinema for a couple of hours of film and live entertainment. The manager would regularly stop the film and threaten to send you all home if you didn’t behave and the solitary usherette was often forced to run for cover. It was controlled mayhem with the stalls and circle filled with children cheering for the goodies and booing the baddies. It introduced us to The Lone Ranger and Zorro and the slapstick comedy of Mr Pastry and Buster Keaton.

Dusty, old-fashioned sweetshops had high wooden counters jam-packed with boxes of ha’penny chews and other sweet delights. Remember Lucky Bags and frozen Jubblys and getting a sore tongue from sucking on gobstoppers, aniseed balls and Spangles? Then there were those old Smith’s potato crisps. The salt was in a twist of blue paper and you always had to rummage around for it at the bottom of the bag. All your one-shilling-a-week pocket money would go on sweets and comics (yes, we used old money back then, pounds, shillings and pence).

It was the decade of skiffle music with Lonnie Donegan and of the start of rock’ n’roll with Bill Haley, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard. Did you know that Cliff’s first hit Move It is credited as being the first rock’n’roll song produced outside the United States? Other British singers such as Tommy Steele, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury and Adam Faith first came to fame in the Fifties. But while everyone now remembers rock’n’roll, in reality the record buyers were suckers for-ballads and throughout the Fifties homegrown ballad singers had -British girls swooning in the aisles.

I have memories of Bob-a-Job Week, as a Cub Scout, you lend a helping hand to friends and neighbours in exchange for a small payment, it ended in 1992 after concerns were raised over health and safety and child protection issues.

“Sex was something mysterious which happened to married couples and Homosexuality was never mentioned; my mother later told me my father did not believe it existed at all ‘until he joined the army’. As a child I was warned about talking to ‘strange men’, without any real idea what this meant. I was left to find out for myself what it was all about.”

It is hard to identify the Britain of today with how it was back then. The whole appearance of the country has changed, particularly in inner cities where so much building and development work has been done over the years.

The wartorn dilapidated houses, derelict land and bomb sites that were the forbidden playgrounds of postwar baby boomers are now long gone.

There was something cosy about growing up in the last decade in which most children retained their childish innocence to the age of 12 or 13 and enjoyed a carefree life full of fun and games. The stresses of adolescence and then adult life could wait. We were lucky.

1950s: what it was really like

It was an era when women stayed at home, a 9-to-5 job meant just that, workers had a job for life and nobody had a Blackberry to ruin their holidays.

When the Queen was crowned in 1953, food rationing was still in force, supermarkets were unheard of, and fish and chips were our undisputed national dish. How things have changed. But is our diet more healthy now than it was then?

Despite the challenges of rationing, family diets still contained more bread, vegetables and milk than children have today.

There was a succession of callers to the 1950s house. These would include the rag and bone man, a man with a horse and cart and a call of ‘any old rags’. The rag and bone man would buy your old clothes for a few pennies and mend your pots and pans when the bottoms went through.

The milk man came daily and delivered your milk right on to your doorstep – again he would take away the empty bottles to be washed and re-used. The local shops would also deliver your groceries, bread and meat, the delivery boys using bicycles to make their rounds. The dustbin men worked extremely hard, carrying the old metal dustbins on their backs from the householder’s back door to the cart and then returning them back.

Fear of Polio held a reign of terror over this nation for decades. But unless you were born before 1955, polio may seem to be just another ephemeral disease that has been nonexistent for years. Those born before 1955 remember having a great fear of this horrible disease which crippled thousands of once active, healthy children. This disease had no cure and no identified causes, which made it all the more terrifying. People did everything that they had done in the past to prevent the spread of disease, such as quarantining areas, but these tactics never seemed to work. Polio could not be contained. Many people did not have the money to care for a family member with polio.

I can remember the days before the internet, local radio, Sky Sports etc. The was no information on Saturday matches other than the results on the TV and radio starting at approx 4.40. (Matches finished much earlier then. They started on time; there was only 10 minutes half time; there as very little added time)

In those days the only match reports on the day came in the Green’un. It was delivered just after 6.00 pm and, amazingly, there would be people queuing in the shops waiting for it.

The reports usually had a lot of detail on the first half but next to noting on the second half. (Not surprising as the reporters had to send their reports by telephone at half time and full time)

The green-un and a pink-un. One printed by the Evening World and the other by the Evening Post.

1950s memories

* We walked to school, had open fires and no central heating

* we spent our holidays in the UK

* No bathroom just a tin bath

* The outside toilet, you wiped your rear end with newspaper

* Cod fish fingers produced in Great Yarmouth were introduced in Britain in 1955.

* Chickens were for high days and holidays only as they were very expensive.

* Rabbit was eaten a lot those days.

* Pickled beef was a favourite of our family back in the 50s. The beef would be chosen and then pickled by the butcher.

* cows udder served warm with brown bread and butter. Also pigs trotters cooked until the crackling and meat falls off the bone.

* It was always stew and dumplings on Mondays as it was wash day and it was easiest to cook and always fish on Fridays.

* Mums used to do their weekly baking on Saturdays.

* In the summer we always went blackberry picking so had plenty of jams and pies. Some families had allotments so soft fruit was available.

* We certainly ate dates, they were delicious.

* worms in apples

* We had our first television set in 1955

* Butter was also sold from a large block and the grocer would pat it into smaller blocks with wooden paddles.

* Very few cars, lots of buses, neighbours talking on the doorstep and helping each other and the mangle in the garden for the weekly wash.

* fresh fish…cockles, mussels

* REAL butter

* chicken was only eaten at Christmas

* no ordinary family had turkey at Christmas

* The Corona popman would come round on a Friday selling bottles of lemonade. You’d save up the empty bottles which were worth tuppence each.

* broken biscuits from Woolworth

* cheese cut with a wire from a large block

* coal delivered in heavy sacks by filthy men

* boxes of shredded suet.

* toasting bread and crumpets over a real coal fire

* fruit salad with Carnation milk

* home made rice pudding

* Stewed steak and Onions

* bread and dripping with lots of salt

* Meat and Potato Pie

* Fresh bacon cut on a slicer to the thickness of your choice

* Bubble and Squeak on a Monday with leftovers from Sundays roast

* homemade Jam in a sandwich

* ration books!

* Brylcream

* Sunday School

* Kids were still innocent and weren’t trying to grow up too fast.

* Very few people were fat.

* Kids rode bikes and played outside.

* signs in house windows that said ‘Rooms to Let: No dogs, no coloureds’.

* No fast food in those days, other than fish and chips!

* Pasta had not been invented.

* Curry was a surname.

* Olive oil was kept in the medicine cabinet

* Spices came from the Middle East where they were used for embalming

* Herbs were used to make rather dodgy medicine.

* A takeaway was a mathematical problem.

* A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.

* Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.

* The only vegetables known to us were spuds, peas, carrots and cabbage,

* All crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not.

* Condiments consisted of salt, pepper, vinegar and brown sauce if we were lucky.

* Soft drinks were called pop.

* Coke was something that we put on the fire.

* A Chinese chippy was a foreign carpenter.

* Rice was a milk pudding, and never, ever part of our dinner.

* A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining.

* A Pizza Hut was an Italian shed.

* A microwave was something out of a science fiction movie.

* Brown bread was something only poor people ate.

* Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking

* Bread and jam was a treat.

* Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.

* Coffee was Camp, and came in a bottle.

* Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.

* Figs and dates appeared every Christmas, but no one ever ate them.

* Coconuts only appeared when the fair came to town.

* Jellied eels were peculiar to Londoners.

* Salad cream was a dressing for salads, mayonnaise did not exist

* Hors d’oeuvre was a spelling mistake.

* The starter was our main meal. Soup was a main meal.

* Only Heinz made beans.

* Leftovers went in the dog.

* Special food for dogs and cats was unheard of.

* Fish was only eaten on Fridays.

* Fish didn’t have fingers in those days.

* Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.

* Ready meals only came from the fish and chip shop.

* For the best taste fish and chips had to be eaten out of old newspapers.

* Frozen food was called ice cream.

* Nothing ever went off in the fridge because we never had one.

* Ice cream only came in one colour and one flavour.

* None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.

* Jelly and blancmange was only eaten at parties.

* If we said that we were on a diet, we simply got less.

* Healthy food consisted of anything edible.

* People who didn’t peel potatoes were regarded as lazy.

* Indian restaurants were only found in India .

* Brunch was not a meal.

* If we had eaten bacon lettuce and tomato in the same sandwich we would have been certified

* A bun was a small cake back then.

* The word" Barbie" was not associated with anything to do with food.

* Eating outside was a picnic.

* Cooking outside was called camping.

* Seaweed was not a recognised food.

* Pancakes were only eaten on Pancake Tuesday

* "Kebab" was not even a word never mind a food.

* Hot dogs were a type of sausage that only the Americans ate.

* Cornflakes had arrived from America but it was obvious they would never catch on.

* The phrase "boil in the bag" would have been beyond comprehension.

* The idea of "oven chips" would not have made any sense at all to us.

* The world had not heard of Pot Noodles, Instant Mash and Pop Tarts.

* Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold.

* Lettuce and tomatoes in winter were only found abroad.

* Prunes were medicinal.

* Surprisingly muesli was readily available in those days, it was called cattle feed.

* Turkeys were definitely seasonal.

* Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one.

* We never heard of Croissants and we certainly couldn’t pronounce it,

* We thought that Baguettes were a problem the French needed to deal with.

* Garlic was used to ward off vampires, but never used to flavour food.

* Water came out of the tap, if someone had suggested bottling it and charging more than petrol for it they would have become a laughing stock.

* Food hygiene was all about washing your hands before meals.

* Campylobacter, Salmonella, E.coli, Listeria, and Botulism were all called "food poisoning."

* The one thing that we never ever had on our table in the fifties …. elbows.

do you have any memories of the 1950s?

Posted by brizzle born and bred on 2019-08-26 12:58:13

Tagged: , 1950s , UK , Memories of Fifties Britain

The post Memories of Fifties Britain appeared first on Good Info.

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