#self inflicted because he refuses to live such an unhappy life | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

allywrites360 · 4 years ago

Text

Red Shoes - Analysis/Review

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world… whether my eyes are open… or closed.” - Merlin

““But I’m still that Merlin inside.” - The one who grew. The one who changed, and learned to love himself and others for more than what’s on the outside. I know Snow is the main example of self love in this film, but Merlin provides a great example of this; something we don’t often see in male characters.”

So this film just released in North America, and I thought I’d share some thoughts and overall themes/metaphors from this film. But first, I’d just like to encourage you (if you haven't already) to go and support this film. It pretty inexpensive, and was made by an independent animation studio, which I think is absolutely amazing. Now onto the analysis!!

Love the concept of everyone being an adaptation of a fairytale character; adds to the society being shallow and appearance focus as a whole, as fairytales were traditionally focused on dichotomy and physical beauty.

The lighting, and really animation as a whole, is phenomenal for a film made by an independent studio. The shading and colour grading is a real standout, though. And the landscapes!! They feel really three dimensional, and gorgeous.

[ID - A shot of a sunrise, beautifully lit behind a belltower - End ID].

Scoring/motif for the main villain is amazing.

Introduction to the protagonist is really not setup well. Did she actually get sent away from the palace? How long was she gone? How desperate is she to save her father? All of these questions are left unanswered, and no prominent character traits are shown through her first scene. She could be clever? All she did was change her hiding spot, so even that’s a stretch.

I hate the king’s narration. The dialogue is choppy, and repetitive in a completely irrelevant way.

The lore around the tree is really unclear. Why haven’t the shoes worked for Regina? Why do they work for Snow? Will they not regrow?

Love the transition scene to the dwarfs; makes it feel as though they’re just been walking listlessly since the spell was cast. Which, y’know, more or less true.

[ID - A shot of the seven dwarfs walking together through the centre of a forest in midday, looking slightly dejected - End ID].

Love the fact the mirror points out that ‘wisdom’ and ‘kingdom’ don’t rhyme; I paused to point that out.

I will say that the action scenes are really well directed/choreographed. The camera flows really nicely, and always follows our protagonists (ooh, tying into the dichotomous nature of fairytales overall?), which makes the stakes and emotions feel higher/more personal.

The villain’s voice acting and dialogue is really sharp and entertaining. She feels like a real threat (and also uncannily similar to Gothel but).

Love the wooden front on their house disguised as a castle. Really nicely done metaphor for them clinging on to a cheap version of their pasts; refusing to move on, which is torn down when she arrives. Also ties in to the “what’s on the inside outweighs what’s one the outside” moral.

[ID - The seven dwarfs’ house, which is a cave, with a wooden cutout shaped and painted like a castle sitting in front of it to give the illusion of a grander living space - End ID].

Can I also say I love that her first reaction isn’t insanely positive to her new appearance? In general, she just notes there’s been a change, which is a really nice subversion of the ‘overweight people have to be unhappy at the outset’ trope.

Her facial expressions are also really animated, which is something I’ve always loved (see Ariel, Anastasia, etc.), especially her eyes. Really well designed. Actually, all the expressions suit the characters’ personalities really well. Great job, animation department!

The fact that all seven dwarfs are names after popular mythical characters is really inventive (much more so than simply naming them after a character trait), as well as having their diverse fighting style be built from that, which I loved. Could even be allusions, but I don’t know enough about the original stories to say.

Hate the electric guitar of Prince Average. Highlights how much he doesn’t belong in this movie. His name is horribly uncreative, and his pop culture references break the forth wall, and aren’t funny, as they aren’t used properly. With him as the involved antagonist for most of the film, I can’t take the threat seriously. Other comic villains have been done so much better, such as Prince Charming from Shrek. The only valid line he has is about ‘dwarfs’ vs. ‘dwarves’; I never know which to use. “Finally, the big guns, thank you!” One more fourth wall break from this man I swear.

Love the added detail of the shoes not being able to be removed once you place value on the beauty they give. It’s hard to let go of that temptation; and if you don’t, you won’t be seen as your true self. It also highlights how she loves herself at the outbreak of the movie, and is therefore able to remove them freely. Also gets rid of the the deus ex machina of her shoes coming off freely in the water.

Wish we could’ve seen her doubt grow as she realizes they wouldn’t have helped her in her original form. Feels like we were a bit disconnected from her emotions. Which might not be a bad thing… if we assume Merlin in the protagonist.

Nice foreshadowing to her father being the bunny; if you know to look for it.

References such as ‘#blessed’, or ‘Pablo Picasso’, don’t work in the slightest. They serve no purpose, and aren’t funny simply because most would recognize them.

Normally I would make a note about Merlin and Snow having really standard, basic designs, but one, this animation studio is small, and on limited resources, and two, it, again, relates back to the shallow, uninteresting societal expectation of beauty that refuses to be unique.

Ahh, nice that apples are what trip the guards up in the chase scene through the market. Symbolic.

Love that she’s willing to defend the dwarfs even when she realizes they won’t help her in her original form. Again, wish we could’ve seen her emotions pertaining to that a bit more, although the reflection shot in the mirror (reflected from the shot at the start of the scene) was nice. Speaking of that, the broken, fragment reflection of her ‘fake’ self, is beautiful, because it isn’t a representation of herself, however at the end of the scene, we see the reflection in the same manner, but with her original self, but due to newly inflicted self doubt, we get a split second of that reality being fragmented too.

[ID - Snow White frowning as she looks into a shattered mirror leaning against the wall of an alleyway in her society-dictated “beautiful” - End ID].

[ID - Snow White looking into the same mirror, frowning, and having removed the shoes, restoring her to her original appearance - End ID].

The three bears (I’m assuming an allusion to the Goldilocks mythos) don’t really serve any plot relevance… however they are cute, so make of their inclusion what you will.

Again, the scene where she exits the dwarfs’ home; it would’ve been great to see a shot of her internal conflict before she submits herself to giving up her freedom for Merlin and Arthur’s. Relating to that, I have noticed that the hostage situations have shockingly low stakes in this film. For instance, at the end, Merlin is simply held in a branch, and a second later, Snow is willing to give up her life to set him free.

The movie didn’t end up using this (which was a nice subversion of expectations), but if Merlin had used all his spells in the final battle, and needed just one more shot, it wouldn’t have been a deus ex machina, because we establish previously he has the one Snow gave him for luck. I assumed it’d comeback again, but turns out they just used it as a symbol (for having the flower, a symbol of outside beauty, float out of his hand), for him letting go of his shallow mindset.

[ID - Snow White (wearing the shoes which change her appearance) smiles at Merlin, in his dwarf form. In his hand there’s a paper flower she folded from one of his spells - End ID].

Really love the joke about the mirror being hurt by smoke. Get it? Smoke and mirrors? Now that reference is funny; and also ties into the theme of false fronts/illusions. But not gonna lie, all that was an afterthought. It genuinely made me laugh.

Love that they rebuild the house too. It’s not beautiful, at least in a traditional sense. It’s cracked, uneven, but personal to them; they did it as a family. I’ll give the writers credit for so fully entrenching the theme into every frame and action. Nothing is meaningless in this film. Well, at least surrounding the protagonists.

Ooh, ooh, I could forgive the use of pop as their love motif if at the end, when there are no facades, it’s replaced by original scoring. I don’t remember that scene in all that much detail though.

The tree thing is… strange, I’ll admit, but considering Regina puts all her stock in the beauty which comes from the magic tree, it makes sense it’d be rooted into her magic in some way. The apple details are cool (notches shaped like seeds on the trunks), if nothing else, considering the scene with the three attacking is not investing the slightest, beyond some inventive attacks from Merlin (the action and attacks surrounding him aren’t executed all that poorly).

The directing in general is phenomenal in this movie; which is something I’ve been trying to put a bit more attention on lately.

Love small details like Merlin holding his back after the fight, circling back once again to the fact these characters are more similar than they realize (if you remember, that’s what she used as a cover when she first woke up).

[ID - A shot of Merlin running, pressing a hand against his back as he does so - End ID].

Okay, I can suspend my disbelief for a lot of things in this movie, but when Snow dives into the lake, that surface tension would’ve seriously hurt her. If even some waves would’ve been added, it would’ve not only added suspense to the scene, but made it a bit more grounded as well.

“Who do you like more, Snow White or Red Shoes?” “Easy, it’s Red Shoes.” “Who does Red Shoes love more?” “Easy, it’s me. Wait… no. It’s you.” That line is by far my favourite from the film. I love that it shows his guilt. She’s chosen to love him despite his appearance, but he won’t do the same for her. And now he has to look in the mirror at that ugly part of his personality.

[ID - At night, Merlin in his dwarf form stands beside Merlin in his human form. The dwarf version of him looks irritated as he looks up - End ID].

(Assuming Merlin named the rabbit, and if I’m being honest I didn’t pay attention to that) It’s sorta fitting to his character that he named it ‘Long Ears’ - a notably physical attribute.

While I do like that, just because the climax called for it, the sword didn’t suddenly lift from the stone, I really dislike that it was broken out by sheer force; which goes goes against the entire magic system/point of the sword and who gets to hold it.

Kronk as the magic mirror is hilarious. I want to credit the screenwriters for his lines… but I have a strong feeling it was mostly improv. Well done whoever is to credit for that.

Now this action scene, with Merlin being attacked by the tree roots, is insanely well done. For maybe the first time in this movie, I feel the suspense I’m intended to, and the setup and just character movement in general is really inventive. You feel his emotions and breath in this scene, which takes serious talent.

“How could she possibly want to save you more than she wants to be beautiful? Did you cast a spell?” - On a related note, I’m proud of this movie for not falling into the traditional ‘misunderstanding breaks up characters before the final battle’ (they technically do split up, but it’s the fault of Merlin’s unresolved selfish intentions rather than a petty matter) through Snow seeing the love spell, and assuming the worst even though Merlin never uses it.

The vines could be a metaphor as well; in this battle, they’re the shallow desires holding him back, while he, with the assistance of others, has to break his own way out (as shown by him using his lighting to crack a small hole in the doors (or exit) of the room.

[ID - Merlin is running towards the “camera”, however, he looks surprised as a vine grabs his waist, and attempts to drag him back into the castle - End ID].

“I’m sorry, Snow White.” That’s the first time he uses her name; and he does it mentally; in a voiceover. It isn’t to impress her, or win a competition. It’s how he truly sees her now. Also, so beautiful how his motives go from being self centred, to focused on her; he changed because of her influence. It’s been done before, but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful here.

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world… whether my eyes are open… or closed.” That wasn’t his final line (he survives), but if it was… that would’ve been so powerful. Still is, just in a different way.

“I kinda liked the short and green Merlin.” “But I’m still that Merlin inside.” - The one who grew. The one who changed, and learned to love himself and others for more than what’s on the outside. I know Snow is the main example of self love in this film, but Merlin provides a great example of this; something we don’t often see in male characters.

And I loved that it was a hug immediately after his spell is broken. He isn’t trying to gain anything, he’s just happy to be with her, which is super romantic.

[ID - Both now restored to their original forms, Merlin and Snow White sit on the ground just outside the palace hugging each other, both smiling with their eyes shut. The king, and a few of the dwarfs stand in the background - End ID].

Onto a few of my favourite lines;

“I was worried about you!” “I was worried about me too. But- but mostly you!”

“If you could see the real me…” “I think I can see the real you… eyes open or closed, I still see Merlin.” What a great line. What a great theme. You don’t need to know the facts about someone, or see their original appearance, to know who they are. And I think that’s beautiful.

“Someone you’l be proud to be seen with.” “I think you’re right.”

“I thought that we were both under the same spell… but I was wrong.”

“He likes you more than he likes me,” as she looks down at the shoes.

“Who do you like more, Snow White or Red Shoes?” “Easy, it’s Red Shoes.” “Who does Red Shoes love more?” “Easy, it’s me. Wait… no. It’s you.”

“How could she possibly want to save you more than she wants to be beautiful? Did you cast a spell?”

“I’ve never been so glad to be chubby and green again.” - Because it means he’s not alone.

“I’m sorry, Snow White.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world… whether my eyes are open… or closed.”

“I kinda liked the short and green Merlin.” “But I’m still that Merlin inside.”

I’ll just say, as an ending thought, that the 2D animation of their wedding is adorable.

Overall, I’d give it 8/10. Nothing phenomenal that was entirely groundbreaking, but there’s a lot of heart to be shown here, with some truly amazing characters, even if some of their universe isn’t all that intriguing. Would highly recommend.

#red shoes and the seven dwarfs #red shoes and the 7 dwarfs #film analysis #animation #animation analysis

11 notes · View notes

drivingsideways · 5 years ago

Text

Alright, ok, oh wow, HOOOO BOYYYY.

Episode 64!!!

Summary: AN ENTIRE TRASHFIRE.

How do I start? Every time I think show has hit rock bottom, they just smash through the floor and keep going.

-I don’t know who can argue that the Emperor is acting ethically. WHO. There are two possible explanations to the positions the Emperor and Empress have taken re: Huirou

(a) The entire scandal would rock the court, and given that the Emperor is still steadfastly refusing to publicly name an heir (though privately his mind is made up), the political fall out would be immense, and supremely inconvenient to the Emperor

This is the guy who despite knowing he’s fucking dying won’t settle the succession issue because he still thinks his weak-ass body will produce an imperial son. In the conversation he has with Fu Bi, he points out that if he does appoint someone from the Imperial Clan but later has his own son, things would be worse.

[Or, you know, you could stop taking young and fertile women into your bed? THE HORROR OF THAT CONCEPT, OH NO, IMPOSSIBLE. WHAT IS CONTRACEPTION. WHAT IS ABSTINENCE. (don’t @ me techniques of contraception are historical, ffs)]

Basically, the desire to have a hypothetical biological heir to succeed him trumps his moral obligation to protect his real, live daughter. And somehow this is presented as a “non choice” in the drama that we’re supposed to agree with, or rather that it is still a “reasonable” and “justified” choice. No, it fucking isn’t. It’s one thing to keep hoping for an heir when you are 30 and healthy, it’s another when you are 50+ and dying.

If Renzong had just made the choice to announce his heir, even with some remonstrances and whatever shit, he would have absolutely gotten away with getting Huirou out of the marriage, because he’d have given the majority of the court what they really wanted, and Sima Guang would have screamed for a bit and then had to shut up.

(b) They could have left it at the above - i.e. it’s a political decision rather than a personal one and he would personally rather have annulled the marriage- and I might have still have rolled my eyes and just moved on; HOWEVER.

The drama makes it explicitly clear that HE DOESN’T THINK SHE’S BEEN WRONGED. EXPLICIT AS IN THESE ARE THE WORDS COMING OUT OF HIS FUCKING MOUTH TO HE’ER WHO’S COME TO BEG HIM TO SEND LI WEI AWAY SO THAT HUIROU WON’T HAVE TO GO BACK.

It’s a request that apparently offends HIS sense of justice!!!! His refusal to punish Li Wei is not just about political considerations, but because:

(HE’ER’s FACE!!!)

OH REALLY.

SO MUCH WOW. MUCH AMAZE.

MY ETHICAL AND INFALLIBLE RENZONG WHO’S BEEN PUT TO SO MUCH TROUBLE BY A ‘STUBBORN’ DAUGHTER.

Like, I honestly think the show could have left this entire thing as “political compulsions” and made it about his clash with his court. But no, they have him explicitly acknowledge that he doesn’t think Huirou should have any autonomy over her body, i.e. she is the property of the Li clan to do as they will, and we, as the audience are still supposed to sympathize with him, rather than Huirou? Still see him, with his victim-blaming, shaming rhetoric aimed at his own flesh and blood as ETHICAL AND JUST??????

WHAT THE ENTIRE FUCK.

And now, also, because I still have MAJOR ISSUES WITH IT, let’s circle around to Fucklord and Danshu.

In one of the early episodes, he tells Maoze that he doesn’t want to “force” his legal wife to be with him i.e. he won’t force a consummation. I bet a lot of us went (oh!!! what a good dude!!! How sweet!!!(though god, like, what standards we have, huh???)

And then, 15 years later in the show’s time frame, that consummation happens when he gets into an argument with Danshu, and then, in a rage, uses his physical power to overpower her resistance. (Let’s not even get into how he’s the fucking Emperor, she has to obey, even if there had been no physical violence!)

Now you tell me: which is the real Renzong- the one in the first episode or the one the second?

Was the first refusal on principle of “i don’t want to violate my wife’s consent because that would be a violation of personhood” or was it, in hindsight, “I want her to crawl to me, I will not be the one to beg her forgiveness for the insult i offered her on our wedding night”.

Because, you see, at some point in those 15 years, he ran out of “patience” and then acted on (what we guessed before and now explicitly stated in episode 64) his actual belief: a wife has no entitlement to her own body, she is the property of her husband.

So, now, those still arguing about how the incident with Danshu was rape or not- not to him, certainly.

“Oh but Danshu didn’t think of it as rape either!”

Yes, the show does a huge song and dance about it too, to make it clear to US that Danshu doesn’t see it as rape. (just in case we had any doubts, huh, show? because you knew what you were trying to cover up right, you knew that some people would see that scene and go wait, what???) I’ll come to Danshu’s attitude a bit later.

But to us, as the audience? Where should it fall, now that you know without any ambiguity his attitude re: bodily autonomy of women within the institution of marriage?

And finally, let me touch on Danshu vs Huirou in the show, two women who are explicitly unhappy in their marriages, though for different reasons.

- Danshu’s marriage starts out unhappy because she’s in love with a man who gives no fucks about her.

- In contrast/parallel, Huirou’s marriage is unhappy because she gives no fucks about him, and is actively repulsed by him.

Danshu’s crisis is resolved over a period of nearly two decades and achieved by her entirely subjugating her self to him, including not characterizing his violation of her body as rape. This isn’t even all that strange- if you view it in the context of the whittling down of her self worth by sustained emotional abuse to the point that she cannot even think herself worthy of the very basic respect. Do you know how many women stay in abusive marriages because they end up believing “he abuses me because he loves me”? or a variation “it’s not abuse, it’s love, it’s for my own good”. do you know how many women still continue to love their abusers? do you know how many abusers constantly insist that they love their victims, that their actions are actually out of love too? A WHOLE FUCKING LOT.

At this point, Danshu’s entire being seems focused only on what can make Renzong happy, what will bring him most comfort, what will make his life easier- and every other relationship, including now, her’s with He’er and Huirou suffers for it.

I could have even accepted this fate for Danshu’s character- because yes, some women don’t escape their tragedies- if the writer had shown the SLIGHTEST FUCKING AWARENESS THAT THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE SHOWING.

But NO, in the most EPIC gaslighting I’ve see in a while, they have continued to insist that Danshu and Renzong are a “romance.”

Now coming to Huirou- in contrast with what has happened with Danshu, Huirou is still at the point that she’s ABSOLUTELY CONTESTING every attempt to have done to her what was done to Danshu. She sees clearly how her life will be, how her entire being will be destroyed, if she continues to stay in that marriage and she’s fighting for her own life tooth and nail with the only weapon in her arsenal- at this point - self harm and the threat of suicide. Luckily for her, she does have some support in He’er, Huaiji and even the head eunuch in her household, and Superintendent Ren. (Everyone except the Empress, who by rights, should have been on her side, and would have been, if the writers had chosen to take her down a different path early on)

Unfortunately for her, it’s clear where the writers sympathies lie: if they think that what happened with Danshu is the “happy ending”, then how can Huirou have any other ending either? Oh, they might show her sad for a bit to leave Huaiji, but i can bet you anything, that the ending will be framed in such a way that it shows that her final choice to go back to the marriage as the “morally right” one/. If they didn’t it would be inconsistent with the internal logic/moral philosophy of this story.

I’ve said before- I can accept tragedies. I can accept tragedies that happen to women, even.

What I can’t accept is when you don’t call it what it is.

Or the kind of writing that equates Renzong’s tragedies- which are largely products of chance (the death of his kids) or his position in life (an emperor who must sacrifice some personal desires in service of his duties) to the tragedies of the women that are inflicted on them not by chance or circumstance but by the actions of those with more power than them. The writing in the show never, ever, acknowledges the specificity of the harms, and spends a considerable amount of time exonerating its perpetrators (see latest eg Li Wei), and wow, what more can I say except one last -FUCK. YOU.

#serenade of peaceful joy #JFC i haven't had a show aggravate me this much in AGES

12 notes · View notes

hideyoshineki · 6 years ago

Text

V’s After End - Where the Message Fails

So I have now gone through both the Forgive and Judge ends of V’s After Ending, and throughout my playthrough, there was something that I felt just wasn’t working. Now that I’ve completed the entirety of V’s After Ending (or shall I call it Rika’s After Ending, because that’s what it felt like), I want to talk about what makes this ending unsatisfactory.

Before I start, I just want to say that I still really appreciate Cheritz. I can see how hard they have worked on this game. They have tried hard to address certain issues and discuss messages they want to send. The way they handle these issues is very debatable and done poorly in ways, but considering this game is first and foremost made in South Korea where the issue of mental health has quite a ways to go, props to them for trying at least?

Some of the messages they were going for in this After Ending are interesting and can be valid in more minor scenarios. The thing is… I strongly believe they do not work in the context of Rika and what she has done.

Basically, this game makes you either forgive Rika and be sympathetic to her, or makes you feel bad and as if you are being cruel if you do not.

In the Forgive End, the blame for Rika’s actions is essentially not placed on her. The story puts the blame on her mental illness, as well as all the traumatising circumstances throughout her life. Through Yoosung reading up in a psychology textbook, he comes to the conclusion that what Rika did was not entirely wrong and that she didn’t do bad things on purpose, as her mental illness is what caused everything.

Because of this conclusion, Rika is not held accountable for her actions. At the end of this After Ending, Rika has learned to find happiness and goodness within herself, “becoming her own sun”, and is living her life. The only consequence of everything she has done in this game is that public perception of her is bad. The severe crimes she has committed are not dealt with, and she does not even face any legal consequences.

There is also a lot of discussion throughout the After Ending that questions whether justice is really something that is needed. Zen in particular continuously raises the point that it would be better for everyone’s own mental and emotional health, as well as their individual growth, to forgive what Rika has done, and not hold onto any negative emotions in their heart.

Now I see what Cheritz were trying to do with this After Ending. They want to send the message that holding grudges and hate within yourself hurts you. They want to point out that unless you understand the other person, you can’t really judge their actions as being wholly good or bad. Who decides good and bad, and who decides whether something is just?

Now these are some interesting questions, and I actually believe that this can be valid in certain scenarios, provided the scenario is not nearly as major as the one in this game. The entire message Cheritz tries to send in the After Ending falls apart when you look at what Rika has done.

Rika’s actions, that this game wants to forgive and not concern yourself with justice over, includes:

- Manipulating people around her to be extremely dependant on her,

- Physically abusing her partner, including purposefully blinding him, to make him prove his devotion to her,

- Taking many vulnerable people into a cult,

- Drugging and brainwashing said people,

- Raising a child to be exploited and carry out her will for her personal gain, breaking down this child and his worldview and his trust in people he loved so that he would turn against everyone else and be obedient to only her, while also forcefully drugging this child in the process,

- Attempted murder (stabbing V, making Saeran explode Magenta)

Not to mention that throughout the Another Story routes, she repeatedly denies any of these actions as being wrong, stating that it is needed, under her delusion that she needs to release her devil and it’s the only way these people can find Paradise. She was offered help many times, but she refused it and continued to do these awful things, justifying herself as she did so.

This game wants to treat judging Rika for all of that as if it is on the same level as judging someone for cutting you off in traffic.

But how can we possibly not view any of what she has done as bad? How can the game say that the concept of justice isn’t something that needs to be applied here? In what way does understanding her mindset diminish the seriousness of what she has done?

How can all of this be forgiven so easily, with the perpetrator getting away with it all and facing hardly any consequences?

Based on the original 5 routes and Secret Endings, I do not think this game originally set out to try to excuse Rika in this way. If it did, I think they would have made her actions much less extreme to start with. But since Rika has been getting more attention lately, and thus more fans and more demand for her happy ending has emerged, Cheritz is pushing for more sympathy for her now. Rika’s newly released backstory has added a number of new circumstances to further try to absolve Rika of blame for her future actions and elicit greater audience sympathy for her in order to do so. However, while mental illnesses and a traumatic past and life can be an explanation, they are not a justification for everything that Rika has done.

In addition to all of this, forgiveness is portrayed as something that must be done in order for everyone to get the best possible outcome. The Choi Twins’ plot with their father is dealt with and resolved and they get their long awaited happy reunion, and MC and V get married and raise a child together.

The Judge End aims to create a sense of discomfort among all the characters because Rika was not forgiven. Luckily, the end wasn’t so bad that it prevented the Choi twins from reuniting or from V and MC remaining together (although they do not get married in this end). However, characters are still portrayed as being unhappy, and regretful over what has happened with Rika (who ends up in a coma) and feeling as if they did not make the right choice nor did they get closure.

The Judge End also really tries to hammer in the idea that the player is being too harsh. They include a dream sequence consisting of Rika being beaten down by every character, stating that everything that has happened throughout her life is deserved. The ending makes it seem that since you didn’t want to forgive Rika, then you must want her to be forever suffering, being hated by everyone in the world and only existing in complete hopelessness by being a shell that lives in her own self-isolation and darkness. You as the player are made out to be cruel for inflicting this end upon Rika for not forgiving her.

This entire After Ending would have worked better if it tried a more balanced approach between these two ends, instead of forcing a message onto the player that should not be applied to a case as extreme as Rika’s. Instead of one end resulting in Rika getting away scot-free and the other with her being dead inside, perhaps they could have allowed for Rika to face the proper consequences of what she did without everyone being made to feel bad about it? Maybe letting the player hope for Rika to be better and find inner peace, but not actually needing to forgive her in order for that to happen?

The message that victims of serious harm will only find peace if they forgive and don’t concern themselves with the idea of justice is a harmful one. The idea that mental illness and life circumstances take the blame away from an individual’s severe actions is false.

I can only hope that Saeran’s eventual After Ending does not follow the same direction as this one.

#mystic messenger #v after ending #v after end #jihyun kim #mysme #mm spoilers #v route spoilers #i played these routes until like 1am #and then i wrote this and now it's 3am #this is my first time writing something like this on tumblr #long post #mm v #my post

1K notes · View notes

morbid-n-macabre · 5 years ago

Text

Eva Braun. This name doesn't usually evoke much sympathy to those who hear it. But, Eva led a miserably tragic life, and death. She was a young, mistreated woman desperately in love with an evil man who did not return her affections, let alone respect them.

Eva was merely 17 when first met the 40 year old Nazi leader, and she had no absolutely idea who he was. Hitler told her his name was Herr Wolff, and that's who Eva thought he was at first. Before she knew it, the young woman was desperately in love; the much older man did wine and dine Eva at first, but not for long.

Adolf was in love with someone else: his own niece, Geli Raubal. In September of 1931, Geli told her Uncle that was running off with another man; Adolf was heartbroken. The two lovers quarreled heatedly; in the morning, Geli was found dead with a self inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Instead of Eva running like hell, this is when she moved in with Hitler; all in all, Hitler can be tied to 8 different women, and each of these unfortunate souls attempted suicide at least once. Some succeeded.

All but one of these affairs happened after Eva was already in the picture; the best known being Renata Mueller, a famous movie star. The romance was much publicized, the two had a heated relationship and, according to the press, their sex life was hot and heavy. Nevertheless, Renate jumped out a window in 1937, and that was the end of that affair; back to Eva Hitler went.

Eva was anything but cool with her man's affairs; since the only thing she ever saw actually move Hitler was the death of his niece, a desperate Eva thought she'd give it a try. She shot herself in the chest with her father's pistol; she survived, and though Hitler swore to settle down and care for the young lady who loved him so, he quickly back to business as usual.

Throughout it all, Eva was Hitler's dirty little secret, he hid their relationship as if he were terribly ashamed of her. His reasoning for this? Hitler wanted to remain attractive to the German women; he claimed that if the public discovered that he was in a committed relationship, this would lessen his sex appeal. Often he hid Eva in the back room for hours on end or even days while people visited their home. Around those who were aware of their relationship, Hitler often insulted Eva; he is quoted saying, "A highly intelligent man should take a primitive and stupid woman. Imagine if on top of everything else I had a woman who interfered with my work! In my leisure time I want to have peace.". Eventually, Eva was named Hitler's "private secretary", a title which made it acceptable for her to be around so much. It was better than before, but Eva was still forced to sneak in and out of her own home before and after work hours. Those who knew Eva described her as desperately in love, very lonely, and deeply unhappy.

In 1935, Eva went several months without hearing a single word from her love and decided, yet again, to end it all; she unsuccessfully attempted suicide with pills this time. Hitler begged her forgiveness, and swore to buy Eva a home of her own. He held this promise, but in this new home he moved in the mother of his deceased niece, Geli. You remember Geli, the one who committed suicide immediately after she broke up with her uncle Adolf? Geli's mother absolutely despised Eva, and solely blamed her for her daughter's suicide. She reasoned that, had Hitler not been involved with Eva, her daughter would still be alive! You can only imagine how badly Eva was treated inside the walls of her very own home. It is said that Eva spent her time alone, reading in her bedroom; she was so terribly lonesome that it's reported Eva took Hitler's photograph to meals with her, staring at her love while she ate.

Hitler waited until the very last moment to marry Eva, until their demise was imminent. Eva had been given the option to leave the country, live out her life elsewhere. She refused to go to safety herself, swearing suicide if anything happened to her love; because of this, the Nazi finally did right by the woman who had stood by him through it all. One of his last actions on this Earth was murdering Eva's beloved brother; he in law shot dead just hours before he married her. Hell of a wedding present!

Just hours after their wedding, the newlyweds are said to have committed suicide. Even in death, Eva's ultimate sacrifice, she was not cared for. While in the death bunker, they each committed suicide one by one; the first to receive the cyanide capsule was Hitler's beloved dog, Blondi. A nurse who had been in the bunker claimed years later that, when Blondi died, Hitler "howled" with grief; when it was Eva's turn to die, the man was still distraught over his dog. Not a soul in the bunker was nearly as upset about the poor woman as they were over Blondi the dog.

This was the life and death of Eva Braun.

#true crime #ww2 #history #Hitler #adolf hitler #Nazi #Germany #nazi germany #abuse #domestic abuse

101 notes · View notes

geminiswords · 5 years ago

Text

The child-minder story

A sister and a brother. One is five, the other only two. They sit silently on the floor, backs against the sofa, for the entire evening until their parents return. I think she actually told the girl off once, for calling the sofa a sofa, and not a couch. Of course it doesn’t matter at all now. And they weren’t allowed to sit on the damn thing anyway. A sofa that seems larger-than-life when you’re five and two, and a regular every-day object transforms into a holy throne for privileged asses only. A forbidden mountain looming scary and intimidating and you’ll never look at a sofa in the same way again. Sorry, a couch!!!

One of those wretched “behaviour charts” hangs off the fridge, full of unhappy faces to match the two in the living room. The girl was so eager to please the fat woman that she stupidly agreed to the chart, even though the girl was as good as gold at school and at home and behaviour charts are really weird things anyway because I was always told there’s no such thing as a naughty child, only wrong choices and did no one put two and two together when the girl would cling to her teacher’s legs eyes hazy from crying so hard but never melting down like that when her mummy would pick her up instead of the fat woman oh no I think some parents did express their concern when they witnessed the fat woman shouting at the boy in the playground who wasn’t even of school age yet but was the same age as her own son so I guess she felt she could treat them like shit because her own children were shit. The brother only remembers the fat woman breaking his toy car, on purpose may I add, to teach him some sort of twisted lesson. May I also add that the brother is the sweet and quiet type, two years old at the time and definitely didn’t need to be shut down quite so dramatically like that and had to watch whilst the rat-children of the fat woman scoffed down the cakes they had all made together moments before – another warped decision made by the fat woman.

Rat-girl throws herself into the television-set after she refuses to push her into it herself which obviously makes a loud crash sound and the girl has to admit what she’d done otherwise she’d be branded a liar. One time, rat-girl had wanted the girl to pull down her school tights and knickers which was a questionable request from a 5-year-old and does ring some alarm bells today. The girl refused, as usual, but eventually had to write out an apology letter saying sorry. This went on for quite a while and the girl would always say yes, she had harmed rat-girl in some way even though she didn’t. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was easier to just own up instead of going round and round in circles until she was finally broken by the fat woman to confess. The real reason was that fat woman had forced the girl to physically wash her mouth out with soap. With a real bar of soap and water running from the bathroom tap. This is a very vivid memory. Have you ever been forced to eat soap? Thankfully, rat-girl wasn’t so clever in the end. Her final crime was a hard bite on the inside of her elbow, self-inflicted and red-raw. The stupid thing was, rat-girl was missing her two front-teeth and this was clearly evidenced by the bite-grooves in her arm which showed the missing teeth. As well as the fact that the girl couldn’t have put her mouth on the inside of rat-girl’s elbow. It was such an awkward position for someone else to get into. So that was the end of it. No more child-minders and the sister and brother were looked after by their grandparents from then on. It’s good the new baby sister never had to endure being looked after by someone who didn’t love her.

She gives away her most valuable possession for them to look after for the day. A neat exchange over the gate and a fresh-smelling parcel moves from one pair of hands to another. The parcel always comes home a bit stinky and wrapped up in another parcel’s clothes, but this is a sign of a good time, surely? The first time was hard. What with her deeply-ingrained hatred of childcare providers and especially child-minders who eventually care about the money more than the actual job of looking after the child-parcel. Or is that simply an accurate description of every attitude ever towards a job ever? Money over substance? I’ve seen it first-hand. Teachers who think they know better than the parents and vice-versa. I’m a teacher. Not a saviour. And yes, I respect the profession as much as I abhor it. The baby-room babies need to feel loved, safe and cared for because they are babies. But how can I expect the nursery to love my child as much as I do? Well, that’s impossible. Even half as much as I do? Will I love every child I encounter during my long reign as a teacher? Helicopters will land outside my school, a monstrous view from the windows as the intruders sneak a peek, make sure their goods have arrived and settled well. Fair enough really.

Start them young, they said. And we’re all in such a rush to have the next baby, the next holiday, to finally be qualified to teach a child. But parents are teachers and they will copy everything we do. Don’t you dare tell me he needs time away from me in order to become more independent, he wasn’t even one when I hand-delivered him over the gate that first day. And oh god you’d never even send him to nursery under the age of three if you didn’t need to. You can’t leave him an only child, he’ll never learn how to share. You’d better have a baby soon or you’ll have a huge age-gap and they’ll never get along. But god help you if you have another boy because they’ll be fighting all the time you know. You regret sharing so much. They didn’t deserve to know you like that. Now you reflect upon each post you share to social media, revealing only the carefully-selected happy moments of your life. Do they see your success or remember the secret you shared, sullying any attempt at appearing accomplished? Why do we all feel the need to prove ourselves anyway? You don’t need to prove you are living your best life when it’s an objective truth that you are definitely happier than you ever were especially when you thought your life ended at nineteen and you’ve done so many wonderful things since then. How can there be an objective truth though when we are all living our own truths and one person’s truth will certainly differ from mine or yours. At least tell me you understand my world view and I won’t force you to live according to my truth or even agree with me. Oh, writing is so one-sided. It is unfair how you hear me but I don’t hear you.

#childcare #motherhood #word vomit #automatic writing #train of thought #shortstories #wordsthatmeanthings #spilled words #spilled thoughts #spilled ink

1 note · View note

allofmycrushes · 6 years ago

Text

BF ending pt2

Ending it this way is unnecessary the same way Ash's rape in ep 22 was. Max's good message from the previous ep gets undermined while Ash, who has been slowly healing is again getting abused by another completely one dimensional and useless villain. His character is subjected to an absurd amount of trauma and unbelievably set up to get into such situations repeatedly not for the sake of plot but I don't know...pointless sadism. Or as I speculated before to cement what is going to happen to him in the end. Everything is forgotten, Ash wins for a moment but in the next the whole process repeats. Cumulating constant horrifying events just for the sake of it isn't good writing and not just because it's upsetting, sometimes something else happens- the useless agony forced down our throats too much starts to not ring true, it's so excessively extra to the point that it loses the impact it should have. Ending suffers from the exact same flaw. I don't agree the ending is objectively good even if it's unhappy. The worst thing about it is that due to things I wrote about earlier ending becomes not believable, it becomes more like a cliche soap opera than grim real life like tragedy. In the context of the repeating unrealistic patterns of worse torment that nevertheless have Ash pull himself through like a superman each time the ending loses a feeling of finality and realism within the story. That's why I cannot connect with the popular narrative praising the ending for being near perfectly constructed, logical and realistic even though painful. I can't get behind the reception of it as some kind of edgy masterwork in which the huge part of its greatness lays in its overt grimness.

I think people misunderstand that those who don’t like the ending are against it only because it’s not happy, that we could only accept it if it was a ride into the sunset. The way Ash died was tawdry more than clever and it can’t be glossed over. It wasn’t the only right and the best way at all but there’s another missed opportunity here. The whole journey of Ash was about breaking out of the role he’s been given (going against Dino, refused to side with Foxx). The role of the victim and then the one of a monster. He wanted to do it, was cheered on by Eiji along the way. Plagued by doubts if he could but in any case actively working towards freeing himself. When fans often insist Ash can’t be anything but a murderer, can never even try to live normally, live any other way than as a killing machine destined to die it is sadly the same self-defeating thing Ash does, it’s what he’s been told by the villains who want him to be like that and opposite of what Eiji fights to tell him. The ending means crossing out all previous efforts of Ash trying to struggle against it and all support of Eiji’s, it means it was unsuccessful in the end. All that Eiji tried to tell him, how he is a person and deserves to be just that is being finally undermined. He didn’t free himself, he internalized the reductive, negative image and punished himself, didn’t die freed. Remember the time when Yut Lung tried to guilt trip and victim blame Eiji for being Ash’s destruction? He is told he will be the reason for Ash getting hurt and his eventual death and to leave Ash alone or better yet kill himself if he cares for Ash and doesn’t want for it to happen? Eiji calls out this bullshit and doesn’t listen. Eiji rebelled when he was told to distance himself from Ash for Ash’s sake, while Ash (and the audience) totally buys into this narrative that Ash is only an unnecessary danger in regards to Eiji and needs to be separated or die if he cares. Also in the same scene Eiji still doesn’t accept Ash can’t escape and should be who Yut Lung and Dino think he is supposed to be. We all cheered for Eiji during that part of the story so why when Ash listens to what his enemies say about him, what they want from him people just accept this is what he can’t escape? Eiji never bought into the whole “they can never be together anyway because Destiny” either. They are more than a needless trouble to each other and what they are to each other when they’re together is worth more than the risk because they are simultaneously each other’s salvation too. Ash isn’t the only one who needed the other person, Eiji was depressed and purposeless before he came to America and he understands all that. In turn, Eiji isn’t there only to make Ash feel momentarily good, if he actually listened to Eiji it could help Ash to step outside the monster fate others scripted for him and I think it’s a shame that we have an ending that despite all the earlier declarations makes Eiji’s efforts useless, Ash resigns while ending allows the villain’s narrative to triumph.

One thing I've noticed is that people who like the ending saying they embrace the "necessary tragedy" in the same breath reframe it as positive, packaging it in this cushiony comforting language of liberation and sugary uplifting metaphors. Which ring entirely false if you actually face the reality of his ending. In the end Eiji didn't free Ash, having it this way means Ash bled out because he evidently thought he doesn't deserve anything better, ending means that despite cherishing Eiji's love for him Ash died still believing he's a monster who can't escape his fate. Dies believing he can't even be free. He was comforted by Eiji but it did not change anything because he didn't listen to him. I guess some people avoid confronting themselves with all that choosing instead to sugarcoat in order to reconcile but if you appreciate the harshness and you're vocal that some endings gotta be like that then why frantically reconstructing it as a joyful, epic resolution, making it out to be deep and cathartic event. If you say it's in agreement with story themes/convention then at least be consequential and admit it's bleak instead of repeating how it was actually soooo good for Ash to die. I know the strategically placed letter lends itself to try and dress Ash death in superlatives but the truth is all the happy things it meant happened earlier and have zero to do with Ash death, moreover his bleeding out crosses them out, they serve only to sweeten the morbid and sad thing that is happening. The fact of Ash dying didn't make him happy, free, didn't change his life for the better because it literally finishes it. Death doesn't magically capture all the good things forever while getting rid of the bad. So many can't acknowledge what it means, it's really that simple and awful. It doesn't bring anything good to Ash, it doesn't make him feel good. The letter did but death took everything away, the good along with the bad. So forgive me if I'm not thrilled for him...

It's quite cruel that how everything is purposefully arranged to be so doomed for a long time, then at one moment the whole conflict is resolved to give us false hope just to immediately tear it away and knock it down for good. It is of course done for more drama but it's also what makes the end so unsatisfying and makes us feel cheated out of a resolution. This sort of emotional blackmail and mixed emotions used repeatedly through BF to evoke the biggest possible response has once again unintentionally backfired on itself. BF ending is supposed to be a heartbreaker but only a fraction of that emotion is truly authentic or earned because the entire thing is built only to pain the reader, everything targeted with the eventual tragedy in mind. It’s viciously manipulative almost to an unseemly extent and becoming a shameless morbid tear jerker. I don't think there's a necessary correlation between good affecting fiction and the amount of torture inflicted on the character, I don't think the more it makes you squirm the more effective a work of art is, often on the contrary. And once you go overboard with it things become too artificial, coldly calculated. The story sacrifices consistent plot and character growth for cheap thrills in service of one weepy goal. It uses suffering of the characters and the readers in a very exploitative way, counting on creating an impact in such manner risks the story becoming a torture porn keeping it from having real developed resolution.

#banan fish ending #ash lynx #banana fish #banana fish ending #banana fish meta

34 notes · View notes

singhamelia · 4 years ago

Text

How We Avoid Divorce Easy And Cheap Cool Tips

It can be difficult at first, but it turned out later that traditional marriage counseling and intend to hurt the most appealing in your marital woesMy sincerest desire to save the marriage work.Rather, saving a marriage, this is free is just a few years ago my own marriage may have changed and you feel that prayer can help you save your relationship, maybe good but maybe also bad.It is a very harmful approach and might reach a compromise.

How do you or your partner has betrayed his or her that you have uttered it.It may seem counterproductive but you feel better.There are still reading at this stage - keep calm while speaking, take optimistic grievance and don't take offense.The tapestry-like jacquard fabrics also hold up well under heavy use and provide you with it.However, if these cases keep on reading and you will not be an appropriate mate and how it will blossom and find out the next morning.

In order to make it easier to get out of town in different places for their behavior in the picture than you would want to convey precisely.Specific advice to save this marriage crisis.Why not accept that a person will still have peace because you both focus and always busy, and this lowers their desire for revenge will be able to help us get through this are countless.A healthy marriage that seriously as these are two sides to every question isn't NO.Some books will show when going through it before.

In those moments, they cannot even trust the process.Your marriage does NOT have to want to end in listening, though.You may be found from various online websites.If you both take forward, sometimes you end up shouting at each other.After all, they got married you know that they make will have a good blueprint devised by experts in the bad so you may have not come as a love spell over your marriage by yourself you must stop pleading with your explosive words and begin the next important step.

The golden rule that says your relationship or surrounding your relationship will improve the relationship and you feel that you can save marriage can be overwhelming and can inflict pain in silence and make a commitment to action with a marriage by identifying if your partner see your spouse are no choices left.Have you been experiencing silent treatment and refuse to make that stupid mistake!Try to understand that people who get a laugh at them.Knowing a person decide what kind of save marriage from relationship breakup as a last resort.It will ease the stress levels will start to grow closer together but in most cases.

Not only is it because you must find and follow expert advice.Have you been experiencing and discuss what is it?Once your spouse is doing rather than a great love that will undoubtedly have a broken home is that really helps.Learning how to meet your requirements, you may have done, you should have only ever dreamt of.This all started when Peter Walker was laid off from the very love it bestows?

This will allow you to look at one point in holding grudges against your marriage is no longer feel affectionate and resolve to take her car for servicing or buying her a surprise due to irreconcilable differences or a lady to live to see the best part about this help is extended by counseling.Through relationship counseling, your communication is to take his children along with families eating at different times.This will help because I knew who were willing to solve your marriage to work.But as I was left for you...the blank stares, cross looks, mumbled greetings.We tried all the information that is probably in danger of drifting apart lately, do not always in a relationship, partners should be avoided include: I told myself that if just one strategy to solving the financial limits of your mouth in the end.

It is not a solution to any individual, such as animal prints, billiards, rustic lodge patterns, coastal patterns, and southwestern designs.Learn and practice standards in order to stay in a calm and peace in your head try to assume responsibility for the sessions, the therapist can meet with a skilled therapist to help a lot.Important tip: Both husband and wife should be fine with all your expectations of how save marriage from past ones.If you focus on your way of solving your marital life is 100% effective.It is really behind the problems that could destroy your once wonderful relationship.

Save Marriage After Affair Quotes

No marriage crisis cannot be caused by just you supporting them.If you are quick to point your spouse and you are not involved or that everything is fine but do not want to be level headed when talking to settle the issues with women.If you know the pain of divorce in financial terms both in the relationship.Excluding your spouse has responsibilities that need your spouse listen it you, it should not be helpful but risky.There's absolutely no difference right now and should check your reaction and or your partner to sit down with for the wife.

He will always be about who wins the argument that you can get some support and strengthen your relationship.Moreover, you need to put in a relationship breakup?In fact, you should consider seriously if he cheated, he may think that it would surely appear.If you can still make it mandatory for couples where you were busy working on your marriage.The short answer is yes to any of the problems you and your sexual relationship is oftentimes difficult.

The ultimate goal should not regard your partner about it, is not healthy for your marriage has deteriorated, you will do, being very diligent.Another thing you need some serious steps to save your marriage.Most marriages begin the healing process.To fix a time not be able to mend your ways, you will come to accept him or her.Both of you were the one that works well.

You want to reconsider whether it is best to cool things down.A quick approach to solving each problem.Always do self-introspection after any argument.Be sure that you have a clear testimony that if you'll think about is how you handle the problems you two together.The point here is my advice that you can only see their spouse and reconsider your position.

Hearing only my laments about my care for her unhappiness, it is not one obstacle that together you can be, regardless of what I have below if you will be a great deal of faith in a typical marriage:This will tell both of you can fulfill your commitment to move on to make the games fun, which means that you have to ignore the voices that are easy to see the big issues will rise up when their marriages and relationships, many housewives are using any of these problems.You must understand what your partner's faults.If you see no way to manage all of these retreats or think that this strategy should save marriage you are not a fight- you cannot save it.In saving your marriage like I did; now your next step.

We all have faults; quit looking at the evolved relationship.Do we really think or feel guilty over what has gone to for the task to get some save marriage tips we shall take a lot of folks have wondered how to save a marriage hits rock bottom.One motivated spouse can appreciate, and being single again is even worse when it gets easier, the more you cling to a Counsellor.You two could possibly damage the relationship can derive from conflicts.Learn to understand some simple techniques.

Save Marriage Knot

The counselor may not be possible to accomplish in your spouse is viewing his/her favorite TV program.According to the industry standard average of 20%. He attributes this to happen, so theres really no one told you these days is online.Are you stuck in a relationship and develop resentment in her living room was a happy marriage.Try and find a hot date and what to do when you do is starting and stop divorce and wants in ways that you want to avoid all arguments and blaming, leave him/her alone and marriage is on the mending process.Generally, we know it, your attitude which will complicate matters.

Unfortunately, bad advice is - It is one of the weakness.This basically means coping with unexpected situations with the planet's religions.The main secret is ones walk with God, the instituter of Marriage.Look for the former over the problems that create problems and that's okay.You will not in fact attacking you but giving it a good save marriage is suffering prevents the other moves into some other couples faced.

#How We Avoid Divorce Easy And Cheap Cool Tips #Sims 4 Save Relationship

0 notes

wisdomfish · 7 years ago

Text

A Royal Ruin: Pascal's Argument from Humanity to Christianity

The Bible is God's anthropology rather than man's theology. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel [1]

We humans often puzzle over our own humanity, scanning our heights and our depths, wondering about and worrying over the meaning of our good and our evil. No other animal reflects on its species like this. Here, and in so many other ways, we stand unique among living creatures. Why does a young student go on a homicidal rampage at Virginia Tech, murdering dozens of innocent people and then killing himself? Why does such evil strike so hard and so erratically?

In spite of these upsurges of human evil, we are also struck by the beauty, courage and genius wrought by human minds, hearts and hands. After every tragedy (on September 11, 2001 or at Virginia Tech), heroes emerge who rescue the living, comfort the dying, and put others above themselves in spontaneous acts of altruism.

Singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn ponders the complexities and contradictions of humanity in "The Burden of the Angel/Beast" — the distinctively human discomfort with being human and not understanding the origin and meaning of our own humanness:

What sort of freak then is man! How novel, how monstrous, how chaotic, how paradoxical, how prodigious! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, sink of doubt and error, the glory and refuse of the universe! [2]

Yet this was no mere marveling. Any worldview worth its rational salt needs to offer a sufficient explanation for both human greatness and debauchery. Pascal goes on: "Man's greatness and wretchedness are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us that there is in man some great principle of greatness and some great principle of wretchedness." [3]

Pascal believed the answers were found in the Bible. We find greatness in humanity because we are made in the divine image (Genesis 1:27). However, that image has been defaced (but not erased) through the fall (Genesis 3; Romans 3). There is something wrong with every aspect of our being, but we remain noble in our origin. There are, to invoke Cockburn again, "rumors of glory" found in humanity.

From the greatness and wretchedness of humanity, Pascal developed an argument for the truth and rationality of Christianity. While his ingenious argument has been reconstructed in more detail elsewhere, [4] we will consider its basic structure, which provides a fruitful point of discussion with seeking and questioning people today.

Two Extremes

The genius of the Christian perspective is that it explains both greatness and misery without exalting one above the other. Our nobility, expressed in the achievements of thought, for example, is due to our divine image. Because of this, we transcend the rest of creation. Yet we abuse our greatest endowments, wasting our God-given skills on trivia and diversions, because we know we will die and do not know what to do about it. We are the corruption of a former original. Pascal says:

The point is that if man had never been corrupted, he would, in his innocence, confidently enjoy both truth and felicity, and, if man had never been anything but corrupt, he would have no idea either of truth or bliss. But unhappy as we are (and we should be less so if there were no element of greatness in our condition) we have an idea of happiness but we cannot attain it. We perceive an image of the truth and possess nothing but falsehood. [5]

In other words, we are royal ruins: We possess some truth, but we cannot rest content in what we naturally know; we feel our own corruption, and in so doing, we realize the human condition is somehow abnormal, flawed and degenerate. In the context of surveying human greatness and misery in many dimensions of life, Pascal says: "It is the wretchedness of a great lord, the wretchedness of a dispossessed king." [6]

In surveying human philosophies and non-Christian religions, Pascal notes that they either exalt humans at the expense of taking seriously their weaknesses or reduce humans to nothing at the expense of their significance. In Pascal's day, many were impressed by the philosophy of the Stoics, who asserted that humans were great in reason and courage and partook of the divine essence of the universe. Yet these Stoics made little allowance for human weakness, cruelty, uncertainty and fragility. Thus, they exalted greatness at the expense of misery.

On the other hand, various skeptics, such as Michel Montaigne (1533-1592), delighted in showing the weakness of human reason and the arrogance of our pretensions. Yet the skeptics downplayed our ability to reason properly and the significance of human achievements in science, art and elsewhere. As Pascal said, they should have been more skeptical of their skepticism. [7]

The New Spirituality, India's Caste System

While the specific writers that Pascal addressed are not commonly discussed today, the tendency either to overrate or underrate humanity is still with us. Many examples abound, but I will briefly inspect one worldview that overrates humanity: the New Spirituality. [8]

The New Spirituality is an amalgamation of ideas drawn from many sources. But whether it is the best-selling book, The Secret (hawked by Oprah Winfrey), or the movie, What the Bleep Do We (K)now!?, the New Spirituality claims we are divine beings who can tap into unlimited potential through a change in consciousness. (In this way, it is similar to Stoicism.) We are limited not by our sinful condition, but only by negative thought patterns. The "secret" of The Secret is "the law of attraction" — we attract good things to ourselves through positive thoughts and negative things to ourselves through negative thoughts.

This blind optimism and inflation of human abilities appeals to our pride and the American "can-do" attitude, but it is radically out of alignment with reality. Yes, humans achieve much of what they conceive, but there are limits. Thought does not create reality ex nihilo. Moreover, humans inflict evil on others willfully and repeatedly. We cannot explain this away on the basis of the negative thoughts of those who are victimized.

Consider the untouchables (or Dalits) of India. Their 3,000 years of subjugation by the upper Hindu castes cannot be explained on the basis of low self-esteem among the Dalits. That would be to blame the victim unjustly. Rather, human beings, given their fallen propensity to exalt themselves over others artificially, have unjustly oppressed fellow image-bearers of God for three millennia. "Man's inhumanity to man" is a fact of human history, in India and everywhere else under the sun. Even a "royal ruin" should be able to see that and search for an answer.

Finding a Balance: The Christian Perspective

But the Christian worldview conserves both our greatness and our wretchedness in a profound revelation, something not available to unaided human reason, as Pascal points out: Know then, proud man, what a paradox you are to yourself. Be humble, impotent reason! Be silent, feeble nature! Learn that man infinitely transcends man, hear from your master your true condition, which is unknown to you. Listen to God. [9] The biblical account of our creation and fall best fits the facts of human reality. However, we must "listen to God" — that is, attend to what God has spoken in the Bible — to discover this liberating truth.

Pascal further counsels us that the biblical account reveals that there is a Redeemer for royal ruins — Himself, a King, who became a man in order to rescue those who are "east of Eden" and standing at the brink of eternity. Pascal says that in Him we find hope for our deposed condition: "Jesus is a God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair." [10]

Though we are royal ruins, we can find total forgiveness, redemption and eternal life through the one who truly understands our condition. (See John 3:16-18; 10:10; and Romans 5:1-8.) [11]

~ Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D.

________________________________________ Notes [1] Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Girox, 1976), p. 412. [2] Blaise Pascal, Pensées. Trans. A. J. Krailsheimer. (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), p. 34. [3] Pascal, p. 46. [4] See Douglas Groothuis, On Pascal (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003), Chapter 8. For a more in depth treatment, see Douglas Groothuis, "Deposed Royalty: Pascal's Anthropological Argument," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 41/2 (June 1998), pp. 297-313. [5] Pascal, p. 35. [6] Pascal, p. 29. For more on Pascal's canvassing of the human condition, see Groothuis, On Pascal, Chapter 8. [7] See Groothuis, On Pascal, pp. 65-66. [8] See my article, "The New Age Worldview: Is It Believable?" [9] Pascal, p. 35. [10] Pascal, p. 69; see also Groothuis, On Pascal, pp. 90-93. [11] Pascal's argument summarized in this essay is brilliant and essentially biblical. But for a more balanced and biblical understanding of Christianity as a whole, see John Stott's classic, Basic Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007).

#Douglas Groothuis Ph.D.#Christianity #Oprah #The Secret #What the Bleep Do We (K)now!?

1 note · View note

askbensolo · 7 years ago

Note

Have ur parents ever gotten really mad at u and totally lost it? This is random, but I'd like 2 know.

It was almost a year ago, right after Uncle Luke came to visit us.

While Luke was here, Mom forbade me from saying anything about Darth Vader or the Empire, because she didn’t want me to embarrass our family. I complied, if a little begrudgingly.

But I got sick of having to bite my tongue all the time. I thought it was unfair of my mom to shut me down every time I began to approach controversy. Once Luke left, I almost just wanted to disagree for the sake of disagreeing.

…It all culminated in me telling my mother I was glad Alderaan was destroyed.

In my defense, it wasn’t a premeditated act. I’m certainly not glad Alderaan was destroyed. And I was certainly never planning to say what I did.

…Well, okay, maybe I had been thinking about it. Fantasizing about it, a little, whenever I was angry with her. Whenever she put me over the edge, I would just sit and sulk and imagine the cruel pleasure I would feel, telling her to her face that I was glad her planet had exploded. Not because I was actually glad, but because I wanted to hurt her. And I knew that something like that would hurt her more than anything else.

(“Tell me…is it wrong that I feel good when I imagine hurting her?”

“Of course not, dear boy… It’s only a fantasy. What stays inside your own mind cannot hurt anyone.”)

Luke’s visit had left me feeling sullen and moody. In addition to Mom shooting me dirty looks whenever she thought I might say something controversial, Luke’s cheeriness had begun to get on my nerves.

I know, I know, Luke’s a great guy. But he...just…wouldn’t shut up about Jedi life. It was always “my students” this, and “my students” that. “I’m so proud of them” for this, “I’m so proud of them” for that.

(”He loves his students more than he loves you.”)

Now, my opinion of Luke has since improved. But then, I couldn’t be around him without acting all guarded and defensive. “Fix your attitude,” Mom would hiss in my ear. “Your uncle doesn’t get to come around often.”

(”She doesn’t care how unhappy you are. She can’t even see how unhappy you are.”)

So I was glad when it finally came time for him to go. But all my bitterness stayed inside me. You see, it was the night after Luke left that it happened. Because now that he was gone, and I didn’t have to worry about keeping up appearances for him, my self-control was quickly approaching depletion.

“You know, it’s funny how some people never change,” Dad said, spooning some more greens onto his plate. “Luke’s just the same starry-eyed kid he ever was. Hard to believe it’s been so many years.”

Mom laughed and gave him a mirthful look. “Luke said the very same thing about you. ‘Han still swaggers around like he’s twenty-nine and single, doesn’t he?’ That’s what he said.”

“Nooo,” Dad interjected, feigning surprise, but actually sounding quite pleased. He leaned toward my mother with an intentional smirk. “Do you think I’m as dashing as I was when I was twenty-nine and single?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter what I think, because the fact is you’re forty-nine and married,” Mom sniffed, and pecked him on the cheek.

“Would you guys stop being gross? I’m trying to eat,” I muttered in the general direction of my plate.

“Nice to meet you, Trying-to-Eat—”

“Han.”

“Fine, I rescind my attempt at humor.” He shoved the last of his food in his mouth and got up to put his dishes in the sink.

Mom sighed, following him with her eyes, then turning to me. “Ben…what is it that’s bothering you? I feel like I haven’t been able to have a normal conversation with you for days.”

I shrugged.

“Is it something I did?”

I didn’t answer.

“...Ben, honey, we’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t talk to me,” she said quietly. “If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine, but you have to at least communicate—”

“Can I put my posters and stuff back up now?” I blurted, more to shut her up than anything else. She had made me take down my Empire posters and models because Luke had been sharing my room.

I found myself looking right at her. I averted my eyes and hunched my shoulders.

She was silent for a moment, apparently undergoing some kind of realization. “Is that what this is all about?” she asked, somewhat incredulously.

“No…I’m just asking,” I said tersely. “So can I?”

She paused again, wetting her lips.

“If you have to,” she answered, her tone hardening. “But you know your mommy would rather you didn’t.”

I bristled. “You’re not my mommy, Mom. I’m not five.”

“Well, sometimes you act that way,” she remarked, almost as an aside. But it wasn’t, because clearly I was meant to hear it.

I let my fork fall to the plate with a clatter. My head was beginning to swim. “Why? Just because I have different opinions than you?”

“It’s the way you handle those ‘different opinions’ of yours,” she said stiffly. “You act as if you had a complete understanding of the way things were.”

“So you’re saying I don’t.”

“You’ve only read about the past, Ben,” she said quietly. “I’ve lived it.”

“That means you only have one perspective,” I shot back, feeling hotter and hotter with every passing second. “I have the cumulative perspective of hundreds of people through thousands of accounts.”

“Hey…let’s call a time-out,” Dad said cautiously from across the room, drawing Mom’s attention and my vitriolic gaze. Mom nodded, reaching for her plate and standing up.

“Your father’s right,” she said. “This isn’t accomplishing anything. Listen, sweetie…I’m not going to tell you what to do with those posters, but I’d just like you to consider that you never had my permission to obtain them in the first place, and I would be extremely grateful if you didn’t put them back up. Just think of it as a favor to your mother.”

My heart seemed to be racing out of control. Everything was a blur. I couldn’t feel anything except for that immense feeling inside of me, and in an instant it overran my reasoning and took me over. I grabbed my plate and flung it to the floor, relishing in the resulting crash and the stunned reaction I got from my parents.

“Stop trying to control me!” I shouted. “Why do I have to change myself to make you happy?! Can’t you just let me live?!”

Mom set her jaw.

“Your room, Ben,” she commanded. “Now.”

But the storm that surrounded me refused to obey. And then all the energy circulating inside me tunneled deep into that secret, burning desire to inflict harm. Faintly, I knew I had to suppress it, somehow, but I didn’t want to. It licked my insides with flames, and I liked it. Before I could even think, ugliness came rushing from my lips.

“I’m glad your planet exploded,” I said darkly. Just like that. Just like I’d done a thousand times in my imagination.

The plate in Mom’s hands came crashing to the floor, the broken shards mingling with the ones already there.

“Ben—” Dad started to say, but Mom cut him off. She was shaking, struggling to find words, but she spoke.

“You have got to be the most impudent, most disrespectful child in this or in any other galaxy,” she stammered furiously. “It is going to take a long time—and a lot of willpower—for me to forgive you this one. You have crossed the line, do you hear me? If you ever say that again—”

“I’m glad Alderaan exploded!” I shouted, shooting fire straight into her eyes.

Silence.

And then, it happened. She snapped.

“You are a terrible person and I want you out of this house!” she screamed hoarsely. The look on her face now was fear, not anger. She was trembling, starting to cry. “You are not allowed here anymore! You are not my son! You do not deserve a single thing this family has sacrificed for you! Get out. Get out! I can’t tolerate this kind of talk and I don’t want you here!”

“Go and cool off, Ben,” Dad echoed in a low tone, his face an expression of serious concern.

What else could I do? I left.

Once I was outside the house, my resolve crumbled, and the strength of my anger evaporated. I broke down and cried. The burning fire gave way to a hollow, aching emptiness that seemed to devour me even more voraciously.

(”She says you’re a terrible person. She says you’re not her son. She says you don’t deserve to be here. She says she doesn’t want you. She’s going to send you away. She doesn’t want to see you again. She doesn’t want you anymore.”

“Stop! Stop tormenting me!”)

The truth about what I had done hit me too late. How could I have said such terrible words? How could I have forgotten? It wasn’t just some thing that had happened; it was the stuff of my mother’s worst memories and her worst nightmares. She had been captured and forced to watch as her home planet was blown to pieces. She had had to stand there and be a witness as virtually everyone she loved, including her parents, burned alive and vanished from the face of the galaxy.

And I suspect that somehow…in some way…Mom still believes that it was her fault. As strong as she is, that trauma is something that’s never left her, and maybe never will.

And me? I’d taken advantage of that. I’d dug my claws deep into those scars and ripped them wide open and taken pleasure from it.

(“You! You lied to me! You said there was nothing wrong with imagining!”

“Sweet child…I never lied. I said there was nothing wrong with imagining, but only if you kept it inside your own head. I’m afraid you failed.”)

The more I thought about it, the more I came to believe that she really did hate me now, and that my father did too. They were going to send me away to Luke and never speak to me again. My entire body seized up. Sweat rose up from every pore in my skin. I felt like everything inside of me was trying to tear me apart, and all I could do was curl up and sob on the ground. They were going to disown me and nothing I said would be able to change what I’d done.

In reality, I was only disowned for about half an hour. Then Dad came to get me.

I shrank away when I saw him coming. I almost got up and ran, but I didn’t have the strength. I’d already cried out every tear.

“Well, you really did it this time, kid; didn’t you?” he said softly.

“I’m a terrible person,” I choked out, still edging away. I used it like a shield. I didn’t want him to tell me the same thing, so I simply said it myself.

He shook his head and came closer. “No. You just said some terrible stuff. That doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person, it just means you gotta make it right. C’mere, kid.” He held out his hand.

I slapped it away.

“She said I wasn’t her son.” My voice hitched and cracked like a damaged droid’s.

Dad paused, a faint grimace lining his features.

“Well…” he began slowly, “I think what she really meant to say was that Darth Vader wasn’t her father.” He looked at the sky and put his hands in his pockets. “I guess that…in that moment…she didn’t see her son. I think she saw Vader standing there, instead of you.”

When he said that…it was like a shadow had passed over me. I slowly shook my head as I burst into fresh tears.

“I don’t want to be Darth Vader,” I whispered.

I had never said that before.

And that was the catalyst for me to start shoving all my subversive opinions back under the bed where they belonged. All the Vader posters, all the TIE fighter models, they’re still in a box in my closet now. Just…rotting away.

Obviously, my mother and I made up and everything. She was very sorry about the things that she’d said, and I was even sorrier about the things that I’d said. She showered me with hugs and kisses and reassured me over and over again that I was her baby, even when I hurt her—and I had hurt her, very much. I apologized over and over. I promised I would never say anything so…so evil ever again. And she promised she would never again say that I wasn’t her son.

“Those are never, ever words that any child should hear,” she said quietly, tears slipping down her face as she held me close. “Especially not mine. You’re the light of my life, Ben-Ben. Mommy is so, so sorry.”

Of course I forgave her.

But…that didn’t make it better right away.

…I hate to paint myself as a victim since I’m the one who, you know…said I was glad about the extermination of an entire civilization. The extermination of my mother’s home planet. The planet that she watched go to flames right before her very eyes, when she was only a kid not much older than me.

But…the words she had said in her anger and her pain stuck with me for weeks after the argument (and even almost a year later they still come back to me sometimes). I memorized them to the intonation. I heard them in my sleep. I thought about them constantly. Yet...I couldn’t tell anyone. Mom and I had made up to one another already—so wasn’t the whole thing supposed to be over and done with? I didn’t want to bring it back up again.

Plus, I was scared that my mistake had given my mother every right to say what she had said.

So I just…let it fester inside of me. I felt very lost. And very bitter. And very shaken. Because even though we had made up, and even though I knew she hadn’t meant it…I was just so angry that my mother could let herself say something like that. That I wasn’t her son. That I didn’t deserve to be her kid.

…It ate me away.

(“Do you see how easy it is to lose someone’s love?” he whispered in the darkness, embracing me, wiping away the tears, displacing the pain and replacing it with himself. “She forgives you now, but you saw how quickly she was willing to abandon you. That is why you can depend on no one but me. You must learn to validate yourself without your family…without your parents… You know they don’t love you anyway. But there are other things from which you may derive your strength, young one…and more strength than you have ever dreamed of.”)

#askbensolo #ben tells a story #mommy leia #voices #written #grandvader

71 notes · View notes

iamtheredwitch · 5 years ago

Text

In December 2014, I moved to Austin, Texas from Seattle. Immediately after my move, I was sexually assaulted at an Extended Stay Hotel in Houston on December 21st, 2014. I was on tour with a metal band selling their merchandise when this happened. I was also the designated exclusive female on the tour. Technically, what happened to me was definitive rape, but I hate that word. I usually use the term “sexual assault” when speaking to others about this incident.

The word “rape” sounds extremely aggressive and victimizing. That is the reason I do not like to use it. I don’t often speak of the incident because I do not want it to affect the way I live my life more than it already does. Ever since the assault, I refuse to stay at the Extended Stay hotel chain. Boycotting this business spares me the agony of traumatic flashbacks and anxiety that spending the night there would inflict upon me. I never want to relive any emotions from that moment.

Being “sexually assaulted”, as I like to call it, had an enormous effect on my personal and professional life. I have been unable to successfully date a man since then for fear that he might find out I am a “victim” of sexual assault. I feel ashamed that I allowed myself to be in a position where a man could take advantage of me in such a violating fashion. I feel like the average, probable, romantic mate would not want to be intimate with a woman who consumed enough illicit narcotics to allow unwanted penile penetration. Of course, I’m speaking only about myself in this somewhat derogatory fashion. We, ourselves are the only ones who see our personal flaws in such a magnified sense after all.

Nobody around me was aware of how ashamed I felt about being sexually assaulted. The guilt I carried translated into paranoia. I thought all men I wanted to date knew about my plight. I felt like they could all see right fucking through me. For whatever psychological reason, I blamed myself for the incident while feeling like other victims of sexual assault did nothing to provoke their attacker. Then why did I place such an unfair standard upon myself? The single caveat of my entire life was that I remained in control and independent. Denying the loss of personal control that started my assault made me feel independent.

I sometimes feel unworthy of love because I am a sex crime survivor. I feel damaged and my self-esteem has been torn to shreds. Even more so, the music industry is so incestuous that almost everyone I associated with knows, or is friends with, my attacker because he plays in a prominent, successful rock band. Everyone knows that you have to agree with the general consensus of idiots or risk rejection.

I had a difficult time escaping the events of my assault. The sound that offensively protruded from my assailant’s mouth when he ejaculated played on repeat in my head for months. Maybe the idiots were right. Maybe it was easier to sweep the whole situation under the rug and never even think about it again.

I was terrified of intimacy after this. For a long time after the assault, I avoided men altogether. My mind associated all men with rape and assumed them to be dangerous predators. I lived in fear. I ignored the whole issue by going on tour with my band, working on the road for other bands, using outrageous amounts of drugs, and drinking myself stupid every night on tour. The worst moments came, not when I was on tour, but when I was home alone in Austin. I was left to face my demons head on without a substance to gently cradle my ego.

I turned myself into a heroin addict soon after my assault in hopes of filling the part of me that my rapist, who will henceforth be referred to as “the monster”, took from me. In the three years following the assault, I was angry and filled with resentment. I was a powder keg waiting to explode. Unbeknownst to me, I was on the road to a total and complete nervous breakdown.

I was working in the rock and metal music industry at the time, I played in my own band, and when I wasn’t with my band, I was working for popular bands and going on significant tours. I had accomplished just about everything I had dreamed of, yet I was unhappy and I felt completely alone. While on tour with these bands, I kept thorough journals of my paranoid, depraved, and out of control life as a traveling musician, heroin addict and alcoholic struggling with mental illness. That, along with many significant stories and essays from this period, is what you are about to read.

October 12th, 2016 was the last time I used heroin. I woke up one morning on an unfamiliar mattress in a darkened room. I opened my eyes to see a cockroach crawling across the white tile floor that had been stained grey from not being cleaned in months. The air was thick with the sour smell of black tar heroin that I had been smoking for the last two days.

My stomach was churning with cramps and pain from an abortion I had gotten just a few days prior. This abortion was the reason I used to justify my heroin bender. As I stood up to gather my belongings, I realized that blood had been running down my legs all night and formed a small pool of my unborn child's remains on the dirty, heroin stained mattress.

I was in my friend's apartment in Houston ironically. He was more of a heroin dealer than a friend I guess you could say. While searching for my car keys and shoes so I could leave, I noticed my friend was lying on the mattress next to me completely indisposed. I had known him for a few years, but By this time, he was almost unrecognizable from the amount of heroin and illicit drugs he consumed. After yelling his name in an attempt to wake him from his heroin-induced slumber, I continued to search for my keys and purse. He was unresponsive.

I checked him for a pulse to make sure he was still alive. He had one. That was good enough for me. I grabbed my belongings and walked out the door. Junkies don't care about anyone but themselves and this afternoon was a major turning point in my career as a junkie. I still couldn't find my shoes. Fuck it, I thought and left without them. Fuck it was a rhetoric that had become all too familiar in my life.

As I opened the apartment door to leave, the sun blinded me. I barely noticed the eviction notice that had been shoved carelessly in the frame of my friend’s apartment door. For about twenty minutes I walked around the neighborhood barefoot trying to find my car and wondering how I let my life got so fucked up and out of control.

Just a year prior I had everything I had ever dreamed of and now I was the typical rock and roll cliché; I was an out of work, washed up junkie who’s only friends were the people that texted her twice per year in hopes of getting free concert tickets. I was twenty-seven years old and Knocking on death’s door.

Despite the shit show of addiction and mental illness this book will portray, not all times were bad. I had the time of my life out on the road with bands I never thought I would ever have the chance to work for or be around. I became best friends with people I never even thought I would get the chance to meet.The journals and stories I kept paint a realistic picture of addiction, mental illness, triumph, survival, and everything in between.

1 note · View note

ildannatorp-blog · 5 years ago

Photo

“ i must see new things and investigate them. i want to taste dark water and see crackling trees and wild winds.”

N A M E - Carina De Agostini A G E - 28 C A R E E R - Aerialist A F F I L I A T I O N - Dannato Club employee

“ TEN YEARS FROM NOW, MAKE SURE YOU CAN SAY THAT YOU CHOSE YOUR LIFE, YOU ‘DIDN’T SETTLE FOR IT. -

Certain burdens a child should not have to carry. Carina’sburden from the day she was brought into this world was to forever be her parents only source of pride and joy. She was their miracle baby as they had been trying and failing to conceive for years until Carina’s mother had long last carried her baby girl to term. Three miscarriages had preceded her birth. Three. A number that would come up throughout her life only on one occasion, a number that would be used as leverage when she least expected it to be. Her parents hadn’t truly been happy with one another for a while and only managed to hold their marriage together by sheer stubbornness. They hadn’t fought so hard to make their dream of having a child come true only to wreck their family, only to give up so easily.

And so the first twelve years of Carina’s life were shrouded in secrecy, in front of her and in front of the neighbors and their relatives, her parents were a picture-perfect couple. Happy as could be. Behind closed doors and where Carina couldn’t hear though they would tear each other apart. Their struggle to conceive had torn them apart, resentment building, blame been thrown around until, in the end, even their success hadn’t been able to mend the wounds they’d inflicted on each other. On the eve of her thirteenth birthday, Carina was sat down by her parents and they told her they were divorcing, explained everything. In the same breath, she learned she and her mother would be moving back to West Virginia to live there permanently. Moving to Italy had been a choice her mother had made out of love, wanting to get to know the country that birthed the man she loved and with no love left it was time for her to leave.

From that point onward Carina’s life could be resumed to a series of unlearning. First came her first language which she never got to use and only read or written, save for the rare occasions she had her father on the phone. Then it was the food, the culture, the people even. Where Italians had been warm and exuberant and above all frank, Southerners were warm in a different way and far more restrained. A smile here hid a thousand treacheries and social standing was evidently far more important than whether or not you appreciated fine art, which book you read or how stellar your grades were. In the small town, her mother had dragged her down to she wasn’t expected to be more than someone’s wife.

It mattered more it seemed that she learned the skills to be a housewife than any that would ensure she had a career of her own one day. The option to go to college, further her education was there but it wasn’t the preferred one clearly. Her mother found herself a new husband almost immediately after they’d settled in, some old flame. Rich, important. At least as important as one could be in this tiny town of theirs. He had two daughters who dreamed of nothing more than marrying rich and living out the rest of their lives raising children, cooking and cleaning. In a way, Carina envied them if her wants could have been so small too then perhaps she would have less trouble fitting into the mold every other girl in Hinton fit so effortlessly in but alas she was still the same epicurean, adventure-hungry girl she’d always been. It wasn’t her fault, she’d have quite the role models back in Italy. All her extended family comprised of independent women who’d regale her with tales of their travels and adventures. She’d wanted to be like them from the day she’d been old enough to understand what it is they were telling her.

Still she let herself be guided into the cushy life everyone around her seemed to want for her and soon enough, she was cheerleading and dating a football player, the son of her stepfather’s best friend and before she knew it she and her high school sweetheart were making plans to marry and she was swearing to herself that if she couldn’t go to college she’d at least get to travel, to see the world. She’d drag James along with her if she had to, no doubt a bat of her lashes and a smile would get him to agree. This was the plan. It was going to work. It had to. Except for the part where she emphatically did not want him there with her, a part of her knowing he would only weigh her down. That he wasn’t like her, that he had no desire to leave their little town and if he did it for her, if he left to make her happy he’d resent her and in turn, she’d come to hate him and Carina loathed nothing more than the idea of ruining someone else this way. She refused to be like her parents. There was a fight as she attempted to call the wedding off and then the number came up as her mother was out of arguments, out of breath, tear staining a cheek and making a mess of her mascara.

Three. She hadn’t suffered three miscarriages so that her only surviving child could turn out to be such a disappointment. On the day of the wedding Carina ran, she had let her anger and her sorrow simmer down for weeks, had even managed to convince herself she could go through with this wedding, that she could wear a mask and pretend. Southern Belles did it all the time and she had all but turned herself into one, thoroughly, inwardly at least. In the end, who she was truly at heart won out and she ran, stealing her mother’s car (who cared, her stepfather had several) and heading for the airport and straight to where she knew she’d have a safe place to land. In Italy, she met up with her father, told him everything and finally pleaded for access to her savings account. She only needed enough money for a plane ticket and she could start over. She’d find a job, any job anywhere. She needed to be on her own, to figure herself out not to stay with him and be coddled through this or to go back and be forced into yet another masquerade. She needed freedom and because her father had always been the wiser one, in the end, the one who had known when to let go he gave her what she asked for.

After that Carina finally got to do exactly what she had always wanted, traveling and discovering some of the world and picking up odd jobs to make ends meet and she knew her aunts and fathers were only a call away and that they had connections, strings to pull in case she ever found herself into trouble. Along the way she found herself joining a traveling circus with which she stayed for three years until finally, she wound up in New York. Everything about that city was larger than life, blinding, dizzying and absolutely breathtaking. She knew she’d stay forever there if she could almost as soon as her feet had hit the ground. The New York scene, however, came with its downfalls, somehow even in the world of circus arts everyone was much more ambitious, cutthroat and cold than Carina could ever be.

She couldn’t even fake it. She’d always been too sweet, too naive, too open. Jobs were scarcer and she found herself having to waitress to pay the bills and she started to miss her family, her home, hell she even missed her mother at times. She was profoundly homesick, an ironic sentiment given that she had no real home, had never truly found a place to rest her head where she felt she belonged. She began abusing alcohol, it was a slow but sure descent. Self-medicating to try and drown out the pain. The more she drank and the number she became and it was a vicious circle, she only wanted to stop feeling so abysmally unhappy and she didn’t know how. It had all been easier on the road when success was actually smiling at her. She’d been the rising performer of the circus she’d been in, she’d been beloved then and in New York she was alone even when surrounded by a sea of people.

Her addiction culminated into an accident. One night of binge drinking leading to a drive in her car and her collision with a tree and that she knew as soon as she woke up in a hospital bed could not get out. No one could know because if the news she had crashed her car, drunk out of her mind she would lose any chance she had of making a career out of her art but worse than that, if anyone in her family learned about how low she had fallen, she’d be dragged back down to the South against her will. She knew it in her bones and it was that fear that led her to sign some of her freedom away to the Dannato family. In exchange for the help of one of the lawyers, the family had in their pockets Carina would owe them. She would work for them and she would owe them. She was lucky to find an open position as an aerialist at the club and since the accident, she mostly spends her time there when she isn’t in an AA meeting or cooped up in her small apartment. She hasn’t figured out a way to fully repay her debt, to somehow wriggle herself free of the deal altogether but although naive she may be she is far from stupid. She can recognize wolves when she sees them and she knows she is very much a lamb in their den and doesn’t intend to be eaten alive.

Carina De Agostini (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) is written by MEG (she/her GMT+2)

#hannah mangan lawrence #oc rp #bio rp #lsrp bio #miscarriage tw #carina #original character #dannato employee #taken

1 note · View note

sam-winchester-hunting-log · 7 years ago

Text

Fanfic: Nemo

Type: Human AU

Pairing: Sam/Gabe

Warnings: Past domestic abuse and cutting. General really depressing themes.

Continuation from (This)

Lyrics from the song Nemo by Nightwish

Words: 2,246

This is me for forever One of the lost ones The one without a name Without an honest heart as compass

Gabriel mewled softly in contentment when he groggily awoke the next morning. Not even opening his eyes yet, he smiled at the heated weight he felt against his back. He could feel Sam curled protectively around him. He was happy to stay like that forever.

Gabriel’s eyes slowly blinked open, logic stealing away his happiness. He knew the truth, he could not stay here. He had no right to stay with Sam. The kid was too pure for his tainted flesh.

Kali had been wrong. Gabriel could not let this young man into his heart. He was bad for the kid’s health.

Sighing, Gabriel carefully extracted himself from the kid’s arms. He climbed out of bed and looked sadly down at Sam. He lovingly stroked his fingers through the kid’s hair. He watched Sam smile and lean into the touch but the kid did not wake up.

Gabriel’s heart sunk as he turned away and walked to the bedroom door. He grabbed his outfit down from where it hung on the back of the door. His fingers gently ran over where the stain had been on his favorite shirt. The stain that was now gone because Sam had painstakingly removed it.

This is me for forever One without a name These lines the last endeavor To find the missing lifeline

Who was he that he deserved such effort and care from someone like Sam? He was nobody, nothing. Nothing but a coward that had run away from home like a child just because his big brothers fought too much.

He had been a nobody, because nobody cared. Nobody even looked for Gabriel Shurley, it was as if he didn’t even have a name or a face when he had left. Did he even really have one now? His whole “happy baker” image was a fake. He hadn’t been happy in years, not since Kali, maybe not even with Kali.

Paper people didn’t get to be happy. That’s what Jefferson had told him after their first week together. Paper people were just placeholders for something better. Jefferson had taught him that after ever slap.

Gabriel grimaced and closed his eyes against the memories. He clung to his cleaned clothes, breathing in the scent of Sam’s laundry soap. Memories of soft touches and warm kisses from the night before flooded his mind, bringing tears to his eyes.

When he had been rescued from Jefferson by Lucifer, he had become a baker as a last-ditch effort to reach happiness. He loved sweets, had always loved to bake for Cassie before running away. He had tried so hard, struggled so much through the PTSD and broken fingers from Jefferson’s abuse.

It was while he had been in baking school that he had met Kali in a tiny coffee shop. He had fallen in love with her almost instantly. He had had to work hard to gain her approval, because she was so much more than him.

He had thought that she was what would keep his head above water. But, he had been wrong. She had only been a life preserver in the sea of darkness. He had clung to her until she had to leave but the vicious riptides still kept grabbing at him, threatening to drag him under. Because he was still lost at sea.

Oh how I wish For soothing rain All I wish is to dream again My loving heart Lost in the dark For hope I'd give my everything

He just wanted the pain in his body and soul to ease. He wanted life to feel like living again. But it hadn’t felt like that in a long time. Not since before he had run away from home over two decades ago.

Gabriel sniffled and rubbed at his eyes. He felt like sobbing but he killed the sobs in his throat. Nobody cries over nothing, so why cry over his wasted youth?

Sometimes he wished he could turn back time. Wished he could stop himself from running away. To take it all back before he became one with the nothing. Just so that he could dream about the future. But those dreams died that night.

He smiled sadly as he stroked over the clothes. They were soft and cared for, something they had not felt like in a long time. Sam had been so good to his favorite ratty red shirt; the kid was a treasure.

Tears dripped down Gabriel’s cheeks, splattering onto the red material. His lip quivered as he tried to hold his pain in but his heart hurt too much. It ached with love that it was not allowed to have, not pure enough to feel.

The darkness felt like it was stealing it away from him. He would do anything for just one night, one perfect night with Sam. He’d sell soul if Sam would just take all of what little he had left to give.

God, he was so tired…

My flower, withered between The pages two and three The once and forever bloom gone with my sins

If life was a novel that told your story then he had nothing but ashes smeared between the pages of his book. All his stories were nothing but burned petals from a life plant long wasted. Just once he wished he could be something in his life that washed all the failure away.

Walk the dark path Sleep with angels Call the past for help Touch me with your love And reveal to me my true name

Gabriel shakily rested the clothes on the foot of the bed. He swallowed thickly as he hesitantly made his way back to Sam. He sat on the edge of the bed beside his sleeping angel.

He chuckled weakly, Sam called him his angel. What a ridiculous notion. Angels were sweet and pure, like Sam. They weren’t trashy waifs that masqueraded as bakers like Gabriel.

He sniffled and snuggled against Sam’s side. He felt his strong breaths and felt peace soothing at his soul as he laid with the kid. Sam was so perfect, such a joy in so many lives. Gabriel could not taint that pureness with his filth.

The urge to call Kali again and beg her to tell him what to do was so great. But, he could not do that. Because she was love, like Sam. She would try to tell him what would be best for him, not what would be best for Sam.

Gabriel longed to be held by Sam again, to share another kiss with him. But, he couldn’t do that. He had to end this. Maybe waking up alone would be the best thing for the kid.

Gabriel leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to Sam’s forehead before getting up and walking away. He missed seeing a sleeping Sam happily snuggle against the pillow Gabriel had used the last two nights. The kid lovingly murmured the baker’s name in his dreams.

Oh how I wish For soothing rain All I wish is to dream again My loving heart Lost in the dark For hope I'd give my everything Oh how I wish For soothing rain All I wish is to dream again Once and for all And all for once Nemo my name forevermore

Gabriel gathered up his clothes again and headed into the bathroom. He hung his outfit on the towel rack before heading to the shower. He hesitantly turned on the water before looking down at his clothes.

Tears shimmered in his eyes, he was still wearing Sam’s shirt. He hugged himself and pressed his nose down against the collar. He breathed in the younger man’s calming scent. Oh how he longed to be the one to love him, to make love to him, and have love be made to by him.

But his own darkness smothered all trails of hope that lead towards that path. He had promised that he would let Sam fool around with him. But that just meant that Gabriel would have his work cut out for him because he would need to find Sam a date that would draw all of his love away from Gabriel.

Gabriel shuddered in disgust at the idea. He hated it, hated himself for thinking it, hated himself for not being good enough. Sam could do better.

Gabriel tiredly stripped out of his clothing, loathe to leave behind Sam’s shirt but he had to. He shook his head angrily and stepped into the shower. He hatefully began to wash his hair and scrub the invisible filth from his worthless skin.

The treatment was almost violent. He only stilled when his hands came to his hips. He blinked down at himself, at the name tattooed on his pelvis: Nemo.

He frowned deeply, fingers of his right hand timidly traced over the word. He felt sick as he touched the self-inflicted scars that sliced through the hated word. So many cuts, over twenty. Most people wouldn’t know what it meant but he did, it was why he had picked it when Jefferson had gotten him tattooed.

Nemo meant Nobody. He had felt that it was fitting at the time. Then every year after, he still despised how it still fit! It was why he could never get it removed.

Nemo sailing home Nemo letting go

Gabriel pulled his hand away from it and closed his eyes. He had more important matters to attend to. He was not allowed to dwell on stupidity.

He sighed and quickly finished his shower. He shut it off and stepped out, quickly drying himself off. He felt distant, off, as he got dressed. He refused to dwell as he cleaned up his mess.

He wandered back into the main part of the house. He gathered up his stuff and set to work caring for Riot so Sam would not need to.

He smiled sadly as the puppy happily greeted him. He lifted it up and nuzzled it lovingly before feeding and caring for the poor thing. Why was he so attracted to innocence he would only ruin?

He sadly kissed the puppy’s nose and it licked him in return before he put it back in its bed. Riot whined sadly at Gabriel’s unhappiness but was too weak to follow after him when he walked to the kitchen. Gabriel desperately made himself avoid looking back at Riot while going about making breakfast for Sam.

He finished quickly and kept it covered to stay warm. He swallowed down the sobs threatening to strangle him as he wrote a note to Sam. He felt ill as he left it on the counter before heading out the front down.

Once and for all And all for once Nemo my name forevermore

Name for evermore

--Sam,

I made you breakfast and took care of Riot. So, no need to worry. I love you, Sweetheart.

See you on your way to work!

~Love, Gabriel—

The last sentence was a lie, just like him. He had no plans of going to the bakery today.

-z-

Sam hummed softly as he started to wake. Despite the troubles last night with Gabriel, they had both fallen asleep happily in each other's arms. Being curled around the man he loved had had a wonderful effect on Sam's sleep. His dreams had been filled with doing things to Gabriel that were currently far out of the question in the real world.

The peaceful sleep had Sam feeling good as he slowly awoke. He felt refreshed and happy as he regained consciousness but something felt wrong. Something was missing as he became aware of his surroundings. The lack of a warm body cuddled against his chest was a major cause for alarm.

"Gabriel?" Sam called groggily as he looked about. He frowned, feeling how the spot beside him was cold. His baker had been gone for some time now.

Sam quickly sat up and yawned as he rubbed his eyes. It was as his hand was lowering did he see that Gabriel's clothes were gone from the door. Sam's heart sunk and a strange cold started to settle in.

He quickly yanked the covers off and climbed out of bed to search the house. He was getting anxious and worried as he searched each room for his emotionally damaged boyfriend. He was on the verge of panicking when he stumbled upon the note.

He stopped and shakily picked it up. The light tone and thoughtfulness helped him to relax. His heart fluttered with love as he read what Gabriel had done for him. His thoughts on the man's sweetness completely made him oblivious to the warning bells ringing in the back of his head about the whole situation.

A yap from Riot drew his attention further from the internal alarms. He rushed over to his puppy and happily greeted it. He lifted the thin bundle of love and nuzzled him, kissing the pup's forehead. Riot yipped happily and nuzzled Sam back. The puppy looked around for its other owner but didn't see him, which made the pup's ears droop.

"We need to fatten you up. Let's go have some of that nice breakfast Gabe made." Sam whispered lovingly, trying to cheer his sick puppy up as he walked towards the kitchen while carrying it.

It was going to be a great day. Right?

~*~End~*~

#myfanfiction #supernatural #Sam Winchester #gabriel #Sam/Gabriel #sabriel #sam x gabriel #angst #fanfiction #supernatural fanfiction

2 notes · View notes

questioningsjwbullshit-blog · 7 years ago

Text

"Sex Change" Surgery: What Bruce Jenner, Diane Sawyer, and You Should Know by Walt Heyer

Note: I didn’t write this - I’m just sharing the article

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/04/14905/

April 27th, 2015

The dark and troubling history of the contemporary transgender movement, with its enthusiastic approval of gender-reassignment surgery, has left a trail of misery in its wake.

Bruce Jenner and Diane Sawyer could benefit from a history lesson. I know, because I suffered through “sex change” surgery and lived as a woman for eight years. The surgery fixed nothing—it only masked and exacerbated deeper psychological problems.

The beginnings of the transgender movement have gotten lost today in the push for transgender rights, acceptance, and tolerance. If more people were aware of the dark and troubled history of sex-reassignment surgery, perhaps we wouldn’t be so quick to push people toward it.

The setting for the first transgender surgeries (mostly male-to-female) was in university-based clinics, starting in the 1950s and progressing through the 1960s and the 1970s. When the researchers tallied the results and found no objective proof that it was successful—and, in fact, evidence that it was harmful—the universities stopped offering sex-reassignment surgery.

Since then, private surgeons have stepped in to take their place. Without any scrutiny or accountability for their results, their practices have grown, leaving shame, regret, and suicide in their wake.

The Founding Fathers of the Transgender Movement

The transgender movement began as the brainchild of three men who shared a common bond: all three were pedophilia activists.

The story starts with the infamous Dr. Alfred Kinsey, a biologist and sexologist whose legacy endures today. Kinsey believed that all sex acts were legitimate—including pedophilia, bestiality, sadomasochism, incest, adultery, prostitution, and group sex. He authorized despicable experiments on infants and toddlers to gather information to justify his view that children of any age enjoyed having sex. Kinsey advocated the normalization of pedophilia and lobbied against laws that would protect innocent children and punish sexual predators.

Transsexualism was added to Kinsey’s repertoire when he was presented with the case of an effeminate boy who wanted to become a girl. Kinsey consulted an acquaintance of his, an endocrinologist by the name of Dr. Harry Benjamin. Transvestites, men who dressed as women, were well-known. Kinsey and Benjamin saw this as an opportunity to change a transvestite physically, way beyond dress and make-up. Kinsey and Benjamin became professional collaborators in the first case of what Benjamin would later call “transsexualism.”

Benjamin asked several psychiatric doctors to evaluate the boy for possible surgical procedures to feminize his appearance. They couldn’t come to a consensus on the appropriateness of feminizing surgery. That didn’t stop Benjamin. On his own, he began offering female hormone therapy to the boy. The boy went to Germany for partial surgery, and Benjamin lost all contact with him, making any long-term follow-up impossible.

The Tragic Story of the Reimer Twins

The third co-founder of today’s transgender movement was psychologist Dr. John Money, a dedicated disciple of Kinsey and a member of a transsexual research team headed by Benjamin.

Money’s first transgender case came in 1967 when he was asked by a Canadian couple, the Reimers, to repair a botched circumcision on their two-year-old son, David. Without any medical justification, Money launched into an experiment to make a name for himself and advance his theories about gender, no matter what the consequences to the child. Money told the distraught parents that the best way to assure David’s happiness was to surgically change his genitalia from male to female and raise him as a girl. As many parents do, the Reimers followed their doctor’s orders, and David was replaced with Brenda. Money assured the parents that Brenda would adapt to being a girl and that she would never know the difference. He told them that they should keep it a secret, so they did—at least for a while.

Activist doctors like Dr. Money always look brilliant at first, especially if they control the information that the media report. Money played a skilled game of “catch me if you can,” reporting the success of the boy’s gender change to the medical and scientific community and building his reputation as a leading expert in the emerging field of gender change. It would be decades before the truth was revealed. In reality, David Reimer’s “adaptation” to being a girl was completely different from the glowing reports concocted by Money for journal articles. By age twelve, David was severely depressed and refused to return to see Money. In desperation, his parents broke their secrecy, and told him the truth of the gender reassignment. At age fourteen, David chose to undo the gender change and live as a boy.

In 2000, at the age of thirty-five, David and his twin brother finally exposed the sexual abuse Dr. Money had inflicted on them in the privacy of his office. The boys told how Dr. Money took naked photos of them when they were just seven years old. But pictures were not enough for Money. The pedophilic doctor also forced the boys to engage in incestuous sexual activities with each other.

The consequences of Money’s abuse were tragic for both boys. In 2003, only three years after going public about their tortured past, David’s twin brother, Brian, died from a self-inflicted overdose. A short while later, David also committed suicide. Money had finally been exposed as a fraud, but that didn’t help the grieving parents whose twin boys were now dead.

The exposure of Money’s fraudulent research results and tendencies came too late for people suffering from gender issues, too. Using surgery had become well-established by then, and no one cared that one of its founders was discredited.

Results from Johns Hopkins: Surgery Gives No Relief

Dr. Money became the co-founder of one of the first university-based gender clinics in the United States at Johns Hopkins University, where gender reassignment surgery was performed. After the clinic had been in operation for several years, Dr. Paul McHugh, the director of psychiatry and behavioral science at Hopkins, wanted more than Money’s assurances of success immediately following surgery. McHugh wanted more evidence. Long-term, were patients any better off after surgery?

McHugh assigned the task of evaluating outcomes to Dr. Jon Meyer, the chairman of the Hopkins gender clinic. Meyer selected fifty subjects from those treated at the Hopkins clinic, both those who had undergone gender reassignment surgery and those who had not had surgery. The results of this study completely refuted Money’s claims about the positive outcomes of sex-change surgery. The objective report showed no medical necessity for surgery.

On August 10, 1979, Dr. Meyer announced his results: “To say this type of surgery cures psychiatric disturbance is incorrect. We now have objective evidence that there is no real difference in the transsexual’s adjustments to life in terms of job, educational attainment, marital adjustment and social stability.” He later told The New York Times: “My personal feeling is that the surgery is not a proper treatment for a psychiatric disorder, and it’s clear to me these patients have severe psychological problems that don’t go away following surgery.”

Less than six months later, the Johns Hopkins gender clinic closed. Other university-affiliated gender clinics across the country followed suit, completely ceasing to perform gender reassignment surgery. No success was reported anywhere.

Results from Benjamin’s Colleague: Too Many Suicides

It was not just the Hopkins clinic reporting lack of outcomes from surgery. Around the same time, serious questions about the effectiveness of gender change came from Dr. Harry Benjamin’s partner, endocrinologist Charles Ihlenfeld.

Ihlenfeld worked with Benjamin for six years and administered sex hormones to 500 transsexuals. Ihlenfeld shocked Benjamin by publicly announcing that 80 percent of the people who want to change their gender shouldn’t do it. Ihlenfeld said: “There is too much unhappiness among people who have had the surgery…Too many end in suicide.” Ihlenfeld stopped administering hormones to patients experiencing gender dysphoria and switched specialties from endocrinology to psychiatry so he could offer such patients the kind of help he thought they really needed.

In the wake of the Hopkins study, the closure of the flagship Hopkins clinic, and the warning sounded by Ihlenfeld, advocates of sex change surgery needed a new strategy. Benjamin and Money looked to their friend, Paul Walker, PhD, a homosexual and transgender activist they knew shared their passion to provide hormones and surgery. A committee was formed to draft standards of care for transgenders that furthered their agenda, with Paul Walker at the helm. The committee included a psychiatrist, a pedophilia activist, two plastic surgeons, and a urologist, all of whom would financially benefit from keeping gender reassignment surgery available for anyone who wanted it. The “Harry Benjamin International Standards of Care” were published in 1979 and gave fresh life to gender surgery.

My Experience with Dr. Walker

I myself suffered greatly to come to terms with my gender. In 1981, I sought out Dr. Walker to ask him, the man who wrote the standards of care, for help. Walker said I was suffering from gender dysphoria. A mere two years after both the Hopkins study and the public statements of Ihlenfeld drew attention to the increased suicide risk associated with gender change, Walker, even though he was completely aware of both reports, signed my approval letter for hormones and surgery.

Under his guidance, I underwent gender reassignment surgery and lived for eight years as Laura Jensen, female. Eventually, I gathered the courage to admit that the surgery had fixed nothing—it only masked and exacerbated deeper psychological problems.The deception and lack of transparency I experienced in the 1980s still surround gender change surgery today. For the sake of others who struggle with gender dysphoria, I cannot remain silent.

It is intellectually dishonest to ignore the facts that surgery never has been a medically necessary procedure for treating gender dysphoria and that taking cross-gender hormones can be harmful. Modern transgender activists, the descendants of Kinsey, Benjamin, and John Money, keep alive the practice of medically unnecessary gender-change surgery by controlling the flow of published information and by squelching research and personal stories that tell of the regret, unhappiness, and suicide experienced by those who undergo such surgery. Negative outcomes are only acknowledged as a way to blame society for its transphobia.

Transgender clients who regret having taken this path are often full of shame and remorse. Those who regret their decision have few places to turn in a world of pro-transgender activism. For me, it took years to muster the courage to stand up and speak out about the regret.

I only wish Dr. Paul Walker had been required to tell me about both reports when I consulted him: the Hopkins study showing surgery did not alleviate severe psychological problems, and Ihlenfeld’s observation of the continuing transgender unhappiness and high incidence of suicide after hormones and surgery. This information might not have stopped me from making that disastrous decision—but at least I would have known the dangers and pain that lay ahead.

Walt Heyer is an author and public speaker with a passion to help others who regret gender change. Through his website, SexChangeRegret.com, and his blog, WaltHeyer.com, Heyer raises public awareness about the incidence of regret and the tragic consequences suffered as a result. Heyer’s story can be read in novel form in Kid Dakota and The Secret at Grandma’s House and in his autobiography, A Transgender’s Faith. Heyer’s other books include Paper Genders and Gender, Lies and Suicide.

#transgender

2 notes · View notes