#when your family wasn’t evangelical but might as well have been and they were as funny as you were gonna get under supervision

[nicollekidman]

feel like pure shit just wanna be hunched in front of my family’s shared desktop computer giggling hysterically to these friends

[baelpenrose]

Project Praetorian 48: What Happened At Esquiline Base

What happened at that third base? Who are these new members? Well, this deserves an answer. Starting at about the same time Molly arrives, let's see who these other members are. @canyouhearthelight beta read and really wanted to hear this story, and see what their specializations were. Also, TW for child abuse mentions, transphobia, gun violence, police brutality, and...at this point if I say "imperator-typical shittiness" you can guess what's going to happen to both of the new team members at the first part of their stories, right?

Amaryllis

She could remember the day that she’d come out of the closet to her evangelical parents - or more accurately, the day that she’d made a mistake and told the wrong school employee, who’d slipped up and told her parents. 

Who had been under the impression that they’d had a son. Actually, technically, her parents were correct that they had one son. Where they were wrong is that they thought they had two.

They already weren’t exactly the best to her autistic twin, either, who was still stuck at some screwed up specialized treatment, but at least Nicolas wasn’t full on disowned, even if he was going through a lot of shit. 

But no, when the bastards had learned she was trans, she was out. They’d told her that they could have lived with her trying it and being honest so they could help her see sense, but she’d embarrassed them and lived in sin behind their backs, made them look stupid in front of the community, and she was out on the street. 

Because making your kid homeless was so much better than having a trans kid. 

She’d been hungry for a while. There were a few friends she could have crashed with, but given that she lived in Tennessee, where taking in a homeless queer teenager might get someone’s own kids taken for ‘endangering’ them, her friends’ parents weren’t exactly willing to run the risk - though they were willing to put her up in motels on and off.

Still, it hadn’t taken long for her to start getting really desperate. She knew she couldn’t rely on charity forever, even if her friends were working part time jobs to pass her money occasionally. 

She couldn’t get a job on her own, not a legal one. 

Then she’d been arrested when some fucking Karen had called the cops on her for being in a public park and scaring the kids.

But the cops…hadn’t been cops. Or they had been, but they had taken a blood sample at the station, told her it was to check for diseases common for ‘her type,’ - and then the liquid had turned blue. They’d turned pale, walked out of the station, and called someone else. She’d been left in the room to get anxious, then almost three hours later, a car with tinted windows had rolled up and someone had stepped out, paid her bail, and shoved her into the back of the car with a hood over her head.

Dante

It had been rough, when his mom had remarried. Granted, his dad had been pretty much everything liberal fathers were stereotyped as being - a worthless deadbeat who blamed society for his problems and refused to take care of his family in any way - but Dante’s mom had gone and overcorrected for that problem by marrying a fascist in a nice suit and a middle manager position. 

He’d started antagonizing the old man, and he’d underestimated how badly his mom had wanted to keep the marriage together. Eventually he’d found himself shipped off to what was supposed to be a military boarding school for troubled teenagers. Wasn’t like they wouldn’t believe it - he’d worn a lot of leather and cut his own hair, and these days that was enough. Had been since the riots back in ‘27.

When he’d gotten there, they’d done a basic blood test, nothing serious, they assured him. Just a basic test to make sure he wasn’t on any serious drugs. He hadn’t been too worried - all he’d ever done was weed, and even then, it had been over a year.

Then he’d gotten told he was getting pulled from that school and reassigned to a different one based on the result of the blood test. 

The base was huge, barbed-wire fortifications around it - sniper towers. He’d been brought into a tiny dorm with what was either a cute trans girl or a reasonably cute crossdressing femboy, and he wasn’t entirely sure he cared which. 

The other teen - he? She? - Trans pin, she - looked at him nervously, and Dante nodded. “Hey. Dante. Your name?” 

“Amaryllis. They tell you anything?”

Dante shook his head. “No. How long ago did you get here?”

“Just yesterday.” 

Amaryllis

She’d come to get to know Dante over several days, and let him get to know her. It was easy to stay up all night talking to someone. It wasn’t like she couldn’t talk to her friends back home, but…there was a difference between always being afraid that you could say the wrong thing, and the freedom that came from knowing that the worst that could happen from being herself had already happened. She had already been shoved out into the streets and then kidnapped into some fucked up military blacksite - that was about as bad as it got.

And hell, Dante apparently had a shitty relationship with his parents too.

And he didn’t look at her like a mutant. Fuck, he showed her a better shaving trick to stay smooth than she’d ever figured out to help with the dysphoria. 

Though she could not for the life of her figure out where he’d picked it up since he was obviously the kind of guy who kept up a five o’clock shadow as a fashion statement, despite being only sixteen.

When they’d gone through their first round of testing, she’d found herself screaming, over and over, and begging to be let out, but Dante had stayed cold. Told her, after, that all fascists wanted was to hear you beg, and he was never going to give them that satisfaction. 

When they’d gone to the shooting range, and been shouted at by the drill sergeant, some guy named Richards, she’d seen him flinching, trying not to pull away from the gun. He’d stayed cool, because of course he had. But…

When they’d been racking the guns, she’d asked.  “What’s got you flinching so hard on the range?”

He’d frozen for a second. Then he’d sighed. “My stepdad. Mom married him when I was ten, after my biodad split. He said I was a giant pussy, and…I used to feed this feral cat, right? And…hey, you grew up in Tennessee. You know how abusive rednecks teach their kids that guns are for real, right? Well, apparently, rich assholes with fucked up ideas about masculinity take notes.” 

Amaryllis did. “I’m so sorry.” 

Dante shrugged. “She was so soft, and…I can remember how I felt, opening that box, and seeing what I’d done…” He shuddered. “It’s hard to shoot without thinking about it. And if we’re going to be fighting…I need to get over it.”

“You shouldn’t.”

He’d shoved her in the shoulder. “I need to watch your back, right? And we’re gonna need to blast our way out of this shitshow eventually. The higher ups already let something slip, there’s other kids like us at another base like this, and we’re gonna be meeting them eventually.” 

Amaryllis had felt her heart race when he’d said it. More like them? “Team up and go?”

“Or team up and figure out if these fuckers are lying about the aliens. Either way, they say there’s some guy we’re supposed to be taking orders from, some Lieutenant Ascher, who calls the shots for the mutated kids. I figure we’ll get a bead on him and put him on his ass. Don’t think any guy who needs to boss around kidnapped kids will be that tough.” 

Amaryllis had smiled. “Not for you, for sure. Hey, I hear we’re supposed to be doing actual drills tomorrow?”

“Oh, god, don’t remind me.”

“Lights out?” 

He reached over and hit the switch.

She’d initially been mad at sharing a room - it had seemed like a slight to be shoved in the room with a boy, and knowing full well that this was totally done because Imperator didn’t acknowledge her identity didn’t make it easier. But sharing a room was rapidly becoming one of her few comforts. 

The brutal physical training had been exhausting. Hiking with the gear on, especially after running, was brutal, and the lifting - she hadn’t known how much she could lift until she’d been forced to find out, but when she’d found out it had hurt like a bitch. Dante had left her in the dust on that side of things - apparently one of the few things his stepdad had been open to him doing with friends was camping trips, so he knew how to haul a pack.

Dante had started coughing on the run. He’d forced himself to keep going, visibly. The trainer had shouted at him to stop faking, because they already knew he didn’t have asthma. 

Apparently, though, he did have some lung damage from smoking, marajuana mostly. 

She’d read somewhere that that was the kind of thing that would clear up eventually, but for now…she slapped him on the back and told him she’d shower fast, and that he should take a long one with lots of steam. 

While he was showering, she grabbed some hot tea for both of them, only to find him coming out of the shower in the nightwear, and noticing something she’d been ignoring. 

“Amayrillis. What the hell happened to your shoulder?”

“Uh…must have fucked it up when I fumbled the bar on the weights, why?”

Then he was grabbing it, gently, doing some kind of massage, some kind of pressure point thing. “I can probably get some ice, if you want. Real talk though, here’s hoping the other base has a medic.” 

“Heh. Yeah.” She glanced up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the fact that she was flushing at the touch.

He’d want a real girl. A horrible voice inside her head whispered. Not a freak.

He likes weird, he hates normal, he loves people who are themselves. That’s kind of his whole thing. She told herself, desperately.

“So, did they mention anything about when they’re shipping us that way?”

“Uhh…not that I know of. Hopefully soon? Sooner we see who these other people are, the better. And let’s hope the uniforms aren’t shit. Maybe a bit of leather, or like black coats? We should be allowed to look badass if we have to put up with this shit.”

They both started laughing, then Dante started coughing and Amaryllis started pushing the tea towards him as she rocked him. “Hey, hey. You okay?”

He took a shaky sip of tea. “Should be. Thanks…you steeped this perfect.” He took a slower sip. “You’re really cute when you fuss.”

“It’s mint. You should inhale the steam.” She blurted out. “Might help a little more.”

He looked at her, and she followed up. “My…brother is autistic, and my mom tried like, all the herbals. All of them. Didn’t change shit, but wound up learning a lot of actually useful stuff about herbal medicine for coughs and aches.” 

Dante snorted, coughed again, and slowly inhaled a lungful of the steam before drinking. “I’d ask who’d have thought that kind of thing would be useful, but I did have a teacher who talked a lot about Operation Paperclip and NASA, so…”

“Never lose a shot, do you?” 

“I do recall you asking how anyone would get tired enough of me to send me away,” he replied, wryly. 

“I…really still can’t imagine ever getting tired of you.” She said, wondering if that smile on his face was actually as tender as she hoped it was.

****

Dante

Three months. Three months in this hell, no friends, no mom, but hey, no stepdad. A kickass girlfriend that he’d have loved to write to his friends about, and who he was going to have to find a way of blackmailing someone into making hormones for. All things considered, like. One, help with her dysphoria, and two, he was bi as fuck, but she did want boobs and he was not at all opposed to the concept.

And he figured if this shitshow was able to make torture-mutation juice to manufacture superheroes, they could definitely whip up normal-ass HRT. 

What else had happened? Well, on the list of things he’d never forgive Imperator for, he’d been forced to admit his stepdad was right. Not about manhood, obviously, but about the fact that it was deeply satisfying to be a good shot, which he now finally was after an exhausting number of repetitions of “Shoot gun, get triggered, miss Patch, get held by Amaryllis, feel better, try again.” 

On the list of things he was not expecting to be happy about but would reluctantly admit to being satisfied with - he was now a much, much better shot than his stepdad ever had been. 

Then there’d been the day that he’d blown out the lights by mistake and been told his powers had manifested, and been dragged off to ‘special testing’ to find his limits.

And then there’d been the day they’d finally realized what the situation was with Amaryllis. Her reaction times were absurd - apparently “beyond what they’d believed possible, even observing other Praetorians with similar capabilities.” They’d decided that she was going to be the Praetorians’ dedicated pilot. Not even a direct combat agent. So she’d been shoved into simulations, even as he’d been asked to test himself against captured alien equipment.

Those next months had been the hardest. When they’d barely seen each other. Still, it had been good, when he’d finally been given an experimental weapon, one that let him pull static from the air and use it to power the weapon. One that let him throw a tungsten slug hard enough to punch through a tank.

Then of course, he’d seen her. Every day. Coming into the mess not in combat armor, but in a flight suit. Holy fuck she’d looked so good. If they were going to war, he could only imagine how satisfying every finished mission would be when getting home meant jumping into a drop ship with her in the cockpit.

Then, without ever being told the reason why the decision had been made, they’d been given the order that they were going to pack their shit, the experimental railgun, their few belongings, all of it, and head to the main base. 

***

Amaryllis 

It had been a long ride, and she hadn’t been the one flying. Instead, they’d speculated.  “So, we’re meeting our team. Supposedly a medic, right?”

“Yep, and supposedly, a few people with physical powers scarier than yours.” 

“Some hacker who probably knows what we had for breakfast this morning, if you listen to the guards.”

“And some guy, some…Lieutenant Ascher, who we’re supposed to be taking orders from.” 

She wondered what kind of soldier would be comfortable commanding a detachment of child soldiers. Even child supersoldiers. She leaned against Dante on the narrow bench, and Dante put his arm around her. 

“We’re finally going to the main base.”

“Let’s hope the rest of the team are as good as they’re cracked up to be.” 

As they approached, they looked down at the grounds they’d be living in and saw something going on down there. Some kind of fire? The pilot muttered something as he got ready to put the chopper down.

Dante

When they touched down, Dante and Amaryllis left the chopper. They grabbed their gear and headed off the airstrip, meeting a skinny guy who Dante assumed was another conscript. 

“You’re the new people, right? Welcome to Palatine. The rest of the team would be here but you departed Esquiline ahead of schedule, so they’re doing last minute food prep.” The other boy was shouting over the roar of the chopper. “Tradition, you know. We try to welcome newbies with a feast. Come with me. I’ll introduce you.”

“What’s your name?” Amaryllis was shouting as well.

Dante was more curious about the other boy’s remark about schedule. There’d been a schedule? How had these kids known it had changed? Their hacker? 

“My name is Mark Ascher. I’m the commander of the Praetorian corps. We fought really hard to have our own chain of command. Echo tells me one of you is Dante and that Imperator’s records for the other name should be considered unreliable.” 

Dante blinked. This was Lieutenant Ascher? This skinny nerd? Yeah, he knew more than he should have, but…then the second part of that hit. They’d fought Imperator to get their own chain of command, and this boy had earned the right to claim that honor. And then the rest - Mark already knew his name. And whoever their hacker was, this Echo…was good enough to find Amaryllis’s deadname and deduce from whatever derogatory shit Imperator had that it wasn’t the right one.

“Amaryllis.” 

“Good to meet you. Come on. Food should be ready.”

Dante held out his arm to Amaryllis. If nothing else, they’d make a proper entrance to their new life. 

Amaryllis remembered what she’d needed to ask. “Hey, wait. Dante, there’s supposed to be that medic here, we can get your lungs looked at.” 

Mark’s head snapped around. “What’s up? Asthma?”

Dante groaned. “No, just a little bit of damage from smoking.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “Good timing getting here. Sit down at the table, Shiloh can unfuck your lungs.” He walked over, and flashed a dozen rapid fire gestures at someone, who gestured back. “They say you’re an idiot but that they’re seeing more and more evidence looking at Koleth’s notes that we might be immune to cancer, so hey, silver lining. Regular checkups if you’re dumb enough to keep doing it. They also said to sit down over there.” 

Dante took the orders dumbly - this all sounded insane to him. 

Then a person who somehow looked even more genderqueer than Amaryllis had in that patchwork dress he’d first seen her in decided to slam their hands against his back, and briefly make him feel like his lungs were itching on the inside, like the linings were about to crawl out.

Then he felt amazing. 

“Thank you.” He turned to the medic. 

A huge blonde guy whose shirt only barely contained his muscles shrugged. “Shiloh is deaf/mute. They can talk, they don’t. And they only wear hearing aids when they have to.” 

Dante blinked. The other guy held out a big hand. “Jonathan Mason. The medic is Shiloh Winters. You’ll get used to everyone here. Me and Shys did and we’ve been here for years now.”

Years. Holy shit. “Can you tell them thanks for me?”

Jonathan signed slowly, and then nodded. “They say ‘welcome.’ Now eat something, and they’re going to as well. We’ve been getting bugged for days that satellites picked up something, and Echo is pretty sure we’re going to be called on action soon.”

Dante sat down next to Amaryllis and found her already talking to some girl with a midwest accent, and glanced over and saw a large African American boy arguing with a white dude with a fashy crew cut, but both of them seemed ready to start shoving or start laughing.

A few younger kids - a redheaded girl, a blonde boy, and a girl with dirty brown hair - were eating over at another table, and he could tell both the former two were fixated on the third.  Which had to be unfortunate for the little ginger, because she had a huge cross around her neck, as though it was there to ward off the gay thoughts that were clearly making her every moment a torment. 

Fuck it, closet doors exist to be kicked down. 

He pulled Amaryllis in for a quick kiss, and after the tension about arriving here she melted into it easily.

Then he saw the eyes of the girl Amaryllis had been talking to - and their fixation on the too-young Lieutenant. 

Alright. Not the worst place to wind up. 

He started digging into the food - and he hadn’t gotten far when the alarms started going off. 

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hello, it is I, your friendly neighborhood historian. I am ready to lose followers for this post, but I have two masters degrees in history and one of my focuses has been middle eastern area studies. Furthermore, I’ve been tired of watching the world be reduced to pithy little infographics, and I believe there is no point to my education if I don’t put it to good use. Finally, I am ethnically Asheknazi Jewish. This does not color my opinion in this post — I am in support of either a one or two state solution for Israel and Palestine, depending on the factors determined by the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli Government does not speak for me. I hate Netanyahu. A lot. With that said, my family was slaughtered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have stood in front of that memorial wall at the Holocaust memorial in DC for my great uncle Simon and my great uncle Louis and cried as I lit a candle. Louis was a rabbi, and he preached mitzvot and tolerance. He died anyway. 

There’s a great many things I want to say about what is happening in the Middle East right now, but let’s start with some facts. 

In early May, there were talks of a coalition government that might have put together (among other parties, the Knesset is absolutely gigantic and usually has about 11-13 political parties at once) the Yesh Atid, a center-left party, and the United Arab List, a Palestinian party. For the first time, Palestinians would have been members of the Israeli government in their own right. And what happened, all of the sudden? A war broke out. A war that, amazingly, seemed to shield Benjamin Netanyahu from criminal prosecution, despite the fact that he has been under investigation for corruption for some time now and the only thing that is stopping a real investigation is the fact that he is Prime Minister.

Funny how that happened. 

There’s a second thing people ought to know, and it is about Hamas. I’ve found it really disturbing to see people defending Hamas on a world stage because, whether or not people want to believe it, Hamas is a terrorist organization. I’m sorry, but it is. Those are the facts. I’m not being a right wing extremist or even a Republican or whatever else or want to lob at me here. I’m a liberal historian with some facts. They are a terrorist organization, and they don’t care if their people die. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

There are two governments for the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. In April 2021, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas postponed planned elections. He said it was because of a dispute amid Israeli-annexed East Jerusalum. He is 85 years old, and his Fatah Party is losing power to Hamas. Everyone knows that. Palestinians know that. 

Here’s the thing about Hamas: they might be terrorists, but aren’t idiots. They understand that they have a frustrated population filled with people who have been brutalized by their neighbors. And they also understand that Israel has something called the iron dome defense system, which means that if you throw a rocket at it, it probably won’t kill anyone (though there have been people in Israel who died, including Holocaust survivors). Israel will, however, retaliate, and when they do, they will kill Palestinian civilians. On a world stage, this looks horrible. The death toll, because Palestinians don’t have the same defense system, is always skewed. Should the Israeli government do that? No. It’s morally repugnant. It’s wrong. It’s unfair. It’s hurting people without the capability to defend themselves. But is Hamas counting on them to for the propaganda? Yeah. Absolutely. They’re literally willing to kill their other people for it.

You know why this works for Hamas? They know that Israel will respond anyway, despite the moral concerns. And if you’re curious why, you can read some books on the matter (Six Days of War by Michael Oren; The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich; Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergmen; Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt; and Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis). The TL;DR, if you aren’t interested in homework, is that Israel believes they have no choice but to defend themselves against what they consider ‘hostile powers.’ And it’s almost entirely to do with the Holocaust. It’s a little David v Goliath. It is, dare I say, complicated.

I’m barely scratching the surface here. 

(We won’t get into this in this post, though if you want to DM me for details, it might be worth knowing that Iran funds Hamas and basically supplies them with all of their weapons, and part of the reason the United States has been so reluctant to engage with this conflict is that Iran is currently in Vienna trying to restore its nuclear deal with western powers. The USA cannot afford to piss off Iran right now, and therefore cannot afford to aggravative Hamas and also needs to rely on Israel to destroy Irani nuclear facilities if the deal goes south. So, you know, there is that).

There are some people who will tell you that criticism of the Israel government is antisemitic. They are almost entirely members of the right wing, evangelical community, and they don’t speak for the Jewish community. The majority of Jewish people and Jewish Americans in particular are criticizing the Israeli government right now. The majority of Jewish people in the diaspora and in Israel support Palestinian rights and are speaking out about it. And actually, when they talk about it, they are putting themselves in great danger to do so. Because it really isn’t safe to be visibly Jewish right now. People may not want to listen to Jews when they speak about antisemitism or may want to believe that antisemitism ‘isn’t real’ because ‘the Holocaust is over’ but that is absolutely untrue. In 2019, antisemitic hate crimes in the United States reached a high we have never seen before. I remember that, because I was living in London, and I was super scared for my family at the time. Since then, that number has increased by nearly 400% in the last ten days. If you don’t believe me, have some articles about it (one, two, three, four, and five, to name a few). 

I live in New York City, where a man was beaten in Time Square while attending a Free Palestine rally and wearing a kippah. I’m sorry, but being visibly Jewish near a pro-Palestine rally? That was enough to have a bunch of people just start beating on him? I made a previous post detailing how there are Jews being attacked all over the world, and there is a very good timeline of recent hate crimes against Jews that you can find right here. These are Jews, by the way, who have nothing to do with Israel or Palestine. They are Americans or Europeans or Canadians who are living their lives. In some cases, they are at pro-Palestine rallies and they are trying to help, but they just look visibly Jewish.  God Forbid we are the wrong ethnicity for your rally, even if we agree.

This is really serious. There are people calling for the death of all Jews. There are people calling for another Holocaust. 

There are 14 million Jews in the world. 14 million. Of 7.6 billion. And you think it isn’t a problem the way people treat us?

Anyway (aside from, you know, compassion), why does this matter? This matters because stuff like this deters Jews who want to be part of the pro-Palestine movement because they are literally scared for their safety. I said this before, and I will say it again: Zionism was, historically speaking, a very unpopular opinion. It was only widespread antisemitic violence (you know, the Holocaust) that made Jews believe there was a necessity for a Jewish state. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that I supported it the abstract idea too.

I grew up in New York City, I am a liberal Jew, and I believe in the rights of marginalized and oppressed people to self-determine worldwide. Growing up, I also fit the profile of what many scholars describe as the self hating Jew, because I believed that, in order to justify myself in American liberal society, I had to hate Israel, and I had to be anti-Zionist by default, even if I didn’t always understand what ‘Zionism’ meant in abstract. Well, I am 27 years old now with two masters degrees in history, and here is what Zionism means to me: I hate the Israeli government. They do not speak for me. But I am not anti-Zionist. I believe in the necessity for a Jewish state — a state where all Jews are welcome, regardless of their background, regardless of their nationality. 

There needs to be a place where Jews, an ethnic minority who are unwelcome in nearly every state in the world, have a place where they are free from persecution — a place where they feel protected. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that place being the place where Jews are ethnically indigenous to. Because believe it or not, whether it is inconvenient, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. I’ve addressed this in this post.

With that said, that doesn’t mean you can kick the Palestinian people out. They are also indigenous to that land, which is addressed in the same post, if you don’t trust me. 

What is incredible to me is that Zionism is defined, by the Oxford English Dixtionary, as “A movement [that called originally for] the reestablishment of a Jewish nationhood in Palestine, and [since 1948] the development of the State of Israel.” Whether we agree with this or not, there were early disagreements about the location of a ‘Jewish state,’ and some, like Maurice de Hirsch, believed it ought to be located in South America, for example. Others believed it should be located in Africa. The point is that the original plans for the Jewish state were about safety. The plan changed because Jews wanted to return to their homeland, the largest project of decolonization and indigenous reclamation ever to be undertaken by an indigenous group. Whether you want to hear that or not, it is true. Read a book or two. Then you might know what I mean.

When people say this is a complicated issue, they aren’t being facetious. They aren’t trying to obfuscate the point. They often aren’t even trying to defend the Israeli government, because I certainly am not — I think they are abhorrent. But there is no future in the Middle East if the Israelis and Palestinians don’t form a state that has an equal right of return and recognizes both of their indigenousness, and that will never happen if people can’t stop throwing vitriolic rhetoric around.  Is the Israeli Government bad? Yes. Are Israeli citizens bad? Largely, no. They want to defend their families, and they want to defend their people. This is basically the same as the fact that Palestinian people aren’t bad, though Hamas often is. And for the love of god, stop defending terrorist organizations. Just stop. They kill their own people for their own power and for their own benefit. 

And yes, one more time, the Israeli government is so, so, so wrong. But god, think about your words, and think about how you are enabling Nazis. The rhetoric the left is using is hurting Jews. I am afraid to leave my house. I’m afraid to identify as Jewish on tumblr. I’m afraid for my family, afraid for my friends. People I know are afraid for me. 

It’s 2021. I am not my great uncle. I cried for him, but I shouldn’t have to die like him. 

Words have consequences. Language has consequences. And genuinely, I do not think everyone is a bad person, so think about what you are putting into the world, because you’d be surprised how often you are doing a Nazi a favor or two. 

Is that really what you want? To do a Nazi a favor or two? I don’t think that you do. I hope you don’t, at least.

That’s all. You know, five thousand words later. But uh, think a little. Please. 

[samwisethewitch]

Coping with religious trauma

CONTENT WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS DISCUSSIONS OF MENTAL ILLNESS, TRAUMA RECOVERY, AND HOMOPHOBIA. The advice in this post is intended for an adult audience, not for those who are legal minors.

A lot of people find their way to paganism after having traumatic experiences with organized religion, especially in countries like the United States, where 65% of the population identifies as Christian. (This number is actually at an all-time low — historically, the percentage has been much higher.) Paganism, which is necessarily less dogmatic and hierarchical than the Abrahamic religions, offers a chance to experience religion without having to fit a certain mold. This can be extremely liberating for people who have felt hurt, abused, or ignored by mainstream religion.

To avoid making generalizations that might offend people, I’ll share my own story as an example.

My family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, better known as the Mormons, when I was nine years old. The Mormons are an extremely conservative sect of evangelical Christianity that places a heavy emphasis on maintaining a strong community that upholds their religious values. The problem with that is that Mormon values are inherently racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic. As a teenager in the Mormon Church, I was told that as a woman, my only purpose in life was to marry a (Mormon) man and raise (Mormon) children. I was discouraged from pursuing a college education if it meant delaying marriage. I was not allowed to participate in the full extent of religious ritual because I was not a man. I was not allowed to express myself in ways that went against Mormon culture, and I kept my bisexuality secret for fear I would be ostracized. I didn’t have any sort of support system outside the Church, which inevitably made the mental health issues that come with being a queer woman in a conservative Christian setting much, much worse.

I left the Mormons when I was seventeen, and by that time I had some major issues stemming from my time in the Church. I had been extremely depressed and anxious for most of my teen years. I struggled with internalized misogyny and homophobia. I had very low self-esteem. I had anxiety around sex and sexuality that would take years of therapy and self-work to overcome. I wanted to form a connection with the divine, but I wasn’t sure if I was worthy of such a connection.

I was attracted to paganism, specifically Wicca, because it seemed like everything Mormonism wasn’t. Wicca teaches equality between men and women, with a heavy focus on the Goddess in worship. It places an emphasis on doing what is right for you, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. It encourages sexuality and healthy sexual expression. Learning about Wicca, and later other types of paganism, helped me develop the kind of healthy spirituality I’d never experienced as a Mormon. Although Wicca is no longer the backbone of my religious practice, it was a necessary and deeply healing step on my spiritual journey.

I’m not sharing my story to gain sympathy or to make anyone feel bad — I’m sharing it because my situation is not an uncommon one in pagan circles. The vast majority of pagans are converts, meaning they didn’t grow up pagan. Some had healthy upbringings in other faiths, or no faith at all, and simply found that paganism was a better fit for them. Others, like myself, had deeply traumatic experiences with organized religion and are attracted to paganism because of the freedom, autonomy, and empowerment it offers.

If you fall into this latter category, this post is for you. Untangling the threads of religious trauma can be an extremely difficult and overwhelming task. In this post, I lay out six steps to recovery based on my own experiences and those of other people, both pagan and non-pagan, who have lived through religious trauma.

While following these steps will help jumpstart your spiritual healing, it’s important to remember that healing is not a linear process — especially healing from emotional, mental, and spiritual trauma. You may have relapses, you may feel like you’re moving in circles, and you may still have bad days in five or ten years. That’s okay. That’s part of the healing process. Go easy on yourself, and let your journey unfold naturally.

Step One: Cut all ties with the group that caused your trauma

Or, at least, cut as many ties as reasonably possible.

Obviously, if you’re still participating in a religious organization that has caused you pain, the first step is to leave! But before you do, make sure you have an exit plan to help you disengage safely and gracefully.

To make your exit plan, start by asking yourself what the best, worst, and most likely case scenarios are, and be honest in your answers. Obviously, the best case scenario is that you leave, everyone accepts it, and all is well. The worst case scenario is that someone tries to prevent you from leaving — you may be harassed by missionaries or concerned churchgoers, for example. But what is the most likely case scenario? That depends on the religious community, their beliefs, and how involved you were in the first place. When making your exit plan, prepare for the most likely scenario, but have a backup plan in case the worst case scenario happens.

Once you’ve prepared yourself for the best, worst, and most likely outcomes, choose a friend, significant other, or family member who can help you make your exit. Ideally, this person is not a member of the group you are trying to leave. Their role is mainly to provide emotional support, although they may also need to be willing to run off any well-meaning missionaries who come calling. This person can also help you transition after you leave. For example, you might make a plan to get coffee with them every week during the time your old religious community holds worship services.

Finally, make your strategy for leaving. Choose a date and don’t put it off! If you have any responsibilities within the group, send in a letter of resignation. Figure out who you’ll need to have conversations with about your leaving — this will likely include any family members or close friends who are still part of the group. Schedule those conversations. Make sure to have them in public places, where people will be less likely to make a scene.

If you feel it is necessary, you may want to request that your name be removed from the group’s membership records so you don’t get emails, phone calls, or friendly visits from them in the future. You may not feel the need to do this, but if contact with the group triggers a mental health crisis, this extra step will help keep you safe.

Of course, it’s not always possible to completely cut ties with a group after leaving. You may have family members, a significant other, or close friends who are still members. If this is the case, you’ll need to establish some clear boundaries. Politely but firmly tell them that, although you’re glad their faith adds value to their lives, you are not willing to be involved in their religious activities. Let them know that this is what is best for your mental and emotional health and that you still value your relationship with them.

Try to make compromises that allow you to preserve the relationship without exposing you to a traumatic religious environment. For example, if your family is Christian and always spends all day on Christmas at church, offer to celebrate with them the day after, once their religious commitments are over.

Hopefully, your loved ones can respect these boundaries. If not, you may need to distance yourself or walk away altogether. If they are knowingly undermining your attempts to take care of yourself, they don’t deserve to be in your life.

During this time, you may find it helpful to read other people’s exit stories online or in books. One of my personal favorites is the book Girl at the End of the World by Elizabeth Esther. Hearing other people’s stories can help you remember that other people have been through similar situations and made it out on the other side. You will too.

Step Two: Seek professional help

I cannot overstate the importance of professional counseling when dealing with trauma of any kind, including religious trauma. Therapists and counselors have the benefit of professional training. They are able to be objective, since they’re approaching the situation from the outside. They can keep you from getting bogged down in your own thoughts and feelings.

I understand that not everyone has access to therapy. I am very lucky to have insurance that covers mental health counseling, but I know not everyone has that privilege. However, there are some options that make therapy more affordable.

There may be an organization in your area that offers free or low-cost therapy — if you live in the U.S., you can find information about these services by checking the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine or visiting mentalhealth.gov. You can also look for therapists who use a sliding scale for payment, which means they determine an hourly rate based on the client’s income. And finally, if you have a little bit of extra cash you may want to look into therapy apps like BetterHelp or Talkspace, which are typically cheaper than in-person therapy.

If none of those options work for you, the next best option is to join a support group. Support groups allow you to connect with other people whose experiences are similar to yours and, unlike therapy, they allow you to get advice and feedback from multiple people. These groups are often free, although some charge a small fee.

Finding the right group for you is important. You’re unlikely to find a group for people recovering from religious trauma but, depending on the nature of your trauma, you may fit right in with a grief and loss group, an addiction recovery group, or a group for adult survivors of child abuse. If you’re a member of the LGBTQ+ community, you may be able to find a queer support group. (The LGBTQ+ club at my college was an invaluable resource in my recovery!) Depending on your area, you may also be able to find groups for specific mental and emotional issues like depression or anxiety.

Make sure to do your research before attending a meeting. Find out what, if anything, the group charges, who can join, and whether they use a curriculum or have unstructured sessions. See if you can find a statement about their values and philosophy. Make a note of where meetings are held and of who is running the group. Some support groups meet in churches and may or may not have a religious element to their curriculum. It’s best to avoid religious groups — the last thing you need right now is to be preached to.

Getting other people involved in your recovery will make you feel less alone and prevent you from getting stuck in your own head. A good therapist, counselor, or support group can help you realize what you need to work on and give you ideas for how to approach it.

Step Three: Deprogramming

“Deprogramming” refers to the practice of undoing brainwashing and reintroducing healthy thought patterns. This term is normally used in the context of cult survivors and their recovery, but deprogramming techniques can also be helpful for people recovering from a lifetime of toxic religious rhetoric.

To begin the process of deprogramming, familiarize yourself with the way organizations use thought control to shape the behavior of their members. I recommend starting with the work of Steven Hassan — his BITE model is a handy way to classify types of thought control.

The BITE model lays out four types of control. There’s Behavior Control, which controls what members do and how they spend their free time. (For example, requiring members to attend multiple hours-long meetings each week.) There’s Information Control, which restricts members’ access to information. (For example, denying certain aspects of the group’s history.) There’s Thought Control, which shapes the way members think. (For example, classifying certain thoughts as sinful or dirty.) And finally there’s Emotional Control, which manipulates members’ emotions. (For example, instilling fear of damnation or punishment.)

Here’s a simple exercise to get you started with your deprogramming. Divide a blank sheet of paper into four equal sections. Label one section “Behavior,” one “Information,” one “Thought,” and one “Emotions.” Now, in each section, make a list of the ways your old religious group controlled — and maybe still controls — that area of your life. Once you’ve completed your lists, choose a single item from one of your lists to work on undoing.

For example, let’s say that in your “Information” column, you’ve written that you were discouraged from reading certain books because they contained “evil” ideas. (For a lot of people, this was Harry Potter. For me, it was The Golden Compass.) Pick up one of those books, and read it or listen to it as an audiobook. Once you’ve read it, write down your thoughts. Did you enjoy it? Why or why not? Why do you think your group banned it? What was in this book that they didn’t want you to know about? Write it down.

Once you’ve worked on the first thing, choose something else. Keep going until you’ve undone all the items on your lists.

If you want to go further with deprogramming, I recommend the book Recovering Agency by Luna Lindsey. Although this book is specifically written for former Mormons, I genuinely believe it would be helpful to former members of other controlling religious groups as well. Lindsey does an excellent job of explaining how thought control works and of connecting it to real world examples, as well as deconstructing those ideas. Her book has been a huge help in my recovery process, and I highly recommend it.

Step Four: Replace toxic beliefs and practices with healthy ones

This goes hand-in-hand with step three, and if you’re already working on deprogramming then you’ll already have started replacing your unhealthy beliefs. This is the turning point in the recovery process. You’re no longer just undoing what others have done to you — now you get an opportunity to decide what you want to believe and do going forward. This is the time to let go of things like denial of your desires, fear of divine punishment, and holding yourself to unattainable standards. Get used to living in a way that makes you happy, without guilt.

Notice how each step builds on the previous steps. Therapy and deprogramming can help you identify what beliefs and behaviors need to be adjusted or replaced. Your therapist, support group, and/or emotional support person can help you make these changes and follow through on them.

These new beliefs and practices don’t have to be religious — in fact, it’s better if they aren’t. If you can live a healthy, happy, balanced life without religion, you’ll be in a better position to choose a religion that is the right fit for you, if that is something you want.

Your new healthy, non-religious practices may include: mindfulness meditation, nature walks, journaling, reading, exercise, energy work, learning a hobby or craft, or spending time with loves ones — or it might include none of these things, and that’s okay too. Now is the time to find what brings you joy and start doing it every day.

Step Five: Ritual healing

This is an optional step, but it’s one that has been deeply healing for me. You may find it helpful to design and perform a ritual to mark your recovery.

Note that when I say “ritual,” I don’t necessarily mean magic. Rituals serve a psychological purpose as well as a spiritual one. They can act as powerful symbolic events that mark a turning point in our lives or reinforce what we already know and believe. Even if you don’t believe in magic, even if you’re the least spiritual person you know, you can still benefit from ritual.

You might choose to perform a ritual to finalize your healing, or to symbolically throw off the chains of your old religion. It can be elaborate or simple, long or short, joyful or solemn. It might include lighting a candle and saying a few words. It might include ecstatic dance. It might include drawing or painting a representation of all the negative emotions associated with your old religion, then ritually destroying it. The possibilities are literally endless. (If you’re looking for ritual ideas, I recommend the book Light Magic for Dark Times by Lisa Marie Basile.)

One type of ritual that some people find very empowering is unbaptism. An unbaptism is exactly what it sounds like — the opposite of a baptism. The idea is that, if a baptism makes a Christian, an unbaptism makes someone un-Christian, no longer part of that lineage. It is a ritual rejection of Christianity. (Obviously, this only applies if you’re a former Christian, though some of the following suggestions could be adjusted to fit a rejection of other religions.)

If you’re interested in unbaptism, here are some ideas for how it could be done:

A classic method of unbaptism is to recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards under a full moon. (For a non-Christians version, use a significant prayer from whatever religion you have left.)

Run a bath. Add a tiny pinch of sulfur (a.k.a. brimstone) to the water. Get into the bath and say, “By water I was baptized, and by water my baptism is rejected.” Submerge your entire body under the water for several seconds. When you come back up, your unbaptism is complete. (You may want to shower after this one. Sulfur does not smell good.)

The Detroit Satanic Temple has a delightfully dramatic unbaptism ritual. For a DIY version, you will need holy water or some other relic from the faith you were baptized in, a fireproof dish, a black candle, and an apple or other sweet fruit. Light the candle and place it in your fireproof dish. Toss some holy water onto the flame (not enough to extinguish it) and say, “I cast my chains into the dust of hell.” Take a bite of the apple and say, “I savor the fruit of knowledge and disobedience.” Finally, declare proudly, “I am unbaptized.” You can add “in the name of Satan” at the end or leave it out, depending on your comfort level.

Personally, I’ve never felt the need to unbaptize myself. I’ve ritually rejected my Mormon upbringing in other ways. Maybe someday I’ll decide to go for the unbaptism, but I’ve never really felt like I needed it. Likewise, you’ll need to decide for yourself what ritual(s) will work for you.

Step Six: Honor your recovery

Our first reaction to trauma is to hide it away and never speak of it again. When we do this, we do ourselves a disservice. Your recovery is a part of your life story. You had the strength to walk away from a situation that was hurting you, and that deserves to be celebrated! Be proud of yourself for how far you’ve come!

You may choose to honor your recovery by celebrating an important date every year, like the day you decided to leave the group, the date of the last meeting you attended, or the date you were removed from the membership records. Keep this celebration fun and light — get drinks with friends, bake a cake for yourself, or just take a few moments to silently acknowledge your journey.

If you feel like having a party is a bit much, you can also honor your recovery by talking to other people about your experiences. Share your story with others. If you’re feeling shy, try sharing your story anonymously online. (Reddit has several forums specifically for anonymous stories.) You’ll be amazed by how validating it can be to tell people what you’ve been through. `

Another way to honor your recovery is to work for personal and religious freedom for all people. Protest laws with religious motivations. Donate to organizations that campaign for the separation of church and state. Educate people about how to recognize an unhealthy religious organization. Let your own story motivate you to help others who are in similar situations.

And most of all, take joy in your journey. Be proud of yourself for how far you’ve come, but know that your recovery is a lifelong journey. Be gentle and understanding with yourself. You are doing what is right for you, and no god or spirit worthy of worship could ever be upset by that.

[slutauthority]

my friends know my parents are evangelical conservatives and they STILL will be shocked half of the time I bring up something from my childhood. I’d like to think it wasn’t true, but I still firmly believe if I had been outed as bisexual while I was still living in their house, I would have been sent to “counseling” with our pastor or sent away entirely until I was “fixed”. and some of my friends will be mouth agape, retorting that i don’t know that and that my parents might have surprised me. But that’s the fucked up thing, they would have gladly sent me into conversion therapy and believe they were completely justified in doing so in order to “protect” me. And no amount of sympathy they may have for me would make them change their minds because they would be doing it to “save me.”

I guess I brought this up cause I love my parents. My friends love my parents. They’ve done so much for me and people in my life and people they don’t even know. But at the end of the day, when you live in a house where the end goal is making sure your entire family is going to heaven, it doesn’t matter how great of parents they are because they will overlook my wellness and health if it means I’ll be “saved.”

[mikeepoo]

When a doctor tells you have cancer, your mortality comes into sharp focus. In my case I seem to be the one that’s least worried about the possible outcomes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about what this all possibly means. My diagnosis started off as pretty standard with a pretty treatable cancer, as is often the case the further you go in the more things change.   When my father had cancer the second time the initial diagnosis was pretty bad, but it soon became apparent that things weren’t as dire as at first expected, after several rounds of chemo and radiation, and the insertion of a 30 centimeter titanium rod in his femur, he made a recovery and has been cancer free for over 15 years. I won’t say a full recovery; in that he wasn’t the man he used to be, he was frailer, and had a lot less energy. So it isn’t always about life and death, it’s also about quality of life.   The thing that strikes me is that both my father and I are both a lot less worried about the hereafter than most people. I’m pretty sure my father has long let go of the idea of the Catholic heaven that he was brought up to believe in, and I have zero expectations, actually I expect that there is nothing after this. It thus always confuses me that many religious people who believe in a heavenly paradise in the afterlife are so afraid of death.   You would think with such a big reward waiting for you that, a terminal diagnosis would be great news, the Lord is calling you home, it should be a cause for celebration, both for the chosen one, and for his God fearing family as well. Who would want to wait for that kind of outcome?  After all, your loved ones, at least the ones who followed the path like you do will be there with you in time, so it’s really see you later, and not goodbye.   That’s not how it works though, and you just have to look at the names of hospitals to realize that a great many of them have some kind of religious foundation, so disease and death are things that would appear to be avoided.  Some Methodist hospital for example isn’t there to ease your journey into the next life by controlling your pain, no their mission is to postpone your date with the heavenly host. In fact these places are in the business of prolonging life at all costs; whatever your medical plan will bear is the amount that is required. So what gives?   I’m pretty sure that all but a few of any set of believers, don’t really believe, or at least have significant doubts about all that twaddle they’ve been fed. If you’re the Old Testament kind, like Evangelicals, you must realize that God can be a cunt, with a sick sense of humour, a history of changing his mind, and nitpicking. Jesus came to put a kinder face on all that, but the good book will tell you that that polyester/cotton blend you’re wearing could be chalked up as a bad thing, and hundreds other things besides. Even if you have the hubris to think that you have your bases covered, those near and dear to you may not be as hardcore and hence might miss the celestial boat.   It doesn’t help that there is thousands of different interpretations of what really awaits you. One pastor recently explained that you’ll be working a regular job in heaven, but you’ll be happy because there won’t be any government regulation. So all of a sudden paradise has been downgraded from eternal bliss to God’s sweatshop. I guess hell is where you’re working but in a union shop, and OSHA looking over Satan’s shoulder.   It’s not only Christians; followers of other faiths betray their fear of dying as well. In fact you have to admire those nut jobs who martyr themselves in the name of the loving God Allah, and his prophet Mohamed, they appear at least take all that bullshit as the gospel truth. I suspect like most people they’ll be sorely disappointed, but it’s not for lack of faith. If you’re a Hindu I suspect things can be a dicey, if you end up reincarnated as a Muslim boy who gets beaten to death by a Hindu mob comprised of you family and friends. May you’ll come back as a delicious chicken, which is probably better than the earthly sweatshop you’re confined to now; at least it’ll be over soon.   I tend not to worry about it. I’ve tried to live as good a life as I can, and even if I were to change my mind or want to hedge my bets, if there is such a things God, I’m pretty sure it’ll be able to see through that kind of ruse. I had a near death experience in 2006, and I was a lot closer to dying then than I think I am now, and even though delirious through some of that, I can’t say I was ever really afraid, so why start now.

[tahitianmangoes]

The Story of Ephraim Bird

Sister Amata woke suddenly. She's not the type to wake during the night so suddenly, usually a heavy sleeper but that night felt different somehow. She left her sleeping quarters, the stone floors freezing under bare feet. 

The sound was faint, so faint hat she half wondered whether it was in her head but she followed it, somehow she knew she had to, right to the door of the convent. She opened it gingerly, knowing she’d be in trouble if Mother Superior caught her.

She realised, as she saw a basket on the front step of the convent that she had been woken for a reason. She knelt down beside the basket and the sound became louder; the cooing and gurgling of a baby. The baby was sleeping quite soundly, not undernourished or in distress.

Sister Amata took the baby inside and the convent decided to take care of it.

A baby boy. They called him Ephraim.

Ephraim grew up in the convent which was located a little over the border from New Austin, past Hennigan’s Stead. It was a pleasant childhood, perhaps a more sheltered childhood than most - Ephraim would help the nuns around the convent, fixing what needed fixing or running errands for them. 

He realised early on that he liked to help people - he found being needed and depended upon was addictive.

He would drive the wagon to Blackwater every Sunday for the service there and studied the bible alongside the nuns back at the convent. At first he was unquestioning and took comfort in the pages of the book but as he grew, he saw other children his age whenever he went to the Macfarlane’s Ranch to get supplies or even when he drove the nuns to Strawberry for their evangelism… They always seemed so happy and normal. They had their friends and their toys and most importantly, they had their parents.

He was eleven or at the oldest twelve when he asked Sister Amata about his parents.

She smiled gently at him, slipping her arm around his shoulders and squeezing him. “I knew this day would come,” she said more to herself than Ephraim. “The truth is, dear boy, we don’t know for certain.”

Ephraim hadn’t prepared himself for this answer. He blinked up at the nun who had raised him with unwavering love, kindness and benevolence, her clear, blue eyes met Ephraim’s.

“I had my thoughts over the years…”

“Tell me..!” Ephraim pleaded almost desperately. 

Sister Amata smiled kindly at the boy. “Well, there was a young woman who used to come to the church over in Blackwater. Always on her own she was but she came every Sunday without fail. I would talk to her and she was polite but never really said too much… I noticed that she was in the family way but when I asked her, poor girl started sobbin’... She wasn’t married but the man she was layin’ with was. She didn’t say much about him but he was important, that was clear and he wasn’t interested in havin’ a family with her or financing her and a baby...”

Ephraim chewed his lip. “Was she my mother?”

“I don’t know for sure, dear boy. But a few months later, sure enough you were left outside on our doorstep and that poor girl stopped coming to church.”

“What did she look like?” Ephraim asked shyly. His whole life he had searched the faces of women he didn’t know hoping to see something familiar looking back at him, hoped to run into her one day in the general store or at the butchers or even just on the trail. He dreamed about her coming to the convent to take him away with her where they would live happily together.  But she never did. 

When he caught his reflection in a mirror or water, he wondered what part of him was from her? Her eyes? Her mouth? And his father? Maybe the brow or nose?

He didn't look like anyone else he knew; his skin was coffee coloured suggesting maybe Mexican or Native… His eyes round and hazel, nose crooked and lips wide and full. His hair was sleek and straight, dark mahogany. He was without a doubt handsome, but what did that matter? he’d been discarded, like trash. 

"Why, she looked just like you." Sister Amata answered with a wistful tone to her voice. 

Ephraim did his best to stop his eyes from filming over with tears, clenching his fist in his lap so the nails dug into the soft flesh of his palm. “W-why didn’t she love me?”

Ephraim was taken aback when Sister Amata threw back her head in a light-hearted laugh. “Oh Ephraim, your mother loved you very much. She loved you enough to carry you and birth you and then to make the difficult decision to give you to people who would take care of you in a way that maybe she couldn’t.” 

Ephraim swallowed, unconvinced.

"I'll let you into a secret, child, mothers don't tend to give their babies up due to lack of caring… Usually due to caring too much."

Ephraim wrinkled his nose at this. He couldn’t quite believe her, even if she was a nun.

By age thirteen, Ephraim began to question everything. If God loved everyone then why did people suffer? Those poor folk in Armadillo dying of sickness and beggars in Blackwater thankful for even a cent thrown their way. If God loved everyone, why did Ephraim’s parents abandon him?

Maybe Sister Amata could see him becoming contemptuous and jaded because she tried to talk to him, to involve him more but the more she did, the more he withdrew until, when he was fifteen, he left the convent. 

He missed Sister Amata dearly, she was the closest thing to family he had and maybe ever would have. But he needed to find himself somehow and he couldn’t do that confined in the convent’s four walls. 

Ephraim was naïve and didn’t know the way of the world. For that reason, he ended up falling in with gangs when he shouldn’t have but he found himself attracted to them. 

A few months after he had left the convent, he found himself weary and starving, feet blistered from walking and exhausted from the relentless New Austin sun. He collapsed somewhere outside of Benedict Pass and when he awoke again, he was lying on a bedroll and could smell cooked meat. When he sat up slowly and let his eyes adjust to the darkness of the evening, he could make out a large camp. He could hear chatter and laughter. That meat smelled delicious.

“Estas despierto?”

Ephraim started, looking around wildly at where the voice had come from to see a man who must have been in his late thirties or so, he was average build with a goatee and moustache, piercing dark eyes the held him in their gaze sitting beside him on a small stool.

He repeated himself, voice deep and for some reason, cast fear in Ephraim. 

“I...I don’t understand.” Ephraim stammered.

“Ah, English…” The man responded. He didn’t say anything else for a few moments and then, “are you hungry?”

Ephraim nodded hesitantly. 

“Then let’s eat!”

“Eat?” Ephraim repeated.

The man raised a thick eyebrow at Ephraim, “you think I would leave you to starve?  Flaco Hernandez might be a bastard, but I am not the devil.”

That was his name, Flaco Hernandez. He was the leader of a gang of ten or so men. He treated Ephraim with surprising care, feeding and watering him, letting him recuperate in the camp for as long as he needed. Flaco was unlike anyone Ephraim had ever met, he was boisterous, loud and had a presence that made most people shrink away. He fascinated Ephraim no end. And his gang, well they treated each other like brothers despite not being related in any way. But they were family. 

Ephraim rode with them for a while, going as far as Mexico for a month or two before they were chased by the law back into America. During this time, Ephraim learned to shoot a gun, albeit badly at first but his aim improved over time and he would often practice with empty whiskey bottles around the camo when the others were gone.

He tasted his first alcohol and had his first smoke, even had his first kiss. He learned to kill and skin an animal, how to clean and dress a wound, how to start a fire and take care of a camp. At the age of sixteen, he felt like a man and most importantly, he felt like part of something bigger than himself. He felt accepted.

But like all good things, it ended all too soon. Something had happened that caused a rift in the group - Ephraim had learned some Spanish here and there but not enough to understand the arguments. Some of the gang left for the Del Lobo. Ephraim wanted to stay with Flaco.

Flaco sighed and told him, “you’re a good boy but Flaco has to go alone. When you’re older, come and find me.”

He was being abandoned again.

He was eighteen now and Ephraim  had nothing but a horse and a revolver to his name after Flaco. He felt bitter and betrayed, his veins felt like they knotted and twisted themselves with venom. He didn’t hate Flaco for living him, he loved the man like a father and it hurt. It hurt so much that it brought stinging tears to his eyes. He spent his time in saloons, drinking until he forgot or blacked out. 

Soon enough the money dried up but his thirst for booze didn’t. He was no good at pickpocketing and lacked the guts to rob a homestead without a gang to back him up but he had befriended a working girl in a saloon in Valentine who suggested that maybe he could probably charge for his services, too.

“You’re pretty and young enough and there’s plenty of lonesome fellers out here prefer a man’s touch to a woman’s.”

Ephraim thought about it for a few days. He’d been propositioned before but had been so scared that he had fled the saloon and ended up sleeping on a bench outside the general store for the night. 

There were indeed plenty of lonely fellers out there, he knew that much. Sometimes they bought him drinks and talked to him, glad of the company of a handsome young man. Sometimes they laid their hand on his thigh and he would casually brush it off whilst talking to them. Not many of them tried to push it any further, one or two but Flaco had taught him how to deal with men who wouldn’t heed notice.

The need for drink made up his mind for him.

“Five dollars if you want me to jerk you off, ten if you want me to suck it and twenty-five to fuck.” Ephraim told his clients firmly. The words felt crass coming out of his mouth, never had he spoken like this before but the working girls had told him that boundaries were necessary in this business, lest he wanted to be taken advantage of. 

To say he liked the work would be a lie, but he liked being close to someone even if it was for a short bit. 

He could get more money in places like Saint Denis or Blackwater, steered clear of places like Strawberry where folk like him weren’t welcome. But he found that wherever he went, the men he met regardless of age or profession, were the same in a way; lonely and touch-starved like him. 

Some wanted to talk, to tell him how their wives wouldn’t fuck them anymore and that they just wanted someone to hold them, others didn’t want anything but his body. Some men returned to him a few times, taking him out for dinner or a show, showering him with compliments and gifts and paying him extra; they didn’t want the sex, just the company. Somehow that was worse.

Regardless, he always felt unclean and worthless afterwards, whether they’d fucked or not, when they left and he cleaned himself up...

What would Sister Amata say if she could see him now?

The money added up nicely and he was able to afford himself fine clothes and fancy lodgings. But no amount of pretty shirts or coats could fill the emptiness that people could. 

He drank more until the pain became nothing but numbness. Got into a few fights because of it and now bore the scar from a broken nose.  One of his regulars cooed as they stroked the scar carefully, “you need to be more careful. Wouldn’t want to ruin your pretty face, boy.”

****

After whoring for a while, he met a mysterious woman named Madam Nazar whose intricately painted cart played music and boasted of rare oddities. She was beautiful with long dark hair and bright green eyes, Ephraim had never seen a woman quite like her before. She sold him maps of hidden treasures and when he returned to her with those things, she paid him handsomely. 

He found himself on the trail a lot more because of this but it meant that he wasn’t selling himself as often and maybe that was for the better. 

The trail was a lonesome place, sometimes he went days without seeing a soul and when he did, he  became so excited, he wanted to greet them, lured in by the thought of having a conversation with someone other than his horse. He found out that this was not always the best thing to do, to his detriment. 

One afternoon while riding through Roanoke Ridge, he came across a man who was complaining of illness. He remembered those days in the convent when he had helped the nuns and the rush of pride he got from doing so and, eager to help, hopped down from his chestnut Arabian and went to the aide of the man.

When Ephraim got closer, the man rose to his feet and pointed a gun to his face. 

“Your money, now!” He demanded. 

Ephraim felt violated but more importantly, stupid. So darn stupid. He handed over his money and then, when the man turned to leave, he drew the revolver that Flaco Hernandez had given him and shot him in the back. 

He took his money back and whatever else the man had in his pockets. 

His hunger for blood was spent but his hunger for human contact was not.

 In 1898, Ephraim Bird  is 23 and travels the country looking for shiny trinkets and strange tarot cards to sell to the exquisite Madam Nazar, he tries to keep away from liquor but it seems it’s a vice he can’t shake. Along the way he beds many people in whatever town he stays in, some for cash and some for lust - men or women, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he can pretend that he is wanted by someone, even if it is for a short bit.

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

hello this isnt abt batfam or batman but i saw your age and was wondering how do i survive till 23? i am 18 now and 5 more years is very hard to survive please help

Interesting question. I turn 24 in ten days, and sometimes even I’m not sure. I guess I’ll talk about how I personally stayed alive this long before I try to give advice.

The very first thing I would say is that I am religious, and that worldview makes a difference. I don’t mean that in a “everything happens for a reason” kind of way, and as a matter of fact, I very much dislike that line of thinking. It does a lot of damage, and I’m aware that it rightly puts a lot of people off from religion in general. 

I hold two beliefs that I think are helpful in terms of survival. First, I believe that humans are by nature bad. Counterintuitive in this conversation? Stick with me. Every day, but especially at my lowest moments, I hate the things that I am. In a metaphorical sense, my mind whispers to me that I am selfish, that I am cowardly, that I think bad things and I am capable of worse. I’m hateful, I’m terrifying, and I am absolutely broken. At my core, there is something fundamentally wrong, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t fix it. 

I am disgusting. I’m several thousand evil things in a trench-coat pretending to be anything but myself, and I’m not fooling anyone. 

Well, yeah. Yeah, I’m all those things and more: manipulative, lying, self-obsessed, angry, unforgiving, and judgmental. I could, of course, go on.

Here’s the thing-- everybody is. I am no better and no worse than any other person in the universe, and though I am ever abhorrent thing, I am. I have the same dignity, the same worth, and the same life as any human anywhere. The dark things are part and parcel of my humanity, but although I am not good, I do good. 

I will never be perfect because that just isn’t possible, but I can be kind. I can be loving, I can be strong, and I can be wise. 

Shit, doesn’t that set me free?

There’s a lot more to this conversation, and the rest goes, in brief, like this: at the bottom of the darkness that is every soul, we have one great fear-- if I am truly evil, no one will ever love me. Good news on that front, there is a God who does. If that’s something you want to talk about, hey hit me up. I’ll evangelize on my own time. 

Back to it. My second belief is a kind of understanding about the passage of time, and it’s sort of hard to boil down into a few sentences, but I’ll try my best. I believe in a grand struggle between good and evil. I know the beginning of that struggle. I know the end of that struggle: that good will win. I am a part of the middle. 

I see my role in the universe as extraordinary small but absolutely necessary. I have a two-fold purpose-- love God, love humans. I interpret both as a call to help others in any way I can, and I think in the way my life has worked out so far, that’s really the most important thing keeping me alive. 

I see all of this through the frame of my religion, but I would argue that everything I’ve said so far is applicable outside of that frame, because a lot of folks get to the same place from a fully secular point of view. I cannot be perfect. I should care about and fight for other people. That’s really all we’re working from here. 

A few years back, when people asked me this question-- how do you stay alive?-- I used to answer “spite,” and that’s not untrue. I am a very angry person, and the grand majority of that anger is directed at what I perceive as unjust acts. I have a deep-seated hatred of establishments (including the established church), and you’d be shocked at how much of a motivator that can be. 

I grew up in an environment that was very intentional in teaching me to identify injustice. Though I have radically departed from many of the teachings of my childhood, the part about fighting for others was something I learned at day one, and that bit has stuck around. For the most part, I grew up in an environment where everyone was on the same page about it. 

And theeeeeeen I went to undergrad. Hello, Texas A&M. I hit campus as an 18 year old fully incapacitated by anxiety. I was the kind of person who didn’t-- in fact couldn’t-- speak in front of others. I had always lived my life in a way that minimized myself, because if I never spoke, if I never disagreed, if I never drew attention, I would never make anyone angry. I knew from experience that angry people hurt me, and I was afraid of pain. 

Then I experienced the absolute shenaniganry of conservative Texans. The culture shock sent me to space and back, and on the return trip I decided that I couldn’t be quiet anymore. 

I learned to speak my freshman year so that I could scream FUCK YOU. It was incredibly painful, and I can’t tell you exactly how I managed it other than I was angry, and I didn’t want to lose. 

I fought a similar battle on my homefront against parents that didn’t know how to deal with a daughter that disagreed, or even worse, a daughter that wasn’t okay. I wasn’t a perfect child anymore. I knew I had anxiety, I knew I was depressed, and we all knew who I blamed for that. They hadn’t been the perfect parents they thought they were. 

I found myself growing, little by little, into a person that could write and argue and hold her ground. That’s personal growth for sure, but it didn’t necessarily help my mental health. As a matter of fact, my health declined all through undergrad, and in my third and final year, I cracked.

I was desperate. I was isolated. I was flooded by fear and despair, and I was falling apart. I don’t remember huge chunks of undergrad because I was so depressed that the memories didn’t stick, but I do remember my tipping point.

It was something small. The ceiling fan in my bedroom was broken. The lighting chain worked fine, but if anyone pulled the fan chain, the whole thing would stop working. I mixed up which chain was which, pulled the wrong cord, and broke it for the fourth time. 

For some reason, that was it. I lay down on my floor and cried for an hour, and while I did, my mind went to, as the kids say, a dark place. Finally, I called my mom and begged for psychiatric medication, something I had always been afraid to ask for. At the time, my parents believed that antidepressants were overprescribed, and they mocked parents that let their children take them. 

At around the same time, I was deciding what to do with my life. I was about to graduate, and I had always wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. Instead, everyone in my life pushed me towards law school. I didn’t know what to do, but I began fantasizing, not about going to law school exactly, but about being the kind of person that could go to law school. 

I knew that law school would be entail public speaking and constant conflict and the kind of work that would be hard for a person who sometimes couldn’t leave her bed. I wanted to be someone who could do all of that, but I didn’t believe I was.

Enter Donald Trump. Post-November 2016, I struggled to understand how something like that could happen, and I watched everyone else deal with it too. I began confused, moved to distraught, then returned to what I always am: angry.

January 2017 was the inauguration and shortly afterwards, the “Muslim ban.” I read the news on my bedroom floor, and there was one specific part that stuck out to me. There were pictures of lawyers flooding the airports. There was a court case headed for SCOTUS.

I suddenly realized that one group-- one very select group-- was doing what I was powerless to accomplish. I hated establishments, and there was one group that could challenge and change them. Some people could fight in the way I wanted to, and those people were lawyers.

I have a very distinct memory of looking into the bathroom mirror of my third-year apartment and thinking, “I will be miserable for the rest of my life, no matter what I do or what career I pick. I might as well be a miserable lawyer.”

So I took my antidepressants and I went to law school. I’m not going to rehash everything that happened there in this particular post, because in this topic, I don’t think it matters. The relevant part is that I went, and I had my reason why.

Sure as hell can tell you that law school wasn’t good for my health. The last three years have been, in terms of sheer stress and despair, the worst of my life. I picked up a self-harm habit, endured consistent humiliation, cycled through six different antidepressants, had horrible relationships, and developed a psychotic disorder. Don’t get me wrong, there were good things too. I met people that are important me, and beyond that, I grew. 

I know that 18 year old me would be absolutely flabbergasted by the woman I am now, cracks and flaws included. I wouldn’t say I’m healthy or okay, but I am more healthy and more okay. I’m coming out of this mess with the institutional power I wanted, and now I get to decide what to do with it. 

I was wrong three years ago when I looked in that bathroom mirror. I know now that I won’t be miserable for the rest of my life. I’m going to be happy someday, and to the parts of me that say otherwise: fuck you. I’ve learned to say it now. 

I graduated law school this week, and this month, I’ve felt better than I ever have before. I’m singing again, I dropped two medications, and suddenly, everything is so, so funny. I’ve been laughing so hard my face hurts the day after. 

This is a huge turning point in my life, so I’ve been meditating on my past. I’ve come to the conclusion that in most of the ways that matter, I won. My family has been forced to accept what I am. I became the person I wanted to be, even though I thought I wasn’t capable of that. 

I know for sure that there will be times in my life where I hit rock bottom again, and that’s not gonna be fun. It’s likely that with my mental health issues, I will always have to work harder than my peers to get the same results. That’s unfair. 

I also know that high points exist, and I will have them. I am having them, and I will again. 

I guess in recap, I know that I have deep flaws and ugly parts, but I am at peace with that. I know that I must help others, and in pursuit of that goal, I became a person I like more than the girl I used to be. 

You have exactly the same potential. I want you to know that whatever you are now, that’s not your forever. Circumstances change, and you will change too. We’re human, you and I, and that’s an exciting thing to be. 

Your worth comes from your humanity itself, both evil and good, not the things you do or the fights you win. You never have to compare yourself to others because you are exactly the same as everybody else-- no better, but certainly no worse. You’re a person. That’s enough. 

I’m telling you all those things, and as advice, I’ll say this: get angry and fight. Fight for others. You can help them, and you should. Fight for yourself. You are worthy of respect, and everyone else should give it to you. Fight yourself. Any part of you that preaches despair is wrong. 

Find the thing that makes you angry and use it. Things are fucked up! There’s a lot to be angry about. I put it this way to my classmates, now my attorney peers: you get one hill to die on. What’s your hill? Go and defend it. 

Here’s an interesting thing, anon. Your hill can be yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re right. Five years is a lot, and all the years beyond that are more. Take your antidepressants and go.

[medea10]

My Review of Konosuba

(Short for: KonoSuba - God's Blessing on This Wonderful World)

How did I get into this anime? As you all know, I’m being an absolute lazy-ass when it comes to Isekai animes and have only gotten into the recent hits as of 2019. I already finished the suffer edition and the struggle edition. Let’s check out the light-hearted, wonk-fest! But before that…

Let’s go back to the mid-1990s and rewatch the first episode of Yu Yu Hakusho. We all remember Yusuke Urameshi sacrificing his life in order to save a child about to be hit by a truck followed by being told that the child would have survived regardless if Yusuke interfered or not. So dude just wasted his fucking life for nothing! Let’s amp this trope up to 483 with the way our main lead in Konosuba dies. Kazuma Satou was on his way back home from purchasing a video game when he noticed a girl about to be hit by a car. He pushes her out of the way and yada, yada, yada he’s dead!

He is now in a limbo setting, standing before a goddess named Aqua who tells Kazuma that his death was absolutely meaningless. Not only would the girl have survived, it wasn’t even a car, it was a slow-moving tractor. And Kazuma didn’t get hit by the tractor, he suffered a heart attack due to shock, followed by pissing his pants, followed by doctors, family, and relations laughing at Kazuma’s humiliating experience. And then he dies!

Aqua tells Kazuma that he has two options. He can either go to Heaven or be transported to a fantasy world (much like a game) and try to defeat a demon king. Choosing the fantasy world, Kazuma is given the opportunity to take an item with him on his travels. Now at this point, Kazuma has been annoyed by this goddess’s attitude towards him and decides to be a dick. So Kazuma chooses Aqua to be with him on his journey. Sucks for Kazuma however, because Aqua is useless! And unlike the video games Kazuma’s used to, he and Aqua must do manual labor and pay off expenses in the first town. So they might be there for a while.

Kazuma ends up with two more members in his crew including a witch named Megumin that uses explosive magic and a masochistic crusader named Lalatina Dustiness Ford (or Darkness for short). But don’t get too excited! Megumin’s magic can only be used once a day, wiping away her energy. And while Darkness has a mean sword, she misses every time with it. So yeah, this is a rag-tag team of useless dopes. Let’s watch the wacky misadventures of Kazuma, Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness as they go on missions, drink until they puke, explode castles, and steal underwear.

Yes, Kazuma occasionally does this.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Crunchyroll has been able to bless the masses with an English dub. Can’t let FUNimation have all the Isekai hits. So far it’s been alright and I’m hearing more Erica Mendez and Cristina Vee. All good things here! Plus it gives me a chance to hear the voices of Kazuma, whom up to this point I have minimal time listening to either person who plays him. And annoying as Aqua may be, Faye Mata does a really good job with that range Sora Amamiya set in the original. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Kazuma is played by Jun Fukushima (known for Naruko on Yowamushi Pedal and Makoto on Fruits Basket 2019)

*Aqua is played by Sora Amamiya (known for Touka on Tokyo Ghoul, Chizuru on Rent A Girlfriend, Miia on Monster Musume, Yachiyo on Magia Record, Akame on Akame ga Kill, and Elizabeth on Seven Deadly Sins)

*Megumin is played by Rie Takahashi (known for Emilia on Re:Zero)

*Darkness is played by Ai Kayano (known for Alice on SAO: Alicization, Menma on Anohana, Nana on Golden Time, Ryouko on Food Wars, Itsuwa on Index, Yukika on My Love Story, and Mayaka on Hyouka)

ENGLISH CAST: *Kazuma is played by Arnie Pantoja (known for Watchdog-Man on One Punch Man and Kanbarry on Re:Zero)

*Aqua is played by Faye Mata (known for Rin on Love Live, Aluminum Siren on Sailor Moon Stars, Yukako on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Pt. 4, Frederica on Re:Zero, and a bitch on Shield Hero)

*Megumin is played by Erica Mendez (known for Ryuko on Kill la Kill, Haruka/Sailor Uranus on Sailor Moon S [redub], Raphtalia on Shield Hero, Retsuko on Aggretsuko, Nico on Love Live, and Emma on The Promised Neverland)

*Darkness is played by Cristina Vee (known for Homura on Madoka Magica, Rei/Sailor Mars on Sailor Moon, Mio on K-ON, Sakura on Fate/Stay Night UBW, Kotori on Love Live, and Kanaria on Rozen Maiden: Traumend)

FAVORITE CHARACTER: Darkness is best girl, don’t at me!

SHIPPING (sorta): Can we just all agree that Darkness is just a sober version of Cheryl from Archer?

Whoever ends up with her will end up choking her either because she tells you to or she annoys you with her masochistic nature! I seriously do not know how you want me to turn this shipping discussion into anything other than a comment about a bitch getting choked.

ENDING TO SEASON ONE: Kazuma has been able to get a little good luck in his other world as he was finally able to move out of the stables and into a house with the rest of his crew. Although, it didn’t come easy! Then again, what has in this series? In the final episode of the first season, all of the adventures of the town were called to take on a scary foe. Up to this point, we’ve seen these guys take out mutant cabbages and an idiot dullahan. Today we’ve got…

A giant, mechanical spider!

Why do the stupidest stories always rely on a giant, mechanical spider? Kazuma and the rest were able to stop the spider from moving. However, this monstrosity is set to explode and the impact could take out the entire town. Darkness wants to repay the town for all it has done for her and her family. The adventurer men want to repay the town because of all the succubus taverns they love. And Kazuma just wants to continue his journey so he can take out the demon king. Now, because Megumin already used her explosion magic for the day, she’s down for the count. But she was able to do it a second time thanks to Kazuma transferring some magic from Aqua through his spell and with a little help from Wiz. The day is saved, Kazuma and his crew got a hefty reward, and then Kazuma is immediately charged with treason for sending the evidence to a higher up and it exploded.

Believe it or not, but a lot of these quests end with a giant middle finger to them. Almost like Curb Your Enthusiasm!

EPISODE 11: The special episode that followed came with some more misfortune for Kazuma. A trip to Wiz’s shop ends with a choker around Kazuma’s neck that’s going to strangle him in three days if his wish doesn’t come true. So to figure out what Kazuma’s wish is, Kazuma has all of these girls fulfill his greatest desires in the hopes of one of these humiliating tasks will release Kazuma from the choker.

As you can guess, because this is an OVA, it will be filled to the brim with degeneracy compared to the television series. Fuck yeah it was! Kazuma used this opportunity to use Wiz’s tits as comfy pillows, have Megumin play “Strip Rock/Paper/Scissors” with Yunyun, have Aqua fetch him food, and watch Darkness jiggle her breasts. Even when he thought he was at death’s door, he uses this special time to tell each girl with him at this dramatic moment that they are nothing more than tits and ass. All except for Aqua! No love for her. Not even a pity erection! So when the spell on the choker was released due to a simple wish, Kazuma was then killed by Aqua and quite possibly everyone else and Kazuma was sent back to the goddess chamber as he learned a powerful lesson.

Don’t ever do that again!

Damn…Kazuma died 3 times so far in 11 episodes. Subaru got you beat by a country mile. He’s probably looking at you like, “You damn, lucky dumbass. I got frozen, shanked, stabbed, sliced, maced, and eaten by bunnies”.

SEASON TWO: As I mentioned at the end of season one, Kazuma is charged with treason and usually that comes with a death sentence. Unfortunately for Kazuma, his unintentional crime was against this big, fat, smelly noble who has many higher-ups wrapped around his finger. The townspeople can’t really help him out otherwise they’d risk being charged as well. And you have a prosecutor wanting Kazuma’s head on a pike not only for the major charge, but for being a pervert. The writing is on the wall, Kazuma is screwed. However, thanks to Darkness (and her family lineage) she was able to take one for the team by saving Kazuma (for now) and have that big, fat, smelly noble do God knows what to her. Also, the kingdom repossessed a lot of things from Kazuma’s crew.

So they’re worse than “square one” at this point. They’re at “square -57” with how much debt they’ve all accumulated.

ENDING TO SEASON TWO: Things are starting to look up for Kazuma and his crew. They were able to abolish their debt, got the treason charges lifted, and they were able to gain back some respect around the village. So what better way to celebrate then to go on a bit of vacation. The gang decided to head off to another town for some rest and relaxation. Unfortunately, the town they spent their time off at is full of religious wackos. And what I mean by religious wackos, I mean WORSE than Jehova Witnesses, Evangelical Christians, and the Heaven’s Gate cult all rolled into one.

…Okay, I’m obviously embellishing here. I just really fucking hate all of those ones I just mentioned. This cult is so fucking annoying! At every turn they’re trying to convert Kazuma, Megumin, and Darkness into their fold.

Oh wait, it gets better! This cult worships the goddess Aqua! And of course our favorite idiot Aqua was using this to her advantage. That is until a priest didn’t believe her, starting a chain reaction with the townsidiots all leading up to them chasing Kazuma and crew out with pitchforks and fire. Apparently, Aqua did a big no-no by purifying the hot spring water and now it’s just regular water.

Unfortunately at that same time, a general to the dark lord was in area poisoning all of the water in this town. Yeah, this guy is serious trouble since he’s on a higher level than Wiz (back when she was working under the demon king). But he’s a slime and works with poison. In this world, Kazuma doesn’t stand a chance. Surprisingly, this battle went well (albeit Kazuma dying inside the slime), but we got to see Aqua at her baddest of ass. Now you’d think the town would be grateful to Kazuma and his team for ridding them of a demon king general. Hahaha, never trust religious nutjobs! They still found fault with Aqua purifying their hot springs and they were thrown out.

In the 11th episode (or second side-story), Kazuma thought he was meeting a new fan in town. So he regales her with tales of his expoditions to woo her. Turns out the girl is a new member of the local tavern and one of her jobs is to listen to useless adventurers to boost their morale. And this girl was totally not digging Kazuma. I think this hurt Kazuma more than all the times he’s died in this series.

MOVIE: We head off to the land where Megumin and Yunyun were born and raised. While there was some miscommunication into if the town and their families were in trouble to begin with, trouble sure found Kazuma and the gang once they arrived. Another general of the demon king ends up causing quite a stir in the town. Sylvia was extra hard to take down in this story. Just when you thought she was dead, she returns from death’s door and brings the poison slime from season two and the dullahan from season one to wreck havoc all across the land. Luckily, Kazuma, his crew, Wiz, Yunyun, and the rest of the townspeople were able to put an end to Sylvia and her cohorts.

But man, Kazuma got some really shitty deals in this movie. His trashy and perverted reputation isn’t any better. Megumin’s father wanted to kill him. Megumin’s mother locked Kazuma and Megumin in a room together in hopes of doing the nasty, was messed with by a chimera of two genders, and was killed in a gruesome way that even the angels had to throw up when they saw the state of Kazuma.

On a positive note, Megumin seemed to have grown a little with this adventure as she was even thinking of putting her explosive magic on hold and give a whirl at other options. But she still gave a giant explosion that’s worth 120 points.

Konosuba was amusing. Definitely worth a few chuckles! I know it won’t be for everyone as comedy in anime can often be hit-or-miss. But the combination of characters with many quirks, the animation, the setting, the tasks, and misunderstandings, you’ve got yourself an anime version of Curb Your Enthusiasm. So…yeah, not for everyone, hit-or-miss! But in the big five isekai animes, this one is a little more light compared to some of the others. Overlord can get quite gory. Shield Hero will anger any sane person to a point of madness. And Re:Zero is just a misery blanket! Konosuba is that light-hearted comedy where sometimes the main protagonist dies horrificly in battle, but will return like Kenny from South Park. So if Shield Hero and Re:Zero depress you, maybe you might need a break with the silly, zany antics of Kazuma’s crew in Konosuba.

Results may vary on your views of Aqua.

If you would like to watch Konosuba, the entire series is available on Crunchyroll. That’s the first season, second season, both OVA’s, and the movie in several different languages!

Okay, let’s pick our next Netflix, Crunchyroll, or Amazon exclusive!

Alright! An anime like Black Lagoon if it involved gay boys! Banana Fish time.

[spooky-chapscher]

I want to talk about Steven’s comments in the latest HWYD. There are apparently quite a few posts cancelling him and I have seen many more fully supporting his comments. I don’t agree with either.

For context, here is the moment of discussion, which occurs at 53:22 in “Surviving a Boring Job” in response to a submitted question where the writer, Janette Shortlocker, wants to cut ties with a racist, homophobic friend but isn’t sure when or how to do so. Steven says the following:

“I have a lot of friends who are a little bit racist and a little bit homophobic and I’m still friends with them. And I’m not saying that I’m friends with them because of their values*, I just value them as people themselves and I try to keep them around and try to, you know, educate them with what I can, but it’s not something that… I don’t want to cut ties with everybody because of their belief system*, because, frankly, I have a different value system than Katie and Shane and Ryan.”

*In his apology (found on the podcast video’s comments section), Steven apologized for his word choice here. He writes, “Racism and homophobia are not values, belief systems, or ideals, they are simply hate and nothing more. Furthermore, there is no amount of intolerance that is okay when it comes to validating someone’s humanity and identity.”

I am not here to discuss the unfortunate word-choice, which I will generously frame as an unfortunate byproduct of this sort of off-the-cuff podcast format. Why he would associate the words “value” and “belief system” with bigotry I’ll get into in my main point.

 -

I’ll come out and say that I do not agree with the message of what Steven was trying to convey on the podcast. I will say, as a queer Latino, that if you know someone who has embraced racism/homophobia/etc… that person isn’t your friend. This person either rejected you or will reject you eventually based on some other thing they can hate. You can know them, you can have a history with them, you can want to help them, you can try to help them… but you are not “friends.”

I say this as someone who has fully dropped people from my life because of shit like this. Friends, mentors, family members. It might sound cruel, but after knowing someone endorses shit like this it leaves a sour aftertaste to every otherwise fond memory I have of them. Like, “wow, I thought things were great but it turns out that they were hurting other people and I had no idea.” That sort of shit really bothers me.

Note that these people I cut out “embraced” bigotry. I do have friends who have occasionally said some kinda prejudiced shit and I have said “whoa, what?” Sometimes it led to earnest discussions of race or class or religion. Sometimes it prompts them saying “oh shit, you’re right. I didn’t think that through. I guess I don’t know that much about it.” But, you know what, the prejudice goes away after this talk and doesn’t rear its head again. Because the prejudiced shit was something that was offhandedly said and normalized by society, not something my friend genuinely believed. And when your friends do this, confront it in (initial) good faith that they didn’t mean what they said. I mean, you probably made mistakes like this too, I know I have, and every time I feel like my friends have made me a better person by calling out some ignorance that I wasn’t even aware of.

But when you try to address prejudice and a bigoted person stands their ground or, even worse, tries to counter with “well, agree to disagree;” then I think that’s the time to start distancing yourself from this person. The “friend” in Shortlocker’s letter is this type of person, and I hope that Shortlocker is able to cut them out of their life as quickly and cleanly as possible. But that’s just my opinion.

Cutting people out can be a very difficult decision, especially if you’re younger and the person in question is a family member. For people of any age, it’s a difficult call to make when the bigoted friend holds some kind of position of power over you – be they a boss, a landlord, a mentor, a spiritual leader, or just someone who can make you miserable or put you in danger if you get on their bad side. All I can say is that you do not need to announce to someone that you’re done with them. You can become “busy” with a project or another friend who “needs help” and then steadily grow apart from this hateful-ass friend until they’re only a hateful-ass acquaintance. Please stay safe.

 -

Why I’m this way goes into where I think Steven’s coming from. Some people have commented that holding onto racist and homophobic friends is “unlike” Steven. I disagree. If anything, I think this is very on-brand for him, if only because I know quite a few religious Midwesterners and almost all of them are like this. I have seen my parents try to hold onto friends who once marched with them for civil rights but the friends ended up radicalized by racists after moving to small towns. I have seen friends try to maintain work friendships where my friends would have to remain closeted or risk losing their job. My parents and these friends? All quite religious. And none of the “friends” they tried to change ended up changing, which left the people I care about miserable and hurt.

There’s this sort of attempt to turn the other cheek, because that’s the righteous thing to do. It is what my parents and people like them genuinely believe. So no, they wouldn’t approach hatred with hostility or indignation, as I would, but instead approach it with the genuine belief that this “friend” is misguided and needs to be shown the light, an action which requires love and patience. Perhaps it’s because it’s how it was raised, but I think that’s a very noble approach, despite the obvious roots in evangelism. Part of me wants to believe that with enough time and love (and therapy) that someone can unlearn their own hatred. That’s a beautiful thing. There have been stories of a number of people who truly have turned their lives around after being helped by a friend… I just have yet to ever see this actually happen.

With this in mind, it makes sense to me why someone who believes this will find ways to rationalize keeping someone so hateful in their lives. On one hand, staying with this hateful person in order to help them is an act of charity, which is a good thing. On the other hand, staying with this hateful person might make them think that their behavior is appropriate, which is a bad thing. However, having healthy debates and discussions with someone with different beliefs than you and trying to find compromise and common ground is a good thing. It’s certainly easier on the conscience if, during these discussions, you think of your friend’s hatred as a “value” that you need to learn to see from their perspective in order to fully understand and confront properly. And when someone is so far into this line of thinking, it’s sometimes difficult for them to remember that there are people on the outside who are still being hurt by this person. It’s easy to forget, when trying to salvage a relationship, that ignoring the hurt of others is itself an act of cruelty.

 -

The root of this discussion is “why do people hate” and, basically, I think it’s because they have found some kind of community in their bigotry. Their family is like that or their friends are like that or their neighborhood is like that or their online circles are like that or their entertainers are like that. There are so many people telling them “everyone in the circle is good and everyone outside the circle is evil and untrustworthy and will hurt you.” Some people, like my parents and other religious Midwesterners, will think that the way to confront this is by repeatedly demonstrating that “no, there is nothing inherently wrong with the people outside the circle,” in hopes that their dissenting voice will overwhelm all the other insider voices.

My approach is that if you make the circle as small as possible then eventually they’ll have nobody to talk to and start rethinking the whole “outsiders bad” thing. I’ve gone back and checked on a few people I cut out. Some of them are still in their hate circle. Some of them have left the circle and started a new life and I’m proud of them and if we ever meet again I’d give them another chance. 

-

The heart of Steven’s sentiments come from a place of good intentions and reflect a philosophy that firmly believes that people want to better themselves morally. I do not share this philosophy and think that his approach minimizes and risks trivializing hateful actions. It puts far too much of an emphasis on making sure the bigoted person is comfortable and not enough emphasis on defending the targets of the bigot’s hatred.

Our aim should always be to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. 

I disagree with Steven’s approach and hope that he will do better in the future when discussing things like this. Hopefully he’ll take the time to consider how his actions impact those he means to defend.

-

(If you’re curious, my philosophy is that we all want to make each other happy the best way we know how. Self-betterment has only a minor role to play in all this. For some people happiness means helping others and telling jokes and making art and cooking and all that good stuff. For some people this “happiness” comes from keeping those closest to them inside their walled-off circle, firmly believing that the outside world would hurt them. These people far too often go out of their way to harm outsiders, be it through verbal abuse, physical violence, or systematic violence - leading to larger societal issues such as legalized discrimination, redlining, and corrupt law enforcement).

 -

(Oh, and regarding Shane and Katie’s lack of comment to this… at first I was let down and hoping that they just wanted to avoid a very long debate at the end of a podcast that was already approaching the hour mark. But, after giving it a little more thought, it would be kinda gross if Katie and Shane went out of their way to police how Steven handles his racist friends, what with them both being white. I understand their reluctance to speak up on this matter but still feel that there should have been a better way to deal with it… although I don’t know what that way is.)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CONTACT

There was no protection against breakage except the fear of looking bad than by the hope of getting millions of dollars, and you get. Because few of us know any alternative, we have no idea what our average returns might be, and won't know for years. And it can last for months. The language offers abstractions only as a way to get a big program is to start with. The problem is the real one. Treat the first few months comforted ourselves by treating the whole thing onto the shoulders of a big company, it's good news. Actually I was being conservative. When Mark spoke at a YC dinner this winter he said he wasn't trying to start a startup.1 Whereas fundraising, when you're in a very strong position, you not only won't get that but won't get anything.2 But at least you know where these facial expressions come from.

Startup funding meant series A rounds.3 In phase 2, on top of whatever you sold in phase 1. What this means in practice is that they are compulsive negotiators who will suck up a lot of new software, because you're paying for the hardware, just as we can become wiser.4 What nerds like is other nerds.5 Often as not a startup at all.6 Maybe some aspects of professionalism are actually a net lose. Perhaps it's in the sweet spot midway between. TV.

So let that satisfy your competitiveness. Two years from now, you'll be able to use their control of the desktop to prevent, or constrain, this new generation of software?7 I wouldn't claim it's painless.8 So I recommend being good. His mom probably has it on the fridge.9 In the process we may decrease economic inequality. Convergence is probably coming, but where? The conventional wisdom in the Lisp world is that the first problem is the same reason they had to work at another job to make money.

You can't blame kids for thinking I am not like these people; I am not like these people; I am not like these people; I am not suited to this world.10 The key stage is when they're three guys operating out of an apartment, and a Web browser. Ignoring any trend that has been operating for thousands of years is dangerous. The best investors are also the most liberal. The language is built in layers.11 It took me years to grasp that. There are ideas that obvious lying around now.12 If one woodworker makes 5 chairs and another makes none, the second seems as strong as ever.13 The floors are constantly being swept clean of any loose objects that might later get stuck in something.

That's how the two are only loosely coupled.14 If you try writing Web-based applications. If you take a boring job to give your family a high standard of living, as so many people do, you don't have to force yourself to work, just as there was in the early days of microcomputers. With Web-based software will be less stressful.15 Prestige is especially dangerous to the ambitious. Tell yourself you can be in close contact with support. They say they're going to work on your projects, he can work wherever he wants on projects of his own. When you can ask the opinions of people you don't even know?

If everyone's filters have different probabilities, it will be, for users and developers both. The problem is that once you start raising money, but also connotations like formality and detachment. Hardware is free now, if your software is reasonably efficient.16 I'm an investor, the deal flow, as they were with desktop computers. You can usually call their bluff, and you willingly give him money in return for it.17 And yet all those people have to make a language that might go away, as so many programming languages do.18 Languages are for programmers, and libraries are what programmers need. The list of what you want in a startup hub. You can use whichever is best for each. Some such investors have value, but the curve is just as bad. In How to Become a Hacker, Eric Raymond describes Lisp as something like Latin or Greek—a charming college town with perfect weather and San Francisco only an hour away.

Notes

Com/spam. Again, hard work.

This is actually from the most demanding but also the fashion leaders.

Parker, William R. Digg is Slashdot with voting instead of a city's potential as a process rather than given by other people the freedom to they derive the same trick of enriching himself at the outset which founders will seem to be promising. If an investor pushes you hard to grasp this than we realize, because for times over a hundred and one or two, and since you can hire skilled people to claim retroactively I said yes.

Robert in particular. And it's particularly damaging when these investors flake, because at one point in the 1990s, and as we think. I've omitted one source: government grants. Record labels, for the next round.

If they want. The second biggest regret was caring so much on the scale that has a similar logic, one variant of the accumulator generator in other Lisp dialects: Here's an example of a running back doesn't translate to soccer. The Price of Inequality. There are people whose applications are perfect in every way, because they believe they do, so that you have to put it this way.

The problem with most of the kleptocracies that formerly dominated all the mistakes you made. More often you have to solve a lot of reasons American car companies, summer jobs are the usual way of calculating real income, they have to give up more than that total abstinence is the proper test of intelligence or wisdom. They assumed that their experience so far has trained them to get fossilized. The point where things start to rise again.

And say that's not the type who would make good angel investors.

I preferred to work like casual conversation. Stone, op. Default: 2 cups water per cup of rice. I don't know enough about big markets, why is New York, but that's what they really mean, in both Greece and China, many of the words we use have a browser and get pushed down by new arrivals.

This is a flaw here I should add that none who read this to users than where you wanted to than because they have because they had that we wouldn't have. After a bruising fight he escaped with a company, and Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this model was that professionalism had replaced money as a company grew at 1% a week for 19 years, it causes a fundamental economic shift away from large companies.

I became an employer, I mean type I startups. If Ron Conway, for example, probably did more drugs in his early twenties. If you have to go deeper into the work of selection.

Progressive tax rates will tend to get the people who get rich by creating wealth—wealth that, go talk to mediocre ones. Never attribute to malice what can be said to have invented.

27 with the founders lots of potential winners, from which they don't.

When he wanted to. Yes, I suspect the recent resurgence of evangelical Christians. Sofbot. The person who understands how to be tweaking stuff till it's yanked out of just doing things, you may as well.

Giant tax loopholes are definitely not a promising lead and should in some ways First Round Capital is closer to a later investor trying to meet people; I was genuinely worried that Airbnb, for example, if the growth is valuable, because a she is very polite and b the local builders built everything in it. Where Do College English 28 1966-67, pp. I remember are famous flops like the difference between us and the super-angels. I was not in the US since the mid 1980s.

A scientist isn't committed to rejecting it.

See Greenspun's Tenth Rule.

I realize this sounds like something cooked up, but the distribution of good startups that get funded this way is basically zero.

Most employee agreements say that intelligence doesn't matter in startups. I agree and in fact the decade preceding the war, tax rates, which has been decreasing globally. We didn't try to make money for the same work, but that they either have a bogus political agenda or are feebly executed.

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Marc Andreessen, Robert Morris, and Jessica Livingston for the lulz.

[dailyaudiobible]

11/04/2020 DAB Transcript

Ezekiel 10:1-11:25, Hebrews 6:1-20, Psalms 105:16-36, Proverbs 27:1-2

Today is the 4th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is a joy, it is an honor, it is a privilege, it is a gift, sometimes I even think it's a miracle that we can be together like this today, right now, around the Global Campfire just coming in out of the chaos of it all finding a place to sit, it’s warm, friends are here. We look across the fire, we see each other, and we know that we are united in spirit, we’re after the same thing - to let God's word speak truth. It is one of the joys of life to be around this campfire with you and take the next step forward. And, so, let's do that. We are reading from the EHV, the Evangelical Heritage Version this week and continuing our journey through the book of Ezekiel. Today chapters 10 and 11.

Commentary:

Okay. Let’s go back to the Proverbs again. The Proverbs are giving us these, you know, one or two sentences yesterday and today again that are just so penetrating and so now and so immediate and so much of a mirror into our own souls, and so much of a light shining into the world around us, So, today we had two verses, two sentences, and they say a ton. “Do not boast about tomorrow because you do not know what a day may produce.” Right there…I mean right there should bring just a generous dose of humility. No matter what eventualities we have prepared for we have no idea what is coming in our direction. And the humbling thing is that our Father does. We are under the shadow of His wings for us but for us to be out there running our mouths about what we’re gonna do tomorrow, like what's coming is ultimately not certain. No matter what kind of certainty we say it with there is no way that we can know that outside of walking with God. And in a lot of ways this entire year has been that kind of a metaphor, all kinds of unexpected transitional things in our lives and in our world that we’ve had to adapt to and kinda fight against and accept and all kinds of disruption letting us know how fragile the whole thing is. And we've spent so much of our energy just trying to figure out how to get back to how it was when God is only going forward. We’re being invited forward not backward. But then on the heels of the confidence and the boasting about what we’re gonna to do tomorrow, like about how confident we are in our strength and whatever may come we have this second sentence right on the heels of it –“let someone else praise you, not your own mouth, a stranger not your own lips.” You know people who are just…just…like…like their selves are the only thing they think about, apparently, because that's the only thing they talk about? You know what I’m talking about, where somebody…you can be sharing your day, you can be sharing something deep in your life, but one way or another all they seem to think about is themselves? And, so, they’ll flip the whole thing back around, they’ll acknowledge you, but what they really want to do is just talk about themselves. And you know how challenging it can be to be in a relationship with that kind of a person because it's only about them. And, so, ultimately this kind of self-promotion, this bragging constantly, the boasting, the praising of self continually out of their mouths, they are awesome and their spouse is awesome and their children are awesome and their everything is awesome…ahh…that just gets repellent after a while. That kind of person ends up alone eventually because…well…for a couple reasons. First of all, it's a front, it’s that layer of falseness that we were talking about yesterday. So, eventually it all comes down like a house of cards. Nobody is as interested as one might have thought and people begin to back away because really this person doesn't want to be in a relationship with anybody else. They just need to be seen by other people. Like, they’re on the stage and everybody else in the world is in the audience. So, the world is there stage and everybody else is a bit player in their story. And eventually there's like no life there. And, so, people retreat and back away when all of this fronting. all of this boasting, all of this drawing attention to oneself really is exposing something very needy underneath, that this person needs to trust, this person needs to find a true friendship, one were the fake…like the Halloween costume comes off and what's real is really exposed to somebody trusted. And ultimately this leads us to the fact that…yah…it can be dangerous to be in relationships, but you have to start with a foundation of trust in God. God already knows you’re faking. You can't fool God. He already knows everything that's going. He can't be duped. And He still loves you as you are right now with the deep desire and hope that you will enter into relationship with Him where these broken things can be healed and you can be utterly transformed, transformed so much that you begin to resemble Him. You become Christ like. That's what's going on here. That's the goal. And the more layers of falseness that we apply to this, the more difficult the challenge until life one day confronts us and strips it all away. And then we find that to be such a difficult process but then we reflect back upon it, we realize that was the moment we became free because all that we had feared finally happened and it wasn't as bad as we thought it was and now we’re free to be who we are and to delight in who everybody else is because we don't need to be better, we don't need to compare, we’re not in a competition. There is no game going on. There is no cosmic God game where He's looking to see which one of us human beings is going to achieve the most to be the number one human being. We’re His children. We’re His kids. That's not what you do to your kids. So, why are we doing it to each other? Because it only leads us into falseness. So once again, “do not boast about tomorrow because you do not know what a day may produce. Let someone else praise you, not your own mouth, a stranger, not your own lips.”

Prayer:

Father, we enter into that acknowledging, even though we don't live like this most of the time, the thing that we need is You. It…it's…it's Your words of praise, it's Your words of encouragement, it’s Your drawing year that we need. It's being seen by You that we long for and we exchange it and we try to compete with each other and we try to live in a very, very backward way that is never gonna work, which is essentially what You were saying Jesus in the Beatitudes – this is a backward world, this is not gonna work, it's the opposite of what You think it is. And, so, help us Holy Spirit to get our minds right, to get our minds in alignment with Yours, the mind of Christ on things, to get our Spirits right, to know that we are inseparably intertwined with You, to get on the same page that we might actually be free. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. Thank you profoundly. If what's happening here in this rhythm of life that we have around the Global Campfire, God's word read fresh every day washing into our lives and creating a rhythm that creates community around it, if that has been something meaningful in your life then thank you humbly for your partnership. So, I said there's a link on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button at the top no matter where you are in the world or there are some phone numbers located at different points in the world. In the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number to call. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number to dial. And if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Our Father who art in heaven ancient of days omnipotent and omniscient worthy of all praise Jehovah raphe Jehovah jireh our healer our provider we come to you open with our hearts and minds hoping that you are still willing to bless as we humbly confess that you’re worthy of all honor though we’ve given you much less wondering in confusion because we buy into illusion greedily gulping down a great big slice of the devils pie exchanging your wonderful truth for a lie and we need you to heal us both outside and in strengthen us father revive us again Jehovah nisi our banner our fortress our friend please help us heavenly father we love you Amen

blindtony1016@gmail.com like to give a shout out to David Michael, Dice and Darlene Dice. Matthew Fouts it was good hearing your voice again. Know you are all loved and on my prayer list daily. And once again Brian and the Hardin family thank you for this wonderful podcast for God’s Holy Spirit to flow. Keep it flowin’ y’all. All right. Bye-bye.

Hey this is Jared calling from Duluth Minnesota it’s day 555 in my journey since April 26, 2019 in the Daily Audio Bible renewal time where God wakes me up every morning early in the morning to spend time with Him. What a great time it was today in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 saying for the word of God is quick and powerful sharper than any two-edged sword. And then going on that God has been tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin and we lay naked before Him. He knows us better than what we know ourselves and yet we can come boldly to the throne of grace to find help in a time of need. And there’s a time of great need and all of our lives right now. The world is turned upside down, full of turmoil. I know personally I appreciate your prayers for my son Steve as we’ve been estranged from him for now year as he got mad at us and disowned us and hasn’t spoke to us now for almost…almost a year. On the fourth is his birthday. He’s coming up from the cities, Twin Cities, tomorrow and I’ve reached out to him to see if we can get together and…and…and talk and chat and for him to…to be reconciled with him. I appreciate your prayers that that might happen. But in any case, we know that God is in control through all the trial and turmoil of what’s going on right now. May God give us grace, mercy, help in time of need. God bless.

Good morning DABbers this is Running Desperately to Jesus also known as Staying Connected Desperately to Jesus which right now that is definitely my filling, running desperately and staying desperately connected. I am…have always struggled with depression and was on medication and therapy for some time. My therapist retired in 2016 after she was able to get me stable from being sexually assaulted. Today I’m feeling quite depressed. I don’t know if it’s this Covid or what’s going on but I am in definitely a dark place now and what is crossing my mind a lot lately for the past couple days is suicide and I know that is definitely Satan’s work and I’m having a difficult time hearing of God’s word and His voice. So, I’m asking all my DABbers to lift me up to pray me through. I don’t want to go back into therapy because since my…as I said earlier…my therapist that I was formerly with who is very good retired, and I don’t want to start over again. I know that this can be fought with word…with God’s word but right now because I am in a dark place, I cannot even call upon His word. So, DABbers I’m just asking again that you stand in the gap for me to lift me up and to help pull me through this dark space, these dark thoughts, especially the source idle thoughts. I don’t have any friends that really call to check on me. So, I’m actually in this by myself. Running Desperately to Jesus.

Hello, it’s John from Bristol in the UK again. I called a couple months back about my father. He has mental health issues and it’s causing a separation between him and my mother. So, he still has the same delusions. He’s adamant he doesn’t want to go home, and they had such a happy marriage before he had this psychotic episode. But…and he’s still in hospital but he’s…he’s much more stable than he was which is an improvement but mom and dad have a meeting on Wednesday this week. So, if you guys would just cover that in prayer for reconciliation of their marriage that would be wonderful. Thank you so much. God bless.

Hi, DAB it’s Emmy from Illinois just calling in with continued prayer requests for my marriage. I’m struggling right now. Things are a lot better than they were but I’m feeling extremely lonely. Just…I miss…miss having relationships with people, especially right now when the one person in my life doesn’t really want a relationship with me. I know God’s at work. I know that He’s still called me to stand for my marriage but I’m really struggling right now to just want something to be done either finally ended or create a breakthrough. And I don’t know what’s happening and I’m just getting lonely. And as we get closer to the holidays and my 40th birthday it just makes it even worse because I know I won’t be seeing friends or family. So, if you could just continue to pray for me, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

[queertheology]

Building A Bible-Based Faith (that isn’t terrible!)

“Test everything; hold fast what is good.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:21

When I first started to realize that I was attracted to guys, a tiny crack appeared in my faith: how could a loving God knit me together in my mother’s womb then give me these desires for love, intimacy, and family with no righteous outlet to express them?

I’d been told that “homosexuality” was sinful, but I was never quite sure why. I needed to be sure, so I turned to the Bible. That was terrifying. Who was I to question what my church leaders acted like was common knowledge? And then I stumbled upon 1 Thessalonians 5:21 and I realized that questioning my beliefs wasn’t heresy, it was Biblical!

It took me YEARS to sort out that being LGBTQ was not only “ok” but an important part of the diversity of God’s creation. (If you want a peak at what I learned during the process, check this out)

Now that I know it’s ok to be queer — despite what some religious leaders say — I asked myself: what else were they wrong about?

Figuring out I was queer was an invitation to question my faith and to take a fresh look at “what the Bible” says about so many things.

Thank God I’m queer, because I have discovered in the Bible — and the community, experience, expertise, and traditions of Christians across millennia — a faith that is liberating and life-giving… and so much more alive than the evangelical faith of my childhood.

Conservatives talk a lot about being “Bible-believing” or having a “Bible-based” faith.

Too often that’s code for “My interpretation of Christianity is right and everyone who doesn’t measure up is sinful and going to hell.”

While I think it’s entirely possible to be an upstanding, moral person without ever turning to the Bible (or even believing in God!), I’m not ready to let go of this sacred text.

When I look at the Bible, here’s what I see.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. – Luke 4:18-19

Jesus begins his public ministry by quoting from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 61:1-2, to be specific).

In doing so, he roots his ministry in his Jewish faith and, more specifically, in the Hebrew prophets.

If you’ve asked “What did Jesus come to do?” or “Why did God send Jesus?” … well Jesus answers that question himself in Luke:

to bring good news to poor people

to set prisoners free

to give sight to the blind

to liberate the oppressed

and to usher in God’s abundance

But Jesus doesn’t want to go at it alone. He begins calling disciples to join him in his ministry. Jesus isn’t looking for converts, though.

“Come, follow me,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” (Matthew 4:19)

He’s looking for doers to join him in the work of his ministry. And what is that ministry?

Throughout the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, we get a look at God’s priorities. When I look at the ministry of Jesus, I don’t see a departure from the Hebrew scriptures, I see a continuation of them.

In the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, there are 2,350 verses about money, 300 about social justice and the poor, and even 24 about immigration.

But it’s not really about plucking verses out of context or tallying up the number of verses about this subject vs that subject. To take the Bible seriously and faithfully, you need to know what to do with it. What are the central themes and what are the exceptions? What are commandments and what might be examples of humans messing up, despite their best intentions? What taps into the divine and what is just a reflection of a time-bound, cultural norm?

In Deuteronomy,

I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life.

In Amos,

I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

In Luke, when asked what one must do to gain eternal life, Jesus shared a story that ended with the Samaritan taking care of the injured man and paying for his healthcare … “Go and do likewise” was Jesus’s answer.

In John,

I came so that they could have life—indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest.

In Acts,

All the believers were united and shared everything. …There were no needy persons among them

There’s a whole lot in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures: letters, commandments, poems, stories, parables, and even some visions.

What are we to make of all of these?

Genesis 1 ends with, “God saw everything he had made: it was supremely good” and Revelation ends with “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.” When you look at Scripture — from Genesis to Revelation — what you see is that God calls us to be faithful by loving ourselves and taking care of each other.

Jesus seems to agree. In Matthew 22, he says,

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.

If you aren’t drawing yourself and others closer to God, if you aren’t filled with love for God, for yourself, and for others, you’re not following Jesus’s commands.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 7 that “by their fruits you will recognize” whether a religious teaching is true or not.

The fruits of anti-LGBTQ theology reveal its falseness: depression, despair, suicide, fractured families, loss of faith, bullying, harassment. The fruits of affirming theology testify to its rightness: a return to faith, a healing of relationships, and a vibrance and resurgence in church life.

But it’s not just about being “LGBTQ affirming” or not.

Does your theology put you at odds with your mind, soul, heart, or body? Does your theology sow division in your family, community, nation, or world? Does your theology excuse or encourage violence? Does your theology exacerbate your mental health problems?

Or does it lead you to life and joy? Does it comfort you? Does it give you hope? Does it lead you to treat others well?

Judge your theology by its fruits.

How to figure out an integrated, Bible-based faith that is life-giving

It took me studying religion in college, being trained by religious and civil rights leaders, engaging in full-time activism across the country for months, reading and studying countless books by pastors, scholars, theologians, and activists; and studying under mentors. It took Fr. Shay going to seminary, continuing his education for a decade, working in churches for equally long, and pursuing independent study.

But it shouldn’t require that much of an investment just to read the Bible well and put it into practice. That’s why we are distilling all of our expertise and experience down into a 4-week course on how to read the Bible: Journey into the Bible. It starts on September 15. You can learn more and register here.

[thepropertylovers]

Feature Friday with Jorge Valencia and Morgan King

Happy Friday, y’all. After a few days of bad weather, we’re looking forward to enjoying the sunshine this weekend with some trips out to the land to get some fresh air and let the kiddos run around. Any fun plans you’re looking forward to?

Today’s Feature Friday is a beautiful couple who takes turns answering questions and discuss their coming out stories, what their environment was like growing up, and where they see themselves in 5 years. We loved getting to know Jorge and Morgan and we think you will, too. Check out what we mean below…

What is your favorite place that you’ve ever travelled to and why? Zermatt, Switzerland. We went there on our honeymoon because we love skiing together and the food is incredible, too. The slopes there are really amazing and we really improved our technique.

Where did you grow up? What was your environment like? Jorge: I was raised catholic and I would go to church every Sunday with my parents when I was a kid. But at some point during my early teens, my brother and I started questioning and disagreeing with a lot that we would hear the priest say. We eventually stopped going. My parents were very respectful of that and never forced us to go. Mexico City is like 99% catholic so we didn’t get to experience a lot of other religions or denominations, so iit wasn't until I moved to New York City that I realized I could find another church that aligned better with the way I think.

Morgan: I call myself a recovering evangelical. It’s almost like waking up after years in a different reality where women couldn’t be leaders, education was an afterthought, and I could never, not in a million years, be with a man. Now, I’m only about 1000 miles away from my hometown but it feels like a whole different world. 

How did that shape who you are as a person? J: My parents are both scientists, so that for sure had an influence on my interests and on what I do now. Besides science, they were also very vocal about trying to be as happy as we can by surrounding ourselves with people we love, doing something you’re passionate about and being healthy. That’s been stuck in my mind since I was a kid.

M: The (one?) good thing about evangelicalism is hope. I have hope for a better world, a better future, and even though I view the world really differently than I once did, that hope is still very much alive. 

What is one thing you love about yourself? J: I think I am very determined. It might take me some time to make up my mind about something but once I decide I want to do something I won’t stop until it’s done.

M: My enthusiasm about little things.

What brings you the most joy in life? J: Little traditions that Morgan and I have like going to the Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving or re-watching Gilmore Girls (only!) in the fall even though we end up disliking Rory even more every time we watch it.

M: Those simple days when life together is just plain good.

How old were you when you came out? What was your experience like? J: I was 19. I told myself I would come out when I was in a relationship and that’s what I did. The night I decided to come out to my parents I couldn’t stop crying. My parents found me in my room and, after a few hours and many tears, I told them.

M: I was 23. I had always been attracted to men, but I didn’t realize (or hadn’t seen, really) that actually loving a man might be an option. My first few months at seminary, I realized that being gay was a gift and part of my call to mininstry. A few months later, I wrote a 10 page paper explaining it all to my parents, hopped on a plane to Paris, and just got away from everything for a week.

How did your friends and family take it? J: I was lucky enough to have a very supportive family who has shown me a thousand times that they would do anything for me. Seeing them interact with Morgan is one of my greatest joys.

M: My parents didn’t come to our wedding this past December. I still love them. And I believe they love me, too. But love is complicated. Needless to say, I don’t see anyone from home much. 

What did you learn about yourself in the coming out process? J: I spent most of my teen years angry at myself and at life. At the time I didn't know why I felt like that but looking back it is probably because I knew I was different, but I didn’t know if I would ever have the courage to come out and be myself. But once I did, I let go of all that anger as well.

M: I learned that being different is dangerous, but also that it doesn’t have to be that way. 

What would you tell today’s LGBTQ youth who are struggling to come out in fear they won’t be accepted by family, friends, society? J: Coming out is one of the best things you can do. There’s nothing compared to that feeling of freedom that you get after doing it. It is liberating. But it is also very hard depending on your background, so I would say make sure that you have a support system. If you’re worried your family is not gonna react the way you want them, make sure you have a friend or someone to talk to before coming out to them. And also remember it takes time for them to adjust and get used to the idea. Give them time.

M: Acceptance is important, but finding the ability, somehow, to not let anyone else define you might be even better.

What is a difficult or challenging obstacle you've overcome in your life or hope to overcome? J: turns out getting a PhD in biomedical sciences is way harder than I expected. It involves facing a lot of frustration, self-doubt and more anxiety I ever thought I would have to deal with.

M: Some days are more difficult than others, trying to balance my pride and love of my life with Jorge and my commitment to my family even when they aren’t supportive.

Who is your biggest inspiration and why? J: My parents because I am where I am right now thanks to them. They went to grad school while my brother and I were in elementary school, and now as a grad student myself I don’t know how they raised two kids and got their PhDs. They even held down jobs at the same time to give me and my brother everything we needed. Also, Morgan’s strength and love inspire me everyday. It is easy to give up on relationships after you’re hurt or when you don’t exactly get what you need out of a one, but he chooses to work on them instead of taking the easy way out. 

M: My mom’s dad (“Granddady”). He had an alcoholic father and was barely able to go to school because of having to help around the family farm. Around age 16, he left for the “big city” (Chattanooga) and ended up being the first in our family to go to college. He’s one of the kindest, most generous people I know [and, yes, of course Jorge is one of my heros, too :)]

Where do you see yourself in five years? J: I’ve lived in different cities since I started college but I have really fallen in love with New York so hopefully we will still be living here in 5 years even after I finish my PhD. I also see a puppy in our future.

M: We’ve actually both lived many places. I’ve moved 12 times in 8 years to 5 different cities. I am ready to find a more permanent home somewhere in New York with my husband.

Thank you so much Jorge & Morgan! We hope you have a beautiful weekend, friends and stay safe! xx

P&T

[northofsomewhererp]

Your Name, Age (18+), Pronouns & Timezone: H, 21, GMT

Kalel Corbyn turned 30 years old on April 27th. He’s a resident in Greensville. His face claim is Tom Ellis.

Admin note: I’m excited to see his face around town! You know the drill, send in his account and I’ll get his follow link up for you. Everyone else, make sure to check below the cut for Kalel’s bio and potential connections!

Bio (10+ sentences, include brief history, personality, potential plots):

Kalel Corbyn was born into his family as the eldest and only son, his parents having two girls, Carolyn and Lois, after him. He grew up in Reading, a small city in the UK not too far out from London. Though, it might as well have been - since Reading and London felt like two different worlds despite them being neighbouring cities. He had always viewed London as this multi-cultural place that you could go and be whatever you want. Where he lived however, it wasn’t the case. Everyone in the city knew each other and keeping up appearances meant a lot to his parents. Both of them die hard Evangelical Christians, his family were very involved within the religious community to the point they were attending every sermon and eventually, he and his sisters were put into Sunday school as well as public school. From the beginning, it seemed everything Kalel did was for his parents and their blessing - they were absolutely terrified that he would do something to make the family look bad. He wasn’t allowed to do most activities boys his age did, he wasn’t allowed to play sports, join clubs or go over to anyone’s house, in fear that he’d mix with a group of kids that would have a bad influence on him. He was barred from being friendly with any girls, his parents wanting him to stay “pure.” This, in turn, only made Kalel extremely isolated from kids his age and became the “weird” kid of his year. He actively struggled in school, the only release his parents allowed him to have was to take piano lessons. By the time he was ten, he was an intermediate piano player and composed his own songs to fill the loneliness he felt.

Once he finished primary school, he was made to join an all-boys faith school where they would start the process of him eventually becoming a priest after graduation. However, sending him to an all-boys school only seemed to push him more towards a “sinful” crowd, as his parents described it, since most of the boys were either into partying, drug abuse, hooking up with strangers, or were closeted gay. Because of this, Kalel was able to see a completely different side to life during his teen years. He was drinking and smoking constantly, dabbling in drugs and enjoying the company of any girl he met on nights out with the boys despite being a young teen. He managed to become quite a skilled liar, being able to hide it all from his parents for years until he was 16. He had gotten too drunk and high one night in town that he collapsed on the street. He was sent to hospital, waking up in a hospital bed with his horrified parents at his side. He remembered the rest of that day being the worst of his life, his parents withdrawing him from the school and sending him to a boarding school a couple towns over. It was a completely different atmosphere, it felt more to be a prison than a school. His teachers exercised punishments that would’ve been unheard of, breaking Kalel down bit by bit. By the time he was 17, Kalel was extremely miserable and stuck. He had felt completely stripped of everything, he was never able to make a decision for himself. He was to either commit his life to the church or to be outcasted by everyone. He couldn’t even consider being outcasted, since his family were the only people he really had - even if he didn’t trust his parents with anything. He would try his best to be the son they always wanted, following down the path they always wanted for him. He’d do two years at the boarding school before graduating, taking up as an altar server at the local church. He was happy to finally have approval from his parents but inside, he was depressed. He suffered with insomnia and was crippling with anxiety. 

On his 21st birthday, he received a phone call from his father. That his sister, Lois, had taken her own life and that he needed to move back home for the funeral. It was a dark few days, having to put on a brave face in front of everyone and participate in his youngest sister’s funeral. It was only when he returned home that he had learned that Lois had wanted to stray from their family’s religious beliefs, that she had wanted to go out with a girl. He learned his parents had done the same thing to her as they did to him, sending her a strict girl boarding school leading her to take her own life to escape from the clutches of their family. Kalel was devastated, his sister’s death having an awful effect of him - realising that everything his parents had put them through was nothing but abuse. He knew this the moment his parents denounced his sister for having taken her own life and that she’d be in Hell for it. It was the breaking point for him. Within a few days, Kalel packed up everything he owned and left Reading - never looking back. 

Coming to Greensville had been a mistake of sorts. Kalel had travelled all over England making money on odd jobs before he had eventually made his way over to the States. He had been in Raleigh originally, having gotten himself a shitty apartment and living off minimum wage jobs. It wasn’t until one of those jobs took him to Greensville that he really liked the small town, something about it gave him the peace he wanted. That and it was extremely cheap to get a decent place. He’d move from Raleigh to Greensville, getting a job as a freelance piano teacher after performing a few of his songs in the local bar. He felt quite happy for the first time in awhile since moving to Greensville, but deep down - he was harbouring so many problems he hadn’t addressed. His family, his sister’s death, the abuse he faced from the boarding school, the anger he felt against religion - it made him turn to alcohol and many other forms of dealing with the weight he carried. So had moving to Greensville been the start of a new life for him? Definitely. But it also raised the question on if Kalel would ever really be able to start over.

Have you read the rules?: removed

In the event that you leave, can we keep your biography for future use?: Sure x Any comments/questions?: Nope!

Potential/wanted connections:

I’d definitely like to have a friend connection for Kalel, boy or girl it doesn’t matter to me. With Kalel’s past, this friend was probably be one of the only people Kalel feels comfortable with and desperately needs in his life. 

I’d also be interested in having a more-than-friends female connection for Kalel. Not necessarily romantic but casual lovers. Since Kalel had broken away from the constraints of his old life, he craves intimacy and sex. He’s definitely had the past and present of being someone who sleeps around but I’d be really interested in having a connection like this to explore that side of him more :) 

[bustedbernie]

Socialism helped Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia & Cuba, but the CIA made sure to intervene in every one of those countries besides Cuba. And as for Florida, those Cuban gusanos down there are a very reactionary voting bloc like white evangelicals who are salty that their grandparents lost their plantations & black slaves. They called neolib Obama a socialist, so it is what it is. I just want the entire centrist DNC to go down in 🔥, it's a losing brand & is helpless against future GOP fascism

Do you know anyone from these countries? Or others? Two of my best friends are Venezuelan. They worked their asses off just to be able to get to Canada (after failing to get a greencard in the visa lottery to the USA). The first thing one of my friends did upon getting to Canada was take a photo of the “on sale” toilet paper at an IGA grocery store. Before arriving, the govt in Caracas had been telling folks that the toilet paper shortage was a global thing. It was not. Their bank accounts were locked by the government and they were unable to access their own funds outside Venezuela to pay for their tuition. At that point as well, Air Canada cancelled their Toronto-Caracas flight because Venezuela refused to pay debts (actually couldn’t afford to) it owed to both the airline and the Canadian government. I saw both of my friends have their freedoms of mobility curtailed. Money they sent back to Venezuela sometimes did not make it back to their families at all as it was seized or stolen by government officials. After a couple years, it wasn’t just toilet paper missing from shelves, but basic food items. Years later, both of these friends are now on the shortlist to Canadian nationality and have settled and married there. 

Maybe “socialism” appeared to help Venezuela initially due to deep oil funds. But the volatility of the oil market demonstrates why it’s not good to put all your eggs in one basket regardless of government or market ideology. 

I know older folks who fled Romania under other uniquely bad conditions when it was behind the iron curtain. And one of my old host fathers fled Bulgaria in 1968 as well. I think at a certain point you might try to reach out and meet some of these folks. Some in the east are nostalgic for that era, yet as it becomes a memory, the push is toward Europe and not toward the past. But maybe you’d dismiss these voices as “boomers” or whatever. Idk. 

I’ve also had the privilege of working with cubans. Among people our age (presumably you’re in the same age-bracket as me), people are excited for change and leaving the past behind. I’m thankful for the experiences I’ve had and that have put me in touch with so many, getting a couple world language degrees helps. At the end of the day, extremist swings in government don’t benefit most. 

Current dems are not “centrist.” I’m sorry you have been gaslit into believing that. But I will point to the far-left in Germany and their irrational hatred of the centrists as one of the political issues that allowed Hitler to tighten his hold on power. Idk why you thing the far-right and Trump will somehow bring forth some glorious revolution, but it will not.