#ESPECIALLY starrs parents good god

[br1ghtestlight]

i mean there's a difference between childhood trauma and just feeling complicated emotions or having conflicts within your family which everybody has FJDMDJDKSKS my only ocs who have straight up shitty abusive parents are starr and sunshine. two's parents weren't great at being parents but they DID try and most of his emotional issues arent bcuz of them but just stuff that happened when he was older

#the only characters who really have NO issues with their family or childhood are my actual child ocs bcuz they arent old enough #other than that life is complicated and messy. rainbow is upset at her parents for getting a divorce even tho it was what was best for her #jayden and his mom have a complicated relationship bcuz of how he views society and relationships but there i #is always love between them and he had an okay childhood #fuck sunshine and starr's parents though they're just objectively terrible and maybe should not have had kids #ESPECIALLY starrs parents good god #txt

[your-dietician]

How intense psychotherapy and a Bel-Air love nest led to John Lennon's classic debut album

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/how-intense-psychotherapy-and-a-bel-air-love-nest-led-to-john-lennons-classic-debut-album/

How intense psychotherapy and a Bel-Air love nest led to John Lennon's classic debut album

John Lennon and Yoko Ono in January 1970. (Richard DiLello / Yoko Ono Lennon)

In the months before John Lennon and Yoko Ono entered Abbey Road Studios in London to start work on what would become the album “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,” the couple were renting a home on Nimes Road in one of L.A.’s fanciest neighborhoods, Bel-Air.

The Beatles were still the most famous group in the world but were in the midst of breaking up, with members traveling to and from London to finish “Abbey Road,” work on various solo projects for their label Apple Records and argue about release schedules and royalties.

Living along a curvy lane behind walls that afforded complete privacy and overwhelming views of the city, Lennon and Ono were a world away from that drama. They woke to the sounds of chirping birds, sprinklers and lawnmowers, enjoyed their tea alone and, when so inclined, chilled by the pool. Lennon worked on some songs, including “Working Class Hero,” “Mother,” “Well, Well, Well” and “God.”

Then, each morning, Lennon would drive down Beverly Glen to psychologist Arthur Janov’s West Hollywood office, enter a darkened, soundproof room and scream as loudly and violently as he could.

“He used to finish a session feeling incredibly good,” Janov once recalled.

This backdrop set the tone for “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,” which came out in December 1970 and is the subject of an exhaustively documented box set just released by Capitol/UME and the Lennon estate. Called “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (The Ultimate Collection),” it comes with six CDs, two Blu-ray discs, a hardbound book, poster and postcards. It’s a revelatory set, especially for those with access to hi-fi gear and a darkened, soundproof room.

Newly mixed to increase Lennon’s vocal presence from fresh high-resolution transfers, the set features 87 recordings that have never been officially released, including rehearsal sessions, demo tapes recorded on Nimes Road and a series of alternative mixes drawn from unused tracks — congas on “Hold On” are a revelation, for example. An accompanying coffee table book, “John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band,” offers an even deeper dive into the couple’s creative partnership.

Story continues

“During 1970, we did extensive Primal Scream therapy for six months, which was very beneficial for us and many of the songs were inspired as a result of those sessions,” writes Ono in the preface to the coffee table book, adding that “John’s songs were a literate expression of his feelings.” (Ono declined an interview request for this article.)

John Lennon relaxing by the swimming pool at his and Yoko Ono’s rented home in Bel-Air during the summer of 1970. (Yoko Ono Lennon)

The result, “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,” was Lennon’s debut solo album. It was issued the same day as Ono’s companion album, “Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band,” and found Lennon in an intimate setting with a few friends purging unfiltered emotions into songs about “freaks on the phone,” isolation, leaders who “tortured and scared you for 20-odd years” and his lack of belief in, among concepts, Jesus, magic, Adolf Hitler, the I Ching, the Buddha, yoga, kings and the Beatles.

“He had changed a hell of a lot because of this primal scream thing, and that was really heavy,” says Klaus Voormann, who played bass on the album, on the phone from Germany. “It was heavy for him, it was heavy for Yoko, and it was heavy for us.”

As with most things Beatle-related, the critics loved Lennon’s “Plastic Ono Band” when it came out. Creem’s Dave Marsh wrote that it was “interesting and even enlightening to see a man working out his trauma on black plastic but more than that, it’s totally enthralling to see that Lennon has once again unified, to some degree, his life and his music into a truly whole statement.”

The Times’ Robert Hilburn called it “nothing short of a masterpiece,” and “a work that is filled with pain and sorrow, searching and struggle. It is frightfully honest, profoundly moving.” That its emotion is tied to a bestselling psychology self-help book is often overlooked, but it played a central role in Hilburn’s review.

Arthur Janov in 1998. (Ann Summa/Getty Images)

“Primal therapy has to do with the traumas you’ve undergone in the womb, at birth, in infancy and childhood,” Janov explained in an interview excerpted in the book. “We have needs that we are all born with, and when those basic needs are not met, we hurt. And when that hurt is big enough, it’s imprinted in the system. It changes our whole physiologic system and all those pains are held in storage, causing tension, anxiety and depression.”

After Lennon and Ono read Janov’s book, “The Primal Scream” (subtitled “Primal Therapy: The Cure for Neurosis”), Ono asked that Janov travel to them in London, which he did. “He was in bad shape. He couldn’t leave his room,” Janov said of Lennon. But Janov had work in L.A., so Lennon and Ono followed him back and rented a home in Bel-Air. Lennon wasn’t the only one enduring pain. He and Ono had been trying to have a baby, but she had suffered two miscarriages.

Forced to return to England six months later to deal with visa issues, Lennon and Ono were barely off the plane before they entered Abbey Road. The sparse, emotionally raw Lennon solo album is dense with echoes of his West Hollywood wails, and the sessions were the same, Voormann says.

Voormann, best known for creating the art for “Revolver,” had met Lennon and the rest of the Beatles long before Beatlemania took hold, when they were rocking the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, in the early 1960s, and he remained within the band’s inner circle. At the end of the decade, Voormann had just concluded a run with Manfred Mann when Lennon called to ask whether he’d join him, Ono, Ringo Starr and producer Phil Spector at Abbey Road. Needless to say, it was a welcome invitation.

At Abbey Road, Voormann described walking into “a whole vibe. There was crying. There was laughing. There was happiness. There was hugging each other. And we were all part of this amazing atmosphere.”

John Lennon at EMI Studios in London on Oct. 9, 1970. (Yoko Ono Lennon)

Simon Hilton, the box set’s producer and production manager, said that contrary to reports that Lennon “was angry and throwing headphones and stuff and making a fuss” during the week at Abbey Road, “there’s no evidence of that at all.”

Listening to the rehearsal tapes, which find Lennon, Starr and Voormann working through classics including “Honey Don’t,” “Mystery Train,” “Glad All Over” and the Beatles’ “Get Back,” Hilton continues, “you can hear what an amazing time they were having.”

The three were “obviously working really hard but also really enjoying being in each other’s presence. They were such good mates and I’m sure after the tensions of sitting in the room with Paul and George and Ringo, this was a huge relief.” (Hilton stresses that “John never had any beef with Ringo, ever.”)

“There is a playfulness among the three main musicians that in no way represents how earnest the songs are,” says Rob Stevens, who worked as a mixing engineer on “The Ultimate Collection” and oversaw the raw studio mix recordings and outtakes. “The laser beam is turned on right when the take starts and it’s turned off at the end — and there’s some real silliness before and afterwards.”

A Klaus Voormann illustration from the “John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band” sessions in October 1970. (Klaus Voormann)

All you need to do is listen to “Mother,” the wrenching opening song on the album, to appreciate the ways in which primal scream therapy informed the sessions.

Voormann remembers worrying about Lennon’s vocal cords as he sung the track’s climactic ending, which finds the singer pushing his limits. “I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, I hope he’s not going to lose his voice.'” Lennon, the bassist adds, was never trained as a singer, and cited as an example once requesting “Please Mr. Postman” during the Hamburg days. Lennon declined. “He said, ‘No, let’s do it as the last number because if I do that now, I’m going to be hoarse all night.'”

Lennon is on the cusp of hoarseness, Voormann says, in the final version of “Mother,” which is a song that addresses Lennon’s relationship with his mom, Julia, who as a young parent left Lennon to live with his Aunt Mimi and only sporadically reached out after that. (“I lost her twice,” Lennon recalled during an interview. “Once as a 5-year-old when I was moved in with my aunty, and once again when she actually physically died.”)

“His voice is already starting to break on the record,” Voormann says, “and it’s fantastic because he is really screaming as much and as long as he can. He wanted to get that out of his system. The wounds were opened up inside of him, and these wounds he put into those songs.”

John Lennon and Yoko Ono in London on Feb. 11, 1970. (Richard DiLello / Yoko Ono Lennon)

If there was a flaw, for Ono it was in the final mix. Lennon’s voice wasn’t prominent enough. For this new remaster, Ono suggested the engineers make it more prominent. “That was Yoko’s directive right from the beginning,” says Paul Hicks, who mixed and engineered much of the new set. “‘Bring John’s voice out to the fore’ and ‘You’ll find all the emotion in John’s voice.'”

Adds Rob Stevens of Lennon and Ono’s Lenono Archives, “Bringing John’s voice up was a real revelation for just about anybody who had listened to anything else that he had done.” Referring to a microphone effect that adds a sharp echo, Stevens added that Lennon “covered his voice up with a ton of slap. There’s a ton of reverb.” Stevens says that in the process of working on the recordings, he was able to remove the reverb and hear the unfiltered Lennon. “What was there was the same emotion but more nuanced because there wasn’t a slap or two or three behind it.”

The producer and engineer John Leckie was 20 when he landed a coveted entry-level job running tape at Abbey Road Studios in London. He started in January 1970 and, not long after, was in the studio recording “All Things Must Pass” with George Harrison, and half a year later he was working on Lennon’s record.

Leckie, who has gone on to produce essential records by the Fall, Radiohead, XTC, Elastica, My Morning Jacket and dozens more, says that he recalls this early Lennon session as being a relaxed, comfortable environment. Spector was a quiet, unobtrusive presence — there was no “Wall of Sound” at Abbey Road — and Ono was more involved with the creative back and forth.

“Phil wasn’t there all the time, but my memory is that he was there a lot of time and when he was there, it was really good vibes. It’s funny, because when people ask me about this record, they always seem to think there was this angst — dreadful, painful. ‘What was it like to be in the room with John pouring out all this angst about his abuse over the years and the terrible terror he was going through?'”

Leckie continues, “It wasn’t like that at all, and you can tell by this box and the outtakes it was great fun. He was playing with his best friends. He was playing with Ringo and Klaus Voormann, and he’d known Klaus since Hamburg.”

Voormann underscores the sense of camaraderie at play, an experience jarred by hearing the rehearsal tapes anew. “All this came back to me. It felt so good having certainty knowing we were really a group — this little tiny group, just Ringo, me and John.”

Lennon’s solo debut, in hindsight, was an outlier. He started recording its follow-up, “Imagine,” less than a year later, and not long after that, he and Ono separated. Lennon moved back to L.A. and commenced a bender that many nights led him just a block from Janov’s office, getting drunk with Harry Nilsson at the Troubadour. Lennon and Ono reconciled a few years later. The five studio albums that followed “Plastic Ono Band,” while accomplished, seldom matched the feral energy and sharpened pen found on his debut.

Meanwhile, by 1974, Janov was in the pages of The Times being lumped in with Dear Abby, Billy Graham, radio talk show hosts and witches, as a guru who “professes to have an answer for sale.” A documentary called “Primal Process” followed a few years later. One reviewer praised the film but warned that “the continuous crying can be taxing.” In the 1980s, the English new wave group Tears for Fears took its name from Janov’s therapeutic method, and the similarly inspired “Shout” became one of its signature hits.

Janov, for the record, loved “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.” Speaking to Hilburn in 1970, the therapist and author, who died in 2017, described it as “a very dialectic album. It is the most personal statement imaginable, yet it has a universal language. It could only be written by someone who has arrived at a state of understanding himself. It isn’t something that any kid with a guitar could sit down and write.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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[ringotheestarr]

Nightmare (Ringo Starr x female!reader)

As a girl, you’d always fantasised about meeting the love of your life. You’d dream about getting married. The two of you would live in a nice house and raise your children together. It was all you ever wanted. You craved it and didn’t want to settle for anything less than you’d dreamed of.

When you met Ringo, you thought it was too good to be true. Contrary to what everyone else thought you loved him for him. You weren’t interested in his status as the drummer of the most famous band in the world. The relationship would’ve been doomed if that was the only reason you were with him. No, he made you laugh, he made you smile; he made every day that much better and brighter with his presence. You adored him.

You were sure that Ringo was the love of your life. He was the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. When the two of you got married it was the best day of your life. You’d gotten all you’d ever wanted. It wasn’t easy when he was recording or touring but you made it work. That was what you did when you loved someone. No matter how hard it got, you tried your best to make it work.

The whispers of infidelity started quite early on in your relationship. You laughed it off and dismissed it as jealous women wanting to hurt you. There wasn’t any point in bringing it up with Ringo. He said he loved you and showed you many, many times how much he loved you. He wouldn’t cheat on you. You repeated that over and over especially after you got married. He wouldn’t break his vow to you. He wouldn’t do something like that.

Whispers turned into shouts which eventually turned into articles written in newspapers and magazines. The whole experience was humiliating for you and you were glad your children didn’t know what was going on. Eventually his infidelity was being talked about too much for you not to believe it. He was good looking and to top it off, he was one of the most famous men in the world. Who wouldn’t want him?

“I don’t know what to feel,” you’d vented to your friend, Marie, one day. The two of you were out shopping for the day. “I keep telling myself he wouldn’t do that but I don’t think that’s true anymore.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was cheating,” Marie told you bluntly. “There’s a lot of women who want him and I don’t think he tells them no. It sounds daunting, I know, but you should just pull him up about it.”

If there was anything you hated, it was confrontation. The last thing you wanted was to have a big argument over something that possibly might not be true.

“That way at least you’ll know,” Marie continued after your long pause of silence. “You’re stuck in a torment of confusion and that’s not fair to you. Neither is being cheated on. He should know better.”

“You think he’s cheating on me,” you stated.

Realising even your best friend thought your husband was cheating seemed to turn on the lightbulb in your head. It was going to be hard but you had to confront Ringo about the rumours that, at that point, were most likely not just rumours.

“Look, I’ll support you in whatever you decide to do after you talk to him,” Marie said, dodging the question, “but I think you owe it to yourself to find out the truth. I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

“I’m scared,” you told her, looking anywhere but in her eyes. You knew you’d cry if you did and something told you that you’d get enough tears tonight.

“I know.” Marie squeezed your hand lovingly. “You’re a strong woman. You’ve got this. Let’s just hope that Ringo isn’t cheating.”

You were filled with anxiety the whole drive home. Conveniently, your children were at your parents’ house for the day. You didn’t want them there for what was about to happen. There were several scenarios that you’d made up in your head. Not of all of them were good and you were hoping that your gut feeling was wrong. The uncertainty of what was going to happen made your stomach turn.

“Hey.”

The pool of anxiety in your stomach got worse as you heard Ringo’s voice.

“Hey.” You smiled weakly.

“What’s wrong?” Ringo asked, concern written all over his face. He knew you like the back of his hand. You could lie to him but the truth would come out eventually.

“I need to ask you something,” you started, “and I don’t want you to lie to me.”

Ringo’s face paled and it was then you knew everything was true. Your heart cried out in hurt but you still had to ask him. You wanted to hear it and you wanted to hear it from him.

“Are you cheating on me?”

You tried your best to hold back the tears you felt pooling in your eyes and looked him right in his eyes.

“You know those newspapers,” Ringo scoffed, “they’ll say anything, they will.”

You shook your head. “I’m not talking about the newspapers. I’m talking about you. Just tell me the truth. I deserve that much.”

Ringo’s heart plummeted into his stomach and he felt guilty beyond words. He’d already hurt you enough. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So you’re cheating on me and now you’re lying to me,” you listed the betrayals. “People talk. I didn’t listen for a long, long time when I really should’ve. I even married you for God’s sake! I had your children!”

“You’ve had a long day. It must be the tiredness talking. Let’s not do this right now.” Ringo tried to distract you to no avail.

“Please, Richard,” you begged softly, pushing down the anger and the urge to rile up. “Just tell me what we both already know.”

“You’ll leave me if I say anything,” Ringo said in a small voice. “You’ll take the kids too.”

“Was it since we first got together?” You questioned him.

The pain you felt was indescribable and you never thought it would happen. A part of you still didn’t want to leave him. You’d worked so hard for the dream life and you didn’t want it to end like that. You hated Ringo right now, you were furious beyond belief, but what made it worse was that you loved him. He had taken your heart and crushed it but here you were, still wanting to offer it back. You’d never love anyone the way you loved him.

“I don’t love them. None of them meant anything. I only love you.” Ringo took your hands in his. “I only want to be with you, I promise.”

“You promised me a lot of things,” you reminded him, moving your hands away from his. “So forgive me if I don’t believe you anymore.”

“Only if you’ll forgive me.” Ringo braced himself for the worst.

Ringo knew there was a possibility you’d walk out and never come back. He couldn’t blame anyone for that but himself. He’d been unfaithful. He broke his vows of marriage but he still wanted to be with you. He couldn’t give you a reason as to why he cheated. Temptation called and he couldn’t resist picking up.

“I...” You choked up, unable to find the words to properly express how you were feeling. You sighed, wiping the flowing tears from your face. “I can’t just forgive you like that. I need some time to figure things out.”

All you wanted was for Ringo to hold you, to tell you it was all a prank and everything was okay but it wasn’t. It was real life and it was happening now.

“I’m sorry,” Ringo apologised.

“Ringo-” You tried to stop him.

“Please. I know I don’t deserve you listening to me right now but I am sorry,” Ringo apologised again. “It doesn’t seem like it but it wasn’t my intention to hurt you. I really didn’t mean to hurt you and I understand if you can’t forgive me.”

“Why did you do this to me?” Your voice cracked as you began to sob. “I loved you. I thought you loved me.”

“I do. I do love you,” Ringo insisted, moving around to try and console you.

“Don’t!” You barked at him, folding your arms around your waist. The last thing you needed was for him to come and give you a hug. Even in your state now, that would definitely end with the two of you in bed. “I need to go.”

“At this time of night? I’ll take the guest bedroom. You don’t have to go.” Ringo tried to get you to stay. Seeing you walk out would signify the end of your relationship and he wasn’t ready for that yet. If only he could turn back time.

“I don’t want to sleep in that bed.” Your stomach lurched as you thought about the countless women who must’ve slept in there in your absence. “I don’t want to be in this house right now. I can’t.”

“Will you be back?” Ringo asked, tears brimming in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” you admitted truthfully. “I just need some time away from here right now.”

You needed time and space to figure out your emotions. When you had your time to think about everything and deal with it all, then you’d decide if you still wanted to be with Ringo. You didn’t want to leave him but you didn’t want to stay with a man who’d continuously cheat on you.

“Tell our kids I love them,” Ringo requested of you. “Please.”

You nodded as you turned the door knob and left. Sniffling, you made your way to your car and sobbed harder than you ever have as you sat down in the driver’s seat. You cried and cried and wished that it was all a nightmare. You wished your perfect life was still in tact and that you had a faithful husband. But you knew you’d wake up tomorrow and be cruelly reminded of today.

#ringo starr imagine #ringo starr x reader #female!reader #ringo starr x female reader #beatles imagines #beatles x reader #the beatles imagine #ringo starr #the beatles #the beatles x reader

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1970

Under the cut.

B. J. Thomas – “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” -- January 3, 1970

Everything's going wrong, but he's not gonna cry or complain, because he knows things will turn good before long. Meh. I dunno, it's a bouncy song, sung well, but I've never liked the whole smile your way through everything awful ethos, and I really fucking hate it right now. See: Pandemic, and Trump's response to it. And so a song I was fine with last year now infuriates me.

The Jackson 5 – “I Want You Back” -- January 31, 1970

I'm skipping every Jackson 5 song. Little kids singing love songs for money and fame is bad enough, and I never liked any of these songs for that reason. But add in the baggage of what Michael Jackson did later, and how much did that have to do with him being forced into this position when he was a little kid, and I'm done. Let a child psychologist handle this. I'm not equipped.

Shocking Blue – “Venus” -- February 7, 1970

It's supposed to be "The goddess on the mountaintop," as anyone who heard the later Bananarama cover a whole bunch knows. But Mariska Veres is Dutch, and she sings "godness on the mountaintop" instead. Also Venus was technically on a mountaintop I guess, but I associate her more with a giant clamshell in the sea. I'm nitpicking. The song's got a great groove and Veres' voice is perfect for it. It's good.

Sly & The Family Stone – “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” -- February 14, 1970

I always thought this chorus was "Thank you for lettin' me be myself again." I'm not sure what the actual spelling is trying to communicate. I only just learned what the song is actually about: How the pop music industry sucks. I think. The only totally clear line is "Dyin' young is hard to take, sellin' out is harder." So maybe the spelling is a sarcastic jab at how no one is letting him be himself. But with the funk dancing beat, and the only lines that sound clear not actually being what they sound like, it's still not more than a really great party song.

Simon & Garfunkel – “Bridge Over Troubled Water” -- February 28, 1970

If I were a music critic, I'd get in trouble for this one. Bridge Over Troubled Water bores me to tears. It makes me feel like I'm stuck in glue. Aretha Franklin's rendition is significantly better, but I still don't like it. It's a nice sentiment and all, but I'll take the Four Tops for the same idea done far better, thanks.

The Beatles – “Let It Be” -- April 11, 1970

I hate toxic positivity. However, I very much like calming down and detaching from things you cannot control. The latter is what this song is about. It's about "Mother Mary," which obviously sounds like Jesus' mom, but it's actually about Paul's mom, who died when Paul was 14. When he was going through a tough time as an adult, he had a dream that she came to him and told him "let it be." John Lennon, being a dick as he so often was, didn't like the song, and called in Phil Spector to put massive layers of production in it. Later, Paul released "Let It Be... Naked," which was his original vision for the song. It's far better.

The Jackson 5 – “ABC” -- April 25, 1970

Pass.

The Guess Who – “American Woman” -- May 9, 1970

This song pisses me off. Obviously it's an entire song insulting American women, and as an American woman, I am not pleased, not that The Guess Who would care. And of course it's metaphorical, but why the fuck are American women the ones getting blamed for war machines? Because women are blamed for everything, that's why. Oh and also the song is incredibly repetitive, so even if it were a song about how great American women are, I would not like it.

Ray Stevens – “Everything Is Beautiful” -- May 30, 1970

There's a mob of small children, hide! That is my reaction to the beginning of this song. Past that -- okay, yes, everyone is beautiful in their own way. This song isn't though. It's the gloopiest of Christian "rock" before that was even a thing. It makes me shudder.

The Beatles – “The Long And Winding Road” -- June 13, 1970

Phil Spector splooges all over another Paul McCartney song. I never cared much for this song before I heard the "Naked" version, which gives me chills. How could anyone not open their door to this? But when it comes to the official single version, I'd tell him to take another trip around the block while I thought about it.

The Jackson 5 – “The Love You Save” -- June 27, 1970

Pass.

Three Dog Night – “Mama Told Me (Not To Come)” -- July 11, 1970

The lyrics are about how scary parties are. Which, um, yeah. Especially that cigarette part; I've always been drastically allergic to cigarettes, so that my parents had regular parties when I was a kid was really bad. I'm glad that people were going outside to smoke by the time I was in college. But the song. It's a party song in which the narrator hates parties. Pretty fun.

The Carpenters – “(They Long To Be) Close To You” -- July 25, 1970

Karen Carpenter's voice and singing ability were astounding. It's one of the great tragedies of music that she didn't get better songs. I do like this one, though. Yes, it's ridiculously sweet. But it has a beat and forward motion -- it's slow, but not turgid. The piano is nice. And, of course, there's Karen Carpenter's gorgeous voice, the most important thing about the song by far.

Bread – “Make It With You” -- August 22, 1970

Bread is wonderful. I love bread. But not the musical group Bread, which is like stale Wonder Bread rather than a delicious foodstuff. 70s easy listening managed to make sex sound boring. This song is one of the worst in that regard. If sex were like it seems to be in this song, I'd rather scrub grout.

Edwin Starr – “War” -- August 29, 1970

"War/ I despise/ It means destruction to innocent lives." Exactly. To say I love this song doesn't quite cover it. The song is the absolute truth, that's all.

Diana Ross – “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” -- September 19, 1970

The narrator's been dumped but whenever her ex needs her, she'll get to him any way she can. This version takes too long to get started, and then Ross speaks the verses instead of singing them. I don't like it at all. Give me Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's version instead, which also sounds like the narrators have a much more equal relationship.

Neil Diamond – “Cracklin’ Rosie” -- October 10, 1970

The song sounds like it's about a sex worker. It's not. It's about cheap wine. Also it's Neil Diamond. It's not boring, and I don't hate it, but I can't say I like it either. It's just sort of there.

The Jackson 5 – “I’ll Be There” -- October 17, 1970

*shudder* Pass.

The Partridge Family – “I Think I Love You” -- November 21, 1970

It starts in a minor key, waking up and suddenly realizing "I think I love you." But the narrator isn't quite ready to accept it. It's about a first love, and about how confusing the feeling is. Also there's a harpsichord. At the end, the narrator is asking if you think you love him too. I like it.

Smokey Robinson And The Miracles – “The Tears Of A Clown” -- December 12, 1970

He's pretending to be happy in public, but he doesn't want the woman who left him to think he's anything but miserable after she left him for some reason he doesn't know. He name-checks Pagliacci. Great Motown song. (The B-side of the single was "I Second That Emotion," which I like even better.)

George Harrison – “My Sweet Lord" -- December 26, 1970

Oh, George. I actually like his solo career better than that of any of the other Beatles, but his first big smash is not good. First, the melody is plagiarized from The Chiffon's "He's So Fine." Not inspired by or similar to or any of the other bullshit musical artists are getting sued over these days. It's a straight-up rip. George said he did it accidentally, and that absolutely can happen, but in this case I'm doubtful. The Beatles covered a whole lot of girl group songs at the beginning of their run. George knew girl groups. Second, he slowed down the melody, and so it is too slow, especially if you already know "He's So Fine." Third, it's about wanting to "know" some non-denominational New Agey all religions are really one religion type "Lord." That's a philosophy that I find confused at best. Very bad.

BEST OF 1970: "War"   WORST OF 1970: "My Sweet Lord"

#billboard number ones

[mithranqueersmusings]

Before This Dance Is Through V

Chapter: 5/16

Rating: M (Smut Warning)

Summary: Ringo's being going through a dry spell for the last year or so and when he regretfully tells his best friend John, he insists on taking them to an all-male strip club for some "fun". Ringo isn't sure whether it's the alcohol, his desperation or a mixture of the two but he thinks he might be falling in love with a stripper.

Tags: AU - Strippers, Modern Setting, Smut, Slow Burn

Pairings: George Harrison/Ringo Starr, John Lennon/Paul McCartney

AO3 link here / Fic masterlist here

Despite what John had suggested, Ringo didn't go back to The Helter Skelter the following week; he'd considered it when John sent him yet another late night text but ultimately decided it wasn't the best idea. Spike had been playing on his mind daily and Ringo wasn't sure he was prepared to face him again. Instead he focused on his drumming and searched for a few more students to teach, which were fairly easy to find. Usually Ringo enjoyed his time off, he understood he was lucky that he didn't have to work a 9-5 job just to get by, but recently he wanted his fill his time up as much as possible, to distract himself.

One of his new students seemed incredibly interested in him, they'd spent an hour just chatting in his living room before they'd even moved over to the drum kit. Ringo wasn't too fussed, he was getting paid by the hour so wasting time was beneficial to him but he didn't want to give the guy the wrong impression. He was a little bit older and attractive enough but Ringo simply wasn't interested.

"Why didn't you just go for it?" John had asked him when they next met up.

"I dunno..." Ringo mumbled, but a part of him knew very well.

He'd given the guy another lesson since then and it became clear that the guy's interest in him wasn't going away any time soon. Ringo felt bad about the whole thing, wasn't he just doing exactly what Spike was doing to him? He tried to act as professional as possible the second time around in attempt to get the guy to back off, considering he hadn't heard from him since he was hoping it had worked. What was wrong with him? Was he really going to make himself suffer like this all because of one guy? And not just any guy, a stripper who had shown absolutely no interest in him at all. It was ridiculous, he kept telling himself, but no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he had to get over Spike, he would still think about him every day without fail. Trying to distract himself with clients had been working somewhat, but it had been difficult, especially when his best friend was John Lennon.

       youre gonna love me

The text came through when Ringo was sat in a café getting some lunch. He'd finished with one of his younger students, a sweet girl who's parents had tried to convince her to try a more 'ladylike' instrument but she had promised only to give up the drums if she was awful; much to her delight, and Ringo's for being able to prove the stereotypical parents wrong, she was pretty good. Seeing her always put Ringo in a good mood, the parents mostly stayed away partly due to the noise but mostly due to disappointment, which meant they could joke around together. Ringo could tell she admired him and he welcomed it gladly, one of the best things about teaching was inspiring others, at least for him it was.

        do i not already?

        well yes         but youre gonna love me EVEN more

        what have you done

        well i happened to stop by the club last night

        oh god what did you do

        wow is that how little you trust me

        can you blame me

        suppose not         ANYWAY i got talking to paulie

        surprise surprise

        do you want the good news or not???

        fine fine sorry

        AS I WAS SAYING i was talking to paulie         and he told me that your special little someone has an onlyfans account

        first of all fuck you for calling him that         second of all wtf is onlyfans

        oh sorry i didnt realise you werent living in the 21st century

        ......         care to grace me with your knowledge?

        basically its a website where you can post exclusive stuff for ONLY FANS to see         its not a porn site or anything but its basically where people sell their nudes         MEANING spike has an account so you can totally see loads of raunchy filthy perverted pics of him

        but i have to pay?

        well weve all gotta make a living

        i can basically see him naked for free

        but this way you wont get all freaked out and embarrassed         well you will but nobody will know at least         so do you want the link or not???

Ringo paused for a few moments, he was gripping his phone tightly in both of his hands as he unblinkingly looked at John's words. If his mind was going to decide to make him suffer by enabling his intense interest in Spike, he may as well get something out of it.

        fine

        where are your manners richard??

        can i please have the link to the strippers nude photos please john please

        alright calm down         let me know if its worth while i might have a look

        idk if im even gonna look at it         paying for porn is a little dated

        treat yourself ringo         id offer to pay but im broke

        if youre broke why were you at the strip club last night?

        well SOMEONE had to go

        they really didnt

        im supporting my local economy

        i dont think thats how that works

        sure it is         anyway here you go

Ringo stared at the link for a while, his eyes even began to blur, he didn't want to risk opening it in public even though he knew there was little chance of anyone seeing. He finished his lunch in a hurry and headed home quickly, only when he was in the privacy of his bedroom did he dare open it. First he had to make an account, when he saw the screen loading up asking for an email address and password he just turned his screen off and put the phone down. This was far too much effort for something he shouldn't really have been doing in the first place. But it only took a few minutes for him to pick the phone back up and begin signing up, he used an old email as it felt less seedy that way and he didn't want to risk his name cropping up anywhere for Spike to see. Now he could load up the link properly and take a proper look at Spike's profile.

Just looking at the small profile picture was enough to startle Ringo a little, the dark eyes looking into the camera with that unreadable glimmer behind them. He was shirtless in the picture, Ringo wondered why that didn't catch his attention first, with the frame cutting off just before it showed anything too explicit. The header was a photo taken from the club, showing him in tight, leather pants and tassels on his nipples which matched the whip he held in his hand. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. He'd spent so much time and effort trying not to think about this man, attempting to keep him out of his mind as much as possible. Ringo knew that if he went through with this all that progress would be lost, he'd be giving in to whatever strange obsession he'd developed for Spike, one that no doubt wasn't going to lead to anything good.

Ringo kept staring at the screen as though it was going to tell him what he should do. Spike's profile had no description, which wasn't very surprising, and it dashed any hope Ringo had of discovering something new about him. Right before he was about to put his phone down again, it vibrated.

        howd the wank go??

        john i dont care how long weve been friends asking how my wank was will always be weird

        youre right sorry         so how did it go???

        if you must know         i havent had a wank         i havent even paid for entry

        now whos the one being inappropriate??

        ha ha

        why havent you???

        feels weird

        oh i see         youll consume a bunch of unethical porn for free but god forbid you actually give sex workers any actual money

        you are the last person who can lecture me about unethical porn

        hey now watch yourself         ringo if you dont get a subscription I WILL

        go ahead

        and ill tell you every day what sexy sexy pictures hes posting         ill tell you EVERY SINGLE TIME i have a wank over them

        every time? i dont think youve got enough data for that

        im not joking

        neither am i         you wank A LOT

        ringooooo just buy it i swear to god         if its not worth it or you regret it or whatever ill give you the money back

        on top of the money you already owe me?

        have you always been such a capitalist

        youre not doing a very good job of convincing me

        fine         spikes cock         now are you convinced???

        maybe

        naked pictures of spike whenever and wherever you want them all for the low low price of 10 quid a month         convinced??

        fine fine         if itll shut you up

        im starting to think thats code for 'i really wanna do this but im too embarrassed to admit it'

        i hate you

        now that DEFINITELY code for 'john youre right'         anyway theres no time to be telling me how right i am all the time youve got dick pics to look at         even i wont stand in the way of a good wank         so dont bother replying to me until youve paid for that subscription young man

        im older than you

        DONT BOTHER REPLYING

Ringo let out a sigh and rested his head against the bedroom wall from where he was laying on the bed. He opened up the link again and his thumb hovered over the subscription button, why couldn't he just do it? The money wasn't an issue, it could've cost half as much or be double the price and he'd still be debating it all the same. Somehow it felt like an invasion of privacy, after all Spike hadn't told Ringo about it himself, but then again that didn't necessarily mean he didn't want Ringo to see it. After all it was like John said: everyone has to make a living somehow. Sometimes Ringo wished he could turn off that part of his brain that was so empathetic, so concerned about how everyone felt and what they were thinking. He knew that he wanted this, so why wasn't he allowing himself to have it? Ringo could see that he was being ridiculous, as he was with almost anything involving Spike, and after lying there for a while pondering and debating he decided to flip a coin. Heads would mean he got the subscription, tails that he didn't. He watched the coin spinning through the air after he flicked it upwards, then snatched it and slammed it down onto his forearm before slowly moving his hand away: it was tails. What a relief. Ringo chuckled to himself for being so foolish, settling down into his bed; it was still only around midday but he didn't have anywhere he needed to be.

So why didn't he feel relieved in the slightest?

This whole thing was getting tiring, the constant debate between what he believed he should do and what he wanted to do, and it seemed like it wasn't going to be ending anytime soon. Apparently he was in this for the long run, whatever that meant, but if he was going to turn down relatively attractive guys practically throwing themselves at him, he may as well go all the way. While he was putting in his credit card information, he stopped to think around three of four times, but once he'd finished and the images became accessible to him, his brain was barely able to conjure up a coherent sentence.

"Jesus..." Ringo breathed out as his eyes flicked across the plethora of pictures loading up on his screen.

There was a lot of them, and a lot of Spike was on display. Most of them were pictures taken at the club, either from a professional photographer in the audience or photos he'd taken himself in the mirrors backstage - Ringo could even see glimpses of Paul in the background of some of them. The ones that caught Ringo's eyes the most were those that seemed to be taken in his house, these also happened to be the ones in which Spike tended to be fully naked. It was very different experience to see him like this: a static image that he'd intentionally taken of himself and posted for so many people to see, an image that couldn't look back at Ringo and make him feel that strange mixture of excitement and shame. He began scrolling down the feed which only revealed more and more enticing photos. Ringo began to feel himself hardening, he suspected it had been happening for a while now but he'd been far too distracted to notice. He felt like a teenager discovering porn for the first time, it was difficult to remind himself that this wasn't anything new. Seeing Spike naked shouldn't have excited him so much, and yet it did.

One picture in particular drew Ringo's attention: Spike was stood in front of a bathroom mirror with a loose black tie lying against his bare chest, one hand was holding a phone and the other gripping his cock. He had dark eye make up on and his hair was messy. Ringo wasn't sure exactly what it was about this photo that was so enticing but he couldn't take his eyes off it. The prominence of his collarbones, the faint curls of his dark hair, how his slim fingers wrapped around himself. Slowly Ringo slid his own hand under the waistband of his boxers as he stared at the picture. At first he hesitated, his fingers stopped right above the base. It's not like this would've been the first time he'd touched himself while thinking about Spike, it would've been far from the last he imagined, but this was different. It was more concrete, more of an admission. Nothing felt quite as real when it's only being imagined, the haziness of lust fuzzing up the mind as it so often did, but now with a very real photo of Spike in front of him - which he'd paid to see - the feeling was far more tangible, far harder to ignore.

He'd come this far, he told himself as his hand sunk lower until his fingers were running along the length of his semi-hard cock, he may as well go all the way. To begin with Ringo stayed looking at this single picture as he slowly pumped himself, but as his lust began to grow he perused through more and more pictures: Spike kneeling naked in front of a mirror with a loose cigarette hanging from his lips, lying in the bath with bubbles only just about covering his nakedness, spread out on the bed with a gag in his mouth, handcuffs forcing his slim arms behind his back with his cock throbbing. None of this was anything Ringo hadn't seen before, like most people in this day and age he'd searched through the darker corners of the internet - sometimes willingly, sometimes John was to blame - but to see Spike in such a way was like an entirely new rush. Each picture drove Ringo further and further on, at times he almost dropped his phone with how sloppy his movements were becoming. Who took these photos? Ringo figured it was best not to think about it, the possibility that Spike had a boyfriend who took all these pictures of him would've been the quickest way to kill his erection.

Ringo began moaning and cursing wantonly as he got closer and closer to his orgasm, he had to stop flicking through the pictures because he could hardly concentrate on what his other hand was doing, so he settled on a final one to help him finish; it wasn't particularly strategic but he was definitely grateful that he selected the one that he did. In it Spike was looking directly into the camera, allowing Ringo to gaze longingly into the rich brown of his eyes and how his dark lashes curled beautifully around them. He was shirtless with nothing but a necklace on, the same necklace that Ringo had seen him wearing in the record store and Ringo couldn't help feeling a sense of satisfaction that he'd seen it with his own eyes, as though it meant something. Deep down he knew that it didn't but his inebriated mind was latching onto it. The nudity in the photo was hardly interesting Ringo by this point, although it would be wrong to say that he completely ignored the flatness of his stomach or the faint shadows of his ribs beneath his pale skin, it was the personal aspect which truly affected him.

This wasn't just lust. Lust Ringo could understand, he could compartmentalise it and give into it without much shame or a second thought. If this was just lust, he would've bought the subscription without a care and touched himself looking at the nakedness of Spike's body as though it meant nothing more than a way to get off. Yet here he was on the brink of orgasm looking into another man's eyes, eyes that felt like they were looking straight back at him as though they were sharing this moment together. It wasn't hard to imagine Spike's hand in place of his own, those deep eyes watching Ringo come undone piece by piece. Ringo's hip began to stutter, his leg twitching a little as he had to drop the phone down onto his lap as his head fell back against his pillow as his orgasm approached. It wasn't the image of Spike's naked body that filled Ringo's mind as he came, it wasn't his arse or his cock or even his chest, it was his face, his voice, it was him.

Ringo lay breathless on his bed for a while, the clarity that arrived as his orgasm subsided wasn't welcome in the slightest and he was reluctant to pick his phone back up to see Spike's eyes looking at him once again. There was no use in feeling ashamed about it, no point in trying to deny it any longer: his feelings for Spike were more than a mere passing fancy, that was clear. Exactly what he was meant to do about these feelings was far from clear but that wasn't something Ringo could figure out right now with cum on his stomach and the daylight seeping through his bedroom curtains.

When he'd picked up his phone he'd closed all the apps immediately, doing his best not to catch a glimpse of what he'd been so eagerly looking at before. Just as he was about to step into the shower to clean himself off, his phone buzzed; he almost couldn't hear it over the music he was blasting out. It alerted him for a moment as though it was going to be a message from Spike stating he knew exactly what Ringo had just done - it wouldn't have really surprised him had that been the case, Spike's face almost always looked like he knew something that nobody else did - but fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, it was John.

        sooo how did the wank go

         who knows          but on a totally unrelated note im about to get into the shower

         well before you do that i have even more good news 

         can it not wait?

         NO because you might cum just at the thought of it and then youd be wasting a good shower

         well arent you considerate          and unnecessarily graphic

         thats me          anyway im taking you to the club next tuesday whether you like it or not

         im still waiting for the good news

         well if youd let me FINISH          next week theyre doing a special event and we just have to go          youll never guess what it is

         what is it?

         guess

         you just said ill never guess

         youre no fun

         WHAT IS IT

         alright alright keep your hair on          its a crossdressing event          high heels make up probably a few wigs all that good stuff

         im still waiting for the good news

         OH COME ON youre telling me you dont want to see spike in heels and fishnets with some lovely lipstick on

Ringo gulped. It wasn't a difficult image to conjure up his mind, considering he'd been staring at photos of Spike for the past twenty minutes and it excited him to say the least. He did want to see that, very much indeed.

#the beatles #beatles #beatles fanfic #the beatles fanfic #beatles fanfiction #george harrison/ringo starr #ringo starr/george harrison #ringo starrxgeorge harrison #george harrisonxringo starr #starrison

[fiesta-freddie]

I love yr blog! how would each of the beatles react to you being pregnant at a young age? thanks sooooo much! i know you’re very busy but i hope you can get around to it?

A/n: I’ve wanted to do one of these for a while now, so thank you for requesting it! I had a lot of fun with it (if you can’t tell from reading it) Feedback is always appreciated!

Paul

When you first give him the news that you’re pregnant he has a look of shock on his face

“Paul what’s the matter?”

“Wait wait now hold on just a minute.”

“Yes Paul?”

“Y/N, If we fucked twice and now your pregnant...does that mean your having twins?”

*mental face palm*

You loved this man but sometimes his level of thinking blew your mind

“No Paul, just because we fucked twice does not mean I’m having twins.”

“Oh thank God” he’d say with a sigh of relief

“But I am still pregnant so weather it’s twins or not there’s still going to be a baby.”

He nods to show he understand

But soon his nod turns into a slow head shake

And his eyes begin to water

A frown falls upon his face

Not even thirty seconds later he’s crying

Why? You don’t know

So keep reading to find out

“Paul why are you crying? You should be happy! Your finally going to be a father!”

He doesn’t think he’s good enough to be one though

“I know it’s just that- what if I can’t do it? What if I’m not capable of being a father? What if the baby doesn’t like me?”

“Paul I know for a fact the baby will absolutely love you and your going to be a great father, I know it. Sure it might be a little harder because we’re younger, but this is a learning experience for both of us.”

You sit and comfort him for a while until he calms down

Once Paul is done with his emotional breakdown he begins to come around more

He starts to talk about the baby which melts your heart because you can see a sparkle in his eyes as he does so

He really does want to be a father and he wants to help you as much as he can

You two start to talk about names

“If its a girl we’ll name her Paulina and if it’s a boy Paul Jr!”

*mental face palm once again*

“Okay...so maybe we should give a little more thought into names before deciding, but I love the enthusiasm”

He talks about your future and how he wants to make sure you have everything you’ll ever need

“-and once the boys and I make it big, I’ll buy us a brand new house in the countryside! I’ll buy anything you could possibly need! We can take vacations to the IsIe of Wight every summer!”

“Paulie, baby love, you don’t need to spend every cent you make on us. As long as I have you and the baby that’s all I’ll ever need.”

He leans in with that adorable smile of his and cups your face in his hands pressing a gentle kiss to your lips

Then he moves his head down so it’s level with your stomach as kisses it.

“Paul what are you doing?”

He looks up at you, hands still in your sides. “I’ve got to give one to the baby too.”

John

Your nervous to give John the news at first

Its because you think he’ll leave you after the baby is born

Of course you don’t want that, no one does

But you decide to tell him anyways, because its better to get it done and over with instead of waiting to do it

What else were you supposed to do? 

Wait seven months before telling him

“Oh hey John, sorry for waiting seven months before telling you, but i’m pregnant! You see how my stomach has gotten bigger? Yeah, its not because I’ve gained an excessive amount of weight, no no its because I’m carrying another human inside of me...yeah so your gonna be a father now!”

Obviously you weren't going to do that (...unless?)

You find John and sit him down to tell him the news

“John there something I need to talk to you about, it serious.”

“Sure sweetheart, what is it?”

You hesitate at first

“Well John I- I don’t really know how to tell you this, but um you see I’m uhh. Well, John I’m pregnant”

He’s silent for a moment before saying anything

“Wait i need to know something important”

“Yes, John?”

“Am I the father?”

*prolonged silence*

“Yes John your the father”

He gets a sudden burst of excitement

He picks you up and spins you around

And he starts to cry a little too

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, the unexpected has happened

John Winston Lennon is crying real tears

*cue emotional music*

“Y/N this is so exciting I’m gonna be a dad!”

It wasn't the reaction you were expecting from him, but you weren't complaining 

He promises to be a better father than his ever was

he knows how important it is to the both of you 

“I’ll look after the little guy all time! I’ll play with him and he can even share the same special star my mother gave to me! Then maybe when hes old enough I can teach him the guitar!”

It warms your heart to see that he is genuinely interested in being a father

“Your going to be a wonderful father John, I can already tell.”

George

Absolutely thrilled when you give him the news

“Y/N this is wonderful, I’m going to be a father! I’M GOING TO BE A FATHER!”

He doesn’t stop talking about it

The first thing he does is call the rest of the boys to tell them the news

He also calls his parents

And your parents

And your other close friends

He makes sure all your craving needs are met

No matter how weird they may seem

“George? You know what sounds really good right now? Tomatoes and icing!”

“Did you- Icing? Like the kind you put on a cake?”

“Yes what other kind would I be talking about?”

“And you want that with a tomato? Like as in a regular plain tomato?”

“Umm yeah?”

So because George loves you so much he makes sure that you get exactly what you want

Sometimes you even convince him to eat some of your weird craving foods too

“Come on Geo, it doesn't taste that bad. Just give it a little try”

He does

He ends up liking some of them

“Sometimes I wish I was the pregnant one so I could eat this stuff without it being weird”

“No you don’t”

Hes extra cautious with a lot of things pretty much everything

And he offers to do almost everything for you even if your capable of doing it yourself

Like with doors

He’ll hold them open and make sure you get through okay

“Hey! Everyone shes pregnant okay? Let her go through the door first and wait till shes all the way through before you go in? Got it? Good”

“Jesus George, I’m pregnant not disabled”

Its only because he loves you and wants to protect you

“But Y/N, it’s my duty to protect you and be by your side at all times...especially when the baby’s born”

You give him a small peck on the lips

“Thanks Geo”

Ringo

Okay let’s get onto Bingo

Wait....

I did this last time

Okay anyways here’s what’s up

Ringo is out here being very protective of, not just you, but the fetus inside of you too

The moment you tell him that your pregnant he baby proofs the entire house

He puts away all the things that could potentially cause harm to a new born child

Sharp objects? Hidden in cupboards (if you look hard enough you might even find Roger in there, who knows?)

Any form of glass? Stored away

Rugs and blankets? In the closets

Jewelry? In the drawer

Hotel? Trivago

I’ve made that joke so many times it’s not even funny any more

Anywhomst, back to

Richard Starkey

Pringle Stone

Richie Tozier (yeah that’s right, I did that😏)

Ringo Starr

“Ritchie, you don’t have to worry. And besides the baby isn’t even going to be here for another nine months”

“Y/N it’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

He goes full mom mode

Constantly cleaning and sanatizing everything

Washing clothes, bedsheets and towels all the time

“Ringo, honey you don’t need to go overboard on the cleaning. I appreciate it a lot, but don’t you think it’s a little much? I mean especially if the baby isn’t going to be here anytime soon”

“Y/N babies can get sick very easily”

He doesn’t want your child to end up like he did

Sick all the time

In and out of hospitals

Missing out on opportunities

“I just want the little fella to have a good childhood, ya know? Better than what I had to go through”

“Ringo, I know that the baby will have a great childhood. I mean look at us! We’re going to be great parents, I know it!”

“You think so?”

“Honey, I know so”

👏CUDDLES

👏ALL

👏THE

👏TIME

(Part of it is because blankets are being washed half the time)

When you two cuddle he always ALWAYS, wraps his arms around your stomach because he says “it’s like we’re cuddling with the baby too”

You two usually end up falling asleep like that and wake up in the morning wrapped in each other’s arms

“Good Morning Ritchie” you kiss him on the head

“Good morning, love”

He faces down towards your stomach and places a gentle kiss on it

“Good morning little one”

————

Taglist: @beatlevmania @givemequeen @harrimoon @wrongbea-tle @princesof-theuniverse @john-lemonade

If you want to be added to the taglist let me know!

#the beatles #john lennon #george harrison #ringo starr #paul mccartney #the beatles imagine #the beatles x reader #john lennon imagine #john lennon x reader #paul mccartney imagine #paul mccartney x reader #george harrison imagine #george harrison x reader #ringo starr imagine #ringo starr x reader #my work

[seromreven]

title: songbird.

pairings: cynthia lennon/female!reader, (kinda) | cynthia lennon/john lennon, (former).

summary: it’s 1968 and the aftermath of John and Cynthia Lennon’s divorce. You’re her best friend through many years; staying at her house to support her and her son through this hard time.

author’s note: hard feels time, y’all.

---

The rain beat hard and fast against the wooden roof of the house known as Kenwood. It was early August but you could easily be fooled by the weather into thinking it was late autumn as the wind and rain knocked hard against the windows of the old house.

You were there visiting your good friend Cynthia in a show of support as she went through a tough and unjust divorce from her musician husband John Lennon. And, by God, did she need it. It was destroying her emotionally and physically as she yet again laid flat on her stomach, crying her heart out, on the large queen bed that she once shared with her so beloved husband.

You were out in the large garden, out in the pouring rain, with her young son Julian. Trying to distract him from the drama and the depressive state of his mother. He was five and was well aware of the situation so as much as you wanted to distract him from all that went on; it was far too late. He had, when you first told him to dress up and go outside, asked you if it was because his mother was crying again. It broke your heart and there was nothing you could say to it but put on your coat and boots in demure silence.

You had known Cynthia long before John had entered the picture. Long before Julian and The Beatles. And you had loved her for just as long. Not as a sister or as a friend; as your best friend. You loved her as something more. Something you never had found the ability to give a name to. You were sure it was more than platonic. Something bordering on romantic, but it had never been confessed. Never something even slightly hinted at. You didn’t want to risk the relationship you had with her. And it definitely couldn’t be brought up now in the mess of a situation John had left her in.

Oh, you could kill him. How he dared to do this to her! Cheating on her with who knows how many women over the years and then all that culminating in bringing in some abstract concept artist into their marital bed while she was on a vacation he sent her on! The gall of the man!

And, oh, you had made your feelings very known when he once showed up unannounced with his new lover at the apartment you stayed at with Cynthia in London. They no longer liked Kenwood, it being too solitary or some bullshit, and wanted to stay there instead. You told him to stick where the sun wouldn’t shine and then some but was quickly ushered away by Ringo Starr, the actual owner of the aforementioned apartment.

Cynthia was fine with it as she had come to miss Kenwood in the time she had stayed in London. But the sight of him and that Yoko Ono had sent her back into a spiral she had otherwise slowly been crawling out of.

So, here you were, in the rain, hopping around in puddles with Julian and the white terrier dog that you shared with Cyn. He seemed content enough at the moment. Pearls of the wonderful laughter of children getting caught in the wind as he kicked and splashed water and mud into the air. Mickey, your West Highland White Terrier, barking along as it rolled around on the wet grass, much to your dismay.

After a long while, you had no way to keep track of how long, you were getting pretty wet. And exhausted from all the running around. Telling Julian so; you forced the young boy inside and gave him the chore of drying up Mickey as you went to boil water for a nice cup of tea for the both of you.

Setting Julian down at the kitchen table; you told him to wait for you there with a set of crayons and a colouring book as you went upstairs to check on his mother.

Cynthia had been quiet the entire time you had been back inside and you had assumed she must have fallen asleep in the aftermath of her fit of sorrow. And so it seemed as you entered the room to fit her gently snoring with her head resting on her arms in what looked to be a rather uncomfortable position. There would be nothing you could do to help her out of the future soreness without waking her up so you resigned yourself to pull over a thin quilt gently and quietly made your way back down to Julian.

Julian was sitting in deep concentration as he drew into the big book with a yellow crayon held fast unto in a tiny fist as it went well beyond the lines of the drawings. You had given him a glass of milk as he was yet to have any interest or taste for tea. His feet swung back and forth from the high seat, narrowly hitting Mickey on the ground who seemed to have no interest in moving out of the way.

You hummed along to the radio that was playing at a low volume as you watched Julian colouring the various pictures of animals and plants. None of the colours fitted the real-life counterparts and the sight of it made you miss the creativity and innocent of childhood in contrast to the sharp and sudden swings and responsibilities of adulthood. You sipped slow sips from your mug as time went by in your watching of Julian. No talking was done as you were quite sure he had completely forgotten you in his enthrallment of the drawings.

If one good thing had come out of Cynthia’s involvement with John; it had been Julian. You loved him as if he was family of your own, which he practically was. You had been around him since his birth. Been around him more then his father had, due to his tight schedule of touring and recording and sleeping around.

No! You refused to get angry again. Angry at the thought of a man that wasn’t even present. Angry at the harm and emotional torment he had caused not only his wife but his son!

Your knuckles were turning white around the grip you had on your mug as you shimmered silently in anger, hoping it would go unnoticed by the young boy next to you. But, fortunately, you were distracted from your sullen thoughts at the sound of a motor roaring and stopping right outside on the road belonging Kenwood.

You went to the window and looked out, mug still in hand, and immediately recognised the car. It belonged to none other than Paul McCartney; a man you otherwise hadn’t seen in a while. You watched him go up the stone pathway leading to the house until he reached the main door and knocked.

Julian’s head shot up from his intense staring contest with the picture of a gorilla and he looked eagerly back and forth between you and the door.

“Julian, it’s uncle Paulie coming to see you!”

You laughed as the young boy jumped down the chair with a great big grin on his face and rushed to the front door. You heard the familiar laughter of Paul as you made your way to the entrance. His arms were in a tight embrace around Julian who was carrying in his arms as he was closing the door behind him; talking and laughing with the kid as he did so.

Julian was animatedly talking about his day, waving his arms around as he described the rain and the animals in his book and how he had played around with Mickey in the garden and how he had painted the tiny dog brown with the mud. Just like in his book!

Paul could only nod to you in greeting as he went into the living room with the boy in his arms, still talking and laughing. You followed along after you had cast a single glance up the stairs towards the room Cynthia were sleeping in. You hoped desperately she was staying undisturbed as sleep had been something she severely needed.

You sat down quietly in an armchair facing the sofa where Julian was still talking. It seemed the conversation had gone from his day to the socks he was wearing. It was a pair he had gotten for his birthday by your parents (they were, in a way, adoptive grandparents of his. Something John had never liked) and they were decorated with small giraffes in bright colours. It was the only pair he ever wanted to wear, though you had the misfortune of crushing his dreams every time they needed a wash.

The moment you had the change; you told Julian to go play with his toys as you needed to have a ‘grown-up’ chat with his uncle. He didn’t seem to mind as he quickly nodded and rushed to his various spinning tops and variants of wooden toys your father had made for him.

Paul looked at you, curious and with his brows raised as he leaned forward to sit closer to you as you said in a hushed voice; wanting to avoid Julian overhearing.

“Cyn’s finally sleeping,” you said with some relief as you glanced towards the entrance hall where the staircase proudly stood. He nodded in thought with the slight mutterings of ‘good’.

Paul hadn’t been a rare presence in the house. Often visiting and checking up on the three of you when his schedule allowed it. He hadn’t deemed the divorce as an end to his friendship with either of you and for that, you were beyond grateful. You needed the extra company for when your feelings for Cynthia and your rage for John (who she still held deep feelings for) became too overpowering. He had become your confidant. And, in a moment of weakness, you had confided in him the feelings you harboured for Cynthia. He hadn’t shunned you. Hadn’t cursed you out for the things you felt for the other woman. He had seemed, in a way, understanding of your situation. Though he hadn’t said so.

Paul got you out of your thoughts (again) when he said; “I wrote a song. For Jules. To cheer him up, y’know.”

“A song?” you asked with a raised brow. Not all too surprising considering who he was. But it still took you by surprise as it was a gesture you hadn’t expected.

He nodded; clearly excited about his musical feat; “it’s not finished yet but it’s… good, if I do say so myself. Did it all on me own,” he said with a wink and you laughed. Though you didn’t admit to it; you were quite excited to hear the song. Especially if it was meant for dear Julian.

You had a long line of questions ready to be asked concerning him, the song, the bastard John, when you overheard the small tapping of feet from the floor above you. You looked up, for some reason thinking that would serve you as a guide as to what was making the noise. Quickly glancing back to Paul, you realised what or whom it was; you stood up with a sigh.

“I’ll go check on her,” and you quickly left to make the journey of the stairs. You whispered her name as you entered the bedroom and saw her staring blankly at the wall where they once had hung a portrait of her and John. It’s current location you didn’t know. It had been long gone once you had finally arrived at Kenwood weeks ago.

She didn’t seem to notice your appearance, though you had called out to her. She didn’t stir or look away from the wall and you were about to leave again when a gentle voice asked you something you hadn’t expected; “lay with me.”

You halted in your steps and swore that your heart stopped beating. Had you heard correctly? You turned and closed the quietly behind you as you looked at her, feeling very confused as you looked at her from your place against the door.

She finally looked to you, tears in her eyes. Her cheeks already a bright pink from her earlier crying.

“I mean nothing improper. I just… miss having arms around me. To hold me.”

You nodded and slowly made your way over to her. Your hard was beating fast as you neared her and the world felt like it was starting to spin. So it was a good thing you laid down on the soft bed, atop the covers. She turned on the bed and with her slender hands, guided yours to hold her gently. With a small whimper and sigh; she leaned against your chest with her hands still on yours.

It didn’t take long before you felt yourself relax and both of your breathing slowed down. You felt her warm breath on your skin through your thin summer shirt which was quickly followed by her calm snoring. And though you knew it was but a momentary event; something that had been followed by pain and unjust suffering, you wanted it to last eternally. This serene, peaceful, moment that so rarely came around these recent years.

You figured you would eventually be missed downstairs but, oh, how you couldn’t give a damn as Cynthia held tight unto your fingers as she finally got the rest she desired.

#the beatles #cynthia lennon #john lennon #paul mccartney #julian lennon #female reader #reader #reader insert #beatles fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #was working on the next chapter on i'll take you there #was instead hit by this angst train

[dellaliz19]

Ant-Man and the Wasp review: spoilers

So, a little late to the party, but this weekend I saw Marvel’s newest entry to the MCU, Ant-Man and the Wasp...and I loved it! (Rambling ensues now, beware of spoilers).

The superhero genre has gotten, shall we say, very touchily self aware of the danger of superhero fatigue. Some of the latest entries to the genre have felt like they’ve needed to justify their existence, to ramp up the drama and the seriousness of storylines, but Ant-Man and the Wasp is never so phased, which is great. Ant-Man and the Wasp knows exactly what it is from the moment go; a fun, superhero action movie about family.

The family dynamics of the story are the absolute core, and they shine as such. Scott and his daughter are sweet and real, Hank and Hope and Janet are so hopeful and bittersweet and lovely (curse you Thanos!!) and Ava and Bill are touching and strong. I’ve said before that Guardians of the Galaxy was Marvel’s “Fast and Furious IN SPACE,” and Ant-Man and the Wasp makes a great arguement for being “Fast and Furious WITH ALL THE SHRINKING” which just, A+. Sure, there is a little dramatic angst thrown in there, for the momentum, but the movie never sinks into melodrama or action schlock, and rides that wave well.

The character depictions, especially Hope and Hank and Scott are also so amazingly refreshing. Hope Van Dyne as Wasp could have easily have been “Action Girl,” the “strong, badass woman who don’t need no man,” but instead she gets to show real vulnerability, with her father, her mother and Scott, while also kicking ass and taking names. The Wasp is undeniably my favourite female Marvel superhero right now, a crown I think will be hard to take from her.

More so, the way the movie just hardcore dismisses toxic masculinity is so, so important. Scott and Paxton (his ex-wife’s husband) have one of the best on screen ex-husband/new husband dynamics; no macho posturing or feeling threatened, but instead a combined goal to parent Cassie and a real respect for each other. Scott and his ex-wife’s relationship is also so well done; no overdone “shrill harpy of an ex-wife” here; rather we getMaggie passionately defending Scott’s right to privacy because she objects to his treatment and the way it portrays him in front of his daughter which is just so god damn refreshing. Hank, as well, gets softened; he’s still a cranky old man, but it’s touching to see how he was never threatened by his wife’s brilliance, and the sheer depth of that love he has for her. I’ve said it before, the snap in Infinity War didn’t really get me that emotional (because it’s so obviously how and that they’ll undo it) but seriously, after being so freaking invested in getting Janet back to Hank and Hope, to have it end like that, fuck that purple ballsack, for real.

The movie does sort of suffer from the “Marvel villain deficiency” in that it has two villains but also none. Ava Starr, the daughter of a previous work associate of Hank’s who is left with a phasing ability that is killing her, and that black market guy Walter Goggins played (I cannot remember his name) are both technically villains, but neither are truly either. That might bother some people, but it worked well for me; I didn’t need another “moustache twirling guy in version of the heroes super suit,” and Ava’s family driven arc worked well with the driving theme, with Goggins adding some needed momentum and comedic relief.

The movie isn’t without flaws of course; although I give the movie all the props for having characters pay the consequences for their actions (the house arrest thing was actually perfect, and I’d like Civil War to now be referred to as that movie where Ant-Man went to Germany with Captain America to draw on the walls please), the Hank/Ava/Bill tension was especially thin. Hank handwaves away Bill’s accusations that Ava’s condition is somehow his fault as “filling her head with lies” and we never get any deeper, or have any more fallout, than that. It very much feels like the screenwriter wrote NEED AVA TO HAVE PERSONAL VENDETTA AGAINST HANK BUT NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE HANK UNLIKABLE and then just kind of left the outline as the plot. It’s not a deal breaker or anything, but it is undeniably a weak spot that could have been used to add some interesting moral complexity to the story. Janet’s assertion that “I’m not the same woman you knew/this place changed me” was another cliche that was a little on the nose, especially since we, the audience, don’t know who Janet was before. It’s about as subtle as a truck for saving Ava, and I snorted a little out loud at the line, and the cheese inducingness of it.

Still, I truly enjoyed Ant-Man and the Wasp. The new cast, especially Michelle Pfieffer, Hannah John-Kamen and Jimmy Woo all killed it, and the retuning cast were also fantastic. I’d absolutely recommend the movie to anyone whose a Marvel/superhero fan, or even just someone who wants to watch a funny action movie about family (and giant ants) that will make them feel good (AS LONG AS YOU SKIP THE END CREDITS SCENE MARVEL YOU ABSOLUTE BASTARDS). But seriously, 8/10 for me, would definitely watch again!

Some highlights;

- The Micheal Pena “sped up narrated scene” was well down in a way that didn’t make it feel gimmicky

- the hot wheels case I’m dying

- Janet-as-Scott was the greatest and Paul Rudd is seriously an amazingly talented actor because he had Pfieffer’s body mannerisms down

- no but seriously your daddy went to Germany and drew on the walls with Captain America is the greatest thing ever

- Jimmy Woo and the school of close up magic

- the roller suitcase lab absolutely delivers

- Ant-tonio Banderas and “murderers”

- Janet and Hank in the subatomic my heart

- Hank and the would you please stop starring lovingly at each other so we can save my wife and escape from these nice policeman vibe was just absolutely hilarious

- “it is truth serum!”

- “Baba Yaga!!”

- Kid sized Scott and his juice box and string cheese

- Hope frantically trying to save giant Scott and then surfacing with tiny Scott in her palm like he’s the most precious thing ever 😍

#ant man #antman #wasp #hope van dyne #janet van dyne #hank pym #scott lang #jimmy woo #cassie lang #captain america #the avengers #paul rudd #michael douglas #evangeline lilly #michael pena #ava starr #laurence fishburne #walter goggins #giant man #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #mcu #ant man and the wasp #antman and the wasp

[aion-rsa]

The Boys Season 2 Unveils the Daddy Issues Behind the Toxic Masculinity

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This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 2.

Most male monsters in fiction are made by women. Or, at least, it’s women who tend to get the disproportionate share of the blame when their creations turn out to be significantly less than civilized (perhaps because, historically, most of them were written by men). The most famous examples of murderer-moulding mothers are probably Norma Bates, Cersei Lannister, Olivia Soprano and, of course, Mrs. McAllister (momma raised a real little trap-setting psycho there). In real life, too, serial killers like Ed Kemper, Ed Gein, Ted Bundy and Dennis Nilsen were all brutalized or disappointed by their mothers to such an extent that to some people the link between their formative maternal experiences and their misdeeds seems as tight and as strong as a steel cable.

This isn’t the case with Amazon’s The Boys, where it’s bad or inadequate fathers who provide male characters with the bulk of their nefarious neuroses and murderous motivations. Wee Hughie (Jack Quaid) inherited and internalized his father’s cowed outlook on the world to the point where he almost didn’t fight back when Vought tried to brush his girlfriend’s death in an A-Train wreck under the carpet. Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) was raised under the fast fists and hot temper of his old-school, tough-guy dad, whose mantra seems to have been kick first and don’t ask questions later, unless the question is: “Do you want me to fucking kick you some more?” “John” a.k.a Homelander (Antony Starr) doesn’t have a father in the conventional sense – as far as we know – but he was treated coldly, cruelly and dispassionately by his scientist ‘dad’, Jonah Vogelbaum (John Doman). So to what extent have failed father figures forged the monsters who sit upon the show’s chessboard? What else is missing from their lives? And what could prove the key to their salvations?

The previously mentioned The Sopranos is a ripe comparison, being that it also deals with familial legacies, internecine struggles, and toxic masculinity. The hallmark HBO show took the bold step of sending its proto-typical alpha-male mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) to a shrink to deal with his panic attacks and baseline depression. His sessions with his psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Braco), teased out the revelation that the root of his anguish and anxieties was his own mother, the irascible and melodramatic Livia (Nancy Marchand), who in the first season shifted her life-long modus operandi from trying to kill his spirit to literally trying to kill him. It’s not hard to trace a direct line from that callous maternal influence to Tony’s behavior, and its internal and external consequences (especially when you’re dealing with Melfi’s favoured Freudian approach, for which parental trauma is its raison d’etre). But as the series – and Tony’s therapy – progressed it became clear not only that Tony’s life was richer and darker than his mother’s input allowed for, but also that Livia herself wasn’t the two-dimensional, havoc-wreaking demigod of Tony’s fears and imagination. 

She, too, had been a victim of sorts; a slave to poverty and discrimination (on grounds of both race and gender); in thrall to a violent, charismatic criminal, a man who thought nothing of throwing men a beating, chopping off their pinkies or shooting them dead; a man who was out with one of his many mistresses on the night that she miscarried a baby and needed him by her side. Tony, his son, takes these revelations and buries them, as deep as they’ll go, partly because Tony’s world is a man’s world and men get a pass, but mainly to avoid the bright bulb of introspection from falling upon his own, very similar behavior. His mother gets the blame, but who really made Tony? 

The world of The Boys is, to an extent, a man’s one, too, except that the boys here don’t get a pass. Given its title, it’s a surprisingly feminist show for one that is also, on the surface at least, a testosterone-fuelled superhero show (albeit one that takes an anti-superhero stance). The female characters are strong, but not inhumanly, infallibly strong like some of the Marvel heroes they parody. They’re flawed, human, and fascinating. They kick ass, they fuck up, but they’re never one-note or scapegoats. Of course there are bad women and mothers out there in the real world, and we shouldn’t shy away from imagining or creating those kinds of stories, but what we’ve seen on TV and film over the last decade or so is the steady opening up of a multiplicity of perspectives that’s been busy enriching our cultural currency. We should roll with that for a while. There’s a lot of lost ground to catch up on. 

Read more

TV

The Boys Season 2 Succeeds By Allowing Its Female Characters to Shine

By Lacy Baugher

TV

The Boys Season 3: What to Expect

By Lacy Baugher

Perhaps much of the appeal of stories about bad mothers relies on our preconceptions of motherhood and the expectations that have always been laid upon women to be not just good mothers, but perfect ones. A bad mother stands out more than a bad father because for much of human history it’s been almost impossible to be classed as a bad father.        

Let’s take Butcher. Without his own father’s brutality he mightn’t have been capable of becoming the effective, remorseless killing-machine we know and love, but, on the other hand, without his father’s brutality, he mightn’t felt the urge to pursue his vendetta in the first place. He might have been more like an immediately post-A-Train Hughie. But here’s the rub, because, arguably, a world with Homelanders needs Butchers, and plenty of them. There’s a weird and tragic duality at play here. Homelander is who he is largely because of his own failed father, so really the two men are destroying each other, and the world around them, because of their daddy issues.  

Butcher himself is a flawed father figure. He uses a grief-wracked Hughie as a pawn to pursue his own vendetta against The Seven, showing the same sort of callous disregard Homelander might show an underling. But through Butcher’s influence Hughie learns to be (or is forced to become) bold, assertive, even brutal; the sort of son his own father could never have let him be; wouldn’t have known how to kindle. In time, almost despite himself, Butcher comes to care about Hughie, albeit not always in a conventionally paternal way. Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) tells Butcher early on this season that Hughie is his ‘pit canary’; if something bad happens to Hughie, then Butcher will know he’s gone too far. So if Butcher can be said to be the kind of father that Hughie never had, then Hughie, in turn, can be said to be the conscience that Butcher long forsook in favor of bloodshed.  

For better and worse the men in The Boys are made by their fathers, but that only tells half the story. Their fathers, and they themselves, are aided in their osmotic, Franken-Freudian fuck-ups by the sometimes literal, sometimes figurative absence of a mother figure. Hughie’s mother? – MIA; Butcher’s mother? – passive; Homelander’s mother? – accidentally hugged to death by a young Homelander (she was a scientist Homelander had thought of as a mother, not his biological mother). 

The lack of a maternal presence bleeds most noticeably into Hughie’s and Homelander’s lives. Hughie is insecure and desperate for attachment. His romance with Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is sweet, but carries a mild undercurrent of mommy issues. What Hughie really seems to want from Starlight is words of encouragement, validation, co-dependency and a tuck-in at bedtime. Even though their relationship is sexual, there’s something charmingly chaste about it at the same time. 

It would be impossible, though, to trump Homelander’s mommy issues, manifested as they are by a fierce predilection for suckling, and a fondness for warm titty milk. Homelander may be peerlessly physically strong, but of all the show’s characters – and this is perhaps something of an understatement – he’s the most psychologically fragile.

Dr. Vogelbaum laments that the lack of a mother in Homelander’s life made him aggressive and full of hate. Putting aside for a moment this rather idealized notion of women and motherhood, if we assume that in Homelander’s case the observation is correct – and that Homelander is also on some level aware of how he’s been warped by this absence (the roots of his fetish surely can’t have escaped him) – then it’s interesting that he would choose to rob his own son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), of the loving maternal influence of which he himself was deprived. 

By stealing Ryan away from his mother near the end of season two – by fracturing their bond and their reality – he risks making Ryan as miserable as he was as a child; worse, in truth, because Homelander never had a loving mother to miss. While The Boys deals very well with its female characters, it hasn’t yet explored motherhood in any great depth, except to show the consequences to fatherhood when it’s absent. Season 3 may very well add some texture by exploring in flashback form Stormfront’s (Aya Cash) relationship with her now-departed daughter, or by bringing Hughie’s mother into the fold, now that we know she isn’t dead.

While Homelander’s actions vis a vis Ryan are fuelled by his malignant, myopic selfishness, and his screaming God complex, the evolution of his feelings towards the boy hinted at a capacity for redemption. As hellish as the family unit Stormfront manipulates Homelander into creating – Nazi eugenicist mother, psychopathic father, and kidnapped child – the experience of being in that family seems to soften something in him, at least for a short while. He appears receptive to and empathetic towards Ryan’s fears, and even appears not to relish the idea of Stormfront filling his head with racist propaganda. Just for a moment, salvation seems possible.

Ultimately, though, no one can allow Homelander to guide Ryan’s destiny, potential for change notwithstanding. Ryan is too powerful and volatile to risk Homelander stamping his skewed outlook upon his soul. Ironically, the act of saving his mother from Stormfront propels Ryan along the same trajectory as his father – both have now killed their mothers. I wonder if Ryan, like Dexter before him, will be born in blood, the splatter pattern arranging itself into the shape of Homelander’s cape. 

Butcher isn’t Ryan’s father, but his fealty to his dead wife and her cast-iron concept of family helps raise him from the swamp of his primal urges, resulting in him doing the right thing by both her and the boy who is the son of his greatest enemy. Clearly Butcher isn’t his own father either, his selflessness here indicating an encouraging break from the poor way he was parented. 

Perhaps The Boys isn’t trying to communicate anything about solely fatherhood or solely motherhood but rather family itself; its power to make someone belong; its power to save. The family Homelander experienced was predicated on a falsehood, but he liked the feel of it nonetheless, and it threatened to humanise him. Butcher has a family now, too – his friends, The Boys, the people around him who would die for him, and vice versa – and a surrogate son in Hughie. Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Frenchie (Tomer Capon), whatever faint promise of romance swirls around them, have found for now a joyous familial bond, like brother and sister. And Mother’s Milk is now back in the bosom of his estranged family, a moment that must rank among the series most touching. 

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All Happy families, then? For now. But Homelander might have something to say about that in season three.  

The post The Boys Season 2 Unveils the Daddy Issues Behind the Toxic Masculinity appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[godsheadangel]

📖📖📖📖REVELATION 6:3-4KJV 📖📖📖📖

AND WHEN HE HAD OPENED THE SECOND SEAL, I HEARD THE SECOND BEAST SAY, COME AND SEE.

AND THERE WENT OUT ANOTHER HORSE THAT WAS RED: AND THE POWER WAS GIVEN HIM THAT SAT THEREON TO TAKE PEACE FROM THE EARTH🌎AND THAT THEY SHOULD KILL ONE ANOTHER: AND THERE WAS GIVEN UNTO HIM A GREAT SWORD

📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖

☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝

👉DON'T FORGET TO REFRESH THIS POST

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👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇 MOST AMERICANS🇺🇸HAVE CHANGED! YES, TRUST AND BELIEVE CHILDREN OF GOD💫THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT HAD A LOT TO DO WITH THAT BUT ALSO OUR PARENTS WHO AFTER BEING RAISED IN A CRAZY AND RACIALLY DIVIDED SOCIETY SHAPED OUR YOUNG SPIRITS💫AND MINDS IN THE 70'S, 80'S, 90'S AND 2000'S SO AMERICANS🇺🇸 [HAVE COME TO FAR]👈 TO NOT RECOGNIZE TRUE AND REAL EVIL👹FOR SURELY YOUR CHILDRENS✝ CHILDREN✝ WILL REMEMBER YOU BY YOUR ACTIONS AS YOU LIVED LIFE✝

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"I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE VIEW THAT MANKIND IS SO TRAGICALLY BOUND TO THE STARLESS MIDNIGHT OF RACISM AND WAR THAT THE BRIGHT DAYBREAK🌅OF PEACE AND BROTHERHOOD CAN NEVER BECOME A REALITY... I BELIEVE THAT UNARMED TRUTH AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE WILL HAVE THE FINAL WORD.

~DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING😇JR

🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🌄🇺🇸🇺🇸2020🇺🇸JOE C😇😇L BIDEN🇺🇸2020🇺🇸🇺🇸

"WE ARE IN A BATTLE FOR AMERICAS SOUL" 🇺🇸🇺🇸2020🇺🇸JOE C😎😎L BIDEN🇺🇸2020🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

POLL: 71% OF ALL AMERICANS🇺🇸BELIEVE DEMONTRUMP👹SHOULD ALLOW AIDES TO TESTIFY!!! 👉WHAT IS HE👹AFRAID OF?👈

▶WHICH [GOP] SENATORS WILL HONOR◀ THE DESIRE OF THE AMERICAN🇺🇸PEOPLE!!!

💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇PRESIDENT CLINTON😇[HAD A BACKBONE] HE ALLOWED WITNESS TO COME FORWARD

DEMONTRUMP👹IS ALWAYS BASHING THE CLINTONS😇YET PRESIDENT CLINTON😇[WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED] BECAUSE AMERICANS🇺🇸REMEMBER HE ALLOWED✔ 🔳THE WITNESSES TO COME FORWARD🔳 🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳

DEMON👹KEN STARR, IF AMERICANS🇺🇸RECALL HAD HIS STAFF LEAK INFORMATION TO SWAY AMERICANS🇺🇸THOUGHTS TRUST HIS HYPOCRITICAL CORRUPT WAYS HE WILL DO AGAIN HE'S A SHADY DECEITFUL DEMON

🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳

🔳GODSAYS💫LOOK FOR EVIL KEN STARR👹

👉TO BE HIS USUAL HYPOCRITICAL SELF!👈

[HIS CORRUPT WAYS ARE CLEAR ALREADY] FOOL ALL AMERICANS🇺🇸INTO THINKING THAT NO WITNESSES SHOULD BE CALLED!!! SMDH!! SOUNDS LIKE A DECEITFUL LAWYER

👉👉WHO DOESN'T WANT THE TRUTH👈👈 TO BE KNOWN BY THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA

💥▶IF YOU WERE ACCUSED OF A CRIME💥💥AND YOU SWORE YOUR INNOCENCE◀💥 WOULDN'T YOU WANT [ALL WITNESSES] TO COME FORWARD?

TO CLEAR YOUR ACCUSED LAST NAME!!!

🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

AMERICANS🇺🇸CAN SAY MANY THINGS ABOUT FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON🇺🇸 BUT THEY CAN NEVER SAY, THAT HE DIDN'T HAVE A STRONG BACKBONE STRONG LAST NAME!!! GODS💫SPECIAL ANGEL😇WAS NOT PERFECT IN [FLESH] WHO IS? BUT HIS [LAST NAME] IS WITHOUT A DOUBT✔ MUCH STRONGER THAN DEMONTRUMPS👹COULD EVER BE IN THE U.S.🇺🇸 HISTORY BOOKS✔

#HECANTBASHTHECLINTONSEVERAGAIN!!!

👉SPINELESS WEAK NAMED EVIL👹DEMON

☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳

WHEN HE WENT AFTER CLINTON HE WAS [GIVEN WITNESSES] AND TOOK IT WAY TOO FAR BY [INTERVIEWING PEOPLE] WHO HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING!!! LIKE THE EVIL👹DEMONTRUMP👹HE CRAVES TO BE SEEN AND HEARD AT ALL COSTS AND THAT INCLUDES LYING!!! JUST ASK KENDALL!!!

💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫����💫💫💫💫💫

BLESSINGS4 PRINCE HARRY AND HIS WIFE MEGAN AND BABY SON ARCHIE💫

"WE'RE TAKING A LEAP OF FAITH✝"

~PRINCE HARRY

💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫

👉DON'T FORGET TO REFRESH THIS POST

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓TUESDAY JANUARY 21ST 2020 0900HRS PST

👁THE PROMISES OF 👁GOD💫HIMSELF👁

SEE GODSHEADANGEL1.POSTHAVEN.COM!!! 👉👉[SEEN NOW ON PAGES 1, 2 AND 3]👈👈

💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

🤜🤜🤜🤜🤜🤜🤜💀💀💀🤛🤛🤛🤛🤛🤛🤛

🙏GODSHEADANGEL1.POSTHAVEN.COM🙏

🤜🤜🤜🤜🤜🤜🤜💀💀💀🤛🤛🤛🤛🤛🤛🤛

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

BLESSINGS4 GODS💫SPECIAL💫ANGEL💫JOE C😇😇L BIDEN🇺🇸

SEEN ON MSNBC'S MORNING JOE☕ WAS TRULY A TREAT FOR ALL WHO WITNESSED🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

AND YOU REALIZE THEIR INSIDE YOU THEIR PART OF YOU,

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO SEPARATE AND THAT'S THE REALLY GOOD THING

BEAU, HUNTER AND ASHLEY HAVE GOTTEN ME THROUGH A LOT BUT ESPECIALLY BEAU

~JOE C😎😎L BIDEN🇺🇸

ON REMEMBERING HIS ANGEL SON BEAU WHO PASSED AWAY ON MAY 30TH 2015 AT 🇺🇸WALTER REED NATIONAL MILITARY🇺🇸 MEDICAL🏥CENTER BETHESDA, MD

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👉👉WEDNESDAY JANUARY 21TH 2020👈👈

GOP👹DEMON👹SENATORS BLOCK ANY WITNESSES TO TESTIFY!!! [NO SURPRISE!!!]

AMERICANS🇺🇸SEE THE EVIL CORRUPTION!

👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝

🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

ON ELECTION DAY🇺🇸 NOVEMBER 3RD, 2020

AMERICAN🇺🇸VOTERS🗳WILL CLEAN UP🗑

THE U.S. SENATE BY VOTING THEM OUT!!!

👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

🤜🤜🤜🤜🤜🤜🤜💀💀💀🤛🤛🤛🤛🤛🤛🤛SATURDAY JANUARY 25TH 2020🇺🇸 0530HRS

THE HARD WORKING AMERICAN🇺🇸VOTERS HAVE ALREADY DECIDED DEMONTRUMP👹IS [GUILTY] BY THE REAL PROOF GIVEN AND 👉WILL MAKE SURE HE AND THE CORRUPT EVIL👹GOP SENATORS ARE VOTED OUT!!!

IN THE MINDS OF OVER 71% OF AMERICANS THEY HAVE HAD A MORAL COURT AND WILL 👉NOT STAND BY AS AMERICA🇺🇸GAINS THE [NEW REPUTATION] AS THE MOST CORRUPT AND DISHONEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!!!🇺🇸🇺🇸2020🇺🇸JOE C😎😎L BIDEN🇺🇸2020🇺🇸🇺🇸

[duaneodavila]

Best Of Election Day Law Twitter

Kathryn Rubino: Elie, are you going to write a post today? Me: Sorry Kathryn, I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.

Here are some law-ish tweets from legal types.

Don’t allow the pouring rain to wash away your right to vote. Don’t suppress yourself. You own an umbrella. USE IT and then use your voice to VOTE. #GoVote ⛈

— I agree with Staci.

— People are being disenfranchised because of the humidity?

Two main problems are causing “multiple calls,” Ragland said. The first is voters “bearing down too hard and punching through” the paper ballots. The second is moisture-swollen ballots apparently caused by last night’s rainy climate.

— AL.com (@aldotcom) November 6, 2018

— People in Alabama are acting like their ballots are LSU’s offensive line.

The evidence-free claims against the Democratic Party of Georgia over cyber hacking remain on the home page of the official Georgia Secretary Of Starr’s website as voters get crucial polling info this Election Day. https://t.co/V2fxoBLDNJ

— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) November 6, 2018

— The fact that Georgia Republicans have to work so hard to steal this thing is encouraging, from a certain point of view.

— Boom.

Parent at my kid's school: Man, don't look so sad. We're going to take the House. Me: But the Senate. Parent: The House is a good start. Me: Do you have any idea how old Ruth Bader Ginsburg is? Parent: Who? Me: [RARRGGHHH DIE IN A FIRE CHRIST DIE DIE] Never mind.

— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) November 6, 2018

— And people wonder why I show up at birthday parties drunk.

— Not the Onion. Oh wait, it is. Thank God.

— Preet being funny.

It's a SCOTUS opinion day!

If tradition holds, it will be an opinion by Justice Ginsburg, because RBG don't waste time.

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) November 6, 2018

— Oh yeah, I remember when nobody voted in the 2014 midterms setting up a situation where the Republicans could steal this branch of government.

A reminder that long lines at the polls are a sign not of a healthy democracy, but of insufficient funding for polling locations that makes it harder to vote, especially if your job isn’t flexible.

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 6, 2018

— Seriously, it’s not “enthusiasm,” it’s piss-poor planning from a supposed democracy.

— Well, now that the threat is out there, the GOP’s work is done.

— Federalism FTW.

Disappointed to hear scanners are broken all over NYC, making it difficult for people (including lots of new voters) to vote. We need Albany to pass early voting/other reforms ASAP in 2019 and the @BOENYC to get its act together. New Yorkers shouldn’t have to deal with this.

— NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson (@NYCSpeakerCoJo) November 6, 2018

— If New York was just a little bit more racist, its farcical voting issues would get more attention.

The delay left avid voters like Sheree Walton outraged.

"I take it very seriously," she said. "Someone died so I would have the right to vote." https://t.co/JAhORVupT9

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 6, 2018

— … NOT the Onion.

— I see what you did there, Georgia GOP.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.#ElectionDay #vote

— Kimberly Atkins (@KimberlyEAtkins) November 6, 2018

— Here’s a thread of all the Amendments “orginialists” seem to think don’t exist.

— Subtitled: The Radicalization of a Black Man.

— Vote. Dear God, please vote.

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.

[charliewstarr-blog]

Ten Great Christian Films

Charlie W. Starr

Lookout: “Arts & Media” Column

March 2014

Ten Great Christian Films

Everyone’s list of favorite films will be different, including their list of most loved Christian films. Picking only ten to share with you was challenging for me, so I limited myself to movies made in the last thirty years (leaving out such giants as The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur) and movies I think Christians should see which they might not have. Some of the movies I’ve chosen contain violence or strong emotional performances which might upset children, so check the ratings and read reviews.

Twentieth Century Greats

You can’t go wrong with Chariots of Fire (1981). This Oscar winner for best picture is the story of Christian missionary, Eric Liddell, who first became famous as an Olympic runner. Before dedicating his life to mission work in China, he represented the United Kingdom in the 1924 Olympics, taking a gold medal. The film’s greatest line occurs as Liddell explains why God made him fast: “when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

The Mission (1986) is about Jesuit missionaries in South America in the mid-1700s trying to save native Indian populations from being enslaved by European settlers. A slave trader named Mendoza (played by Robert De Niro) finds God’s forgiveness and grace after killing his brother. A priest (Jeremy Irons) makes the ultimate sacrifice in the name of love.

Simon Birch (1998) does not hit you over the head with a Christian message, but the themes are there, especially the theme of providence and God’s plan for our lives. Simon is an undersized boy born with multiple health problems. His parents ignore him, he’s accidentally responsible for the death of his best friend’s mother, but he believes with all his heart that God made him the way he is for a reason. The traditional church gets treated negatively, but the faith themes are sincere.

I balled at the end of the Les Miserables musical on film, but its Christian themes can get lost in the music. The 1998 movie with Liam Neeson, however, emphasizes a Christian vision. The salvation of Jean Valjean near the film’s beginning is one of the most stunning presentations of the gospel I’ve ever seen.

The Twenty-first Century Renaissance

To End All Wars (2001) is a violent film about British and American POWs in a World War II Japanese prisoner of war camp. With no earthly hope left to them, the prisoners begin to take seriously the biblical admonition to love their enemies. The effect on their Japanese captors (and on themselves) is profound.

You don’t have to agree with all Martin Luther’s theology to like the movie Luther (2003). It’s a well made story of faith and courage and a man’s willingness champion truth at the risk of death.

The Passion of the Christ (2004) was the game changer for Christian films in America. Where Christian movies had all but disappeared from mainstream Hollywood since the 60s, Mel Gibson’s bloody portrayal of the crucifixion of Christ made filmmakers wake up to the truth that great Christian films can be both possible and profitable.

A movie called Amazing Grace (2006) is a direct result of The Passion’s influence on Hollywood. Industry insiders, who just happen to be Christian too, got together to tell an overtly Christian story: the true tale of William Wilberforce, the man responsible for bringing slavery to an end in England in the early 1800s.

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) is not a film most Christians are likely to have seen. It’s a subtitled foreign film, it has the creepier elements of a horror film, and it contains the violence of a war film. At times it’s gory and immensely dark, but, if you look carefully, the Christian message of faith, suffering and sacrifice can be found in the movie’s fairytale background amid troubling real-world events.

I ran into Henry Poole is Here (2008) almost by accident. It’s another film most Christians have likely not seen. Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) has moved back to his childhood neighborhood to do nothing else but drink, eat junk food, and live out a doctor’s prognosis of dying from cancer within a few months. When a mysterious stain which looks like the face of Jesus appears on a backyard wall, Henry’s solitude is disrupted by quirky neighbors in search of healing by touching the face. What challenges Henry’s hopelessness is that real healing seems to happen. The question becomes whether or not Henry will have enough faith to touch the wall himself.

My apologies for lots of movies missed such as Shadowlands, The Apostle, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Amistad, The Blindside and several recent foreign films as well. This is a good time for Christians to be engaging in film. There’s plenty out there for us to watch.

[thestarrofdavid-blog]

WRECKED.

The last few days in Jerusalem have wrecked me a little... But for you to understand what I’m saying, I think I have to go back to 2013 for a bit. 

I had just turned 20 years old when my family took the trip of a lifetime to bring my Grandma Starr over to the Holy Land to meet her family after 60 years of separation. 

Those first conversations were beautiful - full of love, of sharing memories, of learning names, and of filling in gaps. 

But one thing in this story that we don’t often talk about is what happened after Grandma Starr went back home to America with my family... and I was left here in Israel. 

Don’t get me wrong... it had all been part of the plan (sort of). I had talked it out with my parents about a month before the trip how it might be good for me to stay and learn the culture/language, so that in the future we could feel like we actually had a connection to the people we would be meeting (this has proven so true in these last weeks even.) 

I think what wasn’t part of the plan was the transformation I would have to go through to get there. Whereas my siblings and parents were able to return to the farm after coming face to face with their long-lost relatives for three weeks... I continued to live with these somewhat strangers for nearly a whole year.

Living with strangers 24/7 can be a hard enough adjustment as it is (trust me, Peru was my greatest teacher in that). But living with strangers in another language, who happen to be Moroccan Orthodox Jewish people while you are a naive Christian farm-boy who could probably use a little more backbone... is a recipe for... confusion. 

I’d say my time in Israel was about as tough as it gets. I won’t go into extreme detail, but for reference, after 7 months of studying with a Jewish Rabbi every week, living in the West Bank, and staying with an older aunt from Iraq who spoke Hebrew with a very heavy accent... I had enough confrontation to make me feel like I was anything but welcome in this Holy Land. 

I wish I could write all of those experiences here... but that would take too much of your time. (If you’d like to see a few of those experiences, you can check out my blog that I kept in Israel and Peru (http://thepassengersseat.blogspot.com/2013/04/meeting-with-rabbi.html?m=1). 

Israel is a very special, beautiful country. There truly is nothing like it in the world. And I would say I believed that coming out of my first time living here. However, I think I believed it in a negative way. 

Israel was hard. Every day was conflict. Every day was a struggle to understand... 

And that struggle broke me. 

I left on the airplane back to the United States more confused, more hurt than I had ever been in my life. Sure, I had purposefully placed myself in that space, to be that bridge... but what I didn’t know was how much weight I was going to have to learn to hold standing in that gap. 

There’s no better way to say it than the fact that having Jewish blood, but being Christian does not go over well over here... especially when part of your family is Orthodox. It wasn’t even that I would cry myself to sleep when people would spit on the ground when I would talk about my grandma becoming Christian... it was that I literally began to lose weight rapidly due to the pressure I was under daily to conform. To give up my faith. To make Aliyah to “The Greatest Country on Earth?”

It was hard for me because I watched so many of my friends in school who were Christian enjoying all the perks of the Holy Land that they should, but never having to confront that side of the conversation simply because they were not Jewish. 

I jealously wanted to be like them. To be able to walk around where Jesus walked and feel like I was in the greatest city in the world. 

But that wasn’t my reality... until this year. 

Over the last 5 years, God has been healing my heart. He has been answering many questions that have been hard on me for years... and it seems as though he has been changing the hearts of many of my relatives over here as well.

This time around, I was bound and determined to give Israel a second chance, and let me tell you what... that crevasse was deep and wide separating my American family from my Israeli one, it was deep and wide separating my Jewish heritage from my Christian faith, it was deep and wide separating my heart from falling in love with this land... 

But I trusted back then, with all those questions in my head, those hurts... when God says, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” - Jeremiah 29:13... 

He brought me to those answers. He healed those wounds. And this trip he has given me new eyes for this land. I don’t know what that means for the future, but looking back I don’t see the canyon that stood before me. I see a solid bridge that will not falter. 

And I see the beauty blossoming all around me amidst what was such a struggle. 

He is faithful. He redeems. 

The last few days in Jerusalem have wrecked me a little... they have wrecked me in the best possible way. 

Blessings,

Luke

[theemichelleb]

When They See Us (Netflix) - Miniseries Reflection

To be honest… I have no idea how to start this post.

A few weeks ago I watched Ava Duvernay’s interview on the Breakfast Club about this miniseries and how she came about taking on the challenge of telling this unbelievably difficult story. Our community is affected by these tragedies all too often and it makes it hard to want to have children that will have to grow up in a society that will never see them as children. Ultimately, I just want to put a thank you out there to Ava Duvernay for checking her DMs and responding to that message she got from one of the victims of this ridiculous justice system and running with the opportunity to shed light on this horrible part of their history.

“When They See Us” is the true account of what happened to Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana Jr., Kevin Richardson, and Korey Wise in 1989 when they were falsely accused, charged, and convicted of the tragic beating and rape of Trisha Meili, a white woman. This four-part miniseries walks us through the eyes of the boys from the night they were in Central Park until the day they are exonerated of all charges and released back into the world. Part 1 exposes the unjust tactics and tools used to interrogate and trap these boys in lies of committing a crime that they had no idea existed. Part 2 walks us through the trials of all 5 boys and how the justice system brings no justice to black people no matter how blatantly untrue a story being told against them can be. Part 3 shows us a snippet of what Antron, Yusef, Kevin, and Raymond endure during and after their release from prison; trying to integrate into a world that refuses to accept them because of these false allegations. Finally, part 4… we see the tragic circumstances and situations Korey Wise experienced for 14 years being moved from prison to prison trying to survive with a target on his back that NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE.

As a black woman I can never understand the tragedy of having that type of target on my back to the degree our men must live with it, but I can be angry for what they are doing to our men. This story is known… there are no spoilers to give or disclaimers to provide. If you don’t want to know my opinions on certain parts of this because you feel it may ruin the watch for you I understand, but please watch because this story NEEDED to be told. I don’t want this to be considered a review but more of a reflection because no matter the scale this affects us all, including myself. If you feel it’s “too hard” to watch or don’t know if you can “handle it,” they don’t deserve to have their story out there for you to not watch. Take your time, but watch… no excuses.

There were so many parts that hurt to watch and I’m often told I’m heartless because of my inability to cry at emotionally tear provoking movies or tv shows, but this broke me. I made it through the first 3 parts with anger and frustration but no tears, taking breaks and pauses in between watching. It’s going to take anywhere between 1-3 days to work through the series; approximately 5 hours altogether. For some, it may take longer. That’s how real it gets.

Watching Korey’s story hit me the hardest; that was what finally made the tears fall. The depiction of his truth and struggle was the hardest to witness yet the easiest to relate to. Not many of can say we’ve been directly arrested and blamed for a crime we’ve had nothing to do with, but anybody can relate to the fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and having something like that happen. Korey Wise went to the police precinct to support his friend, Yusef, and was left there. Not too long after being left he was used as a scapegoat to make this absurd story make sense to any other white person that would listen. Considering these boys were already being treated as animals it’s hard to believe the scenario could get any worse but lets add in the fact that he’s sent directly to prison, not a juvenile detention center, and beaten countless times by grown men that are actual rapists, murderers, felons, and so much more. Korey’s story is going to hit the hardest… just be prepared.

Watch this with your kids, your younger siblings, your older siblings, mentees, whomever you hold dear to you because this is real, and EVERYBODY in America needs to see what really happens to our boys. This isn’t something that you can turn away from and pretend as though it’s not happening everyday from police shootings to racial profiling. We wouldn’t change our skin even if we could, but America does need to change it’s privilege…

These boys were interrogated for hours without their parents. Parents were suckered and punked into handing over their kids to the system. This outrageous individual that is often referred to as the President of the United States, current day, was on news channels, taking out ads to have the death penalty imposed on these children that didn’t even know what truant or rape meant. Let’s be realistic… who in their right mind believes any BLACK MAN would willingly admit to raping a white women if they knew exactly what that meant? No man… and you think these five 14-16 year old black and brown BOYS understood what they were admitting to, alone with no parental guidance? Sitting in a precinct hungry and wanting to go home?

One question here… when has a rape EVER been THIS important to police? Rape gets overlooked, forgotten, disregarded, and ignored more often than it should even now with more resources than were available in 1989. Don’t be fooled… had that woman in the park been black and the supposed assailant a white male, there wouldn’t have been this much traction to find the attacker, let alone to create 5 attackers out of a crime scene that clearly only had evidence of their being one. This was a clear racial attack targeted at minorities that couldn’t protect themselves… more specifically blacks in America that have ALWAYS been discounted and created into animals that couldn’t possibly be human beings.

Linda Fairstein was disgusting, right along with Elizabeth Lederer, Robert Morgenthau, all of the cops that were gathering up boys, and the detectives in the precinct that coerced false confessions out of 14 year olds. Disgusting doesn’t even give justice to the horrific things these five went through, and the worst part is the shock value is gone. We’re not surprised at how the justice system fails and frames our people, it’s what we expect and that’s disheartening. You may watch and wonder how can we protect our children against a system that’s centered around seeing them fail, and I don’t have the answer to that. Knowledge is power, however. This takes me back to “The Hate U Give” and how Starr’s father teaches his children the hard realities of dealing with law enforcement and being black. Give your kids as much knowledge as possible to protect themselves; tell them don’t say anything without having you present, don’t resist or struggle unnecessarily, and don’t admit to anything especially something they haven’t done or don’t have any knowledge of.

Points that struck a nerve and hit me the hardest while watching:

Nancy Ryan should have pushed harder to take the case or have somebody else work the case because Linda Fairstein had a personal vendetta she was trying to resolve. I don’t know if she was a victim of rape or knows somebody closely who was and that made her act the way she did, but somebody needed to put her on a leash. I truly believe Nancy Ryan should have been that person, but I am happy she was the one that handled the confession from the real attacker in 2003. I understand the attempt to try and set Linda straight after everything, but babygirl waited a little too long to try to check somebody that flew off the deep end 4 years prior.

The black cop that tried to keep the detectives from interrogating Kevin after his mother left not feeling well… sir you could have pushed harder. I understand the remorse you probably felt by stepping back and watching that happen, but I’m sure there’s plenty of things you could have said to somebody or done to address the fact that they knowingly interrogated him ignoring the fact that his mother was sick and was coming back after getting her medication.

The audacity to connect Kevin’s eye being swollen and scratched to the struggle the rape victim put up when in reality he had a black eye from being smacked in the head by a cop with a helmet while they were tackling and herding black boys up like they were cattle… and this is NEVER addressed during the trial.

Antron’s father, Bobby, disgusts me. This man knew how the system worked because he had been locked up, but instead of protecting his son he forced his son to admit to being involved with raping that woman to keep his job and lifestyle up. I understand he’s passed on and God rest is soul where he is, but that struck a serious nerve with me. Protect your children at all costs, because nobody else will.

Yusef’s mom, Sharon, was a lot for me. I understand she was trying to protect her son, but this entire situation was bigger than just her and Yusef, especially when Korey ended up in this trying to look out for her son. No disrespect to any mothers out there because I definitely understand wanting to protect your baby, but they were all babies and they all needed protecting.

Ray’s step mother needs something… a beat down is what comes to mind, but I’m a lover not a fighter.

And just overall, the evidence that was missing, the stories that didn’t match up, the DNA sample that matched NONE of the boys, but some how they were still convicted.

There were so many other moments other than just that that even make writing this and reflecting on it almost as hard as it was watching it.

There has been a lot of buzz around this miniseries and for good reason. Ava Duvernay took her time on sculpting this and telling their tragic story in a beautiful manner. The actors portraying every person involved did such an amazing job and I can’t even begin to imagine how it must have been stepping into the shoes of anybody in this plot line; especially one of the five men that stepped up to tell their story in hopes that it would be heard and they would be recognized. All five men are hard working and it appears they are thriving despite the tragedies they endured to get to where they are present day. Again, I charge anybody that has decided this is too much to watch to reconsider. It may be hard to watch, but this is our history as black people and these men deserve to be supported by our community no matter how painful it may be to witness. The hardest part was going through it and they handled that part long ago, now, we should stand behind them and their efforts to stop this from happening to anymore of our children.

I recently saw a video from Clint Coley with him in a rap battle against some white cops and one line stood out to me… “You can’t say all lives matter, cause the black ones don’t.” Nobody should be able to watch this and continue to think our justice system is fair and protects all citizens. The thing white people will never be able to relate to is the fear that they may get that call one day about their son and they won’t be able to do anything about it. White boys are coddled and treated as though there’s every cure in the book for anything wrong they do, but black boys are thrown into jails and treated as adults with no comfort, support, or benefit of doubt. All lives can’t matter when that’s the reality of the world we live in.

So, do your community a favor… do your future sons and daughters a favor… do yourself a favor and watch “When They See Us.” It will make you mad, it will make you afraid, it will make you cry, but it will throw more fuel to the fire inside you that should be anxious to make a change for the generations coming after us. They will watch what you did and move accordingly. They will appreciate how you supported our community and follow your lead. They will be stronger for it, because that’s what you’ll teach them to be.

Be D.O.P.E. Support our men.

Release Date: May 31, 2019 Where I watched: Netflix

[wetrumpfeed]

Afternoon MAGAthread: YOUR WEEKLY PRESIDENTIAL RECAP!

HAPPY SATURDAY DEPLORABLES!

This is u/ivaginaryfriend here and I'm back with all things dank & spicy from the past week! For those that missed any past recaps you can check those out here!

Sunday, March 31st:

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

“Outrageous, it’s the Adam Schiff problem. People abusing the access to classified data to then go out in public and make allegations that didn’t prove to be true. You look at a decision to essentially investigate a political rival. Who made it?” James Freeman, @WSJ

The Democrats are allowing a ridiculous asylum system and major loopholes to remain as a mainstay of our immigration system. Mexico is likewise doing NOTHING, a very bad combination for our Country. Homeland Security is being sooo very nice, but not for long!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Virtue signalling only goes so far

Creepers Veepers

🤣🤣🤣

Sen. Rand Paul offered an amendment, which, if approved, would reveal what role former President Barack Obama played in the investigation of the Trump campaign

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

When Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns

Clearing up the misunderstanding.

Posted in UK airport bathroom. If only Islam allowed women to read

12-year promise

Monday, April 1st:

TODAY'S ACTION:

One Nomination Sent to the Senate

Proclamation on World Autism Awareness Day, 2019

Ivanka Trump Visits Toyota Plant in Kentucky

President Trump Participates in the 2019 Prison Reform Summit and First Step Act Celebration

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Now that the long awaited Mueller Report conclusions have been released, most Democrats and others have gone back to the pre-Witch Hunt phase of their lives before Collusion Delusion took over. Others are pretending that their former hero, Bob Mueller, no longer exists!

Democrats, working with Republicans in Congress, can fix the Asylum and other loopholes quickly. We have a major National Emergency at our Border. GET IT DONE NOW!

Can you believe that the Radical Left Democrats want to do our new and very important Census Report without the all important Citizenship Question. Report would be meaningless and a waste of the $Billions (ridiculous) that it costs to put together!

The cost of ObamaCare is far too high for our great citizens. The deductibles, in many cases way over $7000, make it almost worthless or unusable. Good things are going to happen! @SenRickScott @senatemajldr @SenJohnBarrasso @SenBillCassidy

No matter what information is given to the crazed Democrats from the No Collusion Mueller Report, it will never be good enough. Behind closed doors the Dems are laughing!

Democrats should stop fighting Sen. David Perdue’s disaster relief bill. They are blocking funding and relief for our great farmers and rural America!

Everybody agrees that ObamaCare doesn’t work. Premiums & deductibles are far too high - Really bad HealthCare! Even the Dems want to replace it, but with Medicare for all, which would cause 180 million Americans to lose their beloved private health insurance. The Republicans..... ... ....are developing a really great HealthCare Plan with far lower premiums (cost) & deductibles than ObamaCare. In other words it will be far less expensive & much more usable than ObamaCare. Vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win...... ... ....back the House. It will be truly great HealthCare that will work for America. Also, Republicans will always support Pre-Existing Conditions. The Republican Party will be known as the Party of Great HealtCare. Meantime, the USA is doing better than ever & is respected again!

The Democrats today killed a Bill that would have provided great relief to Farmers and yet more money to Puerto Rico despite the fact that Puerto Rico has already been scheduled to receive more hurricane relief funding than any “place” in history. The people of Puerto Rico..... ... ....are GREAT, but the politicians are incompetent or corrupt. Puerto Rico got far more money than Texas & Florida combined, yet their government can’t do anything right, the place is a mess - nothing works. FEMA & the Military worked emergency miracles, but politicians like..... ... ....the crazed and incompetent Mayor of San Juan have done such a poor job of bringing the Island back to health. 91 Billion Dollars to Puerto Rico, and now the Dems want to give them more, taking dollars away from our Farmers and so many others. Disgraceful!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Remember, we here at CNN always give you the REAL NEWS! Only the stories that matter. #FactsFirst #OrangeManBad

Does anyone have any info on who made this GIF we at CNN would like to uhhh give him an award!

BIDEN 2020!!!

A 13 year old can get an abortion without her parents knowing but she can't go see a movie about abortion without a parent accompanying her

AP reports Beto gives speech in Spanish...his native language. Ted Cruz sets them on fire.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

We’re coming to assimilate, obey the laws of the US and vote Republican!

I love CNN! They are the most trusted name in news... and I especially love that manly guy Brian Stelter! And he’s just so cute too. He reminds me of Winnie the Pooh! He’s like a cuddly little Teddy Bear that I can trust to tell me that Orange man is indeed, bad. Happy 1st of April everyone!

Congratulations CNN!

We here at CNN want to pay our respects to our fearless commentator Ana Navarro. She never lets the thought of Americans murdered by illegals keep her from doing her nails. Keep slaying Queen!

Tuesday, April 2nd:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate and Appoint Individuals to Key Administration Posts

President Donald J. Trump Announces Judicial Nominees and United States Marshal Nominee

First Lady Melania Trump Visits with Students in Florida

President Trump Welcomes the 2018 Stanley Cup Champions to the White House

President Trump Meets with the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Vice President Pence Meets with Family Members of Executives Detained by Maduro

President Trump Participates in an Expanded Bilateral Meeting with the Secretary General of NATO

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Puerto Rico got 91 Billion Dollars for the hurricane, more money than has ever been gotten for a hurricane before, & all their local politicians do is complain & ask for more money. The pols are grossly incompetent, spend the money foolishly or corruptly, & only take from USA.... ... ....The best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico is President Donald J. Trump. So many wonderful people, but with such bad Island leadership and with so much money wasted. Cannot continue to hurt our Farmers and States with these massive payments, and so little appreciation!

In 1998, Rep.Jerry Nadler strongly opposed the release of the Starr Report on Bill Clinton. No information whatsoever would or could be legally released. But with the NO COLLUSION Mueller Report, which the Dems hate, he wants it all. NOTHING WILL EVER SATISFY THEM! @foxandfriends

World Autism Awareness Day 2019: Significance, history and theme via @htTweets

Robert Mueller was a God-like figure to the Democrats, until he ruled No Collusion in the long awaited $30,000,000 Mueller Report. Now the Dems don’t even acknowledge his name, have become totally unhinged, and would like to go through the whole process again. It won’t happen!

There is no amount of testimony or document production that can satisfy Jerry Nadler or Shifty Adam Schiff. It is now time to focus exclusively on properly running our great Country!

After many years (decades), Mexico is apprehending large numbers of people at their Southern Border, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. They have ALL been taking U.S. money for years, and doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for us, just like the Democrats in Congress!

Video

“I haven’t seen any Democrats down here at the Border working with us or asking to speak to any of us. They have an open invitation. We are getting overrun, our facilities are overcapacity. We are at an emergency crisis.” Art Del Cueto, National Border Patrol Council.

Today, we celebrate the tremendous accomplishments of Americans with ASD and reaffirm our commitment to work together to ensure that every member of our society is afforded equal opportunities to reach their full potential. #WorldAutismAwarenessDay

Today, it was my great honor to welcome @NATO Secretary General @JensStoltenberg to the @WhiteHouse!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

I can't believe how much lies exist about this subreddit

Worst Racist Ever

82.5% of /r/Socialism users are Middle School to College aged. 61% live with their parents. No wonder Reddit loves Socialism, they've never had to work for anything in their life.

Powerful moment from President Trump’s Prison Reform Summit. Gregory Allen, one the people who have benefited from the First Step Act explained, "Two months ago, I was in a prison cell and now I'm in the White House. Let’s continue to make America great again!"

YES OR NO: Did she marry her own brother? SNOPES: Well, "like many other people" - she can't answer if she married her own brother because it's "complicated" - NO IT F'ING ISN'T SNOPES!

Many of CNN's national security analysts have undisclosed ties to oppressive Qatari regime - Conservative Review

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Right!!!

we lost the guac

Democrat Priorities

Well.... IT'S TRUE AF

Wednesday, April 3rd:

TODAY'S ACTION:

Memorandum on Combating Trafficking in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods

President Trump is Briefed by Senior Military Leaders

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

I was never planning a vote prior to the 2020 Election on the wonderful HealthCare package that some very talented people are now developing for me & the Republican Party. It will be on full display during the Election as a much better & less expensive alternative to ObamaCare... ... ...This will be a great campaign issue. I never asked Mitch McConnell for a vote before the Election as has been incorrectly reported (as usual) in the @nytimes, but only after the Election when we take back the House etc. Republicans will always support pre-existing conditions!

Congress must get together and immediately eliminate the loopholes at the Border! If no action, Border, or large sections of Border, will close. This is a National Emergency!

The First Step Act proves that our Country can achieve amazing breakthroughs when we put politics aside, and put the interests of ALL Americans FIRST. http://45.wh.gov/gF3mc7

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

President Trump is hilarious and savage! LMAO "I Went To Kiss The General And I Felt Like Joe Biden"

Two more women accuse Biden of inappropriate touching

"Contractually all I have to do is not fake a hate crime." Tracey Morgan trashes Jussie Smollett while discussing his new role on Empire. 😂😂

Ratings for CNN and MSNBC continuing to crash, as viewers migrate to Fox News prime time. Karma comes calling, as Tucker Carlson alone draws a million more viewers than CNN's entire prime-time lineup.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Nooooooo Joe, NOT DURING THE APOLOGY!

GAME OVER AMERICA, GAME OVER

Biden 2020

Just imagine

r/The_Donald actually has 6 million subscribers and is 3rd most active community on Reddit.

The Expert | 2054

Thursday, April 4th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

Nine Nominations Sent to the Senate

President Trump Participates in the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council Meeting

President Trump Meets with the Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS THE PARTY OF THE AMERICAN DREAM!

Despite the unnecessary and destructive actions taken by the Fed, the Economy is looking very strong, the China and USMCA deals are moving along nicely, there is little or no Inflation, and USA optimism is very high!

According to polling, few people seem to care about the Russian Collusion Hoax, but some Democrats are fighting hard to keep the Witch Hunt alive. They should focus on legislation or, even better, an investigation of how the ridiculous Collusion Delusion got started - so illegal!

There is nothing we can ever give to the Democrats that will make them happy. This is the highest level of Presidential Harassment in the history of our Country!

The New York Times had no legitimate sources, which would be totally illegal, concerning the Mueller Report. In fact, they probably had no sources at all! They are a Fake News paper who have already been forced to apologize for their incorrect and very bad reporting on me!

WELCOME BACK JOE!

Thank you @Trish_Regan!

“Democrats need to help fix the border crisis or get out of Trump’s way”

“Conservative support for Trump wall soars to 99 percent”

.@ByronYork: “How bad does border have to be for Democrats to admit it's an emergency?”

I am pleased to announce that Jovita Carranza will be nominated as the new @SBAgov Administrator. She will be replacing Linda McMahon, who has done an outstanding job. Jovita was a great Treasurer of the United States – and I look forward to her joining my Cabinet!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Just heard MSNBC pays Rachel Maddow $7 mil a year. The average salary for a garbage truck driver is $40,000. Why is delivering garbage worth 175 times more than hauling it away?

The tables have turned! A new poll shows that 47% of Americans now suspect that Hillary Clinton was the one who might have colluded with foreign operatives.

DESPITE BEING 13%...

WikiLeaks: Assange will be expelled from Ecuadorian Embassy within 'hours to days' - would be removed and subject to arrest by British authorities.

Islamists Arrested After Plotting to Massacre Kindergarten Children

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

🐄 Milking A Dead Cow 🐄

2020s memes are going to be fantastic.

That face you make...

The Left Today

The Logic of the Left

Friday, April 5th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individual to a Key Administration Post

President Trump Delivers a Statement Upon Departure

Proclamation on National Volunteer Week, 2019

President Trump Participates in a Roundtable on Immigration and Border Security

President Trump Visits the Border Wall in Calexico, California

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

“Trolling the Mueller Report. Democrats Lost On Collusion. Now They’re Inventing A Coverup.” @WSJopinion James Freeman @LouDobbs

The Crazed and Dishonest Washington Post again purposely got it wrong. Mexico, for the first time in decades, is meaningfully apprehending illegals at THEIR Southern Border, before the long march up to the U.S. This is great and the way it should be. The big flow will stop....... ... ....However, if for any reason Mexico stops apprehending and bringing the illegals back to where they came from, the U.S. will be forced to Tariff at 25% all cars made in Mexico and shipped over the Border to us. If that doesn’t work, which it will, I will close the Border....... ... ....This will supersede USMCA. Likewise I am looking at an economic penalty for the 500 Billion Dollars in illegal DRUGS that are shipped and smuggled through Mexico and across our Southern Border. Over 100,00 Americans die each year, sooo many families destroyed!

Heading to the Southern Border to show a section of the new Wall being built! Leaving now!

JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!

Congratulations to Brian Hagedorn on his big surprise win over a well funded Liberal Democrat in the Great State of Wisconsin for a very important Supreme Court seat. Republicans are producing big for Wisconsin!

I’ve employed thousands of Electrical Workers. They will be voting for me!

“America Created 196,000 Jobs in March, Beating Expectations for 170,000”

The press is doing everything within their power to fight the magnificence of the phrase, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs. They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!

Will soon be landing in Calexico, California to look at a portion of the new WALL being built on our Southern Border. Within two years we will have close to 400 miles built or under construction & keeping our Country SAFE – not easy when the Dems are always fighting to stop you!

Just arrived in Calexico, California!

Join me in California for a Roundtable on Immigration and Border Security!

Just checked out the new Wall on the Border - GREAT! Leaving now for L.A.

(Retweeting The White House) Americans will write our own economic destiny. Never believe the pessimists: Pro-growth, pro-worker policies work. America is OPEN for business!

Congratulations David, a very big deal!

(Retweeting The VP)The struggle in Venezuela is between dictatorship and democracy, and freedom has the momentum. Nicolas Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power, and Nicolas Maduro must go!

THANK YOU @DHSgov, @CBP, and @ICEgov!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

President Trump's message to illegal aliens: The country is full, turn around

President Trump skips 'boring, negative' Correspondents dinner. Will be having a MAGA rally instead

YUGE! Plaque marking Trump's first Border Wall section awaits his visit to Calexico today.......We have the best commemorative plaques, don't we folks???

JUSSIE SMOLLETT OWES CHICAGO $130,000 AND MISSED YESTERDAY'S DEADLINE TO PAY IT

Mueller Report: Court Rules Attorney General Must Redact Grand-Jury Info. Democrats will complain, but the attorney general can’t be faulted for following the law.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

👶 Pint-Sized Passport 👶

Soy overdose

Islam hates chess

The_Donald is so good, even the former VP retweets our shitposts

The DNC every time one of their candidates gets knocked out by r/The_Donald

Saturday, April 6th:

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

“The lowest average jobs number for any President since 1951, 4.1%. Economy doing great. If the Democrats win, it is all over.” @Varneyco @foxandfriends I agree!

“Collusion was a Hoax from day one.” @dbongino @foxandfriends

(Retweeting Jesse Waters) TOMORROW: It’s a star-studded FOX episode of @WattersWorld with @seanhannity , @LouDobbs , and @marklevinshow ! What will they have to say in my world? Tune in at 8PM ET to find out. #WattersWorld #FoxNews

(Retweeting The White House) "There is indeed an emergency on our southern border. It's been loud and clear."

Thank you to two great people!

I have not read the Mueller Report yet, even though I have every right to do so. Only know the conclusions, and on the big one, No Collusion. Likewise, recommendations made to our great A.G. who found No Obstruction. 13 Angry Trump hating Dems (later brought to 18) given two..... ... .....years and $30 million, and they found No Collusion, No Obstruction. But the Democrats, no matter what we give them, will NEVER be satisfied. A total waste of time. As @FrankLuntz has just stated, “Enough, America has had enough. What have you accomplished. Public is fed up.”

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Good Morning! This is your information for election this week

Obams in private meeting in Germany with Merkel violates 18 U.S. Code § 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments, and can be subject to 3 years in prison. Lock. Him. Up.

Maher defends Biden, says women should call out misconduct 'in the moment' rather than 'five years later'

"President Donald Trump’s approval rating has reached its highest point in the last 23 months, according to daily tracking poll surveyed by Rasmussen Reports."

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

BuT DoLaN’s TaX rEtUrNs!

You already know.

Joe on Joe. Now that some funny shit people.

🤡 There Are So Many DEMOCRAT 2020 Candidates, They Need A Second Car! 🤡

WEEEEW LAD!

Of course, no recap is complete without some tunes to get you jamming through all this WINNING

Sunflower

Wait A Minute!

Aftermath

Fuck Love

Tadow

MAGA ON PATRIOTS!

submitted by /u/Ivaginaryfriend [link] [comments]

[robgrayofficial]

HAPPY SATURDAY DEPLORABLES!This is u/ivaginaryfriend here and I'm back with all things dank & spicy from the past week! For those that missed any past recaps you can check those out here!Sunday, March 31st:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:“Outrageous, it’s the Adam Schiff problem. People abusing the access to classified data to then go out in public and make allegations that didn’t prove to be true. You look at a decision to essentially investigate a political rival. Who made it?” James Freeman, @WSJThe Democrats are allowing a ridiculous asylum system and major loopholes to remain as a mainstay of our immigration system. Mexico is likewise doing NOTHING, a very bad combination for our Country. Homeland Security is being sooo very nice, but not for long!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Virtue signalling only goes so farCreepers Veepers🤣🤣🤣Sen. Rand Paul offered an amendment, which, if approved, would reveal what role former President Barack Obama played in the investigation of the Trump campaign🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:When Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have GunsClearing up the misunderstanding.Posted in UK airport bathroom. If only Islam allowed women to read12-year promiseMonday, April 1st:TODAY'S ACTION:One Nomination Sent to the SenateProclamation on World Autism Awareness Day, 2019Ivanka Trump Visits Toyota Plant in KentuckyPresident Trump Participates in the 2019 Prison Reform Summit and First Step Act Celebration🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Now that the long awaited Mueller Report conclusions have been released, most Democrats and others have gone back to the pre-Witch Hunt phase of their lives before Collusion Delusion took over. Others are pretending that their former hero, Bob Mueller, no longer exists!Democrats, working with Republicans in Congress, can fix the Asylum and other loopholes quickly. We have a major National Emergency at our Border. GET IT DONE NOW!Can you believe that the Radical Left Democrats want to do our new and very important Census Report without the all important Citizenship Question. Report would be meaningless and a waste of the $Billions (ridiculous) that it costs to put together!The cost of ObamaCare is far too high for our great citizens. The deductibles, in many cases way over $7000, make it almost worthless or unusable. Good things are going to happen! @SenRickScott @senatemajldr @SenJohnBarrasso @SenBillCassidyNo matter what information is given to the crazed Democrats from the No Collusion Mueller Report, it will never be good enough. Behind closed doors the Dems are laughing!Democrats should stop fighting Sen. David Perdue’s disaster relief bill. They are blocking funding and relief for our great farmers and rural America!Everybody agrees that ObamaCare doesn’t work. Premiums & deductibles are far too high - Really bad HealthCare! Even the Dems want to replace it, but with Medicare for all, which would cause 180 million Americans to lose their beloved private health insurance. The Republicans..... ... ....are developing a really great HealthCare Plan with far lower premiums (cost) & deductibles than ObamaCare. In other words it will be far less expensive & much more usable than ObamaCare. Vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win...... ... ....back the House. It will be truly great HealthCare that will work for America. Also, Republicans will always support Pre-Existing Conditions. The Republican Party will be known as the Party of Great HealtCare. Meantime, the USA is doing better than ever & is respected again!The Democrats today killed a Bill that would have provided great relief to Farmers and yet more money to Puerto Rico despite the fact that Puerto Rico has already been scheduled to receive more hurricane relief funding than any “place” in history. The people of Puerto Rico..... ... ....are GREAT, but the politicians are incompetent or corrupt. Puerto Rico got far more money than Texas & Florida combined, yet their government can’t do anything right, the place is a mess - nothing works. FEMA & the Military worked emergency miracles, but politicians like..... ... ....the crazed and incompetent Mayor of San Juan have done such a poor job of bringing the Island back to health. 91 Billion Dollars to Puerto Rico, and now the Dems want to give them more, taking dollars away from our Farmers and so many others. Disgraceful!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Remember, we here at CNN always give you the REAL NEWS! Only the stories that matter. #FactsFirst #OrangeManBadDoes anyone have any info on who made this GIF we at CNN would like to uhhh give him an award!BIDEN 2020!!!A 13 year old can get an abortion without her parents knowing but she can't go see a movie about abortion without a parent accompanying herAP reports Beto gives speech in Spanish...his native language. Ted Cruz sets them on fire.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:We’re coming to assimilate, obey the laws of the US and vote Republican!I love CNN! They are the most trusted name in news... and I especially love that manly guy Brian Stelter! And he’s just so cute too. He reminds me of Winnie the Pooh! He’s like a cuddly little Teddy Bear that I can trust to tell me that Orange man is indeed, bad. Happy 1st of April everyone!Congratulations CNN!We here at CNN want to pay our respects to our fearless commentator Ana Navarro. She never lets the thought of Americans murdered by illegals keep her from doing her nails. Keep slaying Queen!Tuesday, April 2nd:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate and Appoint Individuals to Key Administration PostsPresident Donald J. Trump Announces Judicial Nominees and United States Marshal NomineeFirst Lady Melania Trump Visits with Students in FloridaPresident Trump Welcomes the 2018 Stanley Cup Champions to the White HousePresident Trump Meets with the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationVice President Pence Meets with Family Members of Executives Detained by MaduroPresident Trump Participates in an Expanded Bilateral Meeting with the Secretary General of NATO🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Puerto Rico got 91 Billion Dollars for the hurricane, more money than has ever been gotten for a hurricane before, & all their local politicians do is complain & ask for more money. The pols are grossly incompetent, spend the money foolishly or corruptly, & only take from USA.... ... ....The best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico is President Donald J. Trump. So many wonderful people, but with such bad Island leadership and with so much money wasted. Cannot continue to hurt our Farmers and States with these massive payments, and so little appreciation!In 1998, Rep.Jerry Nadler strongly opposed the release of the Starr Report on Bill Clinton. No information whatsoever would or could be legally released. But with the NO COLLUSION Mueller Report, which the Dems hate, he wants it all. NOTHING WILL EVER SATISFY THEM! @foxandfriendsWorld Autism Awareness Day 2019: Significance, history and theme via @htTweetsRobert Mueller was a God-like figure to the Democrats, until he ruled No Collusion in the long awaited $30,000,000 Mueller Report. Now the Dems don’t even acknowledge his name, have become totally unhinged, and would like to go through the whole process again. It won’t happen!There is no amount of testimony or document production that can satisfy Jerry Nadler or Shifty Adam Schiff. It is now time to focus exclusively on properly running our great Country!After many years (decades), Mexico is apprehending large numbers of people at their Southern Border, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. They have ALL been taking U.S. money for years, and doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for us, just like the Democrats in Congress!Video“I haven’t seen any Democrats down here at the Border working with us or asking to speak to any of us. They have an open invitation. We are getting overrun, our facilities are overcapacity. We are at an emergency crisis.” Art Del Cueto, National Border Patrol Council.Today, we celebrate the tremendous accomplishments of Americans with ASD and reaffirm our commitment to work together to ensure that every member of our society is afforded equal opportunities to reach their full potential. #WorldAutismAwarenessDayToday, it was my great honor to welcome @NATO Secretary General @JensStoltenberg to the @WhiteHouse!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:I can't believe how much lies exist about this subredditWorst Racist Ever82.5% of /r/Socialism users are Middle School to College aged. 61% live with their parents. No wonder Reddit loves Socialism, they've never had to work for anything in their life.Powerful moment from President Trump’s Prison Reform Summit. Gregory Allen, one the people who have benefited from the First Step Act explained, "Two months ago, I was in a prison cell and now I'm in the White House. Let’s continue to make America great again!"YES OR NO: Did she marry her own brother? SNOPES: Well, "like many other people" - she can't answer if she married her own brother because it's "complicated" - NO IT F'ING ISN'T SNOPES!Many of CNN's national security analysts have undisclosed ties to oppressive Qatari regime - Conservative Review🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Right!!!we lost the guacDemocrat PrioritiesWell.... IT'S TRUE AFWednesday, April 3rd:TODAY'S ACTION:Memorandum on Combating Trafficking in Counterfeit and Pirated GoodsPresident Trump is Briefed by Senior Military Leaders🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:I was never planning a vote prior to the 2020 Election on the wonderful HealthCare package that some very talented people are now developing for me & the Republican Party. It will be on full display during the Election as a much better & less expensive alternative to ObamaCare... ... ...This will be a great campaign issue. I never asked Mitch McConnell for a vote before the Election as has been incorrectly reported (as usual) in the @nytimes, but only after the Election when we take back the House etc. Republicans will always support pre-existing conditions!Congress must get together and immediately eliminate the loopholes at the Border! If no action, Border, or large sections of Border, will close. This is a National Emergency!The First Step Act proves that our Country can achieve amazing breakthroughs when we put politics aside, and put the interests of ALL Americans FIRST. http://bit.ly/2YVExft TWEETS AND NEWS:President Trump is hilarious and savage! LMAO "I Went To Kiss The General And I Felt Like Joe Biden"Two more women accuse Biden of inappropriate touching"Contractually all I have to do is not fake a hate crime." Tracey Morgan trashes Jussie Smollett while discussing his new role on Empire. 😂😂Ratings for CNN and MSNBC continuing to crash, as viewers migrate to Fox News prime time. Karma comes calling, as Tucker Carlson alone draws a million more viewers than CNN's entire prime-time lineup.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Nooooooo Joe, NOT DURING THE APOLOGY!GAME OVER AMERICA, GAME OVERBiden 2020Just imaginer/The_Donald actually has 6 million subscribers and is 3rd most active community on Reddit.The Expert | 2054Thursday, April 4th:TODAY'S ACTION:Nine Nominations Sent to the SenatePresident Trump Participates in the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council MeetingPresident Trump Meets with the Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS THE PARTY OF THE AMERICAN DREAM!Despite the unnecessary and destructive actions taken by the Fed, the Economy is looking very strong, the China and USMCA deals are moving along nicely, there is little or no Inflation, and USA optimism is very high!According to polling, few people seem to care about the Russian Collusion Hoax, but some Democrats are fighting hard to keep the Witch Hunt alive. They should focus on legislation or, even better, an investigation of how the ridiculous Collusion Delusion got started - so illegal!There is nothing we can ever give to the Democrats that will make them happy. This is the highest level of Presidential Harassment in the history of our Country!The New York Times had no legitimate sources, which would be totally illegal, concerning the Mueller Report. In fact, they probably had no sources at all! They are a Fake News paper who have already been forced to apologize for their incorrect and very bad reporting on me!WELCOME BACK JOE!Thank you @Trish_Regan!“Democrats need to help fix the border crisis or get out of Trump’s way”“Conservative support for Trump wall soars to 99 percent”.@ByronYork: “How bad does border have to be for Democrats to admit it's an emergency?”I am pleased to announce that Jovita Carranza will be nominated as the new @SBAgov Administrator. She will be replacing Linda McMahon, who has done an outstanding job. Jovita was a great Treasurer of the United States – and I look forward to her joining my Cabinet!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Just heard MSNBC pays Rachel Maddow $7 mil a year. The average salary for a garbage truck driver is $40,000. Why is delivering garbage worth 175 times more than hauling it away?The tables have turned! A new poll shows that 47% of Americans now suspect that Hillary Clinton was the one who might have colluded with foreign operatives.DESPITE BEING 13%...WikiLeaks: Assange will be expelled from Ecuadorian Embassy within 'hours to days' - would be removed and subject to arrest by British authorities.Islamists Arrested After Plotting to Massacre Kindergarten Children🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:🐄 Milking A Dead Cow 🐄2020s memes are going to be fantastic.That face you make...The Left TodayThe Logic of the LeftFriday, April 5th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individual to a Key Administration PostPresident Trump Delivers a Statement Upon DepartureProclamation on National Volunteer Week, 2019President Trump Participates in a Roundtable on Immigration and Border SecurityPresident Trump Visits the Border Wall in Calexico, California🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:“Trolling the Mueller Report. Democrats Lost On Collusion. Now They’re Inventing A Coverup.” @WSJopinion James Freeman @LouDobbsThe Crazed and Dishonest Washington Post again purposely got it wrong. Mexico, for the first time in decades, is meaningfully apprehending illegals at THEIR Southern Border, before the long march up to the U.S. This is great and the way it should be. The big flow will stop....... ... ....However, if for any reason Mexico stops apprehending and bringing the illegals back to where they came from, the U.S. will be forced to Tariff at 25% all cars made in Mexico and shipped over the Border to us. If that doesn’t work, which it will, I will close the Border....... ... ....This will supersede USMCA. Likewise I am looking at an economic penalty for the 500 Billion Dollars in illegal DRUGS that are shipped and smuggled through Mexico and across our Southern Border. Over 100,00 Americans die each year, sooo many families destroyed!Heading to the Southern Border to show a section of the new Wall being built! Leaving now!JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!Congratulations to Brian Hagedorn on his big surprise win over a well funded Liberal Democrat in the Great State of Wisconsin for a very important Supreme Court seat. Republicans are producing big for Wisconsin!I’ve employed thousands of Electrical Workers. They will be voting for me!“America Created 196,000 Jobs in March, Beating Expectations for 170,000”The press is doing everything within their power to fight the magnificence of the phrase, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs. They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!Will soon be landing in Calexico, California to look at a portion of the new WALL being built on our Southern Border. Within two years we will have close to 400 miles built or under construction & keeping our Country SAFE – not easy when the Dems are always fighting to stop you!Just arrived in Calexico, California!Join me in California for a Roundtable on Immigration and Border Security!Just checked out the new Wall on the Border - GREAT! Leaving now for L.A.(Retweeting The White House) Americans will write our own economic destiny. Never believe the pessimists: Pro-growth, pro-worker policies work. America is OPEN for business!Congratulations David, a very big deal!(Retweeting The VP)The struggle in Venezuela is between dictatorship and democracy, and freedom has the momentum. Nicolas Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power, and Nicolas Maduro must go!THANK YOU @DHSgov, @CBP, and @ICEgov!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:President Trump's message to illegal aliens: The country is full, turn aroundPresident Trump skips 'boring, negative' Correspondents dinner. Will be having a MAGA rally insteadYUGE! Plaque marking Trump's first Border Wall section awaits his visit to Calexico today.......We have the best commemorative plaques, don't we folks???JUSSIE SMOLLETT OWES CHICAGO $130,000 AND MISSED YESTERDAY'S DEADLINE TO PAY ITMueller Report: Court Rules Attorney General Must Redact Grand-Jury Info. Democrats will complain, but the attorney general can’t be faulted for following the law.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:👶 Pint-Sized Passport 👶Soy overdoseIslam hates chessThe_Donald is so good, even the former VP retweets our shitpostsThe DNC every time one of their candidates gets knocked out by r/The_DonaldSaturday, April 6th:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:“The lowest average jobs number for any President since 1951, 4.1%. Economy doing great. If the Democrats win, it is all over.” @Varneyco @foxandfriends I agree!“Collusion was a Hoax from day one.” @dbongino @foxandfriends(Retweeting Jesse Waters) TOMORROW: It’s a star-studded FOX episode of @WattersWorld with @seanhannity , @LouDobbs , and @marklevinshow ! What will they have to say in my world? Tune in at 8PM ET to find out. #WattersWorld #FoxNews(Retweeting The White House) "There is indeed an emergency on our southern border. It's been loud and clear."Thank you to two great people!I have not read the Mueller Report yet, even though I have every right to do so. Only know the conclusions, and on the big one, No Collusion. Likewise, recommendations made to our great A.G. who found No Obstruction. 13 Angry Trump hating Dems (later brought to 18) given two..... ... .....years and $30 million, and they found No Collusion, No Obstruction. But the Democrats, no matter what we give them, will NEVER be satisfied. A total waste of time. As @FrankLuntz has just stated, “Enough, America has had enough. What have you accomplished. Public is fed up.”SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Good Morning! This is your information for election this weekObams in private meeting in Germany with Merkel violates 18 U.S. Code § 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments, and can be subject to 3 years in prison. Lock. Him. Up.Maher defends Biden, says women should call out misconduct 'in the moment' rather than 'five years later'"President Donald Trump’s approval rating has reached its highest point in the last 23 months, according to daily tracking poll surveyed by Rasmussen Reports."🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:BuT DoLaN’s TaX rEtUrNs!You already know.Joe on Joe. Now that some funny shit people.🤡 There Are So Many DEMOCRAT 2020 Candidates, They Need A Second Car! 🤡WEEEEW LAD!Of course, no recap is complete without some tunes to get you jamming through all this WINNINGSunflowerWait A Minute!AftermathFuck LoveTadowMAGA ON PATRIOTS! #robgray

#robgray